Gluten Free Muffins

I have been searching.

I have been turning over rocks in the farthest corners of the Internet, searching, hoping, waiting to find one thing and one thing alone: A gluten free muffin recipe that didn't turn out like this....or this (which isn't even slightly gluten free). Neither of these attempts were consumed by my kids. These muffins were so bad I think they were laughing at me when I turned my back...

I do not have Celiac Disease. I don't technically have a gluten intolerance. I say technically because I am noticing that I don't feel good when I eat 3 or more servings of gluten in a day. Which means I really can't have pasta on the same day that I have a sandwich or else I feel gross, strung out, overly tired, and kind of empty feeling even when I am full of food. I believe that this is my body telling me to stop eating wheat. And since my kids are often cranky, they eat alot of wheat and they are cut from my cloth, it only makes sense that they might have a sensitivity to wheat as well. So I have been looking for some gluten free baking options to diversify their diet. But I didn't care for that particular recipe. Instead I found a different one.

This time I made it right the first time and then altered it the second time! Who out there is proud of me??!

Gluten Free Pumpkin Muffins
Servings: 12 muffins
Preparation time: 10 minutes
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice/nutmeg
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
6 eggs (or 4 whole eggs and 2 whites...a good way to use up your egg whites)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
3/8 cup maple syrup (about 3 1/2 oz)
pinch salt
1/4 cup chopped walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 400F. Grease a muffin pan or line with paper liners.
Sift together coconut flour and spices together.
Whisk remaining ingredients together (except walnuts) in a separate bowl until well mixed.
With a wooden spoon or whisk stir the flour mixture gradually into the pumpkin mixture so that no lumps remain.
Divide batter between 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle with walnuts.
Bake for 12 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Do not over bake as the flour can burn easily.

Okay, I made a couple of substitutions..err..changes. I left out the walnuts, substituted honey for the maple syrup (cause that's what I had), eliminated the cloves and only made a half recipe. But other than that I SWEAR I made it exactly how it was supposed to be made, except that I baked them for 16 or so minutes because they were totally raw at 12 minutes. And do you know what? The kids LOVED them. They ate them up! The recipe made 6 regular muffins and one teeny tiny one, and there was only one muffin left at the end of the day (I ate some too...). So I would say they were a resounding success. I think that the recipe works for two reasons. First off, the inclusion of some vegetable puree. I think the coconut flour sucks up any moisture it comes in contact with, so any muffin recipe has to have a good amount of wet ingredients to turn out a normal consistency batter. Coconut flour is NOTHING like wheat flour. Also I used jumbo sized eggs, because the folks at the farmer's market run out when you show up at 1pm. I had jumbo on hand, so that's what I used. I usually use large eggs, and I don't think that added enough wet ingredients to stand up to the coconut flour. This recipe is really good and it really works.

Two days later Thing One was so excited to have the muffins again he asked if he could stay up late and "help me make them", which is really just three year old code for "play with the faucet in the kitchen sink while Mommy cooks something, anything". My boy is going to be in Sales. I just know it. Just before he went to bed, he turned on the oven light and said "Goodnight Chocolate Muffins".

Here is my ever-so-slightly-altered-recipe:

Gluten Free Chocolate Beet Muffins
1/4 cup Coconut Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cocoa powder
3 jumbo eggs (Or 4 medium/ large)
1/4 cup coconut oil
2 tbsp rapadura or rapunzel sugar (whole, unrefined cane sugar)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup of pureed beets

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix all the dry ingredients together, except the sugar. Set aside. In a separate bowl mix all the wet ingredients together with the sugar. Add the wet to the dry and mix until smooth-ish, you aren't gonna get rid of all the lumps. Pour into prepared muffins cups or a prepared muffin tin and bake for 15-18 minutes.

Yeah. Beets. You are shocked that I found a way to finally eat beets. I got more from the CSA in my winter share. I have been staring them down for a month while they sat in my fridge. I was hoping they would have gotten the picture and walked into someone else's kitchen by now. And just look, now I have a recipe in which you can hardly taste them. This is bliss, I conquer Gluten Free Muffins in the same post that I conquer Beets. I didn't see that one coming!

Blueberry Coconut Muffins, Take Two

I was pretty bummed last week when I couldn't make my coconut flour muffins work. But I was undeterred. I am going to figure out gluten free/ grain free baking. But until I get all the way there, baby steps.

The back of my package of coconut flour says that I can substitute one quarter wheat flour for an equal amount of coconut flour. At least I think I read that right. So I went back to my trusted (if old fashioned) Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook with the red and white gingham cover that has long since fallen off. The book was a gift from my mother just a year or two before she died, no doubt a strategic play to make sure we would not go hungry in an emergency.

