Whole Grain Blueberry Pecan Muffins with Ricotta Filling (Gluten-Free)

Here's the gluten-free muffins as promised - tender, moist, and flavorful. I am now a firm believer that gluten-free baking can work without gimmicks or difficult tricks, and be super tasty.

I relied on Gluten-Free Girl again to understand how to use the variety of gluten-free flours and starches that I've got in my cupboard. She's made gluten-free baking work without xanthan gum, or any other gum to provide binding in the baked goods, which is good news both for those who might be digestively sensitive to the gums or who would have a hard time finding them in the grocery stores.

Now that I've tried these, I fully believe what GFG says - gluten-free baking can produce lighter, better texture than gluten baking, because gluten can bind things up and weigh them down. That's why some recipes tell you not to over mix the batter - because the mixing action will create too much gluten and make a dense product.

You have a choice about the flours and starches you use in these muffins; GFG suggests keeping a supply of your own whole grain flour mix around, and provides a ratio of flour to starch (70/30) that you can use to create your own (I recommend reading her post linked above, it's much more thorough).

It is important to note that your baked goods will taste like the flours you choose; I was super curious about teff flour, so I mixed it with sweet sorghum and amaranth flours, with white rice flour as the starch and a few whole oats thrown in for texture. Teff turns out to have a fairly strong flavor (reminded me of a powdery buckwheat), so I would reduce the amount I would use of teff next time in proportion to the other flours, and probably choose another flour that does not have such a fine texture as the ones I chose. That being said, I still devoured four muffins as soon as they came out of the oven. Plus another one later - so, yeah, they turned out okay.

To make your own gluten-free flour mix, take 70% whole grain flours and mix with 30% starches.

Whole Grain Flours:

Almond
Amaranth
Brown Rice
Buckwheat
Corn
Millet
Oat
Quinoa
Sorghum
Sweet Brown Rice
Teff

Starches:

Arrowroot
Cornstarch
Potato Starch
Tapioca Flour
White Rice Flour

I also integrated a little advice from the Barefoot Contessa (incidentally, she is someone who I imagine never actually goes barefoot) who suggests greasing the tops of your muffin pans as well as the inside of the cups, to help you remove the muffins when they've cooled:

And I decided to make a ricotta filling for the muffins to use up some ricotta in the fridge, so I used the technique and amounts at this smittenkitchen recipe.

You can add any combination of nuts, dried or fresh fruits, or spices that you like - I went with frozen blueberries and pecans. The flavor of a lot of these flours is nutty, so the pecans were a good complement, and added nice texture.

It's possible to make the whole thing dairy-free too; just replace the buttermilk with almond or soy milk that you've curdled with 1 T apple cider vinegar, and eliminate the ricotta filling. GFG says that you can make them without eggs, but you'll have to see her instructions to see how to accomplish that.

Whole Grain Blueberry Pecan Muffins with Ricotta Filling

Gluten-Free

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin pan or two (with filling, my batter made 17 muffins).

In a mixing bowl, whisk together to combine and aerate:

350 g whole-grain flour mix

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

180 g brown sugar

1 tsp kosher salt

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

2 eggs

1 1/4 C buttermilk*

1/3 C grapeseed oil

Use a rubber spatula to mix the wet ingredients into the dry. When they are almost fully combined, throw in any additions to you want (about a handful of chopped nuts and a handful of fruit will do; firm fruits may take longer to bake soft). Stir until all traces of flour are gone.

If you want the ricotta filling, combine:

1/2 C ricotta cheese (fat-free is fine)

6 T Greek yogurt or sour cream

pinch salt

Fill each muffin well 1/3 full with batter, plop 1 T of ricotta filling on the batter, then cover with more batter until the well is 3/4 full. The muffins will rise, but not like crazy, so you don't have to worry if the wells are close to full.

Bake about 25-35 minutes, until muffins are browned, the tops spring back to touch, and a knife comes out clean.

*Buttermilk may always be replaced by regular or soy/almond milk that has been curdled with apple cider vinegar. The proportion is 1 T vinegar to 1 C milk; just dump the vinegar in the milk before you set up the rest of your ingredients and pans, and it will be ready when you need it.

*** I'd like to note that the best whole grain combination I've come up with so far was a mix of cornmeal and almond meal for the whole grain flours, and corn starch for the starch. Great texture and taste!

Basic Muffin Recipe: Almond Apricot, Coffee Chocolate Chip, and Banana Nut Spice

Got up one morning on a rainy holiday, and what did I do? Made muffins. It would have been hard not to do, honestly. Now that I'm back on a baking kick, free time means recipe time, and a rainy day said comfort food to me.

I realized that I don't actually make muffins that often, so the consistency of the batter felt a little foreign to me. This is a really thick, dense batter, which results in dense, moist muffins. The density also meant that the muffins didn't rise that much, but being used to cupcakes that rise a lot, I didn't put quite enough batter in each muffin mold to make muffin tops. I think I would almost want to call these tea cakes rather than muffins given the texture, but muffins come in all manner of varieties - some batters are thick, some are thin, some are almost cake. Still, they turned out well, and were lovely right out of the oven with a cup of tea.

For Christmas I received the relatively new baking cookbook from America's Test Kitchen, an enterprise that produces classic recipes, all well-tested and excellently explained. I decided to make this muffin recipe because it can be a basis for a number of versions, including the two I picked: Almond Apricot, Coffee Chocolate Chip, and Banana Nut Spice. The almond apricots and banana spice were definitely my favorites, since a coffee-flavored muffin seemed a little redundant to me (do you want to eat something coffee-flavored with your coffee?).

So here you go! Sub in your own add-ins (extracts, zest, dried fruits, nuts, etc.) for those given:

Basic Muffin Recipe
from Big Beautiful Muffins in The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

3 C flour
1 C sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 C whole or non-fat plain yogurt (I used Greek)
2 large eggs
8 T (one stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

add-ins:
Almond Apricot: add 1/2 tsp almond extract to the yogurt mixture, fold 1 C finely diced apricots into the final batter, and sprinkle a few sliced almonds over the muffins before baking.
Coffee Chocolate Chip: add 3 T instant coffee or espresso to the yogurt mixture, fold 1 C semisweet chocolate chips into the final batter.
Banana Nut Spice: add 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1 tsp cinnamon to the dry ingredients, fold 1 1/2 C finely diced banana and 1/2 walnut bits into the final batter, and sprinkle cinnamon sugar liberally over the muffins before baking.

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 12-mold muffin tin. Try to not use muffin papers - this causes them to be paler and not rise as much, plus the papers stick to the muffins.

2. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk the yogurt and eggs together until smooth (plus any add-ins for this stage). Gently fold the yogurt mixture into the flour mixture with a rubber spatula until just combined, then fold in the melted butter (and any add-ins for this stage).

3. Portion the batter into each muffin cup equally (should make 12). Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out with just a few crumbs attached, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan half-way through baking. Mini muffins will take more like 15 minutes.

4. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then flip out onto a wire rack, and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.