Twinkle's Kitchen | Gluten-free Blueberry Muffins

Warm, fresh and slathered with a bit of butter, blueberry muffins are pretty much the best things ever. No need to fret, however, a little switcheroo and these delicious morning treats can easily become gluten-free.

Sometimes a gluten-free breakfast is hard to manage as you are rushing around in the morning. The kids and I get pretty tired of plain fruit or just a few scrambled eggs.

So, to remedy that, I dabbled and experimented a bit and came up with a yummy blueberry muffin recipe. Warm, fresh and slathered with a bit of butter, these muffins are pretty much the best things ever.

However, instead of my all-purpose flour mix, I used some different ingredients to achieve a certain taste and texture.

To substitute the all-purpose GF mix, just add up the flours and starch – buckwheat, rice, xanthan gum, potato starch – and replace that amount with the all-purpose mix.

But it's the cornmeal that really makes this recipe stand apart.

Pro-tip: Double the batter or even triple to make larger batches to freeze.

Twinkle’s Gluten-free Blueberry Muffins

Makes 1 dozen muffins

• ¾ cup GF cornmeal
• ¼ cup organic GF buckwheat flour
• ¾ cup brown rice flour
• ½ cup potato starch
• 2 tsps. baking powder
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. sea salt
• 1 ½ tsp. xanthan gum
• ¾ cup organic light brown sugar
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 tbs. honey or organic raw agave nectar
• 2 tsp. bourbon vanilla
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 3 tsp. lemon zest and orange zest
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup buttermilk at room temperature
• 1 rounded cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 12-muffin pan with paper liners.

In a large mixing bowl whisk together the cornmeal, flours, starch and dry ingredients.

Mix together the oil, honey/agave, vanilla, lemon juice, eggs and buttermilk until well-blended.

Add slowly to your dry ingredients and beat well for about four minutes until mixture becomes sticky. If it gets too sticky or seems dry, add a few tablespoons of warm water or buttermilk.

Slowly stir in the blueberries and the lemon zest by hand.

Using a spoon or ice cream scoop, put the batter into the muffin cups.

Wet your fingers to smooth the tops a bit. I try to add a few more berries to the top. You can also sprinkle with raw sugar or make a streusel topping.

Bake in the center of your oven for about 20 minutes.

Cool the pan on a wire rack for five minutes then remove the muffins from the pan and cool them directly on the rack.

Makes one dozen muffins.

You can store the extras in the refrigerator for up to a week or in the freezer for six months. Make sure to wrap well and store in airtight bags or containers.

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Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on Food Network's “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic lifestyle content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

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