The coconut flour does not have gluten and so it needs additional leavening. Plus I have always faulted this particular muffin recipe for tasting too much like baking powder. So I started tinkering. But fortunately this recipe has a happy(ier) ending. I did a couple things. I pushed the amount of coconut flour to nearly half. I pulled back on the baking powder but added an extra egg. I substitued honey for sugar and cut the amount by half. Thd batter was too dry, so I added more milk. Below is what I actually did:

Blueberry Coconut Muffins
1 cup half white flour (or white or all purpose flour or 1/2 cup white with half cup whole wheat flour)
3/4 cup coconut flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup of whole milk
1/4 cup of coconut oil
1/4 cup raw honey
About 1/3 cup of frozen wild blueberries

I combined the dry ingredients and then in a seperate bowl I combined the wet ingredients. Then I mixed the two together tenderly and added my berries. I spooned it in my muffins cups and baked at 400 for 20 minutes.

So what happened?

They didn't rise enough. They definitely taste dense, but not so much in a bad way. Next time I will add a third egg and possibly another quarter of a cup of milk if the batter is still too dry. The honey was spot on, they are not too sweet, they could be sweeter, but for us right now this is good. I am really trying to limit sugar especially for Thing 1 and with a homemade muffin he doesn't know what he is missing, but he still feels spoiled. Thing 2 has never really had alot of refined sugar except on his birthday, so he has no idea. But I am pretty sure he loves sugar likes his bubba. And I am thinking that is the reason he loves to brush his teeth sooooooo much, nothing in his diet tastes as sweet as that toothpaste! (BTW-it is tom's of maine for kids, so it is not really high in real sugar, but to him it probably tastes like crack)

Another step toward grain free muffin perfection. And the irony that these muffins are mostly grains is not lost on me. Baby steps...Baby steps.

Slightly Hilarious Raspberry Coconut Muffins

Although I do not have a sensitivity to wheat (albeit not a major one) I have been looking for a way to diversify my kids' diet, because between the sandwiches and pretzels and pasta, etc that my kids eat they are eating way too much wheat. I have been nervous to journey into the world of gluten free baking, but my research into the health properties of coconut inspired me to try baking with coconut flour. This was the recipe that I found at The Cheeseslave.

Coconut Flour Blueberry Muffins
Makes 6 muffins
Ingredients:
3 eggs (pastured)

2 tablespoons butter, grass-fed

2 tablespoons coconut milk or whole milk (I used whole raw grass-fed milk)

3 tablespoons honey (raw honey if possible)

8 ounces organic fresh or frozen blueberries (please do not use conventional blueberries — it’s important that they are organic) *

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon vanilla (organic, additive-free)

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1. Blend together eggs, butter, coconut milk, honey, salt, and vanilla.

2. Combine coconut flour with baking powder and thoroughly mix into batter until there are no lumps.

3. Drain blueberries and dry with paper towels. Add to batter with a spoon.

4. Pour batter into muffin cups. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 C) for 15 minutes.

* If you can’t find organic blueberries, I would use banana or some other fruit instead. It is important to buy organic berries.

Did the recipe as called for....except....I wanted to use coconut oil instead of grass fed butter. I had grass fed butter, I just really wanted to use my new toy, coconut oil! And I didn't have any blueberries, but I did have frozen raspberries. I only used 6 ounces or so because it looked like way too many raspberries to batter, perhaps raspberries are less dense than blueberries. I also used milk instead of coconut milk. And I ended up baking them a little longer than 15 minutes because they didn't seem done.

Well here is the beautiful, glorious, finished product that I turned out.

And now let me pull out the camera a little....

I had some trouble with these muffins. And I have a feeling that the changes I made to the recipe made it come out so poorly. Apparently you do need to follow baking recipes. My bravado was bound to catch up to me some time.

First off, they didn't seem quite done, so I cooked them closer to 18 minutes. But then the bottoms all got brown, and the middle of the muffin still seemed like it wasn't totally done. (Baking tip--if you bake with lightly colored bake ware, your baked goods will come out better, dark pans attract more heat, over baking your foods. This time I used my silicone muffins cups and placed them on a dark baking pan) I also think the raspberries had much more water than the called for blueberries, so they just sogged up the muffins making them undone in the middle. And because there is no gluten, alot more egg is needed to make the flour rise. So the texture of my muffins was more like a coconut fritata than the texture of fluffy grains. I really think that was caused by the excessive water content too. And for whatever reason the muffins did not come out of the cups. Maybe they really weren't done?

I did, however, like the way they tasted. They were nicely sweet, mildly coconutty, but it was not overwhelming. The outside part of the muffins felt like a grain flour muffin on the mouth, but the insides were very soggy. Thank god the recipe only made 6 muffins, which means I can make another batch and correct my mistakes without having to choke down twelve overbaked-yet-raw-in-the-middle-muffins. The kids were okay with them, but they weren't begging for more....I will do this again, and I will get it right.

Cheeseslave, please don't hate me. I'll make you proud yet.