GF Tips: Blueberry Muffins

When I was a kid, the first thing I learned to make on my own was Blueberry Muffins from a Betty Crocker box-mix. Well, those box-mixes are not an option now, and even if a GF mix exists, it's almost certainly cheaper to make the muffins from scratch. So here's how I adapted a blueberry muffin recipe out of Betty Crocker's New Cookbook. In fact, I bought the recipe book specifically for the blueberry muffin recipe, as I hadn't found anything useful in my GF cookbooks. Looks like it's out of print now, but there's likely to be a new edition that's comparable. Anyway, recipe with modifications below the fold. Apologies to IE users, but the modifications will look like they're mixed in with the recipe, as for some odd reason, my inset boxes don't work on IE.

1 cup milk
I've used goat's milk, soy milk, even coconut milk with no problems
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Be brave. Go with a full teaspoon
1 large egg
I use two eggs, for the usual reasons: protein, binding, rise
2 cups flour
Bette Hagman's Featherlight Rice Mix works well, as does 4-flour bean mix, once you find a bean flour you can stand. Honestly, with quick breads, as long as you don't make the mix too heavy (e.g. all rice flour), it will probably work.
1/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
Why can't we just call a tablespoon a tablespoon, hmmm?
1/2 teaspoon salt
As usual, I've decreased the salt a bit. It's a matter of taste in a recipe like this, but I use 1/4 teaspoon.
ADD: 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 cup blueberries
Recipe says "canned" or "fresh", but I've used frozen without incident. Try to find small ones if you can. The big ones (maybe a half-inch in diameter) tend to sink to the bottom of the muffin. Oh, and this time as I was a bit short of blueberries, I threw in some leftover frozen raspberries. Turned out great

Method: Heat oven to 400°F. Grease muffin cups (or line with paper baking cups). Mix dry ingredients, except sugar, in a separate bowl. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs*. Add milk, oil and sugar and continue to beat. Add dry ingredients. Mix just until moistened; do not overmix. Fold in blueberries. Divide batter evenly among the muffins cups**. Bake 20-25 minutes.

*I tend to put the eggs into my stand mixer and let it beat the heck out of them for 5-10 minutes. This generally results in a fluffier end product.

**Try using a 1/4 c or 1/3 c measure, and use a flexible spatula to transfer the batter into the muffin cup. I find this works well for getting the muffins to be close to the same size.



At any rate, for quickbreads it usually doesn't take much to make them turn out well and be GF. The main key is having a flour mix that's not too heavy, and adding xanthan gum, and maybe an extra egg.


GF Tips Index