Gluten free Brownie Muffins

As you might know, this is the trial where I made a gluten free version of brownies, but without the xanthan gum. We made them using a muffin pan. Sonny boy loved these, so did I. To bite into the crust and then into the soft centre. It was something like a different version of Eclairs! :D
Hubby, he's not a brownie fan. But, the reason could have been the not so perfect results. The long baking time I used made the outer cover dry out a bit and I had to increase the baking time as the centre was still much too soft after 30 minutes. And maybe it was the lack of xanthan gum needed to replace the absence of wheat flour. I'm not sure. So, you see this is not a perfect result. I do plan to make them again and tell you about the improvements. But, anyways they tasted wonderful!

And here is the recipe:

Gluten free Brownie Muffins

I used a recipe from Wiki (here).

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Baking time: 25-35 minutes
Baking temperature: 160-170 °C (convection: 150°C)


Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter (60 g)
1 cup sugar (200 g)
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract -I used bourbon vanilla extract
2 eggs -I used 1/2 cup or 100 g silken tofu, whipped smooth with a hand blender
1/3 cup all purpose flour (40 g )- I used 30 g rice flour and 10 g cornstarch
6 tbsp cocoa powder (40 g)
1/4 tsp salt (a pinch) -I used lesser than 1/4 tsp
1 cup whole nuts of choice, chopped or whole, like walnuts or hazelnuts or pecans

Method:

• melt butter in a pot, add sugar, vanilla extract and eggs (or whipped silken tofu) and whip everything together
• add flour(s) and cocoa powder (preferably sieved, to prevent clumps)
• and stir to make a creamy paste
• add the nuts, chopped or whole, and mix
  
• spread on a small baking pan - I used a muffin pan
  
• bake at 160-170 °C (convection: 150°C) for 25 - 35 minutes (check after 25 minutes) - I had to bake for 40 minutes

NOTE: The inside was very soft and gooey and the outside a bit dry. Although I'm told that this is how a brownie normally is, I'm not sure if this was an optimal result. Maybe I need to add xanthan gum or something similar to compensate for the wheat flour.

Rishab and I enjoyed the last bit of it yesterday and it was pure pleasure for both of us. So, I thought I might as well publish these not-so-perfect but yummy recipe, even though I had initially planned to bake it again and then publish it. As you can see I also made a coating of chocolate icing to compensate for the dryness, which worked wonders....

Chocolate muffins

I feel like I have made them hundreds of times. Whenever we have friends over, which usually means Rishab's friends rather than ours, I practically toss everything together and put them in the oven to bake ready while I finish up the rest of things before we expect our guests. Most of the time it is last minute preparations. Muffins are so easy to make, require small amounts of everything, can even be made without eggs, easily, and are ready so fast, in about 40 to 50 minutes if you are quick and use a simple recipe like this one.
Chocolate muffins, we love them and they are my son's favorites. Well... now that I think of it, it isn't that easy to decide, but he never says no to chocolate in any form! Maybe also because he does not get it so often. I made them quite spontaneously and found all the ingredients I needed for that, most important of it: chocolate of course!

Chocolate Muffins
(Basic recipe)

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 25- 30 minutes

Dry Ingredients:
250 g (10 oz) all purpose flour
3 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
50 -60 g (1 1/2 -2 oz) dessicated coconut, grated (optional)

Filling:
12 large or 24 smaller pieces of any type of chocolate like chocolate chips, 6 bountys - halved, chocolate filled with whole hazelnuts, or with raisins and nuts or with almonds, or even chocolate with biscuits

Wet Ingredients:
3 tbsp apple puree/ yoghurt (instead of 1 egg)
200 g yoghurt
75 ml sunflower oil
125 g sugar
1 envelop Bourbon vanilla sugar (or use a teaspoon of vanilla extract)

Glaze:
1 packet (200 g ) chocolate couverture/icing, melted in a water bath or double boiler on low medium heat

Method:

• Mix the dry ingredients evenly in a bowl
  
• add the chocolate pieces now or later, just before pouring the batter into the muffin tin
  
• In a large bowl stir the wet ingredients together for short
• Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix everything for short with a spoon, just to make everything wet
• DO NOT STIR anymore!
• Quickly spoon the batter into the muffin tins, if the chocolate is not already inside, add the pieces into each of the muffin moulds
  
• And bake at 165 °C in convection oven (175 °C electric) for 25-30 minutes
• Check with a knife after 25 minutes if they need to be baked further or not.
• In the meantime melt the chocolate couverture/icing and dip the muffins into it by turning them upside down and
  
• place them on a plate to cool down or serve warm
  
• If desired, you can always serve these with some whipped cream or chocolate sauce instead of the couverture

I made these muffins with bounty chocolates. I just halved them and tucked each piece into each muffin pan for the 6 muffins I made. I used to make 12 muffins, but then I realised that you end up collecting too many and eating them all away is doing no good to our healths, so I started making them with half the quantity and it works out great! And at the end you are left with no muffins anymore either...... to my relief!
It is wonderful to bite into these chocolaty
Can you get bored of these muffins? Nooooo...........!! Not of course! Not us.

