Gluten Free Pineapple Carrot Muffins

If you've been following my recent experiments in baking with millet flour, you may also enjoy this recipe.  This is my favourite of the 3 recipes I've made with millet flour so far.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 millet flour (I used Bob Red Mills brand but you may have another brand where you live)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking power
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger (fresh is always nice but I used powdered ginger this time)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 ripe banana
• 1 cup crushed or chopped pineapple (I used a can of pineapple tidbits)
• 2 cups finely grated carrots (next time I will use half zucchini and half carrots)

Directions 

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Combine the mashed banana with the pineapple, grated carrot, ginger, cinnamon, and sugar in a large mixing bowl.  I used a Kitchen-Aid mixer but you can also just combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix them with a wooden spoon.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder and baking soda,  then fold it into your wet mixture.  The batter will be very moist.

Pour into the muffin tin of your choice. I used my silicone muffin tin. When you use silicon muffin tins you must place them on a flat cookie sheet or other flat pan when putting them in the oven.

Bake 20-25 minutes. I baked 9 regular to large sized muffins with this recipe.

Notes:  Let the muffins cool before removing from the pan otherwise they will fall apart.

I find when using the silicone tin, the muffins are always very moist at the bottom, almost like pudding. Today's muffins were no exception.

These muffins are moist and tasty though a bit too sweet for my liking. Next time I will experiment a bit perhaps using only half of the sugar or substituting half of the shredded carrots with half shredded zucchini. I won't omit the banana because that whips up into a nice frothy, liquid mixture in which to mix the dry ingredients.

 

Here is a link to a site extolling the virtues of millet flour.   These days many people are turning to millet flour because it contains no gluten.  But beware.  Millet contains goitrogens, a substance that suppresses the thryoid activity and can cause goiter.

I'm joining up with the lovely Hannapat for her Weekly Bake.
Please click on the photo above to join in.

This concludes my experimentation with millet flour.  I will probably use again in future as I do a lot of baking over the winter months. I will be looking to use it in loaf bread too.
Thank you for following along.

Butterscotch - Oatmeal - Millet Cookies

Last week I made a millet-5 grain cereal loaf. This week I'm trying some cookies.

Ingredients

• 2 cups rolled oats

• 1 cup millet flour (Bob’s Red Mill brand)

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ½ cup brown sugar

• ½ cup butterscotch

• ½ finely chopped almonds

• ¼ oil or shortening

• 4 tablespoons milk

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix all ingredients together in a mixing bowl adding the wet ingredients last.  Once thoroughly mixed, drop dough by small spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. 

If you are using butter or margarine as your shortening, you can blend it together first with your sugar and milk before adding all the dry ingredients.  If you bake at all you already know this but someone who is new to baking won't necessarily know.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until done. Gently remove cookies from the sheet with a egg flipper. 

This recipe makes about 32 cookies formed with a teaspoon. 

These cookies break apart easily if you are not careful.  I also found them quite sweet but they have a good crunch to them which I like.  If you don't like butterscotch chips you can also substitute chocolate chips or alternate making both kinds.  I got a "thumbs up" on these cookies.

I'm joining the lovely Hannapat for the Weekly Bake. Click on the photo to join in!

Millet & 5 Grain Cereal Loaf

Hello friends,

Life continues to move along at a quick clip here on the west coast of Canada. I've been catching up to a lot of things and enjoying as much as I can.

A friend and I recently went to the newly released movie "12 Years a Slave". It is a heartbreaking story about a man, Solomon Northrup, a free black man who was captured and sold into slavery for 12 long years.  After he was freed and reunited with his wife and children, he wrote the story of his capture and enslavement and the movie is based on this first hand account.  It is not a pretty movie in terms of it's content but well worth watching for a glimpse into our sordid past as North Americans.

Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

George Santayana 

The idealist in me hopes that when we learn from our past mistakes we are less likely to repeat them. I know this isn't always true but one can have positive hopes for the future.  Slavery still goes on today (sex slaves, child labourers and others) and it is something we must be alert to and try to stamp out.

On a lighter note, I've been busily crafting and making crocheted hexagons for an afghan I'm making for Christmas. I'm also thinking of several small gifts for different people which I can make in a short time since my 3 larger gifts are taking quite a while to make. I will be making some crocheted snowflake ornaments for a few people and also some dishcloths. I started on 2 of my quilts back in September but haven't finished them off yet. I hope to do that after I've got my hexagons finished.

I haven't been baking for a long while, partly for health reasons and partly because I usually bake in the winter months when we have cool temperatures.  Well the cooler weather has definitely arrived so I've been getting the urge to bake.  I have had a bag of millet flour (Bob's Red Mill brand) that I purchased awhile back and wanted to use.  I have been experimenting with it.

Click here to learn more about millet flour. I know a number of people who eat gluten-free but so far none of them have mentioned millet flour. Instead they tend to use rice flour. When I've travelled to Kenya, I've eaten millet porridge which is rather tasty. Millet is high in antioxidants and can be helpful in controlling diabetes and inflammation. I think we will be hearing about and seeing a lot more millet flour on the North American grocery shelves in the not too distant future. Hopefully that means the price of it will also come down.  One of my pet peeves is how expensive everything is in Canada when it is "new" on the shelves and it then becomes a trendy or "yuppie" product which is not so accessible to the masses.

I baked a couple of items based on the ingredients I had on hand. I will post the results for the next 3 Sundays (including today).  I don't think this recipe is gluten free because the 5 grain cereals sometimes have wheat in them. I've long thrown out my bag so I can't be precise on the ingredients so please adapt as you need to if you are gluten intolerant.

This isn't like a regular loaf of bread. This is more like a corn meal bread type of consistency but isn't sweet. Sorry for the blurred photo but the night lighting isn't good in my home.

Ingredients

1 cup millet flour

1 1/4 cups of 5 grain cereal (use food processor to grind medium fine)

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt 

2 large eggs

3 tablespoons oil

1 cup milk

Directions

 
Preheat oven to 400 Fahrenheit.

Oil a loaf pan.
Sift all dry ingredients together. 

Beat eggs and add oil and milk.  Stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Do not over mix. Bake until golden brown.  

In my oven which is a little slow, it took 35 minutes to bake this loaf. You'll need to experiment with your oven.  I'd recommend starting with 20 minutes and increase the time as needed.

This loaf is a bit like corn bread without the sweetener.  Feel free to add a bit of sweetener if you prefer.

I had a slice with butter after cooling.  Yum!

I had better sign out now and carry on with my crafting. I've got so much to do to be ready in time for Christmas.  For that reason I'm always so thankful that we celebrate Thanksgiving in October where I live.

I'll be around to visit your blogs when I have a few moments in between crocheting.

I'm joining up with the lovely Hannapat at the Weekly Bake (click on the photo above).

                                                                Have a wonderful week!