Imagine how shocked I was to discover that I actually like these gluten-free muffins! I mean, I really like them–I sneak them between meals when the kids aren’t looking, which is the highest compliment I can pay a food.

This may have something to do with it: the recipe starts with 1 cup of sugar. (Actually I know for a fact the sugar plays a big role in my appreciation, because the first time I attempted this recipe I was dumb and forgot the sugar, and they came out inedible. Fortunately I realized my mistake before I threw out the recipe altogether.)

Then mix in 1 cup of applesauce. Applesauce is one of those things that any sane person would want to assume is gluten-free, but as you’ve probably figured out by now, food manufacturers are anything but sane. Check your labels and make sure it’s got nothing but apples in it.

Next, mix up this neato slurry of 4 Tablespoons of potato starch in 2 Tablespoons of water. The result will be this kind of gooey consistency that is a liquid if you are gentle but resists if you try to move it too fast. You may have even played with something like this in school when you were a kid like I did. Anyway, this is actually a basic egg substitute, so if you’d rather toss in two beaten eggs instead, you could do that too. But the potato starch mixture is good for those with egg allergies or concerned about cholesterol.

Then add 1/3 cup canola oil…

And 1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon and ground cloves.

Also, 1/2 teaspoon each of gluten-free baking powder, and baking soda.

Now, mix in 1 1/4 cups of gluten-free flour. Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Blend is usually my go-to choice, but in this case that’s actually amaranth flour up there. I’ve made it with several different types, and they all come out good, so use whatever you want.

Drop the batter by spoonfuls into muffin cups. I like making mini-muffins, because they make better serving sizes. You can have 2 or 3 at breakfast, or toss just one in a lunchbox… or snack on however many you want between meals, for example. They aren’t going to rise much, so fill them about 3/4 full. I usually end up with about a tray and a half’s worth of these mini-muffin size.

I also smooth out the tops with a wet finger. It just makes them look better, and appearance is important when you’re trying to get a kid to try something new. It might look tedious, but it goes really quickly if you just put a cup of water right next to the tray. Dip, dab-dab-dab, dip, dab-dab-dab… takes 30 seconds. Of course ugly muffins still taste good, too.

Bake at 400 degrees for 22 minutes. If you’re making larger muffins, you’ll need to extend the baking time a bit. They’ll be done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, just like everything else. Let them cool as long as possible before digging in, because they’re so moist the middles stay hot for a surprisingly long time. They’ll store for several days in a tupperware, or you can go so far as to freeze them for future use.

Also, unless you’re trying to take a picture of them, don’t bother with the kind of restraint I’m showing here. Pop them in your mouth all in one bite. It’s the best way, I promise you.

Happy Eating!

Applesauce Muffins

1 cup sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
4 TBS potato starch in 2 TBS water
       (OR 2 eggs)
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp GF baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cups GF flour

Oh, decadence. How long I spent without thee.

Don’t get me wrong, you can make some GFCF cakes and cookies that are passable, even darn passable. But that gooey moistness they always promise me never seemed to materialize, until I finally figured out that I should just quit trying to make these ridiculous gluten-free flours and milk-free milks do things they’re not capable of doing. There are plenty of foods on this planet that fall into the category of gooey, and it turns out that more than a few of them are good for baking.

Like pumpkin, for example!

We’ll still need flour, of course, we’re just taking the goo burden off its shoulders. I make these with amaranth flour, but that’s only because we’re attempting to rotate our flours around here for food sensitivity’s sake. (Before I started adapting it left and right, the original recipe came from The Kid-Friendly ADHD & Autism Cookbook.) Bob’s All-Purpose Flour will work just fine too, or pretty much any other gluten-free flour you have on hand, because the taste won’t be coming through in the end. Truth be told, the amaranth flour goes in this recipe specifically because it’s apparently “yucky” in everything else I bake with it, but they never notice it here.

Right, so! Two cups of GF flour, and 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum.

Then 3/4 cup of sugar. Like most of the things I make, that’s just the starting amount. Once the kids acknowledged that they liked them, I started scaling back the sugar with each batch.

2 teaspoons of gluten-free baking powder…

1 teaspoon of cinnamon…

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda…

And 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Then 8 Tablespoons of potato starch, and it’s finally time to blend all the dry ingredients thoroughly.

Now for the wet ingredients! Add 1/2 cup of canola oil to one 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree. Make sure you use one that’s just plain pumpkin and not some pre-flavored “pumpkin pie mix,” because you can never be sure what weird gluten-y stuff gets put into that sort of thing.

Then add 1/4 cup of almond milk.

Mix it all together thoroughly, then dump it in the bowl of flour and mix it all together thoroughly some more. If you’re not going to use an electric mixer, be prepared to do a fair amount of work getting it all evenly blended. On the upside, you will end up with massively ripped biceps like me.

And just in case the sugar content wasn’t enough to convince the kids, you can throw in 1/2 cup of GFCF chocolate chips to tempt them. (Enjoy Life and Tropical Source are two good brands.) You could also use GFCF mini-marshmallows, or even your favorite gluten-free crispy-rice cereal for added crunch.

