Carrot Cake Muffins (gluten-free, egg-free, nut-free, vegan)

Yay for gluten-free carrot cake muffins! I call these healthy little treats muffins, but once frosted they sure seem like cupcakes to me. They are packed full of carrot-goodness, as well as being very moist and light, even without the eggs. What a perfect treat for Mother's day or a Springtime gathering!

I've frosted them here using a Honey-Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe below) but if you are dairy-free or vegan then use my Sweet Potato Buttercream Frosting recipe. Just be sure to use white-fleshed sweet potatoes (they have a light-tan skin), and stir in some finely grated orange zest at the end. This recipe is a perfect dairy-free, whole foods replacement for cream cheese frosting (and it looks like it too as long as you use the white sweet potatoes).

The trick to making these egg-free muffins light and fluffy is to add the carrots on top of the whisked dry ingredients, immediately then pour in the blended wet ingredients, and then mix them all together at once. If you stir in the carrots at the end, after your batter has been mixed up, then you will lose some of the trapped air that is formed from the reactions of the baking powder, baking soda, and acid ingredients (applesauce and orange juice). Then you must bake them right away in your preheated oven. Starting the baking process immediately after mixing the batter together helps to trap air and create lift! Both of these steps will help give the muffins the rise and lightness you normally get with eggs.

If you want to add other ingredients such as chopped walnuts and raisins, go ahead. A half cup of each should work well. Also....did I mention that these muffins are Elimination Diet friendly for Phase 2 and beyond (without the cream cheese frosting and citrus of course)! Enjoy!

Chocolate Banana Bread (gluten-free, dairy-free, xanthan-free)

The marriage of chocolate and bananas is truly divine. This bread is light, yet rich with chunks of sweet banana melting in your mouth with every bite. Have a slice with your breakfast smoothie or as a mid-afternoon snack, but our favorite is always fresh out of the oven! Or, try pairing a slice of this bread with a mug of Dairy-Free Hot Cocoa on a cold snowy day.

I use teff flour in this bread. If you have not figured it out already, you'll know I'm a big fan of teff! You can view all of my teff recipes on this blog if you'd like. I buy large 25-pound paper bags of the flour for around $40 from Azure Standard. Before my friends and I started a buying club through Azure, I bought it directly from The Teff Company (Azure sells the same brand).

Pumpkin Quinoa Cornbread Recipe

This pumpkin cornbread recipe uses quinoa flour as part of the ingredients, though the overall cornbread flavors are not overpowered by quinoa's strong taste. Adding in a whole cup of pumpkin puree adds a touch of sweetness that creates balanced flavors and a wonderfully moist cornbread.

This cornbread recipe is naturally gluten-free and doesn't require any gums or starches. It only has a few ingredients and can be whipped up in a snap! Serve it with a spicy chili recipe or your favorite warming bean soup. This recipe would also be a fantastic accompaniment to this Black Bean and Yam Stew recipe.

For detailed instructions on making pumpkin puree you can view a recent blog post I did on How to Make Homemade Pumpkin Puree. If you are gluten-sensitive then be sure to purchase a gluten-free cornmeal. Many companies grind their cornmeal on equipment that also grinds wheat flour and other glutenous grains. Bob's Red Mill offers a gluten-free cornmeal but make sure to read the label because they also offer a cornmeal that is not gluten-free. Arrowhead Mills also offers an organic gluten-free cornmeal.

Zucchini-Almond Bread (gluten-free + dairy-free)

Well, it's August. Harvest time. I've been busy picking berries, peaches, and apples as of late. Jam-making is in full swing, our gardens are overflowing, and the energy of summer is winding down into Autumn. You can feel it in the air here.

So why not bake zucchini bread? Now that our kitchen isn't 100 degrees anymore, I feel I can bake again! This gluten-free zucchini bread recipe is easy to make, moist, and super flavorful. It does contain eggs. You'll also notice that I use something called 'coconut sugar' in this recipe. Coconut sugar is a low-glycemic granulated sweetener that can replace white sugar in any recipe. For more information on one of my favorite sweeteners please refer to my Coconut Sugar Apple Crisp post!

Buckwheat Cinnamon Rolls (Gluten-free, Egg-Free, Vegan, Yeast-Free)

Since Easter is fast-appraoching I thought you might like a recipe for healthy gluten-free cinnamon rolls. I grew up eating homemade cinnamon rolls nearly every Christmas and Easter morning. The yeasty smell of rising rolls filling every nook and cranny of the house is a memory hard-forgotten. This was probably one of my favorite foods growing up. Luckily I watched and learned how to make cinnamon rolls over the years from my mother.

