Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins

So, I’ve been gluten-free for almost 2 years at this point. After reading endless blogs and one very good book, I’ve come to the following simple philosophy: eat foods that naturally taste good without gluten. In other words, rather than trying to recreate your favorite breads or other glutenous foods without their star ingredient, just eat foods that humans already decided were super delicious that happen to not have gluten in them. This includes Thai and Indian dishes, without the naan of course.

However. Every once in a while I come across a recipe that not only recreates the taste of a glutenous item (such as a muffin or cupcake), but far supercedes the original item in terms of taste, texture and nutrition.  Such is the case with my go-to snack these days: Pumpkin Pie Muffins.  

My recipe is adapted from the original posted on Elana’s pantry. If you like the taste/texture of almond flour (which I do) and love simple, straightforward gluten-free recipes, she’s your girl.  I substituted olive oil for grapeseed and honey for agave, plus simplified the spices.  Enjoy!

Cheryl’s Deliciously Gluten-free, flavor-full Pumpkin Pie Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ cup honey
• 2 large eggs (** note: I once accidentally used 4 eggs and it turned out delicious as well)
• 1 cup pumpkin (I use canned, but if you can do fresh, more power to ya)

Step 1 – Mix the dry stuff. 

Preheat oven to 350. Combine almond flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon & pumpkin pie spice. 

Step 2 – Mix the wet stuff:

In a separate bowl (I use the Kitchen-Aid here), combine oil, honey, eggs and pumpkin until smooth.

Step 3 – Combine the dry and the wet stuff. 

Step 4: Scoop batter into muffin liners.

I fill them about 3/4 full, but you can be daring and fill them more!

Step 5 – Bake for 35-45 minutes. 

Elana’s Pantry recommends 40-45 but I have found that often they are done well before that. As with most recipes, insert a fork into a muffin and if it comes out clean, it’s done.

Step 6 – Cool. 

Cool for however long you can resist the delicious smell 🙂 If you are doing to decorate them, I’d wait at least 90 minutes.

Step 7 – Eat, or decorate (or eat while decorating, or…you get the idea!). 

My favorite topping for these is simple whipped cream cheese. However, you can go “all out” and turn them into “Pumpcakes,” as Adrienne and I did with a different recipe a couple years ago.

Decoration Step 1: 

Find some inspiration, such as from the book “Hello Cupcake.” That was Adrienne’s and my inspiration for the Pumpcakes (and yes, we made up that word). Assemble ingredients, which for us were: plain frosting, orange and green food coloring, sparkly orange sprinkles, Mike & Ikes (note: not gluten-free, so just for decoration), ziplock bag, scissors.

Decoration step 2: 

Mix desired food coloring into frosting. (We used a pre-made frosting mix, which is sometimes a no-no with gluten free decorating – check the label to ensure no glutenous items are included). In this case, we made one bowl with orange and one with green.

Decoration step 3:

Line up bowls of frosting and desired sprinkles. For pumpcakes, use shiny orange sprinkles.

Decoration Step 5: 

Frost the cupcake with the orange frosting.

Decoration Step 6: 

Dunk the cupcake into the orange sprinkles.

Decoration step 7: 

Place a green Mike & Ike in the center of each cupcake. Put green frosting into a ziplock baggie and cut one corner to allow you to pipette the green frosting in small lines. Do the same for orange frosting. Make straight orange lines across the whole cupcake to make it look like a pumpkin. Make green “leaves” near the Mike & Ike. Check out master Adrienne’s style for inspiration.

Step 8: Enjoy the final product.

Wow your friends with your decoration skills!

Step 9: Eat and enjoy. Obviously!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial, Please leave comments/suggestions in the comments section, I’d love to know how yours turn out!