Suitable for gluten-free, grain-free, sugar-free, ovo-lacto-vegetarian diets, and later stages of GAPS, but not dairy free, strict Paleo or vegan.
As promised in my road trip / snacks post, here is the recipe for the cheese muffins I made for my choir trip. I bought some soft liverwurst to spread on them, and they were divine. Pate would have been yum too. @sift666 demolished the ones I left behind for him too – I think he smothered his with hummus. Christo looks keen too.
Without further blathering, here’s what to do…
Mix together in a decent sized bowl:
• 1 cup ground almonds
• 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup, 40gm) coconut flour, sifted
• a sprinkling of herbs of your choice (I used oregano)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups grated tasty cheddar cheese (or substitute up to half with diced feta)
Beat together in a food processor, or just use a bowl and whisk:
• 3 eggs
• 50gm (2 oz) melted butter or ghee
• 1/2 cup yoghurt or kefir
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Mix together, and leave to thicken slightly while you prepare your muffin trays. Or you can add other savoury goodies like bacon, salami, mushrooms, etc, depending on what your particular diet restrictions are.
Prep your muffin pans. A combination of coconut oil and lecithin is good for this, as recommended by Bruce Fife in his book on coconut flour cooking. But I just used the rough and ready method I told you about in my vegetable muffin post – I greased the tins with coconut oil, then slapped a square of baking paper in each. Here’s the photo again.
Three quarter fill the muffin pans. Bake at about 175C (350F) for about 20 minutes. You can also make mini muffins, which are great to take to a pot luck, though greasing the tins is a bit tiresome. Remember they won’t take as long to cook.
These are not as dry as muffins made with just coconut flour can sometimes be, but are not as heavy as those made just with ground almonds.
Which leads nicely onto recipe #2 – if you just use ground almonds, and less eggs, they come out more like a scone (or sc-oh-ne, depending on how posh you are). I used to make these all the time before coconut flour was available.
Almond Cheese Scones
• 200g (8 oz) ground almonds (optional: replace 2-3 Tbs with ground flax seeds, or whole sesame seeds)
• 75g (3 oz) grated tasty cheese (frozen is fine)
• a sprinkling of Mixed or Italian dried herbs
• 50g (2 oz) melted butter, or 50ml plain yoghurt or kefir (or olive oil or melted coconut oil or even cream will do)
• 1 egg
• 2 ml (just under ½ tsp) baking soda
• 1 ml (just under ¼ tsp) sugar-free American mustard (maximum, don’t be tempted to use more)
• pinch of sea salt
Set oven to 200C (400F). Mix the almonds, cheese and herbs in a large bowl. Melt the butter. Beat up with the egg, baking soda, mustard and salt. Add to the almond mixture and mix to form a dough. It won’t be as wet as a muffin mix.
Cover a baking tray with baking paper. Usually I divide the mixture into 8-10 even sized balls, but today it somehow came out as 12. Shape each one into a scone shape and put onto the baking tray, evenly spaced out.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.
If I get some time tomorrow, I might tell you about the choir trip. But I’m definitely lined up to share the best EVER Xmas cake recipe with you on Thursday. And Friday, there will be another instalment of my favourite music.
Thanks for reading and see you soon.
Versions of these recipes are already on some of my other websites. Photos by @kiwideb or @sift666 unless otherwise stated.
Follow me for more health, nutrition, food, lifestyle and recipe posts.
I am now on Peerhub offering one on one nutritional coaching and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) sessions by Skype.
Some of my previous posts:
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 ~ Healthy Chocolate & Fudge ~ Jerky with vegetables ~ Breakfast ideas ~ 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 ~ For MORE RECIPES and my 15 step Whole Food cooking course, see my recipe website.
