Gluten Free Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

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Breakfast today was very pumpkiny. Pumpkin smoothies and these amazingly delicious Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins I found on food.com. The poster of the recipe says they are like Starbucks, but honestly it's been so long since I've had one I can't remember well enough what they taste like to say how true that claim is. You'll just have to make them and decide for yourself. Or, just make them anyway because they are really, really good.

 I used the gluten free all purpose flour from C. C. Dolch that I used to make that amazing cornbread the other night, and was not at all disappointed (other than the batter was rather bitter, but the muffins were not bitter at all after they baked). I'm not sure what made it bitter, I'm just guessing it was the flour since I've made pumpkin muffins before going GF and the batter was never bitter. Yes, I sneak a taste of batter with raw eggs in it. Been doing it all my life. Started off with licking the beaters when I was a kid...you know how that goes...at least if you grew up in the 70's and 80's or before people got all freaked out about raw eggs.

I will definitely make them again, and if I'd thought of it when I was making them I would have added ground flax for the extra nutrition. Please see the chef's notes for tweaks, as I made a few.  They really bake up nice with the C. C. Dolch gluten free flour, I think I've found my "forever (GF) flour"! I am not getting any kickbacks for promoting their flour, I am just really, really happy with it and can heartily recommend it!

(Gluten Free) Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins 

ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c gluten free all purpose flour, I recommend C. C. Dolch's
• 3/4 tsp xanthan gum, if your flour does not already contain it
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 pinch cardamom (optional, but I added it...probably 1/8 tsp)
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 c sucanat, or sweetener of your choice
• 1 c pumpkin
• 5/8 c light olive oil
• 4 ounces cream cheese
• 2 tsp vanilla, divided...more or less to your taste
• 2-3 Tb powdered sugar or sweetener of your choice
• nuts or seeds (such as pecans, walnuts, pumpkin or sunflower) if desired for topping
• demerara sugar for topping, if desired

method:

In a small bowl, mix cream cheese, powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla until well combined. Using a piece of wax or parchment paper, form cream cheese mixture into a long log (you'll need 12 slices, one for each muffin). Place in the freezer at least half an hour before starting to mix your muffin batter.

Preheat oven to 350. 

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together gluten free all purpose flour, xanthan gum (if using) and spices. Whisk in salt, baking soda and sugar. In a separate bowl, beat together eggs, oil, pumkin and remaining vanilla. Mix pumpkin mixture and dry ingredients until combined, being sure not to over mix...a few lumps are fine. 

Fill muffin cups half full. Remove cream cheese log from freezer and slice into 12 pieces. Push one piece into the batter in each muffin cup. Top with nuts and sugar, if desired.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the muffin (not the cream cheese center) comes out clean.

Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to cooling rack to cool completely. Be very careful, the cream cheese filling is very hot.

Chef's Notes:

The original recipe called for white sugar, which I try not to use any more than I have to. And vegetable oil. I would have used coconut oil but just didn't feel like melting it. I also didn't really measure it (5/8 of a cup...yeah), but eyeballed it. I should also note that the measurements above are half of the original recipe as well. The vanilla is also an addition, but if you know me at all you know I put vanilla in everything, especially since I learned how to make my own vanilla that is out of this world good. I didn't have allspice, and since the substitute for that is cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in equal parts, I just did heaping-ish measurements of those spices. 

Visit the original recipe on food.com and read through the reviews. Some people thought they were too spicy, some not spicy enough. Some added cocoa powder. Even though I "winged" it on the spices, I found it to be nicely spiced but not overpowering the pumpkin. The original recipe said to just use plain cream cheese, but many said it needed sweetening and I knew I would prefer it that way. I think next time I will mix the cream cheese with maple syrup instead of powdered sugar. I love maple, nuts and pumpkin together. 

Be sure to get that cream cheese in the freezer at least half an hour before you're going to need to slice it. I didn't, and didn't want to wait any longer so I just went ahead and cut it and it was very messy. It needs to be fairly solid, but not necessarily like an ice cube.

This could also be made with regular flour. The C. C. Dolch flour is substitutable at a 1:1 ratio so no adjustments in flour measurements should be needed.

Allergy-Free* Spice Cake...FINALLY!

