Alisa Fleming, www.GoDairyFree.org ~ Last week Anne, of Debra's Natural Gourmet, shared her GFCF / Vegan "Not-Your-Average Mac'n'Cheese" recipe with us.  Anne let us know, "I'm mainly interested in gluten free food, but have made my recipes dairy free as well because many celiacs have a hard time digesting it as well as gluten."  Well, we appreciate Anne's thoughtfulness, and this week we are pleased to feature her Rice Bran Muffin recipe.  While these breakfast-worthy treats do call for rice bran and brown rice flour, as the name would imply, they also feature a special, little known gluten-free flour, Teff ...

Teff is a grain native to Ethiopia, and a nutritional powerhouse smaller than a poppy seed.  If you've ever had injere, Ethiopian pancake-bread, you've had teff.  In the recipe below, you can sub potato starch for the corn starch, but don't use potato flour, which is made from ground whole potatoes, rather than just their starch.  If you use potato flour, your muffin will tastes like a potato, so don't say I didn't warn you!

Anne's Rice Bran Muffins

• 1/2 cup dairy-free margarine (such as Earth Balance spread)
• 1/3 c Sucanat or Rapadura (can sub brown sugar)
• 2 ripe bananas 
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup sweet brown rice flour                       
• 1/4 cup teff flour                                       
• 1/4 cup rice bran
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 1/4 cup non-GMO cornstarch                
• 1 tsp baking soda                               
• 1-1/2 tsp aluminum-free baking powder       
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum       
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup organic raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or two (for 12 muffins) and set aside.

Using mixer, cream Sucanat or Rapadura with margarine. Add eggs, peeled bananas, and vanilla.  Beat until smooth.  Combine remaining dry ingredient together, and add blend to wet mix with hands or a spoon.  Scoop batter into muffin tins, filling each cup to the top.  Bake 20-30 minutes, or until muffin bounces back when pressed lightly.

This recipe makes a great base for all sorts of variations.  Just sub out the bananas and raisins for any other fruit you want.  For example, make cranberry-orange, or blueberry-spice (add cardamom). 

Makes 12 muffins