Gluten Free Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Tis the season of apples, pumpkins and earthy spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.  I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin; although the rest of the family is; so I do bake with it on occasion.  However, not today!

Apples were a plenty on my counter this morning but they were getting close to being over ripe and I do so hate to waste.  What to bake?  What to bake????  I had a strong craving for a really good muffin.  Sometimes there is nothing better than a really good muffin.  Now that Rob has gone gluten free, I decided I’d make these so he could eat them too.

Along with the apples, I also had apple cider in the fridge since I made Firefly Confections Apple Pie Caramels on the weekend.  I wanted to make sure the muffins had the full apple flavour and incorporated both into the recipe.  I had some coconut oil in the pantry that I had originally bought to make homemade chocolate magic shell but never got around to it so I thought I’d give it a go in this recipe.  Don’t worry, there isn’t a strong coconut flavour.  I also used buttermilk because I had some in the fridge but you could totally use regular milk.  The rest seemed like regular muffin ingredients.  The topping doesn’t need to be added if you don’t want to add the extra sugar, but it does make them really tasty.

Recipe: GF Apple Cinnamon Muffins

• 1/2 cup coconut oil melted
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups gluten free flour (I use Cup4Cup)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp apple pie spice (just mix cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice if you don’t have)
• 2 cups chopped apples skin on. (2 medium sized Gala apples)
• 1/2 cup apple cider
• 4 tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Heat coconut oil until a liquid.  Warm milk in microwave for 30 seconds.  If the milk is cold, it will solidify the coconut oil.  Wisk together.
3. Wisk in the egg and vanilla.
4. Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
5. Add in apples and apple cider until just mixed.
6. Using a ice-cream scoop, scoop into prepared muffin pan.
7. Mix together the melted butter, cinnamon and sugar together.  Top each muffin with a tablespoon of the mixture.
8. Bake until knife inserted comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
9. Cool and enjoy!

The subtle apple flavours in the batter plus the big pieces of apple make this a really lovely treat.  The GF flour doesn’t change the consistency/texture of the muffin and it makes me happy that I can make treats for my hubby and my best friend, who is also GF.

If you don’t want to make these GF you don’t have too.  You can just replace the flour with all-purpose flour.  You could even split it with whole wheat flour for something completely different.

Now don’t worry, I won’t make all my treat’s gluten free but I will let you know if you can

Thank for looking!

Happy St. Patty’s Day–Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes w/ Irish Cream Buttercream!

I must be on the mend because I woke up this morning with the need to bake.  It’s pretty funny considering we held an impromptu bonfire last night with our neighbours and while I have been known to stay our with the best of them, I went to bed at the crack of 10:30pm (which considering 8pm has been the latest in the last week).  Now I also haven’t been able to get up and eat anything but dry toast or saltines until today.  It’s a little funny because the rest of the group, including my husband were “overserved” and now today, since it’s St. Patty’s Day, I decided I’d make a nice treat for them all.  An apple cinnamon cupcake with an Irish Cream Buttercream.

Is that mean?  LOL

I have to say they are super yummy, a nice light cake with a really fluffy icing.  For fun I added melted chocolate shamrocks to make them complete!  I made some non-adult versions for the kids on the street too!

Recipe: Apple Cinnamon cupcakes

• 2 sticks unsalted butter softened
• 5 egg whites
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup apple sauce
• 3 cups flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the applesauce and flour mixture in two parts.
4. Using an icecream scoop, scoop into muffin tins.  Bake for 25 minutes.  Made about 21 cupcakes.
5. Cool completely before icing.

Irish Cream Vanilla Bean Buttercream:

• 1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup crisco
• 3 cups icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla bean
• 1 tbsp Irish Cream (or more depending on how thick or thin you want it)

1. Whip all together and ice cupcakes as desired.

Sometimes the best recipes come to me whilst I sleep, this is no different.

Happy St. Patty’s Day everyone!  I hope your year brings you love and wonder and may you find your pot of gold!

Thanks for looking!

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnabon!  anyone????  Oh you know :)  Well I needed a cinnamon roll…badly.  Then I remembered I had pizza dough that I had made for pizza the night before in the fridge.  Well that’s a start.

Then I noticed some cream cheese and thought that it would make a great addition to the filling. Brilliant!  That’s what I am.  Some days are like that, some days are not.  (That was Wednesday when I completely forgot Treat Day.  Soooo got busted by Abby too, when she came home from school.  Yup, hangs head in shame).  These, however, will redeem me I hope.

