My first Gluten Free Baking Adventure: Banana Oat Muffins

As per my 4 simple goals before 2013, I have really looked into going Gluten Free. While I may not be ready to 100% commit I make sure that 75% of my diet is gluten free. 

I posted a Facebook status about having a GF recipe swap and my Sister-in-law's friend Mindy directed me to Amy Green's website and I immediately bought her cookbook. You can check her out at Simply Sugar & Gluten Free for the cookbook and some of her recipes. 

Well, I decided that the best place to start for me was breakfast, because I make better choices when I start with a good breakfast! Luckily Amy Green has a ton of amazing muffin recipes that seem simple enough. So as my first Gluten & Sugar Free Project I chose the Banana Oat Muffins. 

Before I go into the recipe, I will share Amy's 'basic flour blend' which shows up for most of the 

Gluten Free Baking. 

To substitute white flour, the Basic Flour Blend is: 

4 cups garbanzo-flava bean flour 

4 cups sorghum flour 

2 cups potato starch 

1 1/3 cups tapioca starch 

Mix well, store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. 

(you will find out most of these ingredients & leftovers will have to be refrigerated, so clean out the fridge before going forward). A lot of these can be found at the local health food and specialty stores as well as the supermarket. I did discover VitaCost which has a lot of these specialty ingredients at a discounted price - which is super helpful!

Now: Banana Oat Muffins 

Ingredients for 12 Muffins:

3/4 cups low fat milk

1 cup gluten-free rolled oats

1 large ripe banana 

1/2 cup agave nectar 

2 large eggs (lightly beaten)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

1 1/4 cups basic flour blend 

2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum 

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, or canola oil 

(it is not all there, but I have limited counter space)

So, turn on that oven to 400 degrees while you set up the counter to make it nice and warm for you. The best part of baking in the fall is your kitchen gets nice and toasty! I chose to line my muffin tin with pretty cupcake liners and I got started. 

Place the oats into a medium size bowl and mix in the milk. 

In a smaller bowl mash your banana with a fork and leave some chunks. 

Whisk the Agave, eggs & vanilla into the mashed banana 

and then combine with the oats and set aside to soak 

In a large bowel whisk together all of the dry ingredients (this will be the bowl everything gets combined, so if you have a Kitchen Aid like me, use the Kitchen Aid bowl) 

Add the butter or oil to the wet ingredients and put the soaking oats into the dry ingredients 

Mix on low for about a minuet until just blended 

You will know it is combined when this is the texture: 

Then, evenly distribute the batter into your muffin tin 

Then bake for 12-15 minuets 

If you are like me there is a huge mess in your path, like while making these one of my glass contained spices fell from the cabinet shattering leaving me to clean it up while the oats were soaking. I cannot tell you if this was a good thing, but the muffins are super moist so I would suggest letting them soak for 5 minuets. I actually cleaned the whole counter, unloaded and loaded the dishwasher all in the time this was baking, and they were just about ready when I was finished setting up the cooling rack lined with paper towels. 

When you can insert a toothpick and it comes out clean into any of the muffins, they are finished! Mine took 13 minuets. Let cool in the tin for 5 minuets before moving them to the cooling rack

What made me happy was the muffins smelt like my famous Hummingbird cake. The Hummingbird cake is a heavy, flavorful cake that I love to make. But is is dreadfully not gluten or sugar free, and when the batter (yes I tasted!) and the aroma mirrored the cake I got extremely excited. 

After cooled, enjoy!

I made these muffins for breakfast purposed, so to store them, I wrapped each individual one and put them in the freezer, I have breakfast for the whole week!

My husband and I really enjoyed them, you do not really miss the sugar and the oats make the muffins very filling. Our dog Annie also really loved them, she took our wrappers out of the garbage right in front of us! I think I will make Amy Green's Blueberry Muffins next - I will let you know how that goes!

-Stephanie