Mug Muffins -- Update

For this summer semester, I am not teaching classes on Fridays (because there aren't any classes offered on Fridays at all). And I like to have a little treat for the weekends. But don't worry, these are so easy that you can make them on any busy day. 

I've posted about Mug Muffins before. I still love them.

I mentioned in that post that Ashley at the Edible Perspective was the amazing creator of the Buckwheat Bakes. She mentioned (a while ago) that she had stopped using the flax egg, so I decided to try the Mug Muffin that way. 

The Ingredients:

1/2 banana, mashed

1 Tbs ground flax seed

1 tsp chia seed

1/4 cup buckwheat flour

1 Tbs carob powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 Tbs water (or slightly more)

I use the huge mug you can see on the left in the picture above. First I mash the banana in the mug, then I add in all the dry ingredients and start to stir. Then I add the water and stir. The batter should be thick, but not dry. If it is too dry, I add a little more water. 

Then I put the mug in the microwave, cover it with a paper towel, and microwave it for 1 min 45 sec. When it is cooked, I dump it out of the mug and let it cool. 

Optional Add-ins:

Raisins

Nuts

You could trade the spices for other spices

For breakfast, I cut it into slices and topped it with almond butter. 

Microwaved Mug Muffins

Millet Mug Muffin

Buckwheat Mug Muffin

I came across the blog Edible Perspective a few weeks ago. I was surprised to find what Ashley calls "Buckwheat Bakes." I discovered that with just a few tweaks, I could eat these!

They are basically muffins, and so you can imagine how excited I was. It has been so long since I have made or eaten muffins.

And the other appealing feature is this makes one single serving that can be cooked in the microwave. And they taste good.

Mug Muffins

1 flax egg = 2 1/2 tbs boiling water + 1 tbs ground flax

1/2 banana, mashed

2 tbs water

1/4 buckwheat flour or millet flour

1 tbs carob powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp chia seeds

handful of raisins (optional)

Here's how I do it:

Put the 2 1/2 tbs water in a large mug and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds. Add the 1 tbs flax and let it gel for a minute.

Meanwhile, mash up the banana. (I do this on a plate -- yes, one more dish)

Then add everything to the mug and stir really well.

Cover the mug with a paper towel and microwave it for 1 min 45 sec or 2 full minutes.

Then I just eat it straight out of the mug with a spoon.

Pumpkin Muffins

Since it's time for fall, I decided pumpkin muffins would be good. Now I know, I already have a pumpkin muffin recipe. But unfortunately that one is not working with my restrictive diet. So I just modified this zucchini muffin recipe slightly.

(Secretly, I think it's better with pumpkin).

As you saw in the last post, I bought a pie pumpkin and roasted and pureed it myself. I used that for this recipe. I can't find canned pumpkin in the stores yet.

Pumpkin Muffins

1 cup pureed pumpkin (this was my entire pie pumpkin)

1/4 cup oil

3 eggs

2 tbs almond milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup + 3 tbs almond flour

3 tbs coconut flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp sea salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp allspice

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Zucchini Muffins

In the movie Get Smart, Steve Carell's character figures out that there is a problem with some Russian because he ordered a muffin at a cafe. The comment Carell makes is, "Do you know how many calories that is? Why would he risk it?"

Well that's just not how I feel about muffins.

Everyone in the blogosphere is writing about summer produce and talking about how they have heaps of zucchini. I'm not growing zucchini (and frankly my plants are a little "Charlie Brown"-ish), but I thought that zucchini muffins would taste great.

I want to give credit where credit is due, so this recipe came about because I baked the cinnamon bun muffins that Elana has posted on her site. I needed to change them so there was absolutely no sweetener. As I kept thinking, it came to me. Zucchini.

On that note, this is a warning. There is absolutely no sweetener in these muffins. They are not sweet, so it is not the taste most of us expect from zucchini bread. They are working for me though. And they will be great to take on the plane.

Zucchini Muffins

1 cup shredded zucchini

1/4 cup oil

3 eggs

2 tbs almond milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup + 1 tbs almond flour

2 tbs coconut flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp sea salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Mix the wet ingredients (including the zucchini) together. Add the dry ingredients. Mix well. The mixture should be slightly wet looking. Scoop into muffin tray.

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes.

Yield 12 muffins

Cooking with Elana's Pantry

I mentioned last week that I stumbled across Elana's Pantry and was set to try two recipes.

