Gluten-Free Lemon Blueberry Muffins
Will you look at these? They’re gluten free. I know!
I’m one of the lucky ones – one who can eat wheat and other gluten-y grains without my innards ganging up on me and holding a mutiny. But because there are so many who can’t, and because I was teaching a class on cooking for kids with allergies to a group of day care cooks, I wanted to tread into the waters of gluten-free baking. I was unsure of myself, and so looked to Shauna as a guide – she has navigated her way through I don’t know how many combinations of flours to produce everything from fluffy pancakes to flaky pastry without gluten, and she’s a brilliant writer besides. She loves food as passionately as anyone I know, not just settling for the gluten-free. I have written her blog address on I don’t know how many scraps of paper and napkins for people who come to me wanting to know what to do for loved ones who have just discovered they can’t have gluten. She even put together an indispensable guide to gluten-free flours.
And to be honest, I eat too much wheat myself. I like the idea that I can make a batch of muffins without using wheat flour if I want to, and then actually want to eat them. As you can see, W was quite enamoured with them too. It’s a great basic recipe to which you could add any type of berry or chopped fruit – peaches, plums, apricots, apples, pears… whatever you like in your muffin.
Gluten-Free Lemon Blueberry Muffins
adapted from Gluten Free Girl (a must-read for those with gluten allergies – and she has a book! and another on the way!) to use the gluten-free blend – she calls for a cup each of sorghum flour, white rice flour and tapioca flour. I didn’t see sorghum flour at Community, and so tried their gluten-free blend (rice, tapioca and xanthan gum, I believe?), which worked swimmingly.
10 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 cup sugar
grated zest of a lemon
2 large eggs
3 cups gluten-free flour blend (or 1 cup sweet white sorghum flour, 1 cup white rice flour and 1 cup tapioca flour)
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ cups plain yogurt
1 cup fresh or frozen (don’t thaw them) blueberries, raspberries, Saskatoon berries, blackberries.. or diced peaches, pears, apples, whatever you have that you want in your muffinsugar, for sprinkling
Preheat the oven to 375F.
In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest together with a spatula. (If you beat the mixture for awhile with an electric mixer, the muffins will not rise – stick to doing it by hand.) Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each.
Add a cup of the flour along with the baking powder, soda and salt, and mix well. Add half the yogurt and stir until combined, then another third of the flour, the rest of the yogurt and the rest of the flour. Stir in the berries, or whatever fruit you want to use.
Divide the batter among muffin tins that have been lined with paper liners or sprayed with nonstick spray, filling them. (You’ll get about 18-20 muffins.) Sprinkle the tops with sugar and bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden and springy to the touch.
Makes about 1 1/2 dozen muffins.
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