Vanilla Cupcakes!

When I started this wheatless thing, I knew I wouldn't miss eating things like pizza crust, breadsticks, bread, cake and cupcakes.  My first attempt at wheatfree and starchfree bread was flop, literally.  My expectations were that it would almost be an exact replica of bread but taste maybe a little different.  Well my bubble got burst very quickly and I told myself that baking was too much work and just not worth the results.  I could live without anything similar to those items I swore off.

Let's face it, most people like to have something different texture-wise other then veggies, meat, cheese and etc.  Weather it be the texture, taste or just out of habit it is a hard habit to break indeed.  So... I have found myself trying out wheatfree and starchfree alternatives and eating some tasty things as well as my very own words!

I cracked open my Wheat Belly Cookbook by Dr. William Davis to the Bakery Section.  I decided to make the Vanilla Cupcake recipe.  I didn't make the frosting that was listed because I didn't have the ingredients needed. Following is the recipe I used first and then below I'll shared some tweaks.  I always like to tweak a recipe to see if I can slide by on a cheaper alternative to almond meal or almond flour by using chickpea flour.

Vanilla Cupcakes

2 cups almond meal/flour

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup ground golden flaxseeds ( I use milled flaxseeds )

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda ( I didn't have soda so I used 1 tbs of additional baking powder )

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 eggs, separated

1/4 cup coconut oil or butter, melted ( I used butter )

1/2 cup Xylitol

2 tablespoons buttermilk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Place 10 liners in a 12 muffin cup pan.

Whisk together all dry ingredients (except Xylitol) in a medium bowl.

Whisk together egg yolks, oil/butter, Xylitol, buttermilk, and vanilla.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form with an electric mixer on high.

Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture.  Then fold the egg mixture into the flour mixture until well combined.  Basically it will eventually look like a big dough ball.  I use a Pampered Chef scoop to divide among the muffin cups.  Bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

I liked this recipe, but I'm sure it would have been a lot better with the recommended icing.

Of course I tweaked and used Chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour the second time around to see if it would be a good cost effective alternative.  I liked it as well although they were different!

The main differences were of course coloring and the slight nutty taste from the almond meal and texture.  They were both dense and very filling.  The original batch seemed crumbly as the second batch didn't seem so much.  You will not get light, fluffy and barely there cake with this recipe and I don't mind that at all!  I will be making these again both ways!

I do think I will try this recipe and use the whoopie pie pans from Wilton instead of my regular muffin pan and paper cups. I think putting two together with icing in the middle would be awesome!  Kind of like Whoopie Pies or as I like to call them Moon Pies!

Below are pictures.  Enjoy!!!!

Folding in the egg mixture (1st batch with almond meal)

Finished 1st batch with a cream cheese/cinnamon icing.  The icing wasn't much to brag about and something I threw together that is why I didn't include the recipe!

The second batch with Garbanzo Bean flour.

Second batch with a closeup. You can see I overfilled the cups and they domed up.  Also notice the difference in color by using the Garbanzo Bean flour instead of Almond meal.  I topped it with Jiffy's Chocolate Hazelnut spread. Yummy!!!

Making Cookie Dough Bites!

Current Mission:  

Cookie Dough Bites

A friend sent me the following recipe and the picture looked SO GOOD!  It is the profile picture I am currently using for my Wheatless In Indiana Facebook page.  Melty chocolate and gooey goodness with Garbanzo beans and no wheat!!!!

Here is the recipe exactly as it was sent to me.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups canned* chickpeas, well-rinsed and patted dry with a paper towel

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (165 grams) natural peanut butter

1/4 cup (80 grams) honey (agave would be amazing too!)

1 teaspoon baking powder**

a pinch of salt if your peanut butter doesn’t have salt in it

1/2 cup (90 grams) chocolate chips

* My can was a 400 gram can, 240 grams without the water, and I used all but a few tablespoons

** If you need grain-free baking powder, you can use 1 part cream of tartar + 1 part baking soda + 2 parts arrowroot.

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350°F / 175°C.

