Gluten-free, dairy-free muffin FAIL! I think I made one change too many!

UPDATE:  for Round 2, scroll to the end.

I decided to try a new recipe for gluten-free, dairy-free blueberry muffins, but was making some substitutions along the way.  These are, in part a test for our friend, who as of yesterday was told by his naturopath to stick to honey, but is still cutting out gluten and dairy…

… So, starting with a basic gluten-free muffin recipe, I decided to make lemon-blueberry muffins.  As you can see below, they didn’t quite turn out as planned!

Some things turned out right with these:

• despite the alarming crater in the middle, they do have pretty good texture in the areas that rose — pretty fluffy
• the batter itself is pretty tasty: nice and lemony with a hint of vanilla.
• the parts that rose had a pretty good mouthfeel

But obviously, some things went horribly wrong:

• I’ll have to play around a little more with the liquid/flour ratios, as the substitution of honey definitely reduced the structural integrity of these.
• a little too much coconut oil to help reduce the ooze factor of the batter!  Don’t want to reduce too much, however, as that is what is giving them a nice mouthfeel.

Stay tuned as I try to make a second batch of not-so-deformed muffins!

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UPDATE: Round 2 later in the afternoon, much more successful, as you can see.  Changes I made include

• switching back to agave syrup instead of honey (agave is on the approved list after all!)
• Switched from AP gluten free flour, which is mostly rice + tapioca to a mix I made up with garfava flour, arrowroot and potato starch
• added a 1/4 tsp more xantham gum
• cut back the coconut oil by a couple of tablespoons
• upped the flour by about 2 tablespoons
• I also ended up using dried blueberries in these, as I ran out of frozen (fresh not in season yet)

The structural integrity is much better, plus I think the bean flours have a less crumbly texture than the rice flour — better suited to a muffin.  One thing I have discovered with baking gluten-free, is that it requires a willingness to experiment, as different flours and flour combos yield different results, quite a bit different than just pulling out the bag of AP flour that I’m used to.  Overall though, the more I test, the more intiutive some of this stuff seems.

Until the next baked good!