Now since I have to be gluten free, I had a hard time finding recipes that featured ingredients that I had on hand. As I've said before, when the mood strikes me, I have to bake right then! So, if some ingredients aren't available, I substitute. Many times such substitutions aren't good, and I consider the attempt a fail. However, other times I am very happy with the results, and this was such a time!
I had originally shared a post about making the muffins with a cream cheese glaze, but I didn't want to use as much sugar as it seemed to take to make it taste good, so I omitted it, and stayed with the basic muffin. If you don't mind the sugar, I'm sure it would be fabulous with cream cheese frosting!
As I said in that post, I combined recipes from +Martha Stewart , +Jules Shepard , +Bob's Red Mill ,and one of my Grandmother's old church cookbooks. I'm sure that any one of these would be great standing alone, but I didn't have all the ingredients I needed, and/or the recipe wasn't gluten free, so here is what my resulting recipe is:
- 6 Tbl. Earth Balance butter
- 1 1/2 Tbl. molassas
- 1 1/4 cups Sugar in the Raw
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup orange juice
- 1 cup of pumpkin puree, plus 2 Tbl. of pear or apple butter
- 1 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten free flour blend
- 3/4 tsp Xanthan gum
- 1/2 cup Almond flour
- 1/4 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking solda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
- 1/2 cup dried blueberries
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- Preheatr oven to 350* and oil a muffin pan, or 4 mini loaf pans
- Cream the butter, molasses, and sugar
- Add the eggs one at a time and mix well
- Add orange juice, pumpkin puree, and pear or apple butter, mix well
- Sift all dry ingredients together in another bowl
- Slowly add the pumpkin mixture into the dry ingredients bowl, stir well
- Add dried fruits
- Spoon into prepared pans
- Bake 4 mini loaves 45 min. or until done in middle, and muffins 25-30 min. or until done in the middle.
- Cool 10-15 minutes and turn out
Many Blessings,
Joanna
