Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp Unsalted Butter 
•  ½ c Sugar
• 2 tsp Lemon Zest
• Large Egg
• ½ Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup Euforia Gluten-Free Baking Mix (w/o xanthan gum)
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• ¼ tsp Salt 
• 1/3 cup Sour Cream
• ¾ cup Small Blueberries (rinsed and dried)

Instructions

• Grease muffin tin and preheat oven to 350F degrees
•  Cream butter and sugar. 
•  Add remaining wet ingredients and mix until incorporated. 
•  Combine all dry ingredients together and sift into the wet portion. Mix well, but don't overbeat.
•  Stir in blueberries. Again, don't over beat.
•  Fill each compartment 3/4 full and bake 25-30 minutes. (Test for doneness before removing from oven.) 

 Notes: If you prefer a lighter muffin, add 1/2 tsp of baking powder as well to the dry ingredients. You can use frozen blueberries rather than fresh as they will not bleed some much into the muffin when baked.

Gluten-Free Banana Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 very ripe banana, mashed 
• ¼ cup sour cream 
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp lemon zest 
• ¾ tsp vanilla extract 
• ¾ cup flour  
• 6 tbs sugar 
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda 
• ½ tsp salt 
• ½ cup walnuts

Instructions

• Cream together butter and sugar. 
• Add remaining wet ingredients and mix to incorporated. 
• Combine all dry ingredients together and sift into the wet portion. Mix well. Don't over beat. 
• Grease a muffin tin and fill each compartment 3/4 full.
• Bake at 350° for about 25-30 minutes. 
• Test for doneness before removing from oven.

 Notes: Recipe works well with gluten-free flour mix. You may prefer to omit the baking powder and replace with equal amount of baking soda to give a firmer muffin.

Can Gluten-Free Cake Really Taste as Good as Cake with Flour?

We think so. In fact, euforia's flourless cake (as in no flour; not a scratch of it... at all), is so good and tastes so much like the original, that we received a response from a food editor that they didn't believe it! They said that there must be some type of flour in there somewhere.

Photo Courtesy of Foodette-Reviews.blogspot.com!

But, there's not. If you've ever tried flourless cake - the kind that is simply a non-flour version of a traditional cake (like chocolate cake), you'll notice a lot of differences. For one, flourless cake is typically denser, and sometimes it is even sweeter than normal.

euforia is already moist. The only difference you may notice in the gluten-free/flourless version is that it is just as moist - sometimes even more moist - than the version with flour.

How is this possible?

The baking process is really the only explanation. ALL euforia cakes - flourless or not - go through a layer-by-layer baking process, in which each layer is baked individually, one on top of the other. When the first layer is baked, batter is poured on top of it, creating a second layer. That is baked, and then a 3rd layer of batter, etc. It takes 4 hours. The first layer benefits from all of the moisture in the layers on top of it.

The whole cake has layers upon layers of moist, sweet flavor.

Because the cake consists of layers, the layers give the flourless version a traditional cake-like texture, even though there is absolutely no flour in it at all. Kartika spent a long time perfecting this version. We believe you will adore it!!

Want to try our flourless euforia cake? Leave a comment and receive a gift certificate for $5. Share it with your whole family!

Behind the Layers: Baumkuchen (Traditional German Layer Cake)

Have you ever wanted to know what goes into a traditional layer cake, or what the difference is between baumkuchen and spekkoek (our thousand-layer cake)?

For those of you who love baumkuchen or have tried in the past and liked it, you might like to know how similar euforia's spekkoek is to baumkuchen. Or, maybe you're new to both delicacies! If so, you're in for a treat as we explain what makes layer cake so special. Today we're focusing on baumkuchen.

What do 'baumkuchen' and 'spekkoek' mean?

Baumkuchen: Tree Cake (German)

Spekkoek: Bacon Cake (Dutch)

As you can probably tell, the cakes get their names from the way that they look!

What's in them?

The ingredients in baumkuchen and spekkoek are pretty much the same: eggs, butter, flour, sugar, vanilla, milk (and spices, in spice cake variations).

Origins & Tradition

Baumkuchen has its roots in Europe, specifically, in Germany. An article in Wikipedia suggests that a cookbook from 1581 contains a recipe for baumkuchen! Origins for the cake may go back as far as Ancient Greece.

How It's Made

Traditional baumkuchen is a layer cake just like euforia's spekkoek, except that it's made by layering batter on a spit which is rotated over heat. Just like with euforia, each layer is baked separately, one on top of the other. The result is that baumkuchen is a round cake hollowed out like a bundt.

However, there is a horizontal version of baumkuchen which really is just like spekkoek, which is baked in horizontal layers.

Check out the video below to see baumkuchen being baked in action!

Where It's Eaten Today

In addition to Germany, it might surprise you to know that this traditional German layer cake is one of the most popular sweets in Japan! It was brought to Japan by a German baker after World War II and is still popular there today.

If you like baumkuchen, you'll like euforia's spekkoek. Thousand layer cake can even be rolled and made round like baumkuchen, as you can see in the image below.

Find Out More

You can find out more about baumkuchen in the following pages:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumkuchen
• http://www.germanculture.com.ua/recipes/blxmas13.htm
• http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20100110cs.html

Food Traditions: The memories and methods of food and cooking

My love of thousand-layer cake comes from my childhood. Growing up in Indonesia, my mother would make desserts, and I am particularly fond of the thousand-layer cake. I learned how to make it by watching her. Thousand-layer cake is a combination of Dutch cake and Indonesian spices, and there is time involved in making it. Each layer is baked individually (not quite 1000 layers :)) and it's really quite a calming, fun tradition. There is a lot of love put into it, especially when the method is passed down from family to family.

What traditions does your family have with food? Did you learn how to do something from your mother? Please share!

If you have memories of food, traditions, and your father, be sure to check out our Father's Day contest!