Banana Buckwheat Muffins

Banana Buckwheat Muffins

Being home during the pandemic has allowed for a lot more time to bake.  This is evident for many people it seems as it is getting increasingly difficult to find flour and yeast. 

So I decided to try a recipe I have never tried with some other flours I had in the house.  This is a slight adaptation from the original recipe found in Nourishing Meals by Alissa Segersten and Tom Malterre.

Banana muffins are a staple in my house, so I thought this would be a easy recipe to try and especially test out on the kids to see if they would notice a difference.  These muffins are dairy-free, gluten-free, egg-free and refined sugar-free.  They are great for anyone who has allergies to any of these ingredients.

I've never used buckwheat flour before, but I had recently picked up a small bag by Bob's Red Mill to try out.    The muffins smelled amazing - just like any other banana muffin I've made before.  They had a much darker colour, almost like I had mixed cocoa in it.  The muffins were a little denser than I'm used to, but they still had a very texture.  The flavour is distinct; I'm assuming it is the buckwheat flour.  It was not subtle and the kids definitely picked up on the flavour and of course for them it was "not a banana muffin" anymore.  That is not to say that it was still not good.  My husband and I enjoyed the muffins, but it is definitely different from what I was used to.

So without further ado.....here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
Dry:
2-1/4 cups buckwheat flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Wet:
2 cups mashed bananas (about 5 bananas)
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1/3 cup avocado oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup non-dairy milk (I used oat milk)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Line a 12-cup muffin pan with liners.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

3. In another (medium) bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients.  Begin with about 1/2 cup of the milk.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk together.  If the batter is too thick, add more milk up to the other 1/2 cup.  The batter should come off the whisk, but not so much that it is thin and runny.

4. Fill each cup all the way.  If you fill 3/4 of the way, you will get about 18 muffins instead.

5. Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Cool completely on a wire rack before storing in an airtight container.

Lemon-Ricotta Biscuits

I seemed to have a lot of ricotta and lemons lying around and I've always loved the combination of the two.  And muffins are a big hit in our house and pretty quick to whip up, so I went on a search for something to bring all these together.

I found this recipe for Giada DeLaurentiis that she bakes in a muffin tin but has the texture of a biscuit. I made some tweaks to fit the ingredients I had and it was delicious. 

Keep in mind that the batter is much thicker than one for muffins and it won't rise as much as a muffin while it bakes, so you can fill the tin up almost to the top. 

These taste heavenly warm, with some butter or jam. 

Ingredients: 
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plus 1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
zest from two lemons
1 cup ricotta (if you don't have quite enough, you can use some plain yogurt in place)
1 large egg
freshly squeezed lemon juice from one lemon
splash of vanilla

Directions:
1. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.  Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Whisk the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt in a medium bowl to blend.
3. Using an electric mixer, beat 1 cup sugar, butter and lemon zest in a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Beat in the ricotta.  Next beat in the egg, lemon juice and vanilla.
4. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended (the batter will be thick and fluffy).
5. Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups.  Sprinkle with the remaining 1 tsp of sugar.
6. Bake until the muffins become pale golden on top, about 20 minutes.
7. Cool slightly.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Yummy Pancakes!

There's nothing worse than promising your daughter pancakes on a rushed morning to discover you are out of pancake mix.  That's what happened this morning, so I had to whip up an easy "from scratch" pancake recipe.  This recipe came together quickly and was really quite light and fluffy.  It just soaked up the maple syrup and was absolutely delicious!

For a dairy-free alternative, use unsweetened (vanilla) almond milk and oil (vegetable, canola or melted coconut) instead of milk and butter.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp white sugar
1-1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tbsp butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla


Directions:

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.  Make a well in the centre and pour in the milk, egg and butter; mix until smooth.

2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium-high heat.  Scoop the batter onto the griddle (approximately 1/4 cup each pancake).  Brown on both sides and serve while it's ot.

Feel free to add in your favourite mix-ins: chocolate chips, cinnamon, berries, etc.

Makes approximately 10-12 pancakes.

Puff Pancakes

I think the more I cook / bake - I realize I really truly love breakfast food. There's just something about the weekend and having time - I'm not in a rush to get to work and I feel more relaxed.  Clean up is rarely as big as dinner and my daughter can really help me get breakfast together.

This morning we made Puff Pancakes.  I saw this recipe while getting out a tried and true recipe and vowed to make it the next morning (meaning THIS morning).  It was so simple and a great recipe to include a toddler on.

