A week or two ago I was organizing my pantry and I realized I still had a lot of Pamela’s baking mixes tucked away, and their “best by” date was January 2008. Oops. Some time ago I’d ordered a big case from Amazon after discovering they make very nice Saturday morning waffles and pancakes with very little fuss and muss. I ordered from Amazon because, well, I’m just too cheap to pay the crazy price on the shelf, and I like free shipping on grocery purchases very much, thank you! However, DH and I had not been gobbling up waffles at the rate I thought we might- and I hadn’t gotten around to playing with the mix much, except for one sad and failed experiment with agave syrup in an apple muffin recipe. The discovery of my rapidly aging mixes spurred me into action, and I started playing around with some recipes on Pamela’s web site. On a day when I had a late start for classes that then go quite late, I decided I needed to take a snack, so I threw together a recipe for muffins. BytheBay’s recipe for banana medallion pancakes were floating around in my head and so, without looking at her recipe to check for how she made them, I adapted Pamela’s muffin recipe and threw some banana “medallions” on top as a nod to my favorite former-bay GF chef. They turned out well, and were just the thing halfway through a three hour class on Contributions to the Field of Buddhist Studies. They’re not fancy, but sometimes it’s the fast, get-you-out-the-door-and-fed in the morning recipes that sustain us gluten-free women on a daily basis.
All this experimentation with Pamela’s Mix has resulted in some exciting finds. The incredibly easy recipe for drop biscuits on Pamela’s web site (1 cup Mix, 1/4 cup organic trans-fat free shortening and 1/3 cup +1 tablespoon milk, combine, plop in oven and bake) was a big hit in our house, and I highly recommend it. Just a teaser- I’m working on a modified, healthier version that I’ll be posting one of these days, so stay posted. So why not spend some quality time with your favorite gluten-free baking mix and see if you can’t break out of the “pancake and waffle” rut? I’m sure glad I did…
Don’t forget to Enter my Contest for a free Bette Hagman or vegetarian cookbook!
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Pamela’s Banana Muffins
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Ingredients
2 1/2 cups Pamela’s Mix
2 eggs 3/4 cup (or more) water 1/3 cup honey 1/3 cup (or more) mashed banana 1 tsp vanilla pumpkin pie seasoning dash of nutmeg 1/2 or 3/4 of one fresh banana, sliced
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degree oven. Combine ingredients Except for sliced banana, stirring gently. Pour batter into greased muffin tin and place one banana slice on top of each muffin. Bake for 18-20 minutes.
Notes
Makes 12 healthy muffins. Liquid amounts are approximate- add more or less until you have a batter that is not too thick or too liquid.
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Every family has its own combination of holiday traditions, usually including its fair share of special recipes for holiday sweets. When I was growing up, we often made potato salad, a carrot apple salad with raisins (haroset- a long story) and deviled eggs for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. But it never occurred to me that when I grew up and got married, I’d get the chance to share in an extra wealth of traditions. A few years back when we were visiting DH’s family around Christmas time, DFIL was about to make his famous Norwegian Christmas Bread for the family when all of a sudden he paused, and turned to me. “Is there a way we could make this gluten-free?” he asked. I wasn’t quite sure how to answer the challenge, especially since I didn’t have all my bread flours with me. Luckily the local King Soopers grocery store carried Bob’s Red Mill Wonderful GF Sandwich Bread mix- and it occurred to us to combine FIL’s family recipe with the instructions for the bread and see what happened. Well, what happened was DELICIOUS! The bread mix had always been reliable, but the flavors had never excited me that much. Combined with the candied peel and fruit mix, a generous dose of raisins and freshly ground cardamom, it was like a whole different bread mix. The cinnamon sugar topping was the perfect note, adding a satisfying cinnamon coat to the loaf. The experiment was pronounced a success, and I was thrilled to be able to have a slice of my very own GF Christmas bread while the family enjoyed their regular Christmas bread slices for breakfast the next morning. DH can personally eat his way through several loaves a season, so I think it was a matter of some urgency that I learn the secret of the family Christmas bread. Actually, the first year we lived in Japan DH was depressed to be missing out on Christmas bread on the holidays- so his parents actually mailed him some freshly made Christmas bread! That may be the most expensive bread ever made- but DH was thrilled. The next year I had friends living in Yokohama that invited me to shop at their commisary- I stocked up on fruitcake mix specifically to make this bread! DFIL still remembers his mother making the bread for them around the Christmas season on the Wisconsin farm he grew up. DH has so many memories of Christmas bread around the holiday season that whenever one is baking in the oven he exclaims joyously that “It smells like Christmas!” And now DH and I can enjoy our own Christmas holidays with a slice of gluten free Christmas bread, also known as Julekake. Someday hopefully we’ll even introduce our child, gluten-free or otherwise, to this recipe so the tradition can continue! DFIL says the secret is to use freshly ground cardamom. He usually buys the whole pods at Whole Foods and uses about 1/2 cup of pods grinding the cardamom fresh for each recipe. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? And the cardamom really does seem to be the magical ingredient in this recipe.