First a note: In her FAQ section, Elana strongly discourages substituting ingredients. She recommends a particular brand of almond flour and repeats that the results will not be the same if you don't use the same ingredients that she uses.

I can respect that. She worked hard to create recipes that work in a specific way.

But of course, that's not how I roll. So naturally I modified.

Both recipes were still surprisingly good.

Recipe #1: Cinnamon Bun Muffins

My modification was to replace the agave nectar with applesauce in the muffin mixture. The muffins were really moist and lighter than I would have expected.

I took them on my road trip and made my friend eat one so I could get the opinion of someone not on a crazy diet. A few hours later she asked for another.

Recipe #2: Breakfast Bars

Once again in this recipe I replaced the agave nectar with applesauce. It gave good sweetness, however, the agave nectar would add some stickiness and binding to the bars. The applesauce doesn't, so my bars were very crumbly.

Instead of the raisins, I used a combo of dried figs and prunes, cut into small pieces. Simply because it's what I had in my pantry.

These were just crumbly and I discovered that all the seeds kind of bothered my poor sensitive system. So I froze most of the pan.

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.

Blueberry Banana Muffins

And my muffin obsession continues into the new year.

Have I showed you my new muffin "tin" yet? It's the sillicon type. And it's better because it is red.

I made some muffins while I was at home and saw that my Mom had frozen blueberries in the freezer. I tossed them in my muffins, but because of the flour mix, they weren't the best muffins ever.

After pondering ingredients for a while, I decided that blueberries and bananas would go well together. So here is my recipe for gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free blueberry banana muffins.

I'm linking this to Amy's Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays.

Blueberry Banana Muffins

1/3 cup canola oil

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup almond milk

2 super ripe mashed bananas

2 cups gluten free flour (this time I used Bob's Red Mill all-purpose)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp xantham gum

1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

Mix the wet ingredients together (including the banana as a wet ingredient). Then add the dry ingredients. Mix well.

Make sure that the batter is runny, more like pancake batter.

Bake for 20 min. at 400 degrees.

Makes about 15 muffins.

Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin

Round two of Pumpkin Muffin testing went much better. I have to give a shout out to Karina of Karina's Kitchen who has a wonderful post on substitutions. Her suggestions on sugar substitutions that gave me the ideas for these adjustments.

As I mentioned, I wanted some Thanksgiving-y (-ish?) treats, so my plan on Wednesday was to bake muffins and pumpkin pie. Yes, both gluten and sugar-free. Oh, and I didn't want to use agave nectar or honey. I guess I just need an adventure in my life.

I reasoned that since muffins can be dense, they would be sweetened very easily with raisins. The pumpkin pie, on the other hand, needed something lighter, so I used a banana. Both were delicious right out of the oven.

UPDATE: I shared them with a friend today, we both thought the pumpkin muffins were delish after we heated them up again (typical of gluten-free food). They really were quite good. And... we both agreed that the pumpkin pie needs another round of experimenting. The crustless-ness was a success, but ... the pie just wasn't that great. It was better warm and then we drizzled agave nectar over the top, and that made it pretty good. But still needs some more experimenting. Looks good though, right?


For the pumpkin pie, my recipe came from Shirley at Gluten-Free Easily. It is a Crustless Pumpkin Pie. What an ingenious invention, and super simple, all you have to do is add 1/4 cup flour to the pumpkin filling. I managed to follow Shirley's recipe exactly, except I replaced the sugar with 1 mashed small ripe banana. Now that I have looked back at Karina's sugar substitutions post, I could have pureed the banana to get rid of even the smallest clumps. A word of caution, you do want to use the ripest banana possible. Just peel your black bananas and toss them in the freezer and you'll always have some on hand.

I'll cover costs before giving you my own recipe. Canned pumpkin was on sale for 79 cents, I used two cans for these two dishes. Evaporated milk was $1.19, Allspice was $1.19, and Nutmeg was $1.19. Everything else I had sitting around. Total $5.51.


Pumpkin Muffins
Adapted from a community cookbook

1 2/3 cup GF flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup pumpkin
1/3 cup almond milk
1/3 cup raisins, blended fine

Mix dry ingredients.
Put the raisins and a splash of water in the blender. The water will help keep the raisins from being so sticky, and make them easier to scrape out. Blend them as finely as possible. Add all contents of blender into the wet mixture bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix eggs, pumpkin, butter, and milk.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Mix until moist and incorporated.
If the batter is too dry, add more almond milk.

