I’ve been in the kitchen again. We are cooking almost all of our meals at home now, and often I want fresh breads/baked goods rather than crackers, pasta or rice.

Lucky for me, I have learned a lot about wheat-free, gluten-free, egg/ milk/ nut/ potato/ corn/ yeast-free cooking in the last 8 years or so. When you have done something many times, it gets easier and faster to do. I’m grateful I am no longer at the beginning of the learning curve. That was a lonely place to be.

This time I wanted to make something with 1 cup of unsweetened applesauce which was left over from making Pumpkin Soup. I decided that would be nice with buckwheat flour (buckwheat has no gluten and is not related to wheat – it is not even a true grain).

After a bunch of digging around, I did not find any existing recipe that would work with what I had in mind. I started from scratch.

It makes a good muffin, which you can eat with butter for breakfast or alone with soup (ours was blackeyed peas with cabbage). It holds together very well, even packed in a lunch bag. This is good news for a non-wheat baked item.

Use all of the spices or none. I used a shake or two of nutmeg and allspice, and not as much sugar, when I wanted a cornbread substitute of sorts.  When I make these for breakfast or dessert, I use all the spices here and a full cup of sugar. It makes a better crusty texture on the top, and perhaps stands alone in flavor a bit better.

I am looking forward to breakfast. I think I will break up a few muffins in a bowl, add some fruit (peaches would be great, but I’ll go with dark cherries or strawberries) and top that with some home-whipped cream sweetened with brown sugar. YUM!

Applesauce-Buckwheat Muffins

2-1/2 c Buckwheat Flour (I used Arrowhead Mills, or try Hodgson Mills.
Bob’s Red Mill is a different texture and will not work the same.)

2/3 to 1 c Brown Sugar (1 cup makes better crust, definitely sweeter)

1 Tbsp Flaxseed Meal (I used Bob’s Red Mill)
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/8 tsp cream of tartar, or Emergen-C powder, or unbuffered Vitamin C powder

Optional (more protein) 2 Tbsp Powdered Goat’s Milk
– (or powdered Cow/Dairy milk if not allergic, or use soy milk rather than water)
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1/8 tsp Allspice

Optional Spices:
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Ginger
1 small dash/shake of ground Cloves

1/4 c Oil (I use olive)
1 c Applesauce, unsweetened
1 c water

Preheat oven to 375F. Prepare muffin pan (cupcake-sized, about 1/2 c each) with oil and a light dusting of buckwheat or rice flour.

Place all dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Blend with wire whisk until mixed well (there will be brown sugar lumps, this is OK)

Add wet ingredients and mix carefully, do not mix any longer than necessary to get all ingredients wet. Let it stand for a minute or two. It will be rather sticky and not as wet as normal cake batter is, by far (more like stiff egg whites, perhaps). This is due to the flaxseed meal substituting for eggs.

Distribute batter into 12 equal portions in the pan. They will be approximately full to the brim.

Place in oven for 15-25 minutes. Mine took 20 minutes and a toothpick in the center pulled out clean but a tiny bit sticky to the touch.

Cool about 5 minutes, then turn baked items out of pan and continue to cool on wire rack.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 11:44 pmand is filed under Food, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.