Category: Wheat Free

Sweet Potato Waffles (wheat-free)

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Sweet Potato Waffle with toasted pecans and buttery maple syrup and bacon!

These waffles turned out so delicious this morning, that I’m writing this up 12 hours later before I leave for an international flight tomorrow. 😉 I need to make these again next time I have sweet potato on hand, and you need to make them stat!

I happened to have some leftover baked sweet potato on hand, but you can also cut some potato into chunks and steam them pretty quickly and then mash them up. I’ve been trying to take a break from wheat recently, so I made these with a mix of gluten-free flours. I’m sure they’d taste just as great with all purpose flour, or a mix of whole wheat and all purpose.

If you have pecans and real maple syrup, you must toast the nuts and warm the syrup to complete the dream!

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup mashed sweet potato
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
  • 1/4 cup (half a stick) of melted unsalted butter
  • 3/4 cup brown rice flour
  • 1/4 cup ground flax seed
  • 1/4 cup millet flour
  • 1/4 cup almond meal or flour
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons sugar

Yield: Two large belgian waffles (serves 4 to 6)

Steps:

  1. Mix all of the wet ingredients together in a medium sized bowl and set aside.
  2. In a separate bowl, whisk all of the dry ingredients together.
  3. Preheat your waffle iron and spray it with vegetable oil.
  4. Gently blend the wet and dry ingredients together. The batter will be fluffy. Use a measuring cup to scoop the batter onto the waffle iron.
  5. When the first waffle is done, place it in a 200 degree oven while you cook the remainder of the waffles.
  6. Serve the waffles with toasted pecans and warm maple syrup. If you dare, put a pat of butter in the maple syrup before you warm it!

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Banana Nut Muffins (wheat-free)

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I recently decided to take a break from wheat which has been challenging, but I’ve done it before for short periods. I don’t plan on giving it up permanently, because so many baked goods that I love are better with it! Anyway, so I’ve started to dabble a bit with wheat-free baking. (I’m not concerned with my food being entirely or strictly gluten-free, so to avoid misleading anyone, I’ll just say the following muffin recipe is wheat-free.)

Last week I made a super-healthy carrot spice muffin that was wheat free, but I was the only one in the family who was willing to eat them after the first try. They relied heavily on almond flour, and were lightly sweetened with honey and raisins, so it wasn’t too surprising that they were a little on the dry and crumbly side. But I kind of appreciated that I could eat one with an egg or yogurt for breakfast, and not feel totally deprived of my baked goods (or, you know, guilty).

So, today I decided to try another wheat-free muffin recipe. We bought some more wheat flour alternatives the other day — buckwheat flour, brown rice flour, etc., so I was curious to see how they perform.

(Yield: 12 muffins)

Ingredients:

  • 5 tablespoons melted butter
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups very ripe bananas (the riper the better!)
  • 1/3 cup buttermilk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup millet flour
  • 1/8 cup ground flax seed
  • 1/8 cup almond flour or meal
  • 3/4 cup brown rice flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Steps:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease or line your muffin pan.
  2. Whisk the eggs, melted butter, vanilla, sugar, buttermilk, and mashed bananas together in a medium bowl.
  3. In a separate bowl, blend together all of the dry ingredients, including the chopped nuts.
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and mix just until all the flours are incorporated.
  5. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups and bake for about 25 mins., or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.