Baked at 350 in greased muffin tins for 20 minutes.
Makes approximately 15 muffins.

Muffins and menu plans

I've been slack. I have been eating, pretty good food too, and I haven't been sharing.

Here's the "menu plan" I've been working with this week. I do actually use those quotation marks to show sarcasm. I think I have commented before that I don't like planning. So this is just a vague representation of some of the things I might eat this week. And if I don't feel like it, I don't have to.

Soup - leftover homemade soup from my sick week last week
Stuffed Green Pepper - frozen leftover
Green Goddess Rice
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Spaghetti Squash, with homemade tomato sauce
Salad
Green Tomato Pasta Toss

Plus a few extra snacks
Lemon Muffins
Apple Cinnamon Raisin Muffins
Hummus

I made the Green Goddess Rice on Monday. It was pretty tasty, however it is really bad as leftovers. The avocado turns brown, and it is really not as nicely flavorful. But I can recommend the recipe if you are going to have a party and eat it all that night. Or ... not a party... but you just happen to actually feed a family.

The lemon muffin recipe is simply a modified Orange Juice muffins recipe. I added lemon juice and lemon zest.

Apple Cinnamon Raisin Muffins
2 cups featherlight gluten free flour mix
1 tsp xanthan gum
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup apple juice
1/3 cup veggie oil
1 egg
1 cup grated apple
1 cup raisins, lightly chopped
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix everything, bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

I made my muffins this week in my mini-muffin tin. That means I baked them for 13 minutes, and they are my fav because the bottom part of the muffin gets a little crispy, and it's just delightful. Unfortunately they are only like that right when you take them out of the oven. So I had to eat a lot straight out of the oven.

If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk

And now for yet another muffin recipe.

I used up all of my flour blends. I should probably be bothered, but this means that now I get to try some of the other flour blends I have been reading about and see what I like best. I'm hoping it's a fun experiment.

But in the meantime, I went out of town yesterday and needed snacks. I am aware that I am the weird one, I take food with me everywhere I go. But I went out of town with 3 friends, and not a single one of them brought food with them. We met at their house, so I am perfectly aware that they had a whole box of Luna bars sitting on the coffee table. But nobody brought a single snack. And while I know I am weird, I just think that is really weird.

I went to make muffins to take on said trip, but only had rice flour. I know you can't just use that because it is too gritty. So here is the new recipe.

Rice flour blueberry muffins
1 egg
1/2 cup water (or other liquid, like milk)
2 tbs canola oil
1 tbs agave nectar or honey
1/4 cup + 1 tbs sour cream
1 1/2 cup white rice flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
blueberries

Mix liquid ingredients together, then add dry ingredients. As always texture should be runny-ish. I just threw in a couple handfuls of blueberries, until it looked like there were a bunch.

I used my mini muffin tin to bake these in. They are great as little bites, and made 24 muffins.

Bake at 425 for 17 min.

No soup for you

I haven't been grocery shopping this week. Plenty of food in the house, and apparently I only feel a burning need to go grocery shopping when I don't have any fruit. This week I have had an absolute abundance, and have been enjoying watermelon, peaches, strawberries, and even blended some up into smoothies.

So, what have I been eating?

Well, I finished off Heather's pasta salad over two meals. I ate the last herbed tuna in tomato, and for another meal polished off the bit of tuna mixture that was left over. I discovered that the tuna mixture was actually pretty good just spread on crackers. So maybe the downfall of that dish was that I used store bought tomatoes, and since they were the vehicle, the whole thing was just underwhelming. I made a(nother) big pot of chicken and veggie soup on Friday, so I have been enjoying that. And I had a lovely green salad yesterday.

I have to admit, I am really impressed with the soup. To explain: 16 days ago I went to the doctor with a terrible case of poison ivy. Really really bad. I got a shot and some really high powered meds. The doctor warned me that the meds would upset my stomach, and since even advil upsets my stomach, I decided I better be proactive about helping my stomach with gentle foods.

So I went to the grocery store, bought a box of chicken stock and a whole heap of veggies (potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, zucchini, mushrooms) and made a huge pot of soup. It was fantastic. And of course, I left the grocery store having spent $30. That pot lasted about 5 days, only half the course of the meds. So I made another pot. This time I tossed in some frozen chicken that I had in the freezer (for probably way too long, so the best use for it was soup). That pot lasted another 5 days.

