Tuesday, May 5, 2015

The Muffin!

I'm always looking for ways to use my limited ingredients to make something that might be a change from the routine. This is the fourth time I've made my made-up recipe and I think I have a winner! One of the tricks is using guar gum. I had dismissed it because I cannot tolerate xanthan gum at all and judged them to be in the same category. But I put down my prejudices and did some research, xanthan gum is a mold grown on corn while guar is made from guar beans. So I gave it a shot. I now have happy little muffins tucked in the freezer waiting for me.

Pretty cute, don't you think?
So here's my recipe. If course check out your ingredients to make sure they're safe for you:

Marty's Muffins
Basic recipe:
1 3/4 C chickpea flour (garbanzo)
4 T sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp guar gum
2 eggs
1/3 C oil
3/4 C milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, butter or spray 12 muffin cups. You can use cupcake liners if you like. Mix dry ingredients. Beat eggs, oil and milk, stir into dry mixture. Mix til smooth-ignore the rule that says you can't stir muffin batter too much or it will get tough. That only applies if your flour has gluten. Scoop into muffin pans, a small ice cream scoop works great for this. Bake in the center of the oven for 20 minutes until brown.

I like to add sunflower nuts to mine, a half cup or so, and this morning I added a little more sugar and swirled a little cinnamon sugar into them. They tasted like a much-missed cinnamon roll! Chocolate chips are good as well. Then at lunch I made another batch and stirred in 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese and 1 1/2 tsp dried chives. Now I don't know which are my favorites!