Wednesday, February 27, 2013

....Baking

My adventures with Non-Wheat flours continues, today I'm baking.  I've made two things for today's offer, muffins that simulate corn muffins, if you don't look at all at the colour and a version of the classic 'sandy' cookie that substitutes almonds for pecans, and amaranth and millet for wheat flour.  If you have tree nut allergies on top of your issues with wheat or gluten, these are not the recipes you're looking for....

Buckwheat Millet Muffins:
With a dense texture like corn muffins and a slightly sweet, savoury flavour, these muffins could be a decent substitute for corn meal muffins, if you don't have a nut allergy and if the naturally brownish colour of the buckwheat doesn't turn you off. 

1 cup millet flour
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1/3 cup almond flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher or fine sea salt
3/4 cup half and half
1/4 cup walnut oil
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon honey
OPTIONAL:
Caramalised Onions to taste
Garlic to taste

1.)  In a large bowl, mix the millet, buckwheat, almond flour, baking soda and salt
2.)  Make a well in the centre of the flour, pour in the walnut oil, the half and half, eggs and honey. 
3.)  Mix the wet ingredients together before you start incorporating the dry ingredients into the wet. 
4.)  When it's all well and goodly mixed, add in what ever flavouring you like, we like garlic and onions in our corn bread, so it's what I added to this.
5.)  Pour into muffin tin, making sure you don't over fill the cups and try to keep them as even as possible.  I use cupcake papers in mine so they release beautifully from the tin.
6.)  Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes, or until a tooth pick comes out clean when inserted into the middle.
Makes about 12 muffins.




Almond Sandy Cookies:
Crumbly in texture and just sweet enough to satisfy a severe craving, you could use what ever sort of nut flour or meal you can find, almond is just what I happened to have on hand.  The word from the peanut gallery is that they don't care that there's no wheat in them, they're delicious and best fresh out of the oven.

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup walnut oil (you could use vegetable oil if want)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups millet flour
2 cups amaranth flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups almond flour
1/4-1/2 cup confectioners sugar, kept separate from the rest for coating the cookies afterwards.

1.)  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2.)  Cream together the butter, walnut oil, white sugar, confectioners sugar, eggs and vanilla extract.
3.)  In a separate bowl, mix the millet flour, amaranth flour, salt and almond flour
4.)  Gently fold the flours into the wet ingredients, mixing until the whole mass incorporates into a soft dough.
5.)  Roll into balls about an inch in diameter, then roll into the separated confectioners sugar.
6.)  Place about two inches apart on a cookie sheet and bake 10-15 minutes, or until slightly sandy coloured.
7.)  Allow to cool off the pan, either on a plate or on a cooling rack.
 Makes around 80 cookies.




Today's Web-liography:
The basis for the Buckwheat Millet Muffins:
http://www.unrefinedkitchen.com/2013/01/09/grain-free-cornbread/
This is a pretty cool website/blog for people who are eating a Paleo type diet, mass respect on my part to the author.  I don't live a full on Paleo diet lifestyle, but this place is pretty good resource anyway.
I've substituted the coconut milk for half and half because I'm decadent and didn't have any coconut milk, and the coconut oil for walnut oil because I don't have coconut oil and I like the walnut.

The basis for the Almond Sandy Cookies:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pecan-Sandies/Detail.aspx
Allrecipes.com is a by the people for the people kind of website, where people post their own recipes for things.  If I can't find it on Alton Brown's site, I can often find it on allrecipes.com.
You'll notice that they have cream of tartar in their recipe and I don't have it in mine.  The main reason for this is that I didn't have any at the time and thinking over the ingredients, I honestly couldn't think of why it was needed.

1 comment:

  1. News from the Peanut Butter Gallery:

    The Auntie has declared the Almond Sandy cookies a massive hit. She's had them for dessert every day since I made them, at least twice a day.

    ReplyDelete