Monday, September 7, 2009

Banana Crumb Muffins


My sister in law and I were bored and she had some very ripe bananas. So she decided to make banana muffins, but she didn't have anything to make the bananas with except for bananas. So I told her that she could use my ingredients if she made the muffins GF. So she went onto allrecipes.com to find a recipe. She was raving about these banana crumb muffins that she had used in the past.  Once she found a recipe similar to what she had used before, I converted it to make it GF/DF. The recipe is below. We ate on these for a couple of days and I went ahead and froze the leftovers. 

I love to make a big batch of muffins and freeze them. This is a super easy breakfast choice for the morning that keeps me full until lunchtime. I usually couple it with a latte that I make at work. 

  • 1 1/2 cups GF Flour Mix (My flour mix contains sorghum flour, potato starch, brown rice flour, white rice flour, tapioca starch, corn starch and xanthan gum)
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3 mashed bananas
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 cup earth balance butter, melted
  • 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons GF flour mix
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon earth balance butter

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line muffin tin with muffin papers

  • In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups GF flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

  • In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.

  • Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Trader Joes GF pancake mix


I recently took a trip to Trader Joes. This store is one of my favorites. Not only do they have a huge gluten free product list but they also are really affordable. The only location that is accessible via the subway is around Union Store. This location is one hour from my apartment. I have to do a lot of lugging, but this store is definitely worth it. 

During my most recent trip, I picked up a bag of gluten free pancake mix. Bear in mind, I am not a big pancake fan. I really like waffles, but do not have a waffle maker, so I settled on pancakes. These were really easy to make. I made a big batch so that I could freeze them for later. They cooked up really fast and I was pleasantly surprised at how good they were. I ate three with Aunt Jemima maple syrup. For the remainder of the pancakes, I let them cool and stored them in the freezer in a zip lock freezer bag. 

When I ate one of the left over pancakes after defrosting them in the microwave, it still tasted good, but did have a gluten free aftertaste. It had the gritty, rice flour taste. I will still eat these, but it is definitely better right after cooking. I believe I will pick up another bag on my next trip to TJs.