Banana Muffins

I have a love hate relationship with gluten free baking. I love the challenge and the accomplishment you feel when you finally create something worth eating. But, the challenge getting there is hair pulling, wall punching, top of your lungs screaming annoying! It's an annoying that it past the point of crying and straight into obsessive hysteria. Really. For two entire days all I did was bake cookies, cupcakes and muffins determined to find the hidden secret in each recipe. Ben almost commited me to a looney bin. I just couldn't let it go.

But I'll have to say, once you finally hit a homerun, it makes all the failure worth it. You feel on top of the world...like you could conquer anything. And seeing the look on Braelyn's face each time we add a new version of her past favorite cuisines to her "safe menu" is in one overused but perfectly accurate word...priceless.

This banana muffin far surpases any of those gluten free muffin mixes or gluten free all purpose flour blend muffin recipes out there. Instead of being wet and gritty or oppositely crumbly and dry, these muffins have a texture, flavor and density that a pleasant banana muffin should have.

I love making these mid sized muffins for on the go snacks for my kids. They are an easy fresh snack to cart around that are a much better option than any prepackaged goods out there. Plus they freeze well for later easy snacking. So get baking my gluten free fans!

 

Banana Muffins

 

Ingredients:

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup potato starch

1 cup sweet white sorghum flour

3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 medium ripe bananas, mashed

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup milk (level, not domed over)

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Sift all flours, potato starch, xanthan gum, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.

 

2. In a stand mixer cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and combine. Add half of the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Add milk and slowly mix. Add remaining dry ingredients until just combined. Stir in mashed bananas until incorporated into batter.

 

3. Fill muffin tins with batter until 2/3 full. Bake at 350 for 20-23 minutes, rotating after about 20 minutes. If tops are overly browning you can lay a sheet of foil over the tops for the last few minutes. Muffins should be stiff and spring back at the touch of your finger when done. Make sure to not underbake or muffins will be wet in the center.

 

Makes about 20 regular sized muffins



Crescent Dinner Rolls

I have to say, it's been pretty dang nice to be on vacation visiting my family. My mom has been really supportive in trying to figure out some carbolicious type recipes that Braelyn can eat. That's the hard part. Braelyn is a carboholic! That kid would eat bread all day if she could, and now we're telling her that she can't.

Thus far, on the carb side, we've attempted a pancake recipe that was semi-successful at the beginning but turned out to be more like "blobcakes" by the end. Word of advice, always grease the pan in between rounds of pancakes. Otherwise those little gluten free boogers will not lift off the skillet in one piece! Today Braelyn and I came home to a delightfully thoughtful treat of banana muffins that my mom had made. Those turned out to be quite moist and delicious.

So while on my quest to continue to find bread-like recipes for Braelyn, I guess I'll just have to purge out all of my fantastic bread recipes for you all to enjoy. If you can't have 'em, share 'em! Right?! And staying true to the holiday spirit, these buttery babies are present at almost all of our seasonal family gatherings. I like to enjoy these rolls warm, right out of the oven, one section at a time. Yum!

 

 Crescent Dinner Rolls

 

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

1 1/2 cups lukewarm water

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter, I always use salted in all my recipes

5 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon instant nonfat dry milk

3 tablespoons butter softened

 

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in lukewarm water for 10 minutes. Blend in eggs and melted butter.



2. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, sugar, salt and dry milk. Add the dry mix to the wet mixture and blend well. Add additional flour to make a slightly sticky dough. It should still slightly stick to your fingers. Knead or mix for 5 minutes until dough is smooth.

3. Cover the bowl of dough with a damp towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

4. Punch down dough. Lightly flour your work surface. Divide dough in thirds and allow to rest for 10 minutes.

5. Lightly flour tops of dough and roll out each section of dough into 12" circles.

6. Brush each circle with 1 tablespoon soft butter. Cut each circle into 10 pie-shaped wedges using a pizza cutter. (Yes I know there are only 8 sections in the picture, but these rolls were a little oversized)

7. Roll up each wedge starting from the wide section all the way to the point. Place point side down on lightly greased baking sheets at least 1" apart. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise again until doubled in size, about 45-60 minutes.

8. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake 15-17 minutes until golden brown. You can lay foil over the top of the rolls the last 5 minutes if the tops are getting too brown. Remove from the oven and brush tops with melted butter. (If you do not have a brush, take a stick of cold butter and run across the tops of the warm rolls)

*Makes 30 rolls

These are so delicious and freeze really well. Fill your bellies with half the batch. Then shove the other half in the freezer for a day you want to impress somebody, making them think you slaved away all day in the kitchen. Just warm them in the oven a little before delivery. It's our little secret!