I'm sending this over to the Event Food in colours: Brown, this months colour, at Sunshinemom's Tongueticklers.


And now about one more thing which is special. I never realised what was happening until I saw this article in The Daily Telegraph. I was contacted by someone to give my views to some questions three days before she was supposed to publish her article. I somehow felt like answering the questionnaire, but due to time stress wrote in quick short answers, but to the point. And then the whole thing was forgotten. And then I got an email from the author sending me this link. I was a pleasantly surprised. Hubby dear, who does not care so much about my blogging, when he heard about it on phone while I had called him up for some other matters, even he was happy and said "and you are telling this to me so casually!" I was totally taken aback by his response and it actually made me feel good. Well, food blogging is in trend, so they are being talked about in the media. But, it was fun and somewhat exciting too to see my name and that of my blog in the newspapers!

I'm sending these muffin to Madhuram's Egg replacement event: pureed fruits taking place between 18th November and 31 December 2008.

Sunny Corn muffins !

I think, I'm not overdoing it when I say these were the best muffins I ever made and ate.
The combination of corn and coconut made this simple recipe into something so special!

I dedicate this recipe to my dear Advik, my nephew, who needs a gluten- and dairy free diet.
He was about 7 months old when I first met him. He was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. So sweet and chubby with large black eyes. It was so much fun playing with him. All you had to do was stand in front of him and do something funny or stupid and he would start giggling, moving his whole body with excitement! And I still remember so well, when I would sing him a lullaby, instead of falling asleep he would look startled with wide eyes and lift up his head to listen! So, I usually had to stop singing, lest I may make him totally awake. :)
But, time flies and he is going to be 7 now. I was so surprised last month to realise that he is already so old. "Seven!", I thought. And since about three years he is on this diet and it has not been easy for his mom, my sister, to take on this challange, which it still proves to be for her, when you have to exclude anything from their daily diet plan which does not clearly indicate to be or is not obviously diary- and gluten free.
Since we live so far apart, living on two different continents, across the ocean, I wanted to be a part of it in some way and I thought of making and finding recipes which are gluten and dairy free. So, from now onwards, every now and then, you will see such recipes without gluten and dairy on my blog. Thanks to the internet and the blogging trend, I already have a couple of good sources for such recipes. And I would surely appreciate, if you have tips for me in this regard.

So, here goes the recipe of these mouthwatering and flavourful corn muffins:

Preparation time: 45 minutes
Baking time: 20 minutes (in preheated oven)
Oven temp.: 160°C convection (180°C electric)
Makes 6 muffins
(To make 12, double the quantities)


Ingredients:

Wet ingredients:
125 ml hot milk (soya milk)
1 tbsp vinegar (any variety)
80 g cornmeal (gluten-free)
1 egg (optionally correction: 3 tbsp applesauce)
60 g sugar
60 ml oil

Dry ingredients:
60 g cornstarch(or any gluten-free edible starch)
2 tsp cream of tartar baking powder (56% cream of tartar; gluten-free)
50 g grated dessicated coconut
50 g raisins
50 g dried soft apricots, quartered

Method:

• Soak the corn meal in hot milk in a large bowl for half an hour, keeping it warm
• In the mean time mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and set aside
• Place muffin liners in the muffin tins
• Preheat convection oven to 160 °C (electric : 180°C)
  
• Add the rest of the wet ingredients and stir shortly just to mix, don't mix for long!
• Add the dry ingredients and mix quickly just to wet all the ingredients
  
• Fill the muffin tins with the batter using a tablespoon and place in the preheated oven
• Bake for 20 minutes, check if baked through and then take out immediately
• Don't leave in the oven for too long!

Note: To make it eggless, replace the quantity of egg with applesauce, roughly 3 tbsp for each egg. This is a standard procedure with wheat muffins. I haven't tried it with these ones.

They are best eaten when still warm. I did not use any flavouring agents like vanilla or any other aroma, as the aroma of coconut and the combination with corn made it unnecessary.
You can take any filling you want. Fresh fruits like apricots, peeches or even dried plums would be great.
Although, on the next day, I just poured one or two tbsp water over them and microwaved them for 15 secons for each muffin and they were great to eat! The reason they get too dry is the cornmeal which does not swell enough and dries up with time. Have to optimise it a little bit more with regard to the soaking of the cornmeal. Maybe I should let the cornmeal soak in the hot milk on the stove and add more milk maybe next time.
Hubby, like so often, refused to eat it initially, looking very sceptically "corn muffins...?!". But, I know him better now, after I offered a small piece of the hot muffin to him, he was all for it ("Ya, gib mal her!" translates to something like: yeah, give me one!) and ate two of these straight away! :D

Mini Mango Almond Cake and Muffins

This sunday, I had a nice big mango lying in my fruit basket on my kitchen window which looked quite ripe now, just waiting to be eaten. Initially I had thought of combining it with strawberries and offering it as a dessert along with quarkspeise (a German curd-preparation made with the addition of sugar and whippedcream and eaten with fruits), but then Rishab and Chonu got to eat the strawberries as a late morning snack already.
So, I decided upon a mango muffin recipe as an afternoon dessert. This is the first time that I used a mango in muffins. And I must say, it was so tasty that it did not even need any sugar or chocolate icing on top. It tasted just soooooo good!Since when I make muffins, my son is also always there to "help" me, as he always insists upon it to which i cannot say no! And now that he recently got his own baking set of baking tins, cookie cutters and a rolling pin. He always wants to use whatever he can. So, we put a part of the muffin dough into a small cake tin too. Which looked so beautiful that I actually decided upon sending it to this months Monthy mingle: Mango Mania taking place at Meeta's blog. I don't think we will win the prize after seeing such tempting recipes there, but it is worth the mingle!
This is the same recipe as I have given in my basic muffin recipe . But I will write it down once again here.

