Fairtrade Chocolate Orange Muffins

Take A Step in 2012 for Fairtrade is raising the awareness of Fairtrade products and promoting their use in everyday recipes. 

As part of Fairtrade Awareness, this week I baked Fairtrade Chocolate Orange Muffins. 

The muffins are not over-sweet and have a great texture, mainly from the yoghut as an ingredient to reduce the amount of fat and sugar.  They are really quick and easy to make and are delicious warm from the oven! My neighbour, who needed a bit of a boost, enjoyed one with an afternoon cup of tea.

At the moment, there's a competition running on the Fairtrade website to win a KitchenAid or Fairtrade goody bag.... just bake one of the published recipes and tell them who you are baking for!  Simple... so have a browse at the recipes and good luck!

The Big Fair Bake 2012 - Fairtrade Awareness

Baking tastes better when you share, so the Big Fair Bake is the perfect excuse to get inspired put on your pinny and bake up a treat for others; not just the friends and family we share it with, but also the farming communities who grew the ingredients.

Fairtrade tea, coffee, bananas, sugar, chocolate, cotton.... to name a few products that we all use daily and by switching to Fairtrade we can all make a difference, one step at a time.

I have chosen a recipe (Chocolate Orange Muffins) from the Fairtrade website here, but also added my own twist... to devise and bake a recipe using only Fairtrade ingredients... sort of like a "Ready, Steady, Cook" for the Fairtrade industry.... the last part of the challenge is to share my culinary creations and delights and share the message of Fairtrade.

Even though I live in a small town with little choice for supermarkets, I'm lucky that the main supermarket is the Co-Operative... in 2000 they developed and launched their own label range of Fairtrade products.  The ethics behind their products is great and they stock over 250 Fairtrade products, each displaying the Fairtrade badge to make them easily recognisable.

So, the ingredients that I can choose from are.... tea, coffee, chocolate, bananas, honey, sugar, beansprouts(!), wine, blueberries, pineapple, mangoes, oranges, grapefruits and lemons..... I'm not sure where the beansprouts will come in however my son loves them in a quick stir-fry...not with fruit salad though!  But, the wine will definitely be for drinking, no questions there!!

I'm thinking along the lines of "Banana tea bread muffins", "Chocolate blueberry muffins" and "Tropical fruit salad".  These delights will be created over the next couple of days and shared with family and friends... I'll publish the recipes to share with you all too...no secrets here!

Why don't you have a go... a simple fruit salad can provide your 5 a day and help the farmers at the source of the industry.... and everyone loves cake - Fairtrade just makes it better!