GLUTEN FREE and SUGAR FREE Healthy Blueberry Muffins

Light, airy-cakey, sweet (from honey and coconut flour)... These are so delicious I actually prefer them to my regular muffin recipes! With gluten-free baked goodies the textures can often be disappointing despite the product looking the part. But with this somewhat fluke recipe I can guarantee you won't be disappointed!

I was chatting with my step-father-in-law, who has type 2 diabetes, about sugar substitutes in cakes. Of course both he and I have experimented with natural sweeteners such as dates, which are great in biscuits, flapjacks, loaves, etc, but in cakes it seems still not sweet enough. So I suggested substituting half his usual wholewheat flour with coconut flour, as it's sweet and has a lovely fluffy texture, along with honey and ripe banana. The next morning, spur-of-the-moment, I quickly banged some ingredients together, guessing the quantities, and to my delight they turned out to be the loveliest muffins I've ever made! So then I decided to try replacing the wholewheat flour with tapioca flour/starch, as it's suitable for gluten-free diets (and paleo) and can be used pretty much 1:1 for wheat flour, and can help with textures in baking too. It works really well to do half-and-half with the coconut flour rather than using 100% coconut flour, as it can be quite sticky and tastes very 'coconutty'. My Dad requires gluten-free food and since he's coming to visit from England in a couple weeks I will now have something homemade to tempt his tastebuds! Hooray!

What you will need:

4 large free-range eggs (or 5 medium)

125g butter

4 tblsp honey

1 ripe banana

120ml milk

2 tsp gluten-free baking soda

100g coconut flour

150g tapioca flour/starch

125g fresh blueberries

Method:

In a large bowl beat the eggs until light and fluffy.

Cut the butter into small pieces and melt.

Mash the banana.

Add the butter, banana, honey and milk to the beaten eggs and whisk again.

Add the baking soda, coconut flour and tapioca flour to the bowl. Beat on lowest setting at first as these flours are fine like icing sugar and will float up in a dusty cloud to cover you!

Stir in the blueberries (I chopped the larger ones in half).

Spoon the mixture into muffin cases. The mixture doesn't rise up as much as wheat flour muffins and so you need to put more mixture into each case - about 2/3 full, and level them out as the mixture also isn't 'pourable' as regular muffin mixture. Pop them into a preheated oven at 170 degrees Celsius for 25-30 minutes, until golden on top and firm to the touch.