Muffins

These are my variations on the basic muffin recipe on the back of Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix. If you use another flour or baking mix, check whether or not it already contains baking soda, baking powder, and / or salt. (Pamela's does.) If not, I'm guessing you will need to add about 1½ tsp. baking powder, and ½ tsp. each salt and baking soda.

CRANBERRY MUFFINS
2½ cups Pamela's baking mix

¾ cup water or rice milk (vanilla works best)
1 tbs. lemon juice
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tbs. vegetable oil

½ cup water
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ginger
1 cup dried cranberries

If using milk, combine rice milk and lemon juice. Let sit for 5 minutes to sour it a bit (optional). Mix in remaining ingredients, adding a few tbs. more water if batter is too thick. Pour into muffin tin, filling cups a little over half full. Bake at 350º for 20-25 minutes or until tops of muffins start to turn golden brown.

Makes: 12 muffins.

Notes: If you use Pamela's, you may notice that I left out 1 tsp. vanilla. As you may know, most vanilla contains gluten, so a celiac will have to buy vanilla that is specifically labeled gluten-free. These are available at health food stores for around $10 per bottle. I used to use this type of vanilla in my muffins, but I got into the habit of making them so often that I could go through a bottle of vanilla about every 2-3 weeks. I hated to pay that much, so I switched back to using regular vanilla for a while. It is probably so little gluten that it doesn't do me much harm personally, but one day I decided to just try muffins without the vanilla. I couldn't taste any difference. And if you are dairy-free and use vanilla-flavored milk, you have your vanilla flavoring right there. Voila.

Update 6/23/11 -- I've discovered that McCormick and some other brands of regular vanilla are now labeling their products "gluten-free." I don't know whether these are truly celiac friendly, but I'm glad vanilla makers are making an effort to appeal to gluten-free consumers! I actually found a huge 16-oz. bottle of vanilla at Costco labeled "gluten-free" for about $6 or $8 (can't remember the exact price), as compared to a 2-oz. bottle I got at the local grocery store for $4. I'll take that! You may be seeing a resurrection of vanilla in my recipes from this point.

Another note: I've added some oil to these recipes because I think they are more moist and tasty that way, even without added butter.

And speaking of milk, you'll notice that I did say "water or milk." The Pamela's recipe calls for water. I used milk for a long time of my own accord, but recently I've been noticing how quickly we go through rice milk around here with five people drinking it (myself, my husband, and all three of my girls), and rice milk isn't exactly the cheapest thing in the world. So I switched to water, and the Pamela's recipe was right -- it tastes just fine that way, too. I still do add the lemon juice, though.

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS
2½ cups Pamela's baking mix

¾ cup water or rice milk
½ tbs. lemon juice (optional)
½ cup sugar
2 eggs

2 tbs. vegetable oil

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Same directions as above.

BANANA MUFFINS
2½ cups Pamela's baking mix

½ cup water or rice milk (vanilla works best)
½ tbs. lemon juice (optional)
½ cup sugar
2 eggs

2 tbs. vegetable oil

½ tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. nutmeg
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2-3 bananas)

Same directions as above.