Gluten-Free Healthy Hempseed Muffins!

I loved the way my wheat version of Healthy Hempseed Muffins turned out but now I had to find my way to make them gluten free goodness. I'm so excited because these turned out even better than I hoped they would! You can barely tell that these are made with organic brown rice flour, organic tapioca starch and almond meal as the main ingredients. I threw in a few tricks to maximize flavor and I think they're a winner. I really wanted to succeed at making a delicious, healthy muffin as my DD Rachel is not celiac but very wheat sensitive. She eats two of my muffins made with wheat and she instantly gets a headache. Not fun. So for her sake I'm always trying to expand my selection of gluten-free recipes. I'm not going to guarantee every ingredient is 100% gluten free in my recipe here but they are definitely super-low gluten. I'm sure those in the know that need to be can sub correctly if and where required. I cut one open here so you can get an idea of the texture and you can see that they are not dense and gummy. They are delicious whether you're gluten sensitive or just want to reduce your gluten load! Either way I think you'll find them to be an amazing replica of a whole grain wheat-based muffin.

Recipe
*3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. gluten-free flour mixture*
1/4 cup ground golden flaxseed
1/4 cup hempseed
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup orange juice (double concentrate)
1/4 cup soy milk
1 ripe banana
2 tbsp. canola oil
1/2 cup organic raisins
plus I added another 4 teaspoons each of
almond meal and hempseed to batter at the very end
as it seemed a little thin -- this is probably variable
factor depending on moisture content of your flour etc.

*Gluten-free flour mixture: 2-3/4 cups organic brown rice flour, 1/2 cup tapioca starch plus 1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal. This makes 3-1/2 cups gluten-free flour. You only need to use 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons for making the above recipe.*

To maximize flavor I decided to soak the 1/2 cup raisins overnight in a mixture of a couple of tablespoons strong orange juice made from frozen concentrate to which I added a teaspoon of vanilla. By morning they were plumped up and full of flavor so it's a good thing to do this if you have the time. Also the 1/2 cup of orange juice I used in the recipe I also made extra strong so that the flavor would overpower any slight brown rice flour taste. I added the teaspoon of cinnamon for the same reason.

I also threw the first 9 ingredients together in my dry vita-mix blender and aerated them together for a bit. I'm not sure if this step is vital or not but that is what I did. I then also put all the dry ingredients through a wire mesh sieve because the vita-mix had caused the almond meal to kinda of lump ever so slightly - at least I think it was probably the almond meal. Anyhow pressing it through the sieve got rid of all my little lumps and I once again had a lovely pile of fluffy looking flour mixture!

Next put the orange juice, soy milk, oil and banana in blender. Whirl until light and frothy. Gently stir the liquid into the flour mixture, adding the raisins a couple of tablespoons at a time until all is mixed together using as few strokes as possible. My batter looked just a smidge too thin at this point so I added an extra 4 teaspoons each of almond meal and hempseed. That did the trick! Line your muffin cups and using a 1/3 cup measure divide mixture evenly. This recipe makes 9 muffins. Bake at 375F for about 20 minutes. Cool and enjoy!

Veggie Prairie Girl Rambles
Update @ 6 p.m. -- I can't believe how satisfying these muffins are! I had one with a glass of soy/almond milk at 3 p.m. and still no hunger pangs. That's very unusual for me. I did talk with my sister Nellie earlier today and said she spoke to the person that handles all the calls for a small hempseed distributing company. They told her that a lot of people are taking hempseed to promote weight loss. Might be something to it! At the very least it keeps your tummy from making growly noises for longer than a lot of foods. This might be key!