More Banana Raisin Muffins

I'm linking to Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays.

I said in my last post that I have been following Meghan Telpner's recipes. Aren't you impressed? I actually do mean that I managed to follow directions! It's a new turning point for me.

While I did manage to follow directions, I did have to tweak the muffin recipe. So I'll share my revisions. I really like these ones. Meghan's flours are dark but not gritty or overpowering, they may just become my new muffin flours of choice. Her recipe is Apple Cinnamon Muffins. I am just so much more likely to have brown bananas hanging around rather than applesauce, so I shifted some things and turned them into Banana Raisin Muffins.

I know. You are probably thinking, girl! How many banana muffins recipes do you think a person needs? And you are right. But seriously, flours make a difference. It is a lesson you will learn over and over as you are gluten-free. Flours matter.

More Banana Raisin Muffins

Adapted from Meghan Telpner's Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Dry Ingredients

3/4 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/4 cup tapioca flour/starch*

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon xantham gum**

1 teaspoon cinnamon

In a separate mixing bowl beat together:

2 large ripe bananas, mashed

1/3 cup light olive oil

1 tbs agave nectar (or more if you prefer sweeter)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 TBS ground flax with ¼ cup warm water***

Beat the wet ingredients until smooth. Add to the dry ingredients and combine well. Add water a tablespoon at a time, until the batter is smooth and pancake consistency.

Stir in:

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional

Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the muffins from the pan and cool on a wire rack.

Makes twelve muffins.

*Note: About tapioca flour/starch. I spent an hour searching for it at my natural foods store. I had a recipe that called for tapioca flour, all I could find was tapioca starch. It's the same thing. I've now seen it labeled both ways, just buy it no matter what it's called.

**If you are used to not using a lot of xantham gum, you can cut this amount in half and the muffins will be just fine.

***Just put the water in a small bowl and pour in the ground flax seed. Let it sit for a minute, then add to the other wet ingredients.

And I have to tell you a little story about grinding flax seeds. I bought regular, whole flax seeds. But unfortunately I don't have a spice grinder or a coffee grinder (two methods I am told work well). My regular stand blender isn't good enough to grind those tiny seeds, and neither is my small food processor. But I have a hand-held immersion blender. So I thought to myself, well, that will work. So I poured the little flax seeds in a cup and stuck the blender in.

They flew everywhere! All over the whole kitchen. Fortunately, the immersion blender is pulse only.

So I thought again.

I grabbed a clean towel and wrapped it tight around the top of the cup and the blender. I held on to the towel with one hand and worked the blender with the other. I could hear the little seeds pinging on the side of the cup, but they didn't fly out. After a minute of working the blender, I looked inside the cup. Voila! Perfectly ground little flax seeds.