Gluten Free Pumpkin Millet Muffins
Thanksgiving is my most loved holiday of the year. Harvest, fall colours and no presents, not even a card needs to exchange hands. Just delicious food, family and friends and a little time to reflect on what we’re grateful for, to remember just how lucky we are.
One of my favourite Thanksgivings in recent memory was the year my daughter was born. She arrived a few weeks before Turkey Day and that year the three of us skipped the big extended family meal and ordered a Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings from the Fairmount Royal York Hotel. Not only did we not have to shop, prep or cook, but with every meal ordered the hotel donated a turkey to the Daily Bread Food Bank. How awesome is that? My husband lit candles, opened a nice bottle of wine and set the table for two, our three week-old baby in her bassinet beside the table. We sat in semi-darkness quietly eating and feeling that new parent emotion: a combination of exhaustion and gratitude (she’s healthy, she’s beautiful…I’m so tired, I’m so happy, I’m so tired). The night was so special that for several years we would have two Thanksgivings, one with our extended family and one just for us, hauled in from the Royal York Hotel. Hey, when you have this much to be thankful for, why not?
A challenge, at least for me, in going gluten free has been breaking with tradition. Every important event and holiday is marked with food and has to be rethought. I know that there are some very good (or at least decent) gluten free flours out there. But I am slow to warm to the idea of simply replacing wheat with a gf flour. That pie that your Nana made simply will not, in my opinion, ever be as good with gf flour. Best to simply walk away and start new traditions.
Which brings me to my recipe today. Though I will not be eating pumpkin pie this weekend, Thanksgiving will continue to be my favourite holiday because I’ll be eating pumpkin millet muffins: gluten free, delicious and you can eat them for breakfast and no one will shame you for it. (Not that I’ve ever eaten pumpkin pie for breakfast, I’m just saying if one did).
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- ½ cup coconut oil melted
- 1 cup buttermilk
- ¾ brown sugar
- ½ tsp vanilla
- 1 tin or 1 ½ cups pumpkin (you can make your own of course)
- ½ cup thick cut oats
- ½ cup millet toasted
- ¼ cup pumpkin seeds toasted
- 1/3 cups pumpkin seeds to garnish
- 1 ¾ cups almond flour or 2 Cups Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
Method
Set oven to 350
Either grease or place cups in muffin tins
Beat together 3 eggs, melted coconut oil, buttermilk, vanilla and sugar until there are no lumps
In a dry pan toast the millet.
Once the millet starts to turn brown and make a popping sound remove from heat repeat with pumpkin seeds.
Don’t do it at the same time, millet and pumpkin seeds will toast at a different rate.
Add oats, millet and pumpkin seeds to the wet ingredients.
In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients.
Combine the two.
2 heaping TBSP into each muffin tin garnished with 3 or 4 raw pumpkin seeds
Bake for 30 minutes.
Despite my reservations about gf flour, I had two mini chefs with me in the kitchen today and since we had never had these muffins with wheat we made two batches. One batch was made with gf flour (pictured on the right) and the other with almond flour (pictured on the left). We held a taste test and the almond flour won the day. But if you have a nut allergy, or no almond flour in the house go ahead and use gf flour.
*If you use gf flour reduce bake time to 25 minutes.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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Hey, thanks for stopping by!
We're Ceri and Laura, a couple of magazine-editors-turned-food-bloggers. Also, we're mothers obsessed with delicious, healthy, family food. We're constantly thinking of ways to make your time (and our own!) in the kitchen easier and more productive, but still nostalgic for the days when dinner was cereal eaten over the kitchen sink.
2 Comments
daria
December 09, 21:39I think you should credit this recipe as coming from the rebar cookbook. It is exactly the same recipe except for subbing gluten free flour. That is plagiarism, and it is basic etiquette to acknowledge if you are tweaking someone’s recipe!
Kirti Yadav
November 07, 06:07Just love these healthy muffins. Nowadays I am exploring millets as they are so healthy and nutritious. Thanks for the recipe. I will try it soon. I actually made mixed millets cake and millets Pilaf. Sharing the recipe for the same hope you like it.