GF Orange-Pumpkin Muffins

I'm still on the mini bandwagon and was feeling in the mood for a "bit" of a muffin. I bought some organic canned pumpkin a few months ago and had yet to do a thing with it. Well, since I could live on starches (and smoothies) I thought  I'd try my hand at making a  healthy version of a mini donut . I still prefer gluten free wherever possible. With gluten-free tasting this good it's not as hard as I thought to use my rice flour mixture more often than not. It's got all the good things going for it -- beta-carotene from the pumkin, some vitamin C from the orange juice, lots of omega goodness as not only did I use the flaxseed for egg-subsitute I also added an extra 1/4 cup to my dry ingredients for good measure. All in all a very honorable candidate to receive high scores for low-fat & super nutrients in an itsy bitsy muffin.

Dry Ingredients
1/4 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup tapioca starch

1/4 cup golden ground flaxseed

1/4 cup almond meal

1/2 cup oatbran

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients

2 tablespoons canola oil

1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons agave nectar (maple-flavor)

1-1/4 cup pumpkin puree (canned)

1 cup orange juice (made with 6 tbsp frozen concentrate + water)

2 tablespoons golden ground flaxseed

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons plain soy milk

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Topping

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Put all dry ingredients through a sifter into large bowl.  There will be some oatbran left behind in the sifter -- just mix it back through. Combine all the wet ingredients and whisk until well blended together (or whirl in blender if you prefer).  Pour the wet into the dry ingredients and use just enough strokes to blend so there are no lumps of flour remaining.  I made 24 mini-muffins using 1 tablespoon batter each.  Sprinkle the tops liberally with your cinnamon-sugar mixture. Then bake at 375F for about 8 minutes.  With the remainder of the batter I made 4 mini-loaves and these were baked at the same temperature for about 26 minutes. I love the little mini-muffins -- they are very cute with the sparkly sugar topping and look and taste kinda of like a healthy yummy little donut hole. Please note:  I used cinnamon/sugar mixture through the batter as well as on top so if you see the same amounts twice here (as in the dry ingredients and in the topping)  it's not an error. If you prefer less sweet I'd leave out the sugar in the batter -- just go with the cinnamon alone.  I think the sugar on the topping has more of an impact so I wouldn't eliminate that portion .

These are super delicious warm out of the oven.  They are a little dry the next day so I would recommend that after you polish off your quota for the first day you freeze them promptly.  They freeze well and thaw out quickly. A little zap in the microwave makes them taste almost as good as first day.  I think I prefer the batter from this particular recipe baked as the mini-muffins rather than the mini loaves.  They seem to cook more evenly that way. The loaves had a slightly dense bottom whereas the mini muffins did not.  But if that's all you have it's still very tasty but for perfection I'd go with the mini muffin pan.