Preparation time: 25 minutes
Baking time: 25- 30 minutes

Dry Ingredients:
250 g all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
50 -60 g (1 1/2 -2 oz) chopped almonds

Wet Ingredients:
1 egg
200 g yoghurt
75 ml sunflower oil
125 g sugar
1 envelop buorbon vanilla sugar (or use a teaspoon of vanilla extract)
200 g (1 large) mango, diced; keep a few pieces aside for decoration


Method:

• Mix the dry ingredients evenly
• In a large bowl stir, except for the mango, the wet ingredients together for short
• Add the mango and the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix everything for short with a spoon, just to make everything wet
• DO NOT STIR anymore!
• Quickly spoon the batter into the muffin tins and bake at 165 °C in convection oven (175 °C electric) for 25-30 minutes
• Check with a knife after 25 minutes if they need to be baked further or not.
• Serve warm
• If desired, you can always serve these with some whipped cream or chocolate sauce and a few pieces of fresh mango

So, this is my entry to Meeta's Monthy Mingle: Mango Mania . A very spontaneous decision, as I think my son and I have done a good job at making these yummy muffins. And don't they look beautiful! :)

Rhabarb Pineapple muffins

I made them like in the basic muffin recipe when Rishab's friend Sarah came to visit him along with her 1 year old brother Jonas.

The only thing to note:
I used 150 g each of rhabarb and fresh pineapple and mixed the rhabarb and pineapple pieces with the flour and then added it to the yoghurt batter. And decorated it with a chocolate couverture and a piece of pineapple.

Muffins

Once I got a lovely birthday present from a friend of mine. A muffin tin with a muffin recipe book. Since then, and especially because of my son, I've been baking endless number of muffins now. They so pratical as they are really quick, need less time to prepare and less time to bake, and very easy to make. I do not look in my recipe book anymore!

This is the quickest recipe I know of when you want to make something sweet spontaneously and quickly for teatime for guests.

You need a muffin tin for 12 muffins, two deep bowls, one whisk, one spoon, spoon measures (tsp., tbsp.) and a kitchen scale.

Time: 20-30 minutes for preparation and 20-25 minutes for baking.
Basic recipe:
Preheat oven to 180°C [356°F] (see below).

Mix in a large bowl:
250g (8 oz) wheat flour (use any kinds, whole wheat, or a mixture),
2 1/2 tsp baking powder,
1/2 tsp soda powder,
(Note: Soda or both the raising agents can be replaced with cream of tartar based baking powder. It usually also contains soda. So, 3 tsp cream of tartar baking powder).
OPTIONAL:
50g (1 1/2 oz) grated nuts (any kind: almond, hazelnut, walnut or any other, even coconut),
or
3 tbsp. cocoa powder (for some recipes)


In another deep bowl stir gently and shortly (DO NOT mix for long or make it frothy) the following:
1 egg (leave out egg, if egg-less is desired; 1 tbsp. apple puree or just joghurt or milk can be used to replace the egg),
250 g (8 oz) Yoghurt or 300 ml (1 1/5 cup) Buttermilk,
60-80 ml (1/4 - 1/3 cup) veg. oil (makes the cake juicier than butter; or use 100g butter),
150g (5 oz) sugar

Add to it:
150-300g (5-10 oz) Fruits of choice, sliced or chopped or whole berries, or chocolate pieces or any kind of chocolate which can be baked. You can also add these after pouring the batter into the muffin moulds.

Now mix everything together with a whisk or spoon really quick. DO NOT WHIP OR MIX FOR LONG! The muffins will come out soft only if you do not beat it , but just gently mix everything and immediately start baking. As soon as all the ingredients are wet, stop mixing and pour the batter into the greased muffin moulds.
Bake at 180°C (160°C convection oven) [356°F (320°F)] for 20-25 minutes.

Tips: Add 1- 2 heaped tbsp of cornflour to the flour, add 1 or 2 tbsp milk for it to the batter, and they turn out really soft and fine grained. Has been my experience with baking so far.
If you are using fruits in the recipe, use paper muffin liners for the tin.
If using a muffin tin without the paper liner, then grease the tin with butter and put in the freezer and take out just before pouring the batter. No greasing and freezing is required if using silicone cups for baking.
Let the muffins cool down for a minute or two before you take them out of the moulds, otherwise they might crumble.
Twist them from above while taking out.