Healthy Tasty Chowcleaner recipes, reviews, toddler mom stuff and food chatter

Really, these muffins should just be called Gluten-Free Coconut Flour and Almond Flour Muffins.  I mixed the flours in an experiment to see if it would work and about fell off the chair that it did, indeed!  I’ve been itching to mix these two flours for awhile now and of course, it’s nice to have a good muffin base.  I already like the muffin base with the almond and oat flour (Cherry Garcia) muffins as well, but the challenge is too fun!  Personally, I don’t have an issue with gluten, but my husband has an allergy to wheat.  Last night, my friend Kristin and I were chatting about this and she said she wanted to try some of my stuff out and needed to go shopping to buy the flours.  Of course I felt the need to warn her that the consistency is not the same but I get it as close possible to make whatever it is tasty.  She said she wanted to try it anyway because of the health benefits that these alternative flours offer that regular white/enriched wheat do not…this could lead me into pages and pages of reasons why different flours are better for you offering more fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, are more easily digested, etc…   Here is a great article on white flour that goes into more detail on why it’s not good for you.

My dad had given me some great blackberries that came from somewhere in his back yard.  What kills me is I grew up there and the only edible thing I remember is mulberries- which he won’t let me have because he says they don’t get past his mouth to get into the bowl.  Now, I love mulberries too, but he’s got a freaking farm in his yard nowadays.  These blackberries are smaller and sweeter than the ones you buy at the store, absolutely delicious.  I thought they may be nice in a muffin.  Well, they made the muffins darn tasty…and pretty but you could easily replace any fruit you have in this muffin.  The muffins are moist and dense, typical of coconut flour things, but a little closer to normal flour (typical of almond flour), yet not as mealy as just almond flour alone.  Really, a nice mixture of the two flours.  You can see the final texture result in the picture above.  If you’re in the mood for experimenting with coconut flour, remember that a little goes a loooong way and to add eggs and liquid.  Just a quick rule of thumb, 3 eggs per quarter cup of coconut flour.  You may be successful without adding lots of eggs.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup almond flour
• 4 TB coconut flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2/3 cup concentrated fruit juice blend (or 1 cup sweetener, you could try 1/2 cup agave nectar with 1/2 cup sugar)
• 2 TB grapeseed oil
• 1/2 TB vanilla
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup blackberries - or fruit of your choice
• sugar for sprinkling on top of muffins to make for pretty and delicious muffin tops

Method:

• Pre-heat oven to 350, grease or line muffin pan
• Mix wet ingredients
• Mix dry ingredients (excluding berries) with a fork
• Pour dry ingredients slowly into wet, stirring until well combined
• Add blackberries
• Distribute batter evenly in muffin tins - I use an ice cream scooper, it’s much easier
• Sprinkle a little bit of sugar on top of each muffin (optional)
• Bake for 20-23 minutes

Enjoy!  I like them best with a teensy bit of butter and agave nectar.

Update two days later: I mistakenly covered them when I thought they were cooled and they weren’t so the tops got moist the next day but were still yummy.  Two days later: the fruit went bad because I didn’t keep them in the fridge!  I had to throw out the few I had left.  Oops!  You’d think I’d know not to do this stuff by now but I still do it anyway.

Mmmmmm.  They melt in your mouth.  I didn’t have any crispy rice cereal today so I decided to throw what I had together and I must say…  this time, it worked!  Usually peanut butter balls are made with either powdered sugar or graham cracker crust.  As usual, I wanted to make something a little healthier that I can give to my son without feeling overly guilty.  These are not as sweet as the traditional peanut butter balls and have a slightly different texture…plus, I wanted an excuse to work with coconut flour.  Basically, they’re not grandmas!  If you feel like healthier grandma’s pb balls…well, I may just work on a sweeter healthied up version in the future.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter of your choice
• 1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter of your choice
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1 cup oat flour, you can grind your own oats or you can even grind half and use half oats or all oats
• 1/3 cup coconut flour - you can also use shredded low-moisture un-sweetened coconut and grind it
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1 tsp coconut oil

Directions:

• Mix peanut butters, agave nectar, oat flour and coconut flour until it forms a dough-like consistency.  Add more peanut butter or flour to get the right consistency.  Roll into balls - size of your choice and put on foil.  Melt the chocolate chips with coconut oil - if you want to have the Peanut Butter Balls completely covered with chocolate, double the chocolate and coconut oil.  To not completely cover the balls, use a table spoon and drizzle chocolate on each ball  until you get the amount of coverage you’d like.  To completely cover them, throw the balls in the chocolate and remove with spoon- cool on foil.  Refrigerate if your house is hot but let warm up a bit before eating.

I made smaller to medium sized balls and some with little chocolate, for me, the peanut butter is really the star.  However, most people probably would want to cover them with chocolate if they’re serving them to friends.  These, I made the way that I wanted to eat them, less chocolate… more peanut butter!  Hmmm, I should make puppy chow next:)

• A note on the ingredient choices…
• oat flour is gluten-free although many celiacs still react mainly due to how they’re processed…   They are high in soluble fiber which can lower LDL cholesterol.  Anyone seen those Cheerios commercials?  It is digested slowly, thus, no blood-sugar spike (but when you add sugar, it’s a different story, I’m just talking about oats here.)
• coconut flour is gluten-free, high in fiber, high in protein, low in digestible carbs.  Coconut is thought now to be insanely healthy, check it out if you’re so inclined.
• agave nectar is made from the same plant as tequila.  Fiesta en tu boca!  It has a lower glycemic index than sugar- so it’s digested slower and that blood-sugar spike isn’t so bad. 
• peanuts are high in protein, fairly high in fiber, and lots more.  That is, if you aren’t allergic… but if you are you probably decided not to read this anyway. 
• I could devote pages of health benefits of most of these ingredients but the sugar in the chocolate.  I won’t.  But maybe someday.