Combine all the ingredients, except for the chocolate chips, in a food processor and process until very smooth. Make sure to scrape the sides and the top to get the little chunks of chickpeas and process again until they’re combined.

Put in the chocolate chips and stir it if you can, or pulse it once or twice. The mixture will be very thick and sticky.

With wet hands, form into 1 1/2″ balls. Place onto a piece of parchment paper. If you want them to look more like normal cookies, press down slightly on the balls. They don’t do much rising. Bake for about 10 minutes.

Yields about fourteen 1 1/2″ cookie dough balls.

Mission Briefing:

My can of Garbanzo beans were more then 400 grams, so of course I had to eyeball it to try to keep things close to the objective in the recipe.  But as Julia Childs has been known to say... "Its just you alone in your kitchen and who's to know!"

As you all know by now, I'm not exactly a kitchen wizard and sometimes I fumble around.  For someone like me using a food processor is still a little "new" and I don't like anything to complicated - although I have been know to take a crack at the complex when the mood strikes.    Here are the mission photos:

Garbanzo bean "skins" that came off as I was patting them dry

Giving the garbanzo beans a patdown!

Everything but chocolate chips in the food processor

Ok... I think this is as smooth as it gets, not like smooth peanut butter but it will do for me!

In goes the chocolate chips

This stuff is thick, look out mixing with a plastic spatula!

I opted to smoosh instead of making them into balls

I left them in the oven a little longer then 10 mins.  I used regular bake instead of the new fangled option to convection bake... that will be another mission on another day!

My final observation 

Upon tasting, I enjoy the flavor and it is a great little treat.  It is not overpowering with sweetness (although my peanut butter had sugar added to it).  I will make this again and next time I plan to leave them in balls and not cook them as long.  I think it is all trial and error to get everything the way YOU like it.  

I hope to in the future try these little goodies out with a different kind of nutbutter, but if you look at the store they can be a bit expensive.  It might be something I will by to reserve for special occasions like a Sabbath meal or a Holiday.  :-)  Enjoy!  I highly recommend this recipe!!!!

Pancakes!!!

Ok, I can only go for so long without wanting to eat something similar in texture to wheat bread or wheat products.  After discovering Chickpea flour (split chickpea variety), I was on board and ready to launch operation PANCAKE.  Oh yes, I was on top of that and you know it too!

I found a recipe online from The Wannabe Chef
It is a basic recipe and I pretty much enjoyed really getting to bite into something with that old familiar texture.  Sure, they were not as light and fluffy as pancakes made from wheat, but I was SO HAPPY with them anyway.

The first time making them I used Truvia in place of the sugar and served them topped with raw honey bought locally.  The second round of making them I added cinnamon and used sugar because I ran out of Truvia.

In some respects they do remind me of whole wheat pancakes because the chickpea flour gives them a bit of flavor whereas regular white wheat flour is bland and tasteless which causes one to rely on syrup or butter for flavor.

I will be making more chickpea flour pancakes and tweaking them as I go.
I LOVED to eat sweet potato pancakes and oh yeah... that is just a matter of time before I give that a go!  I suspect it will be good.  I also want to play around more with the cinnamon, other spices.  There is so much you can do with pancakes!  I will most likely take the leap into savory pancakes with this flour.  YUM!

I encourage you to go out pick up some chickpea flour and get cooking!  I will be tweaking and sharing  in the future.  Enjoy the photos (they do not show the cinnamon pancakes).

Skillet + Butter + Batter = Happiness!!!

 

Happily surprised by their texture!

Topped with local honey and yummy!

Wheat Belly Bread

I was so excited to see that Dr. Davis, author of Wheat Belly, had a bread recipe out that I could use my chickpea flour with.  I found it on the Dr. Oz website titled Wheat Belly Bread.

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed.  Not by the flavor, but by the texture.  It was a bit crumbly.  

