Introduction: Fruit and Vegetable Muffins (gluten Free)

By
About: I like to make food and create recipes! I share them here because it makes the world more efficient if we all share good ideas. I have a gluten/dairy free child who inspires much of what I create in the ki…

These are tasty muffins that are filled with nutritious fruits and vegetables!  In fact, about half the volume of each muffin is pure fruit and vegetable puree.  My 3 year old ate two immediately....which is a nice 1/4 cup serving of great nutrition.


Ingredients:

2 large bananas, cut into chunks
1 large red apple, cut into chunks
1/2 cup raspberries
1 cup baby carrots (or big carrots chopped into pieces)
2 cups steamed broccoli (I steamed fresh broccoli for 3 minutes in the microwave)
1/4 cup orange juice
1 cup certified gluten free oat flour
1/2 cup millet flour
1/2 cup sorghum flour
3/4 cup coconut palm sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp xanthan gum

Instructions:

1.  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.  Line a muffin tin with paper baking cups.  (You'll need 20 paper cups in total)

2.  Put the apples, bananas, raspberries, carrots, broccoli, and orange juice in a food processor.  Turn on high speed and blend away until it is completely smooth.  You will probably have to stop once or twice to scrape down the sides of the bowl.  It will look unappetizing and strange...that's ok.  You will need 2.5 cups of this puree for the muffins.  You can freeze the rest for the next time you make these!

3.  Using the paddle attachment of your stand mixer on low, mix the eggs, coconut oil, vanilla, and coconut sugar until well mixed.  Add in 2.5 cups of the apple/broccoli puree and mix well.

4.  In a separate bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients.  Once they are combined, add them into the bowl of your stand mixer and mix until everything looks smooth and non-lumpy.

5.  Fill your paper muffin cups 2/3 full with batter.  It's important that you only fill the cups 2/3 full, because it helps the muffins to cook all the way through.  Because the dough is very wet, if you were to overfill them it would be very hard to get them to cook all the way through.   You would end up with burned muffin tops and soggy muffin insides.

6.  Bake for about 26 minutes.  Immediately remove the muffins from the pan to cool on a wire cooling rack.   This prevents the bottoms from getting soggy from all the steam.  Makes 20 muffins.

Notes:  I wish I could make these for every single person I know just to show them how delicious they are!  My son and I each ate 3 of them in just a few hours, and we only stopped because I removed them from the counter.  These have SUCH a unique flavor to them....it's really hard to describe.  I will say that they do not taste like vegetables!  Maybe slightly like carrot cake.   They are so good....and so good for you!  They also freeze very well.

Alternate Method:   If you happen to like wheat/gluten and prefer to make these with wheat flour, you can use 2 cups of wheat flour and just omit the oat/millet/sorghum flours and the xanthan gum.