This recipe uses freshly ground buckwheat flour, which has a mild, light buckwheat-y flavor. The two main wet ingredients used are applesauce and cooked sweet potatoes which provide moisture and sweetness. This recipe doesn't require any xanthan gum, nuts, or seeds. Nor does it require any dairy-free milks. I wanted to keep the glycemic index lower and keep the recipe whole foods-based. I have not figured out how to make it without any starch (I use some tapioca flour), but if anyone does, please let me know.

I created a frosting recipe which reminds me of the Cinnabon frosting. Remember those huge rolls laced with a ton of sugar and fat and who knows what else? I can't even begin to imagine eating one now but this frosting does bring me back, with no ill side effects!

My children love these rolls. In fact, when I make them, the whole batch usually disappears before they cool. I just love knowing that they are eating all of this buckwheat-y goodness! Did you know that buckwheat is a fruit seed and not actually a grain? Though we use it much like other grains. I grind raw buckwheat groats into a fine flour in minutes using my Vitamix. You can also use a coffee grinder and do it in batches. 3 cups of buckwheat groats equals 4 cups of flour. You'll need a little extra so be sure to grind enough.

Health Benefits of Buckwheat:

• It is naturally gluten-free.
• Buckwheat maintains blood glucose levels and has been shown to be beneficial for diabetics.
• Research has shown that buckwheat can help to lower cholesterol and blood pressure.
• Buckwheat is high in the flavonoid, rutin, which helps to prevent disease through its antioxidant effect.
• Buckwheat is a rich source for magnesium (so are beans and nuts). Magnesium acts as a cofactor for over 300 enzymes in the human body! All reactions that involve ATP (the energy currency of our cells) depend on magnesium. Got magnesium?

Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Muffin Recipe and a GIVEAWAY!

I have something fun planned for today. First, a wonderful gluten-free, casein-free, refined sugar-free muffin recipe to share that is full of healthy ingredients. No starches, no xanthan gum, just a few whole food ingredients. The recipe isn't mine though, it comes from another lovely food blogger, Kelly of The Spunky Coconut! And second, I'm giving away a free copy of her cookbook, The Spunky Coconut Cookbook (a $30 value). Read on to learn how to enter the drawing.

Kelly's cookbook contains 115 Gluten-Free, Casein-Free, and Sugar-Free recipes with 65 color photos. There are 100 vegetarian recipes and 30+ raw inspired recipes. She does use eggs in many of her baked treats though. But there are still plenty of egg-free recipes for those with sensitivities or who are vegan.

As the name of her book and blog suggest, many of her delicious recipes involve coconut; whether it is coconut milk, coconut oil, or shredded coconut. Here is a taste of a few of her recipes: Butternut Souffle, Chicken Meatballs, Creamy Pea Soup, Caesar Salad, Funa (fake tuna salad), Chocolate Chip Bars, Vanilla Toffee Cake, Pumpkin Ice Cream, Mango Lemon Sorbet, Banana Bread (grain-free), Quinoa Almond Muffins, Creamy Bean Dip, and much much more!!!

You can view a wide variety of sample recipes on Kelly's blog. This high protien, low sugar Vanilla White Bean Cake with Chocolate Frosting is my favorite!

Kelly began to study nutrition in Maryland when her girls were very young. Her daughter Ashley was a baby, and daughter Zoe was a toddler at that time. Both girls were not well. In order to help them, her naturopathic doctor worked with them to radically change their diet (by removing gluten, casein, and sugar). She and her husband soon realized that their own health problems could be resolved as well. It was very eye-opening to see how many kinds of issues could be treated. So, after years of research and experimentation, Kelly has created recipes so similar to the old ones that nobody feels deprived. Together, through diet and biomedical treatments, their family is overcoming celiac disease, gluten-intolerance, ADD, and autism with great success.

Whole Grain Flatbread (gluten-free, yeast-free, vegan)

I have had a number of emails over the summer for a gluten-free flatbread recipe. I also get emails and requests for yeast-free breads. So here is is, the best of all worlds....yeast-free, gluten-free, rice-free, whole grain goodness, and quick & easy! What more could you ask for. Oh yes, it tastes great too.

I made this again for dinner last night. While it was baking, one of my 20 month old twins was standing next to the oven as I opened it to take a peek. Immediately he started to let me know that he wanted some by his grunting and fussing (they don't talk much yet)! He patiently paced back and forth next to the oven until I pulled it out. As I set it on the counter he pushed a stool over and leaned over the hot pan to take a sniff. "Mmm" he said. "Hot" I said!