What's great about this recipe is that it uses one bowl and two pans - and it bakes in the oven.  So while it is baking, you can clean up or get ready for the sit-down.

Ingredients:

3 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tbsp melted butter
1/4 tsp salt
freshly grated lemon zest (from most of a lemon if you have it) as well as a few tbsp of the juice
Icing sugar (for dusting)

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 400F.  Generously butter two 8-9" pie pans.
2.  Beat the eggs in a mixing bowl on low speed for a few minutes.  Add the flour, 2 tbsp at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat only until smooth.  Beat in the milk, butter, salt and lemon zest/juice. (The more lemon you add, the more lemony it tastes, so I always add a bit more!)
3. Evenly divided the batter between the two pie pans, evenly pouring it throughout.
4. Bake for 10 minutes.  Reduce the oven temperature to 350 and bake for another 5 minutes.
5. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with icing sugar.  Serve immediately.
6. Top with whatever you like (syrup, jam, Nutella, cinnamon-sugar, etc).

My daughter loves syrup and always says "more syrup."  She would drink the syrup rather than eat the food.  We finished our syrup yesterday so today's puff pancake had to have a different topping: we used homemade Canadian wild blueberry jam and it was just perfect!  My husband put Nutella - another great choice.  The lemon flavour with the pancake was so good, it reminded me of the lemon-sugar crepes I had in Paris!  Speaking of crepes, this pancake was almost like a crepe but a little bit thicker.  It's the perfect in-between of a pancake and crepe - for those days where you can't decide which one you'd like!

I cut each pancake into 4 large slices and it served my family of 3 just fine.  It could easily have fed 4; we just liked it too much!

By the way - it was so much fun for my daughter to see how it puffed up in the oven! And of course we were just so excited to eat them that I completely forgot to take a picture of at least one all dressed up with its toppings!

Both pancakes right out of the oven.

Close-up of one.

Sprinkled with icing sugar (my daughter did the lower one!)

Close up

Crepes

I love crepes! I can eat them all day, every day.  My favourite tends to be Nutella with bananas or strawberries, but while I was in Paris I ate a lemon sugar crepe every night.  I woke up one morning and decided I was going to make crepes for breakfast and introduce my 15 month old daughter to the beauty of a crepe.  I have adapted this recipe to be non-dairy as well, but that will be for another post.
You can use any filling/topping you'd like, but this morning I decided to do cooked apples.  Prepare the apples first as they can cook while you are making the crepes.
And don't worry if the first crepe doesn't turn it - it never turns out for me so I researched it once and apparently it is a myth that the first crepe never turns out!

Crepes:
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
3 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
splash of vanilla
salt to taste

1. In a small bowl combine the eggs, milk, butter, vanilla, baking powder and salt. Add flour, blending well. Heat heavy skillet or crepe pan over medium heat. Brush with shortening or oil (or spray with non-stick cooking spray).

Batter starts to bubble and
curl on the edges.

2. Pour batter, about 1/3 cup at a time, into pan.  Tilt and swirl pan to spread batter very thin - to the edges of the pan.  Brown about 1-2 minutes (until it starts to bubble), turn and brown the other side.
3. Transfer crepes to a plate and cover with foil paper or place in warm oven to keep warm.
4. When all the batter is cooked, place a crepe, one at a time back into the pan and fill with the filling (below). Fold in half (or thirds) and briefly heat through.
5. Dust with icing sugar and garnish with whipped cream or syrup and serve.

Makes approximately 8 crepes.

The final product - yum!

Filling #1:
5 apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced.
2 tbsp butter
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp cinnamon (to taste)

Heat skillet over medium heat.  Melt butter in the pan and add apples.  Squeeze lemon juice over top and sprinkle with cinnamon.  Cook until the apples are soft and starting to break down.

Filling #2:
Nutella
Sliced Bananas

Spread nutella over half the crepe. Once it starts to melt, place the sliced bananas over top.  Fold the crepe over and flip to heat the other side.

Filling #3:
Nutella
Sliced Strawberries

Spread nutella over half the crepe. Once it starts to melt, place the sliced strawberries over top.  Fold the crepe over and flip to heat the other side.

Filling #4:
1 lemon, juiced and zested
sugar

Sprinkle the crepe with sugar, lemon zest and juice.  Fold over and serve.