Easy Peasy Corn Bread Muffins

On the road again, on the road again! That song has been playing in my head for far too long. Today was the second day of our annual Christmas road trip up to Utah. Oh boy do I love road tripping. The chorus of whining coming from the back seat, the blaring background noise of whatever obnoxious kid's movie that is playing on the IPad, the occasional police siren that makes your heart stop and your eyes jump to the speedometer...yes, road tripping is a blast. Can you sense my sarcasm?

To add to the already tense environment of being stuck in a car for 13 hours with two young children, we got a not so cheery call from Braelyn's pediatrician. You see, she has been having a continuous ongoing stomachache for the past 5 weeks. We finally got some blood work done. Well, the results are in and are life changing. The doctor's diagnosis? Celiac.

A deer in headlights. That's how I felt. My poor sweet girl has been suffering with stomachaches, all the while I'm stuffing her with quesadillas, PB&J's, cupcakes, cookies...you name it...just making everything worse. I felt so awful and confused at the same time. How am I going to alter my cooking to meet her needs? It's not fair for her to miss out, so our entire family's diet will need to change. All these thoughts going through my head. Why can't life just be easy?

Well sometimes it can! And that's what this post is for. Today is dedicated to some things just being EASY. These light and delicate cornbread muffins are so easy. I love the added texture that the canned corn adds. Feel free to leave that out if you want to go even easier. It's your call. Or add jalapenos and cheddar jack cheese for an extra kick. Do whatever you want, just as long as it's EASY.

 

 

 

Easy Peasy Cornbread Muffins

 

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup cornmeal

2 eggs

1 cup milk (2% or higher fat)

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cooking oil

1/2 cup canned sweet corn

 

 Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners. In a large mixing bowl beat eggs with a whisk. Add milk and oil and blend until combined.

2. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cornmeal.

3. Add dry ingredient mixture to wet ingredient mixture. Add in canned corn. Lightly mix together with spatula or wooden spoon until just combined. Do not over mix.

4. Fill muffin liners 2/3 way full. Bake at 400 degrees for 14-16 minutes or until tops bounce back with touch of a finger. Cool on wire cooling racks.

 

*Makes 12 muffins

 

These cornbread muffins are so delicious served warm with a touch of butter and honey. Talk about comfort...comfort and easy, that's what I need right now.

 

These muffins pair wonderfully with my Pork Chile Verde.





Rustic Pumpkin Bread

I LOVE pumpkin...like seriously, I LOVE pumpkin! There is something about the smell, look and taste of pumpkin that is just so warming and festive. In fact, why do we only feel like we can have pumpkin during the holidays. That's just sad. Maybe it's so we appreciate it more when all those soothing holiday recipes come floating around. Kinda like we're supposed to appreciate our families more around that time, right??? Haha!

Anywho, I opened up a can of pumpkin to test out a rustic homemade pumpkin bread that I adapted from an amazing website, Simply So Good. She has this amazing no fail recipe for Artisan No-Knead Bread that I have been experimenting different flavors with. I thought a hint of pumpkin, cinnamon and whole wheat sounded divine, so I whipped some up. It was DELICIOUS! Don't expect this to be a sweet bread. It is savory enough to go with a leftover turkey and cranberry sandwich, but also accents well toasted with some butter and cinnamon sugar.

Rustic Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 ¾ teaspoon sea salt (if using regular salt use 1 ½ teaspoons)
½ teaspoon yeast
1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ginger
⅓ cup canned pumpkin plus enough water to make 1 ½ cups liquid

Directions:
1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Add pumpkin liquid and mix until a shaggy mixture forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12-18 hours. Overnight works great.

2. Heat oven to 450⁰. When the oven has reached 450⁰, place a cast iron or stoneware (oval or circular) pot with a lid in the oven and heat the pot with lid for 30 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, pour dough onto a heavily floured surface and shape into a ball. Lightly flour the surface of the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let set while the pot is heating.

4. Remove hot pot from the oven. Carefully place dough onto parchment paper and drop into pot (the more you touch it, the more you lose those nice fluffy air bubbles). Cover and return pot to the oven for 35 minutes. After 35 minutes remove the lid and bake an additional 15 minutes (rotating pot halfway through). If top is browning too much, lay some foil on top.

5. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack to cool. Serve and enjoy! 

Pairs divinely with Cinnamon Spiced Pumpkin Latte (no caffeine).