I cut into the bread after a few minutes and immediately he grabbed a bit out of my hands and gobbled it up, piping hot. I continued to cut it into squares to serve with dinner. I noticed that he kept grabbing the squares, hopping down off the stool, running away, then coming back for more. Well what I found was that he was hoarding all of the bread and placing it on his plate set at the dining room table! I just had to laugh!

All of my children love the bread as do the other children I had taste test it. My plan is to make this bread often and put it in my daughter's lunchbox along with something to spread on it. Small containers of almond butter and homemade blueberry jam or hummus will be perfect.

You can refer to the post I did on Packing a Healthy School Lunch and download a handy chart while there for more tips and ideas.

Last night after dinner was done and the kids were in bed, I mixed up two more batches of the dry ingredients and put them into sealed, glass containers. It is so much easier to mix everything up while all the ingredients are already out on the counter!

Honey Kissed Peach (or Blueberry) Muffins

The frost peaches are in and we have surely picked our share. 130 pounds that is! I have spent the weekend pitting, cutting, freezing, and dehydrating these sweet, juicy little morsels of summer nutrition. A way to remember summer, eat local, reduce our carbon footprint? Or just enjoy fresh!

We have also been picking blueberries, blackberries, Italian plums, apples, pears, and red plums. Over this past weekend I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning processing it all and making jam. Spiced peach jam, cherry-peach jam, blueberry-honey jam, and blueberry-apple-lemon jam. You can make a sugar-free jam by using Pomona's pectin. So far I have used grape juice concentrate and honey to sweeten my jams. I also made one with sugar just to see what the difference was in taste and texture.

<!– more –>

Cherry Pumpkin Seed Flour Muffins (sugar-free, grain-free)

We have been picking pounds of cherries from our lovely friend’s cherry tree. Every year they give us a call in July when their cherries are ready and a call in late August when their peaches are ready. Both of their trees abundantly produce the most amazing cherries and peaches. Even after picking boxes of fruit there is still more on the trees!

We pit and freeze (I use this cherry pitter) most of the cherries for our children. They all have a frozen fruit snack addiction. I normally don’t keep traditional snack foods in the house such as packaged crackers, cookies, and bars so when they are hungry they push a stool over to the freezer and help themselves to bowlfuls of frozen fruit. This is usually cherries, blueberries, raspberries, and peaches. I also freeze plums and pears in September but they don’t go for those!

I have been working on more recipes using super nutritious pumpkin seed flour. I must have had beginner’s luck with my Chocolate Pumpkin Seed Flour Cake because my other attempts have not been so successful. This flour is like none other that I have baked with. Pumpkin seed flour seems to suck up a lot of liquid! When testing recipes, I would keep adding more liquid to the batter because it seemed so thick. The end, baked result was soggy and never quite cooked all the way through.

With my previous attempts, I tested egg-free recipes. Since these weren’t so successful, I decided to use eggs again. After mixing this recipe up I thought to add more liquid because again, the batter was sooo thick! But I stopped and thought just to bake them as is, and see what happens. They came out perfect! Finally, a pumpkin seed flour recipe I can share with you.

If you would like to purchase this flour you can click here for ordering info.

Carrot Raisin Buckwheat Muffins (gluten-free, egg-free, nut-free, vegan)

Instead of reinventing the wheel, I thought I would share with you today a recipe from my cookbook (The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook). Some of you may have made these already, but for those who have not, the photos will probably inspire you to give them a try!

These muffins do not require any xanthan gum. I know this is a strange-sounding food ingredient, but it is necessary for the most part in gluten-free baking. The xanthan gum helps to hold baked goods together and give them elasticity. It also helps to retain moisture and increase mouth-feel. For those of you who are unfamiliar with xanthan gum, here is a great definition from www.wisegeek.com:

"Xanthan gum derives its name from the strain of bacteria used during the fermentation process, Xanthomonas campestris. Xanthomonas campestris is the same bacteria responsible for causing black rot to form on broccoli, cauliflower and other leafy vegetables. The bacteria form a slimy substance which acts as a natural stabilizer or thickener. The United States Department of Agriculture ran a number of experiments involving bacteria and various sugars to develop a new thickening agent similar to corn starch or guar gum. When Xanthomonas campestris was combined with corn sugar, the result was a colorless slime called xanthan gum."

I have found that most recipes which use buckwheat as the primary flour do not require xanthan gum and actually turn out better without it. Buckwheat flour forms a stringy goo when mixed with a liquid and the end product holds together surprisingly well.

Some people react to xanthan gum, while others would rather avoid it. It can cause digestive upset, especially for those who have weak digestion or bacterial imbalances in the gut. 

