hello there,
Yesterday morning I woke up far earlier than was necessary, and thought to myself,
"wow, it's been almost two years since I've eaten a blueberry muffin, I'm gonna make some blueberry muffins".
*goes online and finds zero recipes for gluten free, grain free, egg free, dairy free, banana free muffins*
And so I decided,
"I'm going to make my own blueberry muffin recipe"
So I jumped out of bed and headed to the kitchen.
First step: start cooking some quinoa. I've learned over the last year that cooked quinoa makes for a fantastic and moist baking replacement (if you're into baking that doesn't rise in the oven that is...). Then I thought to myself,
"OH! I should blog about this, this is totally the type of thing people blog about"
*grabs camera and takes a picture of seeds boiling in water*
Things were getting wild.
After grabbing a bowl full of frozen blueberries from the deep freeze I made my way to the pantry to scope out what potentially usefulless ingredients I could use. Pecans? Oh sure, why not. Coconut flour? Ya, it's probably a good idea to put some form of flour in baking. Gluten Free Rolled Oats? Take it out, just in case.
Back to the kitchen.
Butter? Duh, all good baking requires butter. Coconut milk? Well I'm like 90% sure you usually put milk in muffins sooo... check! Maple Syrup? The answer is always just, YES.
Let the baking begin! Made the odds be ever in your favor. Hunger Games Level: "Maren versus Muffins".
While the quinoa was cooking (now if you don't know how to cook quinoa it's easy; 2 parts water to 1 part quinoa, bring water to boil, add quinoa, bring temperature to a simmer) I took to the trusty kitchen aid, where after microwaving the frozen butter I beat it up in the mixer till it was soft and very much not frozen anymore (now I'm not entirely sure where the jury stands on butter as a dairy product, for the purpose of these muffins I have decided butter is not a dairy product. However if this doesn't coincide with your personal beliefs I suggest making up your own recipe because as far as I'm concerned the only thing worse than gluten, grain, dairy, egg, sugar, banana free muffins is gluten, grain, dairy, egg, sugar, banana, and butter free muffins). Then I added the milk and maple syrup. Really I should have super precise measurements but to be honest, I just did what felt right. Next I added the coconut flour, and in hindsight, I'm not entirely sure why I did because honestly I put so little in, I'm not sure if it had any effect on the muffins what so ever. Then I mixed everything again. I'm no professional baker but I think theres like a limit to how many times you beat batter and I think I had already exceeded it. Next I added baking soda and baking flour. Why you ask? Well again, I'm not too sure, but it just seemed like something you always add to baking and while I hadn't really used any flour and wasn't sure what I was expecting the baking soda and powder to assist rise, I added it anyway. Then I added a dash of salt. Now, this is optional, I did it because for some reason every single recipe known to humans includes "a dash of salt" (at least), regardless of the fact that if you don't add the "dash of salt" your baking tastes absolutely no different than if you had added it. But nonetheless, I added "a dash of salt".
*Beat it again*
Now I was pretty content with how things were going and looking. My quinoa was finally done cooking and the rest of my batter was ready (or as ready as this made up concoction was going to be). I added the cooked quinoa to the batter and yep, you guessed it, I beat it again. Now came the time to add the blueberries and pecans. I had previously smashed the pecans while I was waiting for the quinoa so they were ready to go. Next I added the blueberries. NOW, here's an important little life hack for you all. If you add blueberries to cooked quinoa or if you add frozen blueberries to batter and then beat them (okay if you add any fruit to batter and beat it in a mixer) it will turn your batter blue. Spoiler Alert: blue batter turns slight grey when you cook it... So i suggest letting your quinoa cool, using fresh blueberries, and stirring with a spatula as opposed to beating if you don't want to have blue batter. Unless of course you're into the whole mutilation, murder, and cannibalizing of smurfs, then, by all means, mix away!
I felt that at this point my batter was ready. I filled the muffin tins with little muffin liners, I had preheated the oven to 375 degrees, and I filled my muffin tins just to the top of the muffin liner, keeping in mind my muffins were not going to rise. I sprinkled a little oats and sugar on the top of the muffins for aesthetic effects (again, keeping with the trend, there was no formal reasoning behind this, I just did it). Then I popped them in the oven and let the waiting game begin. Because I didn't really know what I was waiting for I ended up checking on the muffins basically every five minutes. They ended up staying in there for about 30 minutes, but to be honestly I can't entirely remember how long they were in the oven for. Definitely somewhere within that 20-30 minute mark. Now keep in mind, when you're cooking with quinoa it doesn't pass the toothpick test because it's too moist. So just follow your heart, maybe pray about it a little bit.
Now I'll be honest, I get about 95% of my recipes online from blogs. They're easy to find and free. However, they all follow this really weird framework which includes multiple fancy photos of the exact same things from different angles, staged in a way which makes you wondering if that's how people actually eat their food. And then intertwined within these fancy photos is a long write up about the food and perhaps how the flavours were first brought together while vacationing in Tuscany and it was the most genius thing to grace their oral pallet since before Martha Stewart went to prison so my, oh my, they just had to tell us all about it. But really what you want is the recipe and nothing else so, like me, you just scroll down through what feels like an infinite number of photos just to get to said recipe only to find out it's absolutely not what you were wanted. Well, if that's happened to you before then I apologize cause it's probably happing again. Don't worry. The muffins are edible. Okay, I need to stop calling them muffins. "Crumbly Pucks" is probably a better term. They don't taste great but they don't taste terrible. If you have as many allergies as I do, these muffins are probably about as good as it's going to get. So without further adieu here is my recipe for Gluten Free, Grain Free, Egg Free, Sugar Free, Banana Free, With Butter, Blueberry Pecan Muffins:
Oven Temp: 375
Makes: 2 dozen muffins (that are the size of a WagonWheel) (the treat not an actual wagon wheel)
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 20-30 minutes
Ingredients:
3 cups Cooked Quinoa (I think next time I'll just do 2)
1 cup Butter
3 tablespoons Maple Syrup (I think next time I'll add 4)
1/4 cup Coconut Milk (I think next time I'll add 1/3 or 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup Coconut Flour (I think next time I'll add 1 cup)
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
"Dash Of Salt"
Blueberries (don't know how much)
Crushed Pecans (again, don't know how much)
To Prepare:
reread my entire blog post cause I pretty much explain it all there, but to summarize;
Beat all the ingredients together.
-m.o
