Tag: muffins

Gluten-Free Almond Zucchini Mini-Muffins

Temptation. A to Z.

Almond flour and zucchini mini-muffins sweetened only with pure maple syrup. That's right. No cane sugar. Almond flour and bourbon vanilla bring their subtle, natural sweetness to gluten-free muffin recipes, so why cloak it with a heavy dose of sugar? And adding a lip-smacking kiss of ginger wakes up the zucchini (which tends to fall asleep in baking recipes, due to utter lack of commitment and verve).

I've added quinoa flakes for extra protein, and brown rice flour to round out the whole grains. And a small bit of tapioca starch- to give these whole grain based muffins some lift. Now the only hitch is, don't eat all twenty-four at once, Darling.

Tell yourself you're only going to eat one.

Well, maybe two.

Don't think about three.

Or imagine four.

Because that fourth delectable bite of nary a muffin- really, it's only a tease of a muffin- might stir your desire for a fifth. And the next thing you know, half the mini-muffin pan is empty. And you are standing, wide-eyed and innocent, brushing baby sized crumbs off your chin, when your husband swings around the corner into the sunlit kitchen and inhales, declaring, Sweet Tapdancing Buddha, it smells good in here! What did you bake?

And thinking lickity-split fast you tell him, I made a dozen almond flour zucchini mini-muffins.

Want to try one?

Gluten-Free Peach Muffins with Almond Flour

Tender gluten-free muffins with peaches and almond flour

Juicy. Peach. Muffins.

Today is a total beach day. And here I am working. Editing photographs of peach muffins and writing up a gluten-free recipe. No rest for the wicked. Or the self-employed. We bloggers toil at our living daily, working through holidays, Sundays, football games, and oftentimes, dinner. We tend and tweak and pretty much live a tethered geek life. The opposite of glamorous.

Or maybe it's just me.

Because there are plenty of extroverted bloggers who travel and attend blogging conferences and hob nob. They dine together and smile brilliantly in group pictures, tweeting breathlessly their mutual squee and Instagram cocktails.

And I envy them. Sometimes. Just a little.

But alas, it is not meant to be. I am destined, you see, to the role of wallflower.

Because the mere, fleeting snippet of a thought about flying somewhere- alone- which, you know, entails the whole going through various humming x-ray machines and raising your arms for total strangers wielding wands up your inner thigh, not to mention, the whole taking one's shoes off and fumbling to put them back on (the right feet) so that the person (make that seventeen persons) behind you doesn't get impatient while you wrestle with your buckles and your unzipped purse and boarding pass and reading glasses and explain to the squinting security guy that the mystery wad of metal in your bag's side pocket is only dimes and quarters you collect for Santa Monica parking meters as he picks out all thirty-seven coins just to make sure and for good measure keeps your nail clippers (in all the excitement, you didn't confess you were also carrying nail clippers).

And then there's the whole belting yourself into a hulking metal beast with wings that weighs goddess knows how many megatons, and snugging your post-baby pelvis to a polyester burnt orange float-able seat cushion between a shiny headed businessman who obviously ate raw onions for lunch and college professor reading the New York Times who you just know secretly wants to discuss Obama's clean energy policy.

Where is Matthew McConaughey when you need him?

Such visions send spikes of fear and loathing down my duodenal canal.

So I imagine muffins.

I inhale peaches at the market admiring their curve and fuzz. I peel them gently and coax out the stone pit. I slice them into jewels that will fit on the tongue and give up a burst of sweet tart juice. I stir almond meal into powder soft flours and squeeze lime juice and sprinkle cinnamon.

I bake.