Gluten Free – Fruit and Oat Muffins
Gluten Free (as GF as organic oats safely are) Oat/Fruit Muffins
One bowl to mix your own ingredients, and one bowl to whisk the eggs. I use a large Texan muffin baking tray rather than cupcake size.
These taste amazing. This is how I did a variation on the standard recipe which also makes them less chewy, but chewy enough!
Dry ingredients
2 Cups flat rolled oats – not the tiny shredded ones but a good size, as in organic oat packets.
A bit less than 1/2 a cup of GF flour – I think Woolworth’s is best. We add more flour and oats later to remove a little of the liquidity. The flour really changes the final texture. A “standard” recipe may not use flour at all, but I do.
Any dried fruits you have. You can always vary this. I used cranberries, raisins, pineapple, and some chopped Brazil nuts. You could try coconut shreds too, or walnuts, or mango etc. Just make sure to tell people what nuts you used in case of severe allergy to things like walnuts.
A little cinnamon – a bit less than 1/2 teaspoon.
Here’s the extra “magic” – big table spool of Golden Circle Treacle, and chop into smallish (not tiny) squares of a real apple with the skin left on – e.g. an Envy apple is good. And to add more surprise – 1/4 to 1/2 cup of GF Kelloggs cornflakes.
You can experiment with other fruits like berries. I do not use apple sauce in this variation on the standard recipe.
Throw in some raw sugar or refined raw sugar. I do add sugar as we are not using sweet apple sauce. Not too much, but I like to add these ingredients without measuring an exact quantity. You will know if you are intuitively adding too much.
1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Mix all together with a spoon.
Wet Ingredients
Melt a good chunk of butter, not too small but not a large amount. e.g. perhaps around 100gm.
Mix 2 large eggs with a fork in a bowl. Add to eggs, for convenience, a little vanilla extract.
Drip a heaped tablespoon of golden syrup into the dry mixture and mix a little to spread it.
Pour in 1 cup of milk – I use lactose free. Mix a little. Add butter. Mix a little. Add eggs. Mix a little. It is up to you how you want to add ingredients.
You decide what kind of milk or Soy you want.
As you stir with a spoon you will see it has a little too much liquid, so at this point you sprinkle in a few more oats and a little flour. The trick is to keep it wet, not gluggy or sticky at all, because GF cooking needs to be more wet than non-GF recipes. The “standard” recipe likes it to be very sticky, but I don’t do this, and as said, I change the consistency with the flour.
Spoon the mix into 6 Texan sized (large) muffins in the baking tray. I use wax papers to line the tray.
You can add toppings to experiment. e.g. sprinkle some brown sugar and walnuts, or sprinkle some more cinnamon, or leave as-is. Be careful as this is experimenting until you find what you like, so don’t do it on every muffin.
Baking
This next step is vital. Pre-heat the oven to 240 degrees Celsius. This higher temperature helps GF baking rise from the base of the muffin (or any cake) and crisps the muffins up.
Put the baking tray into the oven and turn the temperature down to 180 degrees. (You could trial 170 degrees if you like. It is hard to tell what is best for you. A cake may be 170 degrees.)
Take the muffins out about 30 to 35 minutes later. Just check they are not burning, but they will be fairly dark and crisp.
Cooling and Storage
Let sit for 10 minutes at least and then put onto a cake rack to cool a bit before storage. You need to put muffins into a plastic bag and then perhaps put the bag into a plastic container. You want to see some moisture in the bag rather than letting them go to room temperature as otherwise GF cakes loose too much moisture.
Eat one while it is fairly hot with tea or coffee. To reheat from fridge temperature, you microwave half for about 20 seconds or a full muffin for about 30 seconds. They are best quite hot rather than luke warm.
Enjoy.
What do I think of the recipe with apple sauce in it?
I don’t like it. I think when you add ingredients you can tell if it is not so good. I also prefer not to add chopped walnuts etc.
If you do use apple sauce, I think it still needs sugar.
