gluten-free eats

These banana crumb cake muffins are light and tender with great banana flavor and a streusely topping that you can either double or omit entirely, depending on how sweet you want them. They're moist, have a fluffy crumb, and can be eaten out of hand without falling apart.

Now, technically this is a coffee cake recipe, but I do what I want, Thor.

Ingredients:

Dry:

• 1 cup almond flour (100 grams)
• 1/2 cup sorghum flour (65 grams)
• 1/4 cup white rice flour (35 grams) or oat flour (25 grams)
• 1/4 cup tapioca starch (35 grams)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon (or a full tablespoon if you skip the topping)
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Wet:

• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed (190 grams)
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 1/3 cup coconut oil, melted, or neutral oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Crumb topping (optional):

• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 tablespoons rice or almond flour
• 2 tablespoons solid coconut oil, or liquid oil
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons chopped nuts (optional)

Time: This batter comes together easily, uses about two bowls, and requires no special tools. Prep time under 20 minutes. Bake time around 25 minutes.

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F and set up 16-18 muffin cups with liners.

2. If you are making the crumb topping, do so now. Throw all those ingredients—except for the nuts—into a small bowl and either smash the solid coconut oil up into the dry ingredients until it's a crumby texture, or use a liquid oil—any kind—and stir it in until there are no dry spots and everything's vaguely clumpy. Now add in the nuts and stir to combine.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients and break up any lumps in your flours. I like to use the bottom of a measuring cup.

4. In a different bowl, smash up your bananas with a fork. Then add in the brown sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla extract. Give it a nice whisk.

5. Add the wet to the dry. The original recipe says "beat for two minutes," but I declined. I just whisk until the lumps are gone and the batter's come together and thickened a little. Like under 30 seconds. The batter will be thick, but pour easily.

6. Scoop your batter into your muffin cups. I put about a 1/4 cup in each. Sprinkle the tops with the crumb topping.

7. Into the oven, middle rack, for 20-25 minutes. Be sure to give the muffins a turn after 15 minutes. They're done when the tops are a lovely golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin in the center of the pan comes out clean with a few damp crumbs.

8. Let them cool in the pan for a minute, then remove to a cooling rack, where they should sit for at least ten minutes before eating. They're very good warm.

9. Freeze, or store in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to four days. The crumb topping will soften because of all the moisture in the muffins, but the muffins taste just as good the second day, and the fourth.

Notes: I used avocado oil instead of coconut oil, and I used the xanthan gum, so I can't say how it works without it. I made these with white rice flour the first time and oat flour the second and both worked well. All those grams up there in the ingredients are just me measuring by volume and then weighing the result, so your results may vary. If I was doing a better job, I would have put 35 grams of oat flour in instead of a 1/4 cup, but I was being lazy am learning to relax when it comes to stuff like this.

There isn't quite enough crumb topping to give all the muffins an even layer of crumbs, so if you like a lot of topping, you might want to make a double batch. Though be advised my muffins sunk under the weight of (one order of) the crumb topping and went concave in the middle. If you want these to be less sweet, skip the crumb topping and go ahead and add that extra teaspoon of cinnamon to the batter, bringing your cinnamon total up to 1 tablespoon. Without the crumbs, these muffins have a nice even top and are the perfect amount of sweetness for me, but if you want to cut down on the sugar even more you could add some chopped nuts to the batter. Or, if you want to go in a different direction, you could add chocolate chips. The batter's thick enough to support either, or both.

Variations: Go ahead and make this a coffee cake by putting it into a 10 x 12 inch baking pan lined with parchment. I...don't have a pan of that size, and I previously made another coffee cake from this blog and it just refused to bake in the center, which is basically my cooking nightmare, which is why I didn't even try to make this as a coffee cake. But I'm not saying that will necessarily happen here. The original recipe says to cook it for 33-35 minutes.

Questions? Ask 'em!

This recipe appeared on my journal in a shortened form.