Grapefruit Muffins

Every year the Brattleboro Music Center sells citrus fruits as a winter fundraiser. Every year, we order a case of organic grapefruit. I’m one of those people who loves grapefruit and peels and eats them by the slice. But I always seem to forget how many grapefruit really come in a case. And, as with any fresh fruit, their size and sweetness varies with the year and time of season. This year, I got a pretty puckery bunch. I’ve been slowly eating them and giving some to friends, but have been on a quest for ways to incorporate them in meals. Grapefruit is great just broiled with a little sprinkling of brown sugar, and it pairs extremely well with avocados in a salad, but I’ve found my new favorite use in these Grapefruit Muffins. These are not cakey, but very much muffins. They are moist with a sunny yellow color and texture kind of like corn muffins--perfect to brighten up a breakfast platter on a dark winter morning. Although baked, they very much retain the taste of a fresh grapefruit. If you want a more subtle grapefruit-ness, use the zest of only ½ grapefruit.

Ingredients:

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons (105g) light buckwheat

¾ cup (105g) tapioca starch

¼ cup (30g) coconut flour

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain full-fat Greek yogurt (such as Fage)

½ cup sugar

½ cup honey

4 large eggs

Zest of one grapefruit

1/3 cup grapefruit juice

1/2 cup canola oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F and grease a 12-muffin tin plus a small loaf pan or ramekin.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the buckwheat flour, tapioca starch, coconut flour, ginger, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside.

Using a hand mixer, blend together the yogurt, sugar, honey, eggs, grapefruit zest, and grapefruit juice. Beat in the dry ingredients. By hand stir in the oil until well-combined.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tins, filling them to about ½ inch from the top. Spoon the remainder into the loaf pan or ramekin.

Bake for 20 minutes until tops are lightly browned and the tops spring back when pressed. Allow to cool for ten minutes before removing the muffins and transferring them to a cooling rack.

Healthy Banana Chocolate Muffins

A couple of weeks ago, I was staying with my mom in South Carolina attending to another family member who was ill. I had picked up a bunch of bananas for my mom, but in the hub-bub of coming and going, they began to ripen …and ripen. I don’t know what it is with bananas, but seeing a perilously ripe banana inspires tremendous guilt in me. No one, including me, wants to throw away a perfectly good banana, even if it is kind of mushy and sickly sweet (at least in my opinion.) I searched around my 93 year-old mom’s pantry, which wasn’t particularly well-equipped for baking projects, to see what I could cob together with bananas. The result was banana muffins. Honestly, the crumb was so tender and moist that these could have easily passed for healthy cupcakes.

Back at home in Vermont, there were more overly ripe bananas waiting for me. At my mom’s, she had a box of King Arthur’s All-Purpose Gluten Free Baking mix, but at home, I decided to try my own combination of flours and see how a little cocoa changed the flavor profile. Both versions were absolutely the best banana muffins I’ve ever eaten, gluten-free or not. Feel free to try either version by simply omitting the cocoa and using either King Arthur flour or the blend shown below.  And go ahead and ice them with cream cheese frosting, if you like.

Makes 12 cupcakes plus a little banana cake

Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas

½ cup plain Greek yogurt

½ cup honey

¼ cup olive oil

2 large eggs

¼ cup cocoa

1 packed cup King Arthur Flour (or ½ cup (60g) light buckwheat flour, ½ cup (70g) tapioca starch and 1/8 cup (15g) coconut flour)
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F and grease a 12-muffin tin plus a small ramekin.

Mash the bananas with a fork and using a hand mixer, blend the bananas with the yogurt, honey, olive oil, eggs, and cocoa.

Beat in the flour(s) and then beat in the baking powder and baking soda.

Spoon about ¼ of batter into each muffin cup and spoon the remainder into the ramekin.

Bake for 19 to 20 minutes or until the tops spring back and a toothpick comes out clean.