Thankfully, we don't have nut or egg allergies here, but I know many do so I'm sharing this recipe I found...and modified to suit our gluten-free needs. We love spice cake, and cake in general, so it's great to be able to have our cake and eat it too even though we're gluten-free. I made this for a family gathering today, and eaters of gluten loved it too.

I found this recipe on All Recipes, it's called Wacky Buckwheat Spice Cake. It's egg and nut free, and with some small modifications also gluten free. The title to my post is Allergy-Free*...but if you have a corn allergy you'll need to substitute for the cornstarch. I know there are people out there that are allergic to virtually everything, but I think this seems like a recipe that would suit many with egg, wheat, gluten and nut allergies. I was so happy to find this, because all the recipes I'd found for buckwheat cake always included almond meal...which I never have because it's kind of pricey. I'd wondered if ground flax would be a suitable substitute and decided that a family gathering was the perfect place to test out a new recipe.

The batter is thin, and seems like it would be too runny but it bakes up nicely. It fills the house with a delicious spicy aroma. And it tastes fantastic. The texture is different than regular spice cake, ground flax is not as fine as regular flour. It also calls for a couple pinches of black pepper, which did not sound good at all to me so I left it out. I topped it off with a creamy cream cheese frosting (add a couple spoonfuls of sour cream and wow is it yummy!), but it would be good by itself or topped with fresh whipped cream or a sprinkle of vanilla sugar, maybe even some fruit. 

I doubled the original recipe and baked it in a 9" x 13" pan. Click on the link to go to the original recipe, what follows is how I made it...

WACKY BUCKWHEAT SPICE CAKE

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flax meal
• 1 cup buckwheat flour
• 1 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 cup sucanat
• 1 cup white sugar (next time I will use all sucanat)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp dry mustard
• 2 Tb molasses
• 1/2 cup light olive oil
• 2 Tb white vinegar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups cold water

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and pour the wet ingredients into the well. Mix until just blended. Pour the batter into a 9" x 13" baking dish (the original recipe says ungreased, but I missed that and greased the pan with no ill effects). 

Bake in the preheated oven until it passes the toothpick test, 30-40 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.

BREAD! BROWNIES! Oh My...

One of the things that I mourned at the thought of HAVING to be gluten free (instead of just choosing...very different, you see...) was bread. There is nothing so comforting as the smell of a delicious, yeasty wheat bread baking in the oven and filling the house with wheaty, carbolicious joy. And, God has given me a gift with bread making...I can usually turn out a pretty mean loaf. Then there's cookies, pies, biscuits...sigh...

Of course, I have been searching online for easy, tasty GF recipes and the two I tried today did not disappoint. In fact, I was quite impressed with the GF Sandwich Bread from Serious Eats. Seriously. I read through all the comments and the only changes I made were adding a tablespoon of honey (there is no sugar in the recipe, and someone suggested it to make the gf-ness less obvious, especially for someone new to GF eating) and I used whole milk...not a big fan of powdered milk here. I used 1 cup of water and 3/4 cup whole milk. Be sure to read through the directions and comments before making this, if this is the first time you've tried a GF bread. There is a lot of great information there regarding GF baking. I half expected it to flop, since I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to using GF flours, but it was definitely a success and a keeper as far as I'm concerned!

The taste and texture are slightly different than wheat bread, but not in an offensive way. Sister LOVES it, so you know it's good. Mister likes it too (and so does the dog...he dropped a chunk on the floor).  I'm happy that tomorrow, we can have sandwiches for lunch!  Doesn't it look delicious? It looks like real bread!

We were having my mom over this afternoon, and company for dinner so I decided we needed some brownies. I found a great recipe for Gluten, Casein and Soy Free Brownies at the Bob's Red Mill website. I didn't have unsweetened chocolate, so I used the old stand-by substitute of 3 Tbs cocoa and 1 Tbs oil (coconut) and they turned out great! I prefer a fudgey brownie over a cakey one, and this one was nice and fudgey.  The Teenager asked if I made them differently and when I told him I used a gluten free flour he didn't like them. Oh well, his loss...and more for the rest of us! This made a 9 x 13" pan and I cut it into 20-24 brownies, I should have counted but didn't, and only four were left when I cleaned up from supper.  Really now, do you think you could pass these up?

My daughter said today "Well, maybe this gluten free thing won't be so bad after all." Yeah, I think she's right. I don't know why I had my knickers in a bunch now...