Tags
baking, bread, breakfast, celiac, food, g-f, gluten, gluten-free, muffins, quick bread, x-f, xanthan-free
Allergy season has been absolutely awful this year in St. Louis, so I have spent most of the past week and a half trying to keep my face from exploding! Thankfully we had storms last night (and more are in the forecast), so this most recent round of pollen should now be somewhat subdued.
Anyway, in my allergic stupor, muffins sounded fabulous, and I had pumpkin sitting in the pantry begging to be used. I made a pumpkin spice muffin last November which was okay, but… The texture left me wanting. A bit gritty, rather dry, too dense (how a pumpkin muffin could be too dense, I could not fathom, until this particular muffin…). I blame many of the problems of this muffin on almond flour – it’s wonderful stuff, but I encounter too many g-f recipes that rely on it when other flours would create a better result. I also went too heavy on the spice, but I’ll take the blame for that – the recipe gave a range for each of the spices, and I went on the heavier side with all of them.
To create these muffins, I melded the pumpkin spice muffin recipe with the applesauce spice muffins I posted about a few weeks ago. The result was better than the last pumpkin muffin recipe I made, but I still found them lacking. Their texture was much closer to the desired outcome, but I already have tweaks in mind for the next round. I should have altered something I was dubious about from the old pumpkin muffin recipe when making the hybrid recipe, but laziness compelled me otherwise. It uses an entire can of pumpkin (15 oz), for a mere one dozen. Every gluten-containing pumpkin muffin/bread recipe I’ve ever seen uses the same amount of pumpkin for two dozen muffins (or two loaves, or one loaf and one dozen muffins). These muffins were a little too dense, a bit dry while being moist (I had to drink water with these, it was not optional), and I may have been a bit spice-shy this go ’round. I will be asking my mother for spice level recommendations before my next attempt, and I am going to change the recipe to make 2 dozen muffins with better moisture. I think better distribution of the pumpkin will make for better moisture levels, but I may also work some applesauce into the recipe, depending on what the batter looks like.
Hilariously, my gluten-eating friend who partook of these muffins loved them, even though I was unimpressed. I find this a little unfortunate, since she could have the muffins I desire if she wanted, and has no need to be consuming gluten-free muffins…oh well. I still found them a welcome muffin during a particularly horrible allergy season.
A Flour By Any Other Grain 