I was hoping it would be a little more "breadlike" then what I took out of the oven.  I know it was my first crack at making it and I have to also admit that the stove in the apartment is kind of a relic and temperamental.  I didn't even leave it in the oven for the full time the recipe said!  If I attempt this recipe again in the future, I will probably shave off a few minutes of cook time while I am using this oven.

I really was hoping for something to use to make sandwiches that I could make in a loaf pan.  Well, there are a lot of things out there to try and on to something else!

Enjoy the photos.  Give it a go yourself, the flavor is good.  

I used Watkins Pure Ground Cinnamon which blows regular cinnamon away in flavor.  So there are notes of the cinnamon when I eat this bread.  It makes me want to slap some butter on it!  

 Looking down as I patted it into the loaf pan

 Side view before going into the oven

After cooking you can see it cracked and is a bit crumbly

Cross section of the bread

Blueberry Muffins!

I've made this recipe from the book Wheat Belly by Dr. Davis a couple of times and I really do like it as is, but this time around I wanted to see what would happen if I substituted 1/2 the almond meal with Chickpea flour also known as Besan Flour.

Dr. Davis says Garbanzo Bean Flour is a "safe" flour to use but it barely made his list.  I discovered a Chickpea flour made from the Chana Dal bean.  This bean is suppose to be far better then the garbanzo bean ( GI index and Carb content ) so I decided to use it instead of the garbanzo bean flour.  Now... if you look into it, it can really make your head spin because they are both a form of chickpea, but Chana Dal seems to be the way to go!

So I've decided to play around with my new Chickpea flour ( aka: Besan, Gram ).  It will be more cost effective then using all almond flour.  

The Original Recipe for Banana Blueberry Muffins

Makes 10-12 muffins

2 cups ground almond meal  ( I used 1 cup almond meal & 1 cup chickpea flour )

1/4 cup ground flaxseeds

Sweetener equivalent to 3/4 cup sucrose  ( I use Truvia )

1 teaspoon baking powder

Dash of fine sea salt

1 ripe banana

2 large eggs

1/2 cup sour cream OR coconut milk  ( I used coconut milk from a carton )

1/4 cup walnut oil, coconut oil, or extra-light olive oil

1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease muffin tin with oil.

Combine the almond meal, ground flaxseeds, sweetener, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and mix with a spoon.

In another bowl, mash the banana until smooth.  Stir in eggs, sour cream or coconut milk, and oil.  Add the banana mixture to the almond meal mixture and mix thoroughly.  Fold in the blueberries.

Spoon batter into the muffin cups filling them halfway.  Bake until toothpick inserted comes out dry.  About 45 mins.  Cool in the pans for 10-15 minutes then transfer to cooling racks.

Below is the muffin I just made with 1/2 Almond Meal and 1/2 Chickpea Flour.  I kept all the other ingredients the same and did not change a thing.

Muffin made from original recipe above (photo taken a couple months ago)

In sum, I felt that the new Almond/Besan flour version may have been a little on the dry side compared to the memory of the one I made a few months ago.  Although I only felt like that with the muffins that had fewer berries in them.  They did however pass the "Hubby Test" and he gave me a thumbs up.  I will be making these muffins again in the future weather it be the original or modified version.  Who knows, I just might make them both and then taste test them in comparison.  I realize now that I should have done that in the first place!

Next time:  Chickpea Pancakes!!!!

I Didn't Fall I Jumped!

So ok, I've been sugaring it up once in a while since October.  Lately it has been more then once in a while.  I justified it because I wasn't eating any wheat so the harm wasn't all THAT bad.  Well that really is foolishness.  Sure maybe once in a big while you eat a sweet with refined sugar, what is the harm?  I've found that if you let it get out of hand then you are on the road to justifying all kinds of crazy things.