And now, the Carrot Buckwheat Muffin recipe from my cookbook. I didn't add raisins to these this time, my girls decided that they don't care for raisins in baked goods anymore. They happily scarfed down (along with their twin brothers and a friend) the entire batch of muffins in one day! I guess that is a testimony in itself!

Gluten-Free, Vegan Rhubarb Muffins!

Rhubarb is not difficult to come by during this season. In fact, you probably have neighbors or friends begging you to haul some away.

Rhubarb can be great in crisps, sauces, or compotes, but the tart, tangy flavor rhubarb offers to gluten-free muffins is unequivocal. These little beauties are delicious hot out of the oven spread with strawberry jam.

I tested this recipe a variety of ways but soon fell back on my old standard combo of ingredients. One of my favorite flours to bake with is sprouted sorghum flour, but you can use brown rice flour which is what I used for the photos here. I didn't have any rhubarb left when I made them with all sorghum flour, which actually worked out because my 4-year old requested that I make some "plain." You'll see below one of my 16-month old twins holding the plain sorghum version which was also made with apple juice instead of orange juice.

Chocolate Chip Banana Teff Bread

Well that's a mouthful, we could just say Banana Bread and call it good. Who needs gluten or dairy when you can have this? Here is a real life testimonial from the mouth of my almost 4-year old daughter (with bread in hand): "This bread is so good you ever made, I love chocolate chips!"

This recipe is an example of how you can modify any of the muffin or quick bread recipes in my cookbook to use different flours. If you look on page 133 of my cookbook you will see our recipe for Banana Walnut Muffins. This bread recipe is identical but the brown rice flour has been replaced with a combination of brown teff flour and sorghum flour. I didn't add the walnuts either. My girls have decided that they don't like walnuts in their bread anymore. And of course the recipe just wouldn't be complete unless I added chocolate!

Have you tried the mini-chocolate chips from Enjoy Life? They are delicious. Unfortunately they are not organic but thankfully are gluten, soy, dairy, egg, and nut free! Truly a chocolate blessing for those affected with multiple food allergies. I bought a large bag from the glutenfreemall.com a while ago. I transferred them to glass jars and stored them in my freezer.

In this recipe I used Hemp Dream hemp milk. Hemp Dream, by the manufacturers of Rice Dream and Soy Dream non-dairy milks, has a fantastic flavor and consistency. 

I used maple sugar in this recipe instead of cane sugar. I know many people like to avoid cane sugar, so I wanted to share with you what a wonderful replacement maple sugar is! Be careful though about buying just any brand. Many of them are not gluten-free because of cross-contamination during processing. The maple sugar from Authentic Foods is GF, which is what I used here. You could also use coconut sugar. See the post I did on Links to Products We Use for where to purchase.

Teff flour is so nutrient dense and works so wonderfully well in baking that I am working on finding new ways to use it. Stay tuned for more teff recipes!

In the mean time, enjoy this little jewel of a recipe.

Gluten-Free Teff Muffins

I have this recipe that I created a few months ago and I thought I would share it with you. It is one of those recipes that is so delicious and so perfect that you don't want to give it away, or share your secret. But here it is, a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free, sugar-free divinely delicious and nutritious little muffin, the Teff Breakfast Muffin.

Do you know what teff is? It is a super tiny, gluten-free Ethiopian grain that is extremely high minerals, namely iron. (Teff is probably most well-known for its appearance as a flour in the flat, pancake-like bread, injera - a staple food in Ethiopian cuisine.) Teff is also high in protein, complex carbohydrates, and fiber, making it a perfect breakfast food. Being very easy and quick to prepare, you can make your lunch or get ready for your day while the teff is simmering on the stove, it only takes about 15 minutes. 

Although teff originated in Ethiopia, it is now grown in the Snake River Valley of Idaho. The story goes, that the company's founder, Wayne Carlson, was in Ethiopia in the 1970's and spent some time as a guest at a local farm. The farmers were eager to show him their crop of teff among other grains. Then once back in the US, Wayne became fascinated at the geographic and climactic similarities of the Snake River region and Eastern Africa. He then decided to grow teff, asking Ethiopians living in the US to work on the farm, thereby reestablishing the relationship of these people to their native grain.

Whole grain teff and its flour comes in different varieties - brown or ivory, both delicious! If you cannot find organic teff flour in your local co-op or health food store you can buy it online from http://www.teffco.com/ in 5 or 25 pound bags. Bob's Red Mill also sells it but theirs is not ground as finely making it slightly gritty.

Instead of using the typical non-stick pan for baking, I use a stone muffin pan that can be found here. It is so wonderful to bake with, the muffins never stick, everything cooks evenly, and it cleans up easily.