Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Double Chocolate Pancakes

Chocolate for breakfast? I say "yes!" They smell like brownies while they're cookies. Can you get a better start to your day than that? Chocolate pancakes are the most requested breakfast of my three year old. That is, next to his cream of rice cereal.

These are so simple! You could use sugar, honey, or a sugar-free replacement to sweeten them. I've used Pyure and coconut sugar, and both were delicious!

Double Chocolate Pancakes

1 3/4 cups gluten free all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa or cacao powder
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar, 2 tbsp honey, or 5 tsp Pyure
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups milk (or water)
2/3 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips
Oil, for skillet

In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients and chocolate chips. Add the wet ingredients and mix again until well combined.

Heat a skillet on medium-low heat and oil it for easier flipping. Scoop 1/4 cup fulls of batter onto hot skillet, and cook until the bottom edge starts to look dry. Flip, and cook until golden brown.





Makes about twelve pancakes. Serve with real maple syrup. Enjoy!

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Let Me Hear from You!

Alrighty, blog readers. I need to hear from you! I'd like to get more traffic across this blog, so I need you to help me. What kind of recipes are you looking for? What foods are you trying to avoid? Are you just looking for healthier versions of store bought items?

If you're on Facebook, please feel free to share my blog link!

Gluten, Dairy, Egg-Free Blueberry Muffins

Sometimes, while I'm just minding my own business, a bright idea will just pop into my head. An idea like, "That flour combination made really good cookies. Why couldn't it make good muffins? Blueberry muffins! Yes, that sounds good!" Then, while one of my children is playing with Play-Doh and the other one is coloring on a newspaper...and my hardwood floor...and the sliding door windows, I put together these most delicious blueberry muffins. (I'm so thankful for washable crayons!)

I've tried a few different gluten-free blueberry muffin recipes. They all turn out rather crumbly, like you'd expect with almost any gluten-free baked good. These particular muffins turned out moist and cake-like. They were soft, but not so soft that you couldn't spread some dairy-free butter spread on them. I'm going to make them again soon, omitting the cinnamon and switching out the blueberries for Enjoy Life chocolate chips. My three year old will be beside himself with chocolate in his muffins at breakfast!

One thing I did different with these muffins from all my other baking was to measure the flours by weight. I've been doing a little bit of reading on how that can totally change your end product in gluten-free baking. Different flours have different weights, so I looked up each one before measuring. I really do think it helped, but if you don't have a kitchen scale, don't worry too much about it. Just try to get precise measurements with your measuring cups.




Blueberry Muffins
Makes 12-15 regular muffins

1 cup (113g) tapioca flour
1 cup (135g) millet flour
3/4 cup (84g) coconut flour
2 tsp gelatin (or 1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum)
1 tbsp baking powder (Try homemade for a corn-free version!)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1/4 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups coconut or almond milk
1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease muffin cups, or line with paper liners.

Whisk together dry ingredients. Add applesauce, oil, honey, and vanilla, then stir. Pour in milk and stir again until well combined. Fold in blueberries. Divide batter between muffin tins. Bake for 18-20 minutes until muffins are slightly golden on top and feel firm to touch.



Yes, my muffins are square. I still don't have my muffin tins out of storage, so all I had to use was the Pampered Chef brownie pans. That larger one on the top right is actually out of a tiny loaf pan since I didn't have two brownie pans clean. It baked a few minutes longer, but turned out fine. We just sliced it up and slathered on the butter!