Grain Free Apple Walnut Muffins – version 2, with coconut flour

I liked the cashew based apple walnut muffins I made the other week, but I had a feeling that coconut flour might work better for this combo. I also wanted to experiment with cooking flat cakes in the frying pan.So my experimenting hat went on again…

First step was to have a look at the Apple Walnut coconut flour muffin in Bruce Fife’s book “Cooking With Coconut Flour” then make some substitutions. My swaps:

• Replaced half of the coconut flour with carob, and because coconut flour is so absorbent I used twice as much carob
• Left out the cinnamon, because, well, carob…
• Replaced the honey sweetener with dates
• Replaced the butter with coconut oil
• Doubled the amount of apple

Being a bit of a lazy cook, I usually like to fling everything in the food processor and hope for the best. But today I wanted to be low tech, for those of you who don’t have a lot of kitchen equipment.

First I prepped the muffin pans. I usually use paper cups, but coconut flour sticks too much. Baking paper works better. So I greased the pans with lots of coconut oil, then cut squares of baking paper and pushed them into the pans. Then set the oven to preheat to 190C (375F).

Then I sifted together in a small bowl:

• ¼ cup / 36ish grams coconut flour
• ½ cup / 50 gm carob powder
• ½ tsp baking soda (1 tsp baking powder would probably work too)

In a large bowl, I whisked together:

• 6 free range eggs
• 6 Tablespoons / 60 gms melted coconut oil (but butter would be just fine)
• ½ tsp sea salt
• ½ tsp vanilla powder (or vanilla essence or extract)

I chopped up with a large knife:

• ½ cup / 60gm walnuts
• 3 fresh medjool dates, but I might for go for 4 or 5 next time (if using dried dates, maybe go for 4 to 8)

Finally I peeled and grated:

• 2 medium apples (came to about 1 cup)

They all got mixed together and left to sit for a few minutes. Although the second photo is shockingly blurred, you can still see how much the texture has thickened up, once the coconut flour has absorbed the liquid.

I saved a little mixture to make flat cakes for @jedau, and spooned mixture into 10 of the muffin tins. Into the oven they went for 15 minutes at 190C (375F). Except I misremembered the starting time and left them in for 20. They were fine after 20, but start checking at 15 – they could have been slightly moister with less cooking. But they still look pretty good, don’t they?

While they were cooking I melted some coconut oil in the frying pan and panfried some of the mixture like pikelets. I used a lowish heat and cooked them for 2-3 minutes each side. Here’s how they looked.

Here’s a pic of the two types together, so you can see that the texture is fairly similar with both methods of cooking.