Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins

I have been in a rut. When we have com­pany over for a week­end, I seem to so eas­ily slip into the scram­bled eggs, bacon, bagels break­fast rou­tine. It’s quick, easy, but so aver­age. I’m always look­ing for fresh ideas. One thing that has slowed me down a bit is the fact that I have a cou­ple of gluten free chil­dren. So, the eggs and bacon sans the bagel gig works well for that.

Well, I was shop­ping with the girls the other day in the local Barnes & Nobel. Okay, we were there for the blended cof­fee (or non-coffee as the case may be) drinks, but we took a quick gander.

And I found this book.

The pic­tures alone were worth the cost of the book. They inspired me so much.

So I made the blue­berry muffins last night. Oh joy. Faith told me that they get her vote. This morn­ing she con­fessed that she was on her 9th muf­fin. When I sug­gested that she had had more than enough, she cor­rected her­self down to two. Oh, wait. Three.

It’s hard to keep count.

One thing I have noticed with the suc­cess­ful gluten free recipes is that they all use a flour blend. And nor­mally for things like muffins and cook­ies and cakes it includes sorghum.

And such is the case with this book. They have a mas­ter flour mix recipe at the front of the book which is used in all the bread-type recipes that I saw as I perused through the book. I made a quadru­ple batch of the mix so I have it on hand next time. That will save time in milling the brown rice and sorghum. And, I was out of corn­starch, so I sub­sti­tuted potato starch. It’s obvi­ously quite forgiving.

The blends take a lit­tle bit of time to pre­pare, but they are so worth the effort. You can­not tell that these are gluten free muffins. No grainy taste. You know what I mean if you’ve eaten gluten free box mix muffins. Or even just plain old brown rice flour muffins. The tex­ture isn’t quite right. These are light and fluffy.

Okay, so I want to share the recipe, but my hus­band has advised that I ought not do that. Copy­right laws and all. I really hope you run out to get this book. And, no, they aren’t pay­ing me a dime to tell you this. They don’t know I exist. Even if they did, they still wouldn’t pay me a dime, I’m quite sure.

I learned a few things from this recipe.

One thing I learned is that you should coat the blue­ber­ries lightly with flour before adding them to the bat­ter. The flour coat­ing pre­vents the fruit from sink­ing to the bot­tom of the muffins. OK, am I the only one in the world who didn’t know this?? I had no clue about that, but I will attest to the fact that this is true! It is such a cool trick. Right up there with pulling rab­bits out of hats.

And, it says, like all recipes say that you are to par­tially fill any unused cups with water to pre­vent your muf­fin tins from warp­ing in the oven. So, I knew you were sup­posed to fill the empty cups with water, but I had no idea why. I’ve often skipped that step. This is prob­a­bly why I have warped tins. Don’t be like me.

I didn’t fol­low the recipe exactly. I reread the recipe later and found var­i­ous ways that I did my own thing. And they still turned out great. If I can make these yummy delights turn out well, YOU can do this and become the star baker of your street. Just don’t let Faith know when you’ve made some, or she just might show up on your doorstep for break­fast. Save one (or nine) for her.

But, if you check out this link (just click on the word “link” back there), you will find it on amazon.com. And, it has a “look inside” fea­ture. You will find a ton of great info, includ­ing her arti­san gluten free flour blend (on page 16)! And, keep scrolling for more recipes, includ­ing cin­na­mon rolls (but not the blue­berry muffins, although you do get to see the fan­tas­tic pho­tog­ra­phy which cap­tures the muffins).

Any­way, I wanted to share this gem of a cook­book that I found this week. Do you have a favorite cook­book that you’d be will­ing to tell me about? It doesn’t have to be gluten free. Leave me a note in the com­ments! I love cook­books, and I’m always look­ing for a new one, even if it is just checked out from the library.

I would love to share a muf­fin with you, but, well, they are nearly all gone… that Faith.