A Successful Gluten-Free Muffin Recipe...

Hello and Happy First Day of Spring to everyone!  I apologize for the long gaps between blog posts these days and now that the big, cross-province move from Alberta to British Columbia, Canada is complete and all the cleaning and as many renovations as we could finish before the money ran out are done, you may expect more regular blog posts from me herein.  Today, on this first day of Spring I want to share these wonderful photos of the plants that are popping up on our property every day.  I feel like I am on a some kind of wonderful treasure hunt every morning as I drink my coffee and walk our property.

I have no idea what these wee purple daisy-like flowers are called, but I LOVE them!

Now if this plant isn't called Lamb's Ear it totally should be...

and the buds on the shrubs are just bursting open...

This is a crocus poking out of a layer of last year's leaves...

and the most wonderful thing of all are the wild violets that are growing everywhere on our property these day...

But the main reason for this particular post is I want to share this wonderful Gluten-free Tropical Muffin recipe I created that not only made muffins which tasted wonderful, but also made muffins which rose up as they baked to fill the muffin papers and after cooling had the same texture and lightness of a muffin made using wheat flour! It has taken all my 30+ years of baking experience and many, many not-so-successful attempts to get to this muffin and I am happy to share it with you this fine spring day.

Now you may want to read my directions all the way through as I did a few things differently from the standard baking routines.  I also used these wonderful liners called "Tulip Muffin Liners" which I order on-line from the Golda's Kitchen site.  These liners help provide support for the gluten-free batter while it is baking, as GF batters can be very fragile and tend to fall and spread instead of rising up like batters which contain gluten.

I also used this new-to-me GF flour blend from Robin Hood and this GF baking powder from Fleischmann's as well as Bob's Red Mill Xantham Gum.

 

 Here is the Recipe and the Directions:

 

Lynne's Gluten-Free Tropical Muffins

(makes 24 medium muffins)

Step 1

Mix these dry ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside:

3 cups Robin Hood GF All Purpose Flour Blend

1 cup White Rice Flour

6 heaping tsps GF Baking Powder

2 level tsps Baking Soda

3 level tsps Xanthan Gum

1 level tsp salt

Step 2

In a large mixing bowl, mash up 6 over-ripe bananas and add one can of crushed pineapple with all the juice and 1.5 cups of shredded sweetened coconut, stir gently: (for less sweet muffins use unsweetened coconut)

Step 3

Beat two large eggs until well blended and add 1/2 cup of packed brown sugar to the egg mixture, stirring until dissolved. Pour the egg mixture into the wet, banana-pineapple mixture and stir until blended:

Step 4

Incorporate the dry mixture into the wet mixture adding about a cup full of flour mixture and half a cup of milk (or liquid) each time and gently blending using a wooden spoon.  Try not to over beat the mixture and keep adding liquid and stirring just enough until you have a batter about the same conistency of a thick pancake batter. You will need approximately two cups of milk but if your batter is very thick and stiff add more liquid.  Note: I have also used rice milk with good results.

Step 5

One of the reasons these muffins are so light and rise up so beautifully is the chemical reaction that takes place between the acid in the pineapple juice and the baking soda, so have your muffin tins with liners ready and your oven pre-heated to 350 degrees F so you can get the batter into the tins and the tins into the oven quickly.  I use a large ice cream scoop to fill my muffin tins which does the job quickly and has the added benefit of making each muffin almost exactly the same size.  With this recipe I fill each cup only half full as they really will rise.  

Bake for about 25 minutes (at 350 degrees F) or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Remove the muffins from the tins to a rack to cool right away, otherwise moisture builds up around the muffins in the cooling tins something the GF muffins does not handle well.

Other things to note: I have kept the sugar content fairly low as the bananas, pineapple and coconut all add sweeteness to the muffins, but feel free to adjust the sugars up or down.  I personally like the flavor that brown sugar brings so that is what I used.  I have tried using sweetners but resulting muffins were small, dense and dry.  There is no oil or "fat" in this recipe as the bananas do the same job.

My muffins came out of the oven over twice their pre-baked size, were a beautiful golden brown and smelled wonderful!  These muffins are rich with banana, pineapple and coconut flavours, have a wonderful body and do not turn to mush in my mouth when I eat them.  I hope your muffins turn out as wonderful as mine and please do leave me a comment to let me know how you did.

As always, thank you for popping in to see what I am up to these days and please do leave me a comment if you like what you are seeing!

Scrapbook Lynne Mizera

Full Ingredient List:

3 cups Robin Hood All Purpose Nutri Blend GF Flour

1 cup white rice flour

6 heaping Tsps GF baking powder

2 level tsps baking soda

3 level tsps Xantham Gum

1 tsp salt

6 over ripe bananas

1 can crushed pineapple

1 1/2 cups shredded sweetened coconut

2 large eggs

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

2 cups milk (or Rice Milk) as needed