The creaminess of the cheese totally makes these rolls.  After I took the next picture I inhaled the roll.  Not one of my classier moments but the girls were too busy watching TV that they didn’t even notice.  Let me tell you it enhanced my tea ten fold.  It made my rain riddled day.

Now you’re probably wondering what got me in this mood and if you’re not, too bad I’m telling you anyway.  Today was an inclement weather delay for the school board.  Not 1 or 2 hours but 3 hours.  It’s freaking ridiculous.  I know they aren’t set up to deal with snow or ice here, that I get.  What I don’t get is that there was a 30% chance of freezing rain in the middle of the night so they delayed the start of school to 12:15pm.  That also meant the daycare was delayed and since Rowan goes in the mornings only, there was no daycare for her. Best part was when we woke up it was so scary out, the streets were, wait for it…wet :)

I had physio in the morning as well, so my friend took the girls while I went to that.  I was just so displeased with the whole thing, I decided to play hooky with my girls instead.  It wasn’t exciting, we didn’t go anywhere amazing.  We stayed home, ate junk, made these rolls and watched movies all afternoon.  It was absolutely delightful!

Recipe:

• Pizza dough (homemade or store bought)
• 3 tbsp butter softened
• 8 oz cream cheese softened (30 secs in microwave)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 3 tbsp butter melted
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp milk

1. Pre-heat oven to 350
2. Roll out pizza dough to 8” by 16” rectangle
3. spread butter over dough
4. Sprinkle 3/4 the combined sugar and cinnamon over butter.
5. Dollop the softened cream cheese over dough.
6. Roll up dough lengthwise, cut into 2” pieces.  Set aside.
7. In separate bowl, combine melted butter, brown sugar and milk.  It will look like caramel sauce.
8. Pour sauce into prepared dish.  I used a ceramic 10” pie plate.
9. Place the 2” rolls, cut sides down.  Pieces touching each other.
10. Sprinkle remaining sugar over top.
11. Bake 25-30 minutes until dough is golden brown. (If it sounds hollow when you tap it, it’s done)
12. Set aside 5 minutes before turning out on serving dish.  Sugar will be scalding, be careful.
13. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired and serve!
14. Enjoy!

So as you can see, this is a completely delightful snack on a day that’s rainy, or snowy or…hell any ol’ day!  Just remember to be careful on those roads when it’s raining :)

Thanks for looking!

Greek Yogurt Coffee Cake–a slow journey back

I feel like I keep saying I’m back, but this time I’m really thinking this is it. I’m two weeks post-op and feeling like a new person.  Before the operation I was useless.  I was in so much pain that I required at least 2 hours to just get moving in the morning because it took that long for all the medications to kick in.  Now I require the occasional pain killer (non-narcotic) but on the whole I’m doing pretty good.  I can almost touch my toes :)

I haven’t made a lot recently, but when I got up one morning the need to bake hit me.  Problem, I’m not allowed to pick up my kitchen aid.  I know I can do it the “old fashioned” way but why!  I also have to be careful when bending, so getting the bowls and all other bakers items is tricky.  So my awesome hubby went to work making our kitchen Karen friendly.

First up, after I did pick it up and got yelled at for doing so, my kitchen aid now sits permanently on the island.  Isn’t she pretty, she’s one of the original professional series Kitchen Aid sold to the public.  She’ll be 15 this year!

Next up I needed better storage for all my stuff, so he put together two baking racks. I stored all my stuff in our spare room but it was starting to creep out, so now it all fits on the shelves with space to spare.  I’m going to put curtains up to hide the mess so our guests don’t have to live looking at it.

Finally, he added pull out shelves in several of our lower cabinets so I don’t have to bent too much.  We have so much storage space now its crazy. You would think with all sorts of closets and cabinets there would be tons of useable space but not so much.  Coming from Canada, the land of basements, we were use to storage space.  So now with all these additions, our cabinets aren’t crammed anymore and I don’t have to hurt myself just to make a cookie

My husband rocks!

Ok, enough about me, you’re here for the food.

Now with all my new digs, I made a breakfast favourite…coffee cake!

Possible the best tasting and simplest morning treat I’ve made.  Taken orginally from the William Sonoma’s Brunch cookbook and converted to suit my needs.