Also, add in 1 Tablespoon of water. Why didn’t I add this earlier with the other wet ingredients? I forgot. Don’t tell anyone.

Spray a 9×13 baking dish liberally with canola oil, and scrape in the batter.

Then use a very wet hand to moosh the batter into place. You will probably need to shove your hand back under the faucet periodically to keep the batter from sticking to your fingers.

I can be pretty neurotic about getting the surface totally smooth. I certainly can’t imagine where my son got his OCD genes from…

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set the pan on a wire rack and let it cool completely before slicing. I like to cut them into long bars, because it helps me pretend they’re more of a snack than a straight-up dessert. Ooh, you know what else these are great for? Halloween treats! Don’t kid yourself, it will be October before you know it.

Happy Eating!

Pumpkin Bars

2 cups amaranth (or other gluten-free) flour
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp GF baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
8 TBS potato starch

1 15-oz. can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup almond milk
1 TBS water
1/2 cup GFCF chocolate chips

An apple a day keeps the doctor away! Seriously. Apples are healthy in a lot of ways, but they are particularly good for digestive health, which is what this diet’s all about. So here I have my four organic gala apples, looking all posed and pretty.

And now I peel their skin off! Good thing apples don’t have feelings. Also, that’s not some weird angle of the camera, my pinky fingers really are that crooked. What can I say, I’m an odd duck.

Here’s the fastest way I’ve ever found to core an apple. It sure beats cutting the whole thing into slices and then trying to curve the knife around the core in each slice. And don’t even get me started on those useless kitchen gadgets where you can supposedly press the large round thing down over the entire apple and core and slice it all at once. They totally don’t work unless you have the strength of Hercules, in which case you can just intimidate someone else into coring your apples for you.

Slice the two big pieces…

…nip off a few bits of skin, and you’re done!

Toss them all into a large saucepan with a lid, and sprinkle on 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar. Truth be told, you can easily cut the amount of sugar by half or even more, because real apples are pretty sweet all on their own. 2 Tablespoons will get you to that dessert-level sweetness.

Then sprinkle on 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Turn the stove to medium-low, and put the lid on. Just like that? Just like that.

See, as they cook, the apples will start to release liquid, which will turn the sugar and cinnamon into that gooey sauce we all associate with cinnamon apples. Let them cook for about 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

And that, my friends, is pure joy on a spoon. There’s really nothing more to say about it.

Happy Eating!

Cinnamon Apples

4 gala apples (organic, if at all possible)
2 TBS brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Start with two butternut squashes, about 3 pounds total. If your children see you cooking them, tell them that they’re just “funny-shaped pumpkins.” Kids are dumb, especially if they think they’ll get pie out of the deal. The top stem is the hardest to cut through, so I always start along the side, then rotate it up on its end to get the most leverage.

Scoop out all the seeds and gunk.

Lay two halves on a plate, and cover them in saran wrap. Make sure to get around the bottom too, or else the skin will leave this waxy residue on the plate that is nearly impossible to get off. Cook it in the microwave on high for about 8-9 minutes. You can’t do all four at once, unless you have a gargantuan microwave, and even then, the cooking time would be off. So just get the second one ready and waiting.

Meanwhile, add 1/3 cup sugar to a large mixing bowl, and 1/4 cup almond milk.

Crack in two eggs, and try to ignore the creepy face that’s staring back at you now.

This is my newest discovery at my grocery store: powdered vanilla extract. The key here is that extracts are usually suspended in alcohol, and often these are grain alcohols; i.e. gluten. I don’t know how they magically make it into a powder, but the taste is exactly the same, and you use the same amount of it as you would regular liquid vanilla. I’d already hunted down a liquid extract that was gluten-free, but you know what? This one says it right on the label, and I like to support companies that do that. So I’ve switched. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your ingredient lists.]

So on top of the egg mixture, that’s 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp salt. I don’t know what was up with my camera focus in this shot, but it’s apparently the only one I got of this step, so you’ll have to live with the disappointment.

When your microwave beeps at you, take a look at the squashes. See the brighter yellow circle in the middle there? That’s not cooked all the way through. This one needs another minute or two, at least.

Once they’re an even, dark orange color, scoop out the insides and add them to your mixing bowl. This should take no real arm strength if they’re cooked properly, but they will be extremely hot, so you’ll probably want to use an oven mitt.

Mix everything together thoroughly, making sure it’s nice and smooth. Then scrape it into a 9×9 baking dish sprayed with canola oil.

Now, prepare the crumb topping. That’s 1 Tablespoon of melted Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine (not salted original), 1/2 cup (firmly packed) brown sugar, and 2 Tablespoons of Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour blend.

Mix well…

And sprinkle evenly on top.

Pop in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, just enough to warm everything through and melt the sugar on top a little. And then tell your children that since they were so good today, they can have dessert on their plate right with their meal. Ha ha ha…

Happy Eating!

Butternut Crunch

2 butternut squash (about 2-3 lbs.)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup almond milk
2 eggs
1 tsp Adam’s Best vanilla
1 tsp McCormick cinnamon
1/4 tsp McCormick nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 TBS Fleischmann’s unsalted margarine (not salted original)
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 TBS Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose flour blend