Unfortunately, the 10 day course of meds didn't take care of the poison ivy, and so I had to get another round. So on Friday, when I got the new bottle, I made pot of soup #3. I did have to buy another box of chicken stock, but the veggies are the same from that first shopping trip. Super cheap, super easy, super long-lasting, and nice to my stomach. What more could you want?

The poison ivy trial also explains the muffin kick I have been on. It is helpful to have something a little substantial in my belly when taking high powered meds, and bread is substantial. For gluten-free baking, I believe that muffins are the best. They are small enough to bake easily and evenly. They are small enough to not be too dense in your mouth. And they are easily frozen and stored for use over a period of time.

The reason I have been experimenting so much with muffins is that muffins usually have a lot of sugar. I have been reading about sugar substitutes, and tried a new muffin recipe last night.

Explanations first I guess. I like banana bread. So I always buy a bunch of bananas. Unfortunately, I like to eat my bananas brown. When they are at the point that most people think they are useless for anything other than banana bread, they are finally at the point that I want to eat them. Fortunately this week I have had such an abundance of fruit that I held off, and decided that I absolutely would make banana bread with these bananas.

I decided banana bread muffins would be perfect for a sugar-free recipe because bananas are sweet, and they add moisture, perfect for gluten-free baking. As I was reading about sugar substitutes, I read that raisins are also a good sugar substitute. The banana bread recipe that I found actually added raisins and nuts, so I decided combining the bananas and the raisins would be a good shot here.

To use the raisins I ground them up in my blender. I didn't really want raisins in my banana bread. I just wanted to experiment. This made a little bit of a mess, but I added the raisin paste to the muffin batter and just beat it in hard and fast, and it broke up pretty well.

The result: Really good muffins. Now, these are not muffins for the faint of heart. They are not light, fluffy, silly muffins. These are rich, decadent, solid, hardy muffins. And they taste good.

Banana Bread Muffins
This is adapted from the back of the Bob's Red Mill package
1/3 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup gluten-free flour mix (I used 1 cup of Bob's Red Mill All-purpose GF mix, and 3/4 cup of the Life Tastes Good Again GF mix. Bob's is a combo of bean flours, which makes this a little more hardy, and the LTGA is completely white. The real reason for the blend: I ran out of Bob's)
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp xantham gum
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas (This took 3 bananas for me)
1/2 cup finely chopped raisins (I blended mine in a blender)

Blend the wet ingredients. Add the bananas and the raisins. Add the dry ingredients and mix. Fill muffin tin and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Yield about 15

Do you know the muffin man?

So the new recipe was a total flop. It's so disappointing, I had such high hopes... It was called "Herbed Tuna in Tomatoes," so basically a stuffed tomato. I finished mine and was just like hm. I wouldn't ever make that again. Which I said in order to give my two friends permission to not eat it any more. And they didn't.

The rest of dinner was very good though. I have been working on another muffin recipe all week, and finally feel like I got the proportions and measurements right so that the muffins turned out really well. They actually even stood the eating at room temperature test.

So I'll share the two recipes.

Heather's Pasta Salad
8 oz box of rice penne pasta
1 box of grape tomatoes
1 can of olives
1 green pepper
1 container of feta cheese
italian salad dressing (This time I used a balsamic vinagrette, it was quite good, although I think usually I do a "zesty italian).

Cook the pasta, then shock it in ice cold water. Drizzle a little of the dressing over it, to keep it from sticking. Cut up the pepper, tomatoes, and olives and add in. Add the crumbled feta. Add a little more dressing. Stir. Enjoy.

Note: with the rice pasta this salad is better at a more room temperature. Rice pasta gets really hard when it is straight out of the fridge. So if you refrigerate it (as you should for food safety), just microwave it for 10-15 seconds.


Orange Juice Muffins
This is a modification of an "Orange Muffin" recipe I found on allrecipes.com
2 cups of "Life Tastes Good Again" gluten-free flour mix
1 tsp xantham gum
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1 egg
1 1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup canola oil

Mix the wet ingredients. Add in the dry ingredients. Mix until just incorporated. (It is very important to not over-mix gluten free flours. It makes them gross). Your dough will be thicker than cake batter and kind of stiff.

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes. Yield 12 muffins.

Put the muffins on a rack to cool. This is important. I left the first batch in the pan to cool and the bottoms got all soggy and that is gross.

UPDATE: What I should have said is that the orange juice muffins stood the test of being fed to non-gluten free people at room temperature. They ate them all. I call that a success.