Apple Cinnamon Muffins

You can go to Kelly’s blog The Spunky Coconut for all the other gluten free Easter ideas!  What a great idea to round up gluten-free ideas for Easter!  Thank you Kelly for doing this.  I am not sure when she is posting all the recipes, but I will update my link to that specific post when she does.  Link now updated! 

I wanted muffins again the other day.  One would think I was done with muffins after the Ratio Rally and my multiple batches of Lemon Lavender Muffins back to back, but no.  I love muffins.  This recipe (link above) would also be great on an Easter buffet!! 

So there I was standing at the counter getting out what I needed to make muffins.  Mixing bowl, measuring cups, and my trusty 1963 copy of The Joy of Cooking.  I was going to make my ‘standard’ rice flour muffin recipe and had even gotten to the point of putting in the cup of rice flour into the bowl when it suddenly occurred to me that I had a muffin ratio in my head and I didn’t need any cookbook at all!  So I put the rice flour back, put the cookbook back on the shelf and for out my scale.

Hm, what kind of muffin did I want to bake today?  With a ratio, the sky’s the limit… would this really work?  Oh, I know, something with apples.  I still have lots of them in the garage that NEED to be used.  And I always love cinnamon with apple.  So I began.

No cookbook.  No measuring cups.  They turned out great too!

Apple Cinnamon Muffins -  2 flour:2 liquid:1 egg:1 fat ~ Gluten Free & Dairy Free

2 1/2 oz brown rice flour

1/2 oz coconut flour

3 oz sorghum flours

2 oz quinoa flour

8 oz cashew milk or almond milk (both turned out great)

2 eggs (1 large egg is about 2 oz)

4 oz grapeseed oil

1 apple, peeled and diced small

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp Pink Himalayan salt (it’s what I have…)

1/2 cup honey

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsps each cinnamon & evaporated cane juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease muffin pan.  Put bowl on scale and turn it on.  Measure out the flours into the bowl.  Then add the baking powder, cinnamon and salt.  In a large mixing cup, weigh out all the wet ingredients and stir together.  Add in the diced apple and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar mix. Put into muffin cups.  Bake for 30 minutes.  They are done when a tester comes out clean.  Let rest in pan for 5 minutes.  Remove and eat!

I realized during this experience that I had been completely dependent on a specific recipe for everything!  I am considered a very good cook.  But I now realize that “I” was not the cook, I had just spent the time to look for really good recipes and I only followed directions!

Not any longer.  I am the cook now.

I am now free!  Free!!!  I can make any kind of muffin, any time.  I can change the ingredients based on what I have in my pantry (or garage) that needs to be used up!  I can try new flours just because I want to see what they taste like in that recipe.  I am so free.

For Easter we will be having muffins.  I will probably use apples again, I have lots of those!!  LOL  One thing I would try is dusting the apple dices with one of the flours.  They all floated to the top of each and every muffin so the apple bite was only at the top.  I may try changing the cinnamon for lemon zest… I love lemons.

Have you tried baking by ratio and weighing your ingredients yet?  Join me in being free, free, free!!  The scale is a relatively minor cost.  Let me know your experience with ratios and these muffins!

May you be blessed this Easter!  He is risen, He is risen indeed!!

Blessings,

~Mrs. R