Coconut Berry Muffins
Feb 22nd, 2009 by craig
I’ve had a few requests for the recipe for the coconut berry muffins I’ve been making for Kristin this week. So, I’ve posted the recipe I’ve been using here. In practice I usually use a little more berries than the recipe calls for (and I’ve used whatever berries I have, most recently blackberries). I assume you could make it with actual sugar if you don’t have the erythritol – we’ve been useing erythritol as part of the strict diet we’re on these days. I usually double the recipe and make twelve muffins. Enjoy!
I love these muffins. They have made me very happy. Nice, big fresh blueberries this week. And I use xylitol. And I didn’t need more than 3 Tbls of water….
Yum. Thanks Craig.
Going to try them tonight… I use Erithrytol too. I’ll stop off somewhere to get some blueberries… : ) I haven’t had much success with low carb muffin recipes b/c they all use Almond flour which is really grainy. Too grainy. So I am hoping I’ve discovered something really good with the Coconut flour.
However, speaking of Almond flour, I did try an Oatmeal Cookie recipe last night from one of my Low Carb cookbooks and they were titled, “Oh. My. God.” LOL… And they were SOOOOO good that I understand why. A bit crumbly, but very very good. And they were made with Coconut oil, so that gave them a bit of a Coconut flavor too.
I just purchased a new cast iron muffin pan. But the muffins cups themsleves are very small. Sort of half way between a mini muffin and a regular sized muffin. We’ll see how they turn out.
Thanks Craig..
Whaaa, I want someone to make them for me.
I think the almond flour works really well in the chocolate torte……. as long as it isn’t over cooked.
Craig, here is the Oatmeal Cookie recipe as it is entered in the cookbook, ‘500 Low-Carb Recipes’ which I purchased on Amazon:
Oatmeal Cookies
Oh. My. God.
1 cup coconut oil
1 cup butter, room temperature
1.5 cups Splenda
1 tsp molasses
2 eggs
1 cup ground almonds
1 cup vanilla flavored whey protein powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup chopped Pecans
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. With an electric mixer, beat together the coconut oil,
butter, and Splenda until well combined, creamy and
fluffy.
3. Beat in the molasses and eggs, combining well,
followed by the ground almonds, protein powder, salt
and baking soda, scraping down the sides of the
bowl a few times and making sure the ingredients
are well combined.
4. Beat in the cinnamon, rolled oats, and pecans
5. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray (or
us parchment paper), and drop dough onto it by the
scant tablespoonful, leaving plenty of room for
spreading. Bake for 10 minutes, or until golden
brown. Transfer the cookies carefully to a wire rack
to cool.
Yield: About 5 dozen outrageously good cookies, each with 3 grams of carbohydrate, a trace of fiber, and 4 grams of protein.
_______________________________________
I actually used an ice cream scoop to drop them onto the cookie sheet, and it is exactly 2 tablespoons. I got 47 cookies out of it, at 3.8 grams of carbs each.
These cookies are wonderful… : )
The vanilla flavored whey protein powder I use is sold as a whey protein drink. It is just vanilla flavor, whey protein, and a bit of stevia to sweeten. It has next to no carbs. I buy it at Whole Foods.
As for Almond Flour, it does well in this recipe.
I have another recipe I’ll leave here for you tonight. I hated giving up Oatmeal. I love Oatmeal. And the author of this book has a hot cereal recipe that is A+. I like it better than Oatmeal I think. And for this recipe you toast the Almond meal first, and that gives is a nice texture and flavor. I use Splenda to sweeten it, and Calorie Countdown, which you can read about here: http://www.hphood.com/products/prodDetail.aspx?id=576
I don’t know if they’d sell that out there, as Hood’s farms are in Conneticut or somewhere close. It’s in all the markets here, so it’s easy to get. But you cannot tell it’s not milk. It’s a mixture of skim milk, heavy cream and water. Quite a bit lower in calories, carbs and fat.. but tastes like whole milk. They also have chocolate milk. If you can’t get it there, you can just use light whipping cream and still keep the carbs down.
Hot Almond Cereal:
1 cup flaxseeds (I use Hodgson Mill’s milled flax seeds. Just
keep it refridgerated as flax seeds reportedly go rancid
once milled if left at room temperature)
1 cup ground almonds
1/2 cup oat bran
1 and 1/4 cups wheat bran
1 cup vanilla flavored whey protein powder
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Toast the ground almonds by putting them in a shallow baking pan in the oven for 5 minutes or so… just slightly brown.
3. Combine the flaxseeds and the toasted almond meal with the oat bran, wheat bran, and protein powder. Whisk together and store in an airtight container
To make a bowl of cereal:
Add 1/2 cup of the mixture and a pinch of salt to 1/2 cup of boiling water, and boil it for about 30 seconds, constantly stirring. May want to let it sit for a few minutes before eating. Add sweetner of your choice and the calorie countdown or cream.
The author noted she likes to add a drop or two of molasses to give it a brown sugar flavor without many extra carbs.
This recipe makes 9 servings, each with 16 grams of carbohydrates. But of those 16, 9 grams are fiber so they don’t count. Therefore, each serving has 7 grams of usable carbs and 11 grams of protein.
Enjoy it, it’s awfully good..
Okay, one last post with a clarification:
The cereal recipe came with instructions on how to mill whole flaxseed, which sounded awfully time consuming. Apparently they don’t mill easily. I just purchased already milled flax and have had no problems.
Did you try the Candied Pecan recipe yet? I think I left it on Silence of the Clams. I love those.. Plan on making a huge amount this weekend..
I tried the coconut muffin recipe with mixed results. They looked and smelled so good. They popped right up. But, they took 40 minutes to solidify and brown. Once they were done, God himself couldn’t have gotten them out of the muffin pan. They like bonded with the cast iron. I scooped them out and they broke to pieces. Still good, but not in one piece. Tonight I came home from work and spent some time with a wire brush trying to clean the cast iron, and then reseasoning the iron in the oven.
I will try them again tomorrow. Less water I think. And also I’ll use 1/2 cup Splenda and 1/2 cup Erithritol They say Erighryitol is 