Recipe Box and a Gluten-Free Recipe

I’ve been wanting to organize my very favorite recipes into a very special place.  I could only imagine my happiness if someone handed me a box like this, filled with cherished recipes.  I would probably explode with joy.  So the journey begins.

The Daddy Monkey gave me this box for Christmas and I love it so much. It has a beautiful aged patina and I like to imagine its previous life.  Did it live in a hardware store?  A patisserie?  A busy office? Someone’s kitchen?

I haven’t written any recipe cards yet, but I have started to tuck my favorite recipes in there.  I’m searching Etsy for perhaps a nice stamp to embellish recipe cards.

But for now, I will share with you the first recipe I tucked into my new box.  A recipe for gluten free cornbread muffins, since we are now giving a gluten- and dairy-free lifestyle a go with The Boy. So many gluten-free recipes just seem so strange with their odd ingredients, but I am learning along the way.

I am a bigtime cornbread lover, having grown up eating my Alabama-born Grandfather’s southern-style cornbread.  I turn to The Joy of Cooking for that recipe, and it is perfection, containing only cornmeal, buttermilk, eggs, salt and baking powder.  However, the other members of my household prefer a more cakelike cornbread, and so I set about tinkering to find a suitable recipe. These are good, and everyone in my house loves them, even us gluten-eaters.  They are good for breakfast, or as a side with a bowl of soup or chili. They are really good with blueberries mixed in, but again, I’m the only one who likes them that way.

I trust you can decide for yourself whether or not to go down the blueberry path.

ROSE’S GLUTEN-FREE CORNBREAD MUFFINS

1 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour (or cornstarch)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (can be omitted for a slightly different texture)

2 eggs

3/4 cup applesauce

3 Tablespoons light-flavored olive oil

1/3 cup water

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Prepare your favorite muffin tin with paper liners, or by oiling.  Combine the cornmeal, flours, baking powder, sea salt, sugar and xanthan gum in a largeish bowl and whisk together.  In another bowl, lightly beat the eggs, and add the applesauce, olive oil, and water.  Stir to mix.  Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ones, and fold together.  Make sure the batter is of uniform consistency, but do not overmix.

Pour into your prepared muffin tin.  It will make 10 big muffins with perfect little domes, or twelve smaller ones.  Your choice.  Bake about 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out dry.

If you are not concerned with gluten, you can substitute 1 cup of all-purpose flour for the sorghum and tapioca flours, and omit the xanthan gum.