Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Buckwheat and Honey Nut Muffins or Biscotti

4 oz. of butter (about 4 tablespoons) ( I used Earth Balance Butter)
3/4 cup of brown rice syrup (Eden)
1/4 cup agave
1/2 raw honey (local)
1 organic (free-range) egg
1 egg replacement (made of potato starch and tapioca starch--Ener G is the brand I used)
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup whole wheat
1/4 ground flax
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp of ground sea salt (salt mill or use a suribachi-motar/pestal)
1 1/2 dark chocolate chips (or carob chips--the grocery store was out)
1/2 walnuts (whatever you have)
1/4 dried apricots, chopped (just for fun)

Preheat your oven to 375.  Mix-cream the wet in separate bowl.  Then mix the dry in a separate bowl.  Slowly combine the two along with the chips, nuts & fruit. Fill each muffin to about 3/4 quarters.... bake for 23-25 minutes.

I originally created this recipe to make cookies.  I made 9 cookies intially and cooked them for 10 minutes--they were too flat!  I think there was too much liquid-part... so I filled my muffin cups and went a different route.  They are very tasty but did not rise like I wanted them to; however, when they cooled, they were so creamy--my little toddler son loved them!

Also, this is the first time I have used an egg replacer, Ener-G (found in health food section), so that is why I used one real egg--just in case.  Use this site for helpful tips on using egg replacements: http://www.vegcooking.com/vegcooking-eggreplace.asp -especially if you are a vegan or vegetarian.  In fact, expore this site for great ideas.  For Christmas I plan on making a cheescake made from a soft tofu... interesting, but worth a try!

With the first batch of attempted cookies, while they were still warm, I scraped them up and made them into one big mound... and cut them long-wise--my goal biscotti.  I baked them for about 10 minutes at 375...  When the muffins came out, I let them cool and I still have batter leftover, I am going to aim to make biscotti out of them and see how it works...stay tuned... 

3rd round: To make the biscotti, I made one huge cookie-baked it for 20 minutes.  I let it cool for about 10 minutes, I then cut them long-wise and then in half (to make them as long as a finger), and baked them again for about 15 minutes.  I let them cool... they were definitely crunchy!

So this "game" is fun, coming up with recipes using different ingredients... experiment and see what comes out..don't throw out... just be creative!  In making this again, I think I would tone down on the liquid sweeteners... the dough was definitely too runny... I would also consider adding a tsp of baking powder (aluminum free, of course!).

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