Posted by Deanna | Posted in Books, IBS, Life, celiac, food, gluten -free, health | Posted on 11-01-2010
Tags: baking, Books, cake, celiac, cooking, eating, experiment, food, gluten -free, grocery, health, healthy, IBS, martha, martha stewart, muffin, muffins, pumpkin, wheat-free
Round 2: Wheat-free Muffins
The next project in the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook that I thought I would attempt would be muffins. The pictures in the book and the recipe seemed fairly straight forward, and I figured it would be a good recipe to try to adapt to a wheat-free recipe. The recipe is Blueberry Muffins (click here to get the recipe), though I revised the recipe to be blueberry-less as there were no good local blueberries at the market in the middle of winter-time (I try to limit the distance my groceries travel from to a 250km/155 mile radius when I have the chance). I revised the recipe to be pumpkin oatmeal muffins instead, using pumpkin puree, oatmeal, molasses and cinnamon in place of blueberries.
Here is what I substituted:
- Instead of regular flour: 1 cup white rice flour and 1 cup corn flour
- Gluten-free Baking Powder (instead of regular baking powder)
- Instead of blueberries: 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree, 1 tsp of cinnamon, 1 cup of oatmeal, 1/4 cup of molasses
As noted in my previous posts, instead of butter to grease my muffin tins, I use extra virgin olive oil and then dust my tins with white rice flour. Of course you can use butter if you choose, but it is just my personal preference to use olive oil (less cholesterol and seems to work better with gluten-free flours).
When mixing the ingredients in the electric mixer, you may find that mixing for an extra 10 minutes or so will help blend the chunks of oatmeal and accommodate the thickness of the molasses.
Batter and my awesome electric mixing paddle
I found that when cooking the muffins, I needed to cook them for an extra 5-7 minutes to accommodate the extra ingredients. Of course, as with any wheat-free cooking, you will want to keep an eye on your baking in the oven, as dependent on your oven you may need less cooking time.
Upon trying the cooked version of the muffins, they were fluffy and moist, and due to the oatmeal, corn flour and molasses, they had a unique texture. Keep in mind that these muffins will be a slightly browner color than in the cookbook, as the corn flour and molasses will brown the batter and make it a bit denser.
Muffins Baking in the Oven
All in all, this was a successful baking adventure. If you decide to make a wheat-free version of these muffins with the blueberries included, I would love to hear about how it went. Hopefully my substitutions and wheat-free trials have been helpful. See the picture below for my final muffin batch:
Yummy Finished Pumpkin Muffins
Next on Wheat-free baking with the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook… Gingerbread Cookies!
Ciao!
Deanna