Greek Yogurt Coffee Cake

• 3 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup canola oil
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 2 3/4 cup unbleached flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup greek yogurt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 and prepare pan with cooking spray
2. In stand mixer, mix eggs and sugar until fluffy, add oil and vanilla.
3. Combine the flour, powder, soda and salt and slowly add to egg mixture.
4. Do not over mix, when just combined add yogurt until just incorporated.
5. Pour 1/2 of the batter to pan.
6. Sprinkle half the cinnamon sugar over the batter, then pour the remainder of the batter on top.
7. Cover with the rest of the cinnamon sugar.
8. Bake for 50 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Let sit for 10 minutes
9. Use serrated edge knife to release cake.  Sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy!

I loved this cake because it’s moist in the centre but has a crunchy outer shell.  The flavour is amazing.  The zest from the Greek yogurt balances the sweetness from the cinnamon sugar.

I also love that you all continually come back to see what’s happening here at Trilogy Edibles.  In the next month I celebrate this blog’s 2nd Anniversary, almost hitting 3000 fans on Facebook and going over 400 follows on Twitter.  I can also be found on Flickr, Pinterest, and Etsy!  To thank you for your continual support I’m planning a little celebration.  So stay tuned!

Thanks for looking!

Baked Cinnamon French Toast

Well my first new recipe for 2013 was a success.  It’s what happens when you get up too early because you have to pee and can’t go back to bed because if you do the pain will be excruciating.  The joys of a herniated disc. So this past Sunday morning I was up bright and early and decided to try something new.

Now the girls don’t like French toast in the traditional soak bread in egg and fry in pan way.  But they do like eggs and toast and all things sugary, so I thought I’d try the baked method of French Toast.

I had also seen on Pinterest several versions that added a crumble to the top, so I did that as well.  And what can I say but delish.  Now you shouldn’t eat the entire dish without consequence but then I won’t judge if you do :)

Recipe: for a 6x6” square pan, serves 4, Cal: 335 per serving

• 3 pieces of your choice of bread
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup egg whites
• 1 tbsp heavy cream
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp white sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cold butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 and Pam the baking dish, very important
2. Tear up bread into small pieces and line the pan.
3. In separate bowl, mix together eggs, whites, cream, vanilla and white sugar.
4. Pour over bread and let stand 15 minutes
5. Mix together flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter.  Make sure it’s clumpy and spread over bread and egg mixture.
6. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  The topping should be fairly crispy to the touch.
7. Let stand 5 minutes then divide by four and serve.
8. A little real Canadian maple syrup on top just pushes it over the edge!
9. Enjoy

So what happens if you don’t Pam the dish before you bake…this!

It soaked all day and through the dish washer and I still have to scrub some of it off.  UGH!  So Pam or oil spray please, you’ll thank me.

Now I wouldn’t serve this every morning but as a weekend treat for brunch is delightful.  For the four of us in this house, the toast got 3 thumbs up and one no comment as she refused to try it.  She’s very very picky. Still 3 out of 4 is pretty good, so we’ll have this again for sure!

Thanks for looking and I hope you come back again!

Pizza Dough Raspberry Cinnamon Buns!

Have you ever craved a cinnamon bun but didn’t want to wait for dough to rise, or even had the inclination to make it.  Well I have a solution…pizza dough!

You can either pick it up at the grocery store, which is what I did or buy it from your favourite pizza shop.  I also used the whole wheat pizza dough because that’s healthier, especially since this isn’t exactly the lowest of calorie treats :) I also added raspberries, they are also healthy!  So I guess you could say these are healthy-ish!

Recipe:

• 1 package pre-made whole wheat pizza dough
• 1 stick softened unsalted butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 4 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 cup fresh raspberries (or what ever fruit you’d like)

1. Mix softened butter with 1 cup brown sugar and 2 tbsp cinnamon and spread into bottom of 9” round baking dish.  Put to side.
2. Roll out pizza dough to 1/4” thickness and measures 8” x 20” rectangle.  Spray with vegetable spray, cover with remaining brown sugar and cinnamon.  Top with raspberries.
3. Roll up on the long side and cut into 2” slices. 
4. Place slices slightly apart, they will expand when cooking.  The two end pieces are cut side down.
5. Bake at 350F for 35 minutes or until golden brown.
6. Remove from oven and let sit for 2-3 minutes, turn out onto serving dish.  Use a dish with a lip as the juice can go everywhere!
7. Serve warm!

The juice from the berries create this wonderful sauce with the sugar and cinnamon.  It is delish!  So the next time you are in the deli section at the grocery store, pick up an extra pack of pizza dough and make this for a Saturday or Sunday brunch.  You won’t be sorry!

Thanks for looking!