Casual Measurement Baking: Gluten-Free Banana Blueberry Muffins
I love to bake, it soothes me and has a rather impressive ability to lift my mood despite generating so many damned dishes to wash. Throughout my self-education in baking, I’ve had a very loose relationship with measurements. Most of this is due to me needing to reduce recipe sizes to be suitable for one person, and even then I’ve usually got ten more cookies than I can eat. Seriously when are bakers going to grasp that we don’t all have a community of eager neighbors, schoolchildren, and colleagues clamoring for baked goods? Everyone in my building is terrified of each other and I am a freelancer who works from home. You can’t cut a recipe in fourths?!? Whatever.
Baking is supposedly a precise process, and in some ways I agree with that, but in other ways, I kind of think everything’s going to be fine. I’ve been eyeballing baking powder for five years and everything’s worked out for me in this life. In fact, my measuring spoons use the Metric system, and I have no idea what the Metric system means. It’s actually kind of silly to me how many times I’ve just thrown things in a bowl and wound up with delicious treats and a home that smells like a Yankee Candle. Don’t stress out, is what I’m saying.
This recipe was, as most of mine are, an accident. Some of my best work comes as a result of trying to use up ingredients I don’t want to waste, or I’m in a garbage mood and I want to bake something to feel better. This recipe is a rare instance where both things happened at once.
Ingredients
Two very, very ripe bananas. You should be able to smell them from a great distance.
Howevermany mooshy blueberries you have in your possession. It is okay if this number is zero. If your blueberries are firm, don’t bake with them because they’re tart and delicious and you should eat them like candy. Only use very soft blueberries in this recipe because eating them raw is trash.
Two eggs
3 tablespoons of butter, melted, or just grab the ends of whatever sticks of butter you’ve been using to grease other things and melt those
a little more than half of a 1/4 cup of maple syrup
small kerplunk of vanilla
a dash of cinnamon
a big pinch of sea salt
1/2 a teaspoon or maybe slightly more than this of baking soda
1/2 a teaspoon or maybe slightly more than this of baking powder
2 cups of almond flour
half of a 1/4 cup of psyllium husk (make sure there’s no maple syrup in your 1/4 cup or there will be disaster afoot). Psyllium husk is a new addition to my lower-carb baking repertoire, I believe it’s typically used as a fiber supplement that you can take mixed with water (gross) but in baking it actually lends a really amazing structure to almond flour-based recipes. I was pretty impressed with the stuff TBH. Also, yay fiber! If you don’t have this stuff, bake these muffins without it, maybe just add a little more almond flour. It’ll be fine.
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Mash your bananas in a bowl (enjoy this process if you’re in a shitty mood), then add in all remaining wet ingredients (but not the blueberries). Mix well. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. Moosh your blueberries in a separate bowl and fold them into the mixture gently. You just want to distribute them, not turn the whole mix purple. Grease your muffin tins with whatever. Fill your muffin tin or molds about 3/4 of the way full. I got 10 muffins out of this endeavor but you let me know how you net out. I topped mine with a little raw sugar but don’t have to do this. I mean you should, but you don’t have to.
Bake at 350 for 26 minutes. Eat muffins warm with butter of any kind. To reheat, slice in half and toast in a toaster oven or an oven oven for about ten minutes.
