Only a couple of days to Good Friday and my mind has been turning to Hot Cross Buns.
It’s so much easier to buy Gluten free or Paleo baked goods these days, but I was a bit appalled to see that the yummy looking Paleo buns in the health food shop had a whopping 48 grams of carbs per serve.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you might remember that I don’t digest carbs well, so I sadly put the bag of buns back on the shelf.
So I guess I’ll be making my home made Easter buns on Friday. These gluten-free, starch-free buns don’t have the texture of hot cross buns, but they’re still a tasty treat for Easter. They can also be made casein-free.
This is an old photo, but I can’t give you a new one till I make them!
• 1 cup ground almonds
• ½ cup coconut flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 heaped tsp mixed spice
• ½ cup sultanas, raisins or currants
• 2-3 tsp grated orange rind
• 3 eggs
• 75gm melted butter or coconut oil
• 2-3 Tbs honey, coconut nectar or other natural sweetener of your choice
• ½ tsp sea salt
• ½ cup yoghurt OR mashed, cooked pumpkin (prepared earlier) OR finely diced feijoa (I haven’t tested these, but mashed banana or grated apple should work fine too)
Preheat the oven to 175C. Set butter or oil melting over a low heat, and if your honey is solid, add that to the pan as well. Mix together the flours, baking soda and spice in a large bowl. Stir in the dried fruit and rind. Beat together the eggs, melted butter, honey and sea salt in a small food processor.
If you’re using feijoa, chop the ends off, peel them and dice them. If you’re using pumpkin, it needs to be pre-cooked, mashed and cooled.
Add the yoghurt, feijoa or pumpkin to the wet mix and beat. The pumpkin needs to be well mixed in, but the feijoa can be still in tiny pieces.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. Leave to sit while you grease the muffin tins. If the mix is too wet after sitting, add a little extra flour. Spoon in the mix and cook for 15-20 mins. Serve hot, with butter or ghee if you tolerate it. Makes 8-10 std muffins or about 24 mini ones (which need less cooking time).
Variations
I very much admire cooks like @gringalicious, @woman-on the-wing and @rebeccaryan, who do such painstaking, detailed work and whose results are also so beautiful looking. I’m more rough and ready and don’t even bother to put a cross on my Easter buns.
If I was going to, I would probably soften a little creamed coconut (aka coconut butter) and add a little honey to it. Then paint the crosses on top, after they were cooked.
If you want to put in a bit more time, and make a bun that uses yeast, but still has the same flours, here’s another recipe to try, from fastpaleo.com
Thanks for reading, and if I don’t talk to you before then, enjoy whatever Easter treats you choose, and have a good holiday.
Photo by @kiwideb
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Some of my previous RECIPES AND KITCHEN TIPS:
• Choc Blackcurrant Smoothie
• Paleo Cottage Pie
• Feijoa Pear Smoothie
• Grain free, dairy free Pumpkin & Cashew Bread
• Tip for storing ginger & tumeric
• Grain Free Banana Cashew muffins
• Warming winter soup
• Breakfast ideas
• Healthy Chocolate & Fudge
• Jerky with vegetables
• Choco-mallow protein bars
• Equipment for the real food kitchen
• Carrot Almond bread
• Grain free Fruit & Nut bar
• Vegetable muffins
• Finger food for a gathering
• Real food ideas for snacks and road trips
• Grain free cheese muffins
• Best ever (and easiest) Christmas cake
• Orange Cranberry Xmas Breakfast Muffins
• Festive smoothies for Xmas morning
• Crisp & crunchy Xmas cheese stars
• Xmas menu ideas
• Planning your holiday eating to be a bit more balanced
• For MORE RECIPES and my 15 step Whole Food cooking course, see my recipe website.