So what did I do?  Well as fate would have it, we had a chocolate cake ( made with traditional wheat flour) sitting in the fridge.  It was left over from a family gathering on Dec. 25.  We didn't eat any of it then and my hubby was planning to take it to work and give it away but forgot.
So there it was.
Did its addictive wheaty superpower call to me and send me cravings for its velvety goodness???  No, honestly I was just bored and wanted some instant gratification for chocolate and there it was.  I had opened the door months ago when I started indulging frequently in the refined sugars for comfort.
I didn't fall off the wagon with the cake, I jumped.  I took a running start.

It was a big piece too.  I figured if I was going to do it, do it big.
I do not know what kind of affect it will have on me over the next few days.  The last time I was accidentally exposed to wheat germ it was for 4 days in a row.  It was horrible!!  I had cravings and wanted to eat ALL the time until it worked itself out of my system.  Not to mention the amazing crabbiness I felt.  This time around, it was just one time and I happen to be sick already with a head and chest cold.  I think that may be my saving grace because I just don't find myself wanting to eat anything because of being sick!

I did notice that shortly after eating the cake I became very tired.  I'm fairly certain that if I went back through The Wheat Belly book by Dr. Davis there would be an explaination as to why that is.  Probably due to it's opiate affect on the brain.

I also noticed that I got sicker.  My congestion got worse.  Ok.. can I blame the wheat for that?  It is iffy, but I've done some testimonial reading online and people say that they have noticed allergy/congestion IMPROVING when they stop eating wheat.  And... yeah... my hubby and I have had massive improvements in that departments since going wheat free.

So... Time to drag myself back up on the wagon again.  This time leaving refined sugar behind as well.  For someone with a history of heart disease in the family, I strongly suspect refined sugar is a devil in disguise and something I shouldn't play with.  There is probably some link to small LDL particles and when I feel better I will look into that.

If you didn't know Small Particle LDL's are the cause of coronary heart disease.
I strongly recommend you check out www.wheatbellyblog.com or Dr. Davis' book Wheat Belly.  It is life changing in so many ways.

I'll be bringing back some food posts soon!  Hang in there as I get back into the swing of things!

Muffin Tin Omelets

Since my mom's passing I haven't written anything new, but I did find this draft just sitting there waiting to be published.  Enjoy.  I will be posting new adventures shortly. 

I found some stuff online where people were making food in muffin tins.  I thought it was cute and a great way to have ready made portions.  So I gave it a try.  Since my hubby isn't really thrilled about taking yogurt to work and eating it every morning with blueberries and nuts... maybe I should shake it up a bit.  I decided to make some breakfast omelets with sweet potato waffle fries as the bottom.

I'm not going to say this was a great success, but I'm not going to call it a failure either.  Although, it was a learning experience for sure.  I probably should tell you that I've been experiencing major bouts of clutziness in the kitchen for a while now, well actually since we moved in here a couple months ago.  Yeah, I had you fooled didn't I... thinking I was spinning all kinds of cooking magic in there with ease.  In reality I'm afraid I might have started a few salmonella farms in a few select places.  If there is a surface in the kitchen/dining room that I haven't spilt, splattered or dropped something on well then I deserve a medal! 

This day was one of those days magnified by ten!  But I survived with minimal battle wounds.  Here is what I came up with:

I preheated my oven to 375 degrees.  I came up with this based on another oven omelet recipe I have seen.

I buttered my muffin tins and added some sweet potato waffle fries.

I whisked up some eggs, salt and pepper.  I got a bit carried away and beat them to a frothy mess!  I continued and added some peppers for my veggie element.

Yep... still nice and foamy, at this point I didn't know what to expect as the result when I pulled them out of the oven.  I threw some fresh parsley on top to add another colorful element so they wouldn't be boring... and after over 7 years of marriage, my hubby recently told me he likes to eat it!

Looking good!

Looking not so good. I should have used coconut or olive oil instead of butter or better yet muffin cups!

I served them that night on the side with a big salad, focaccia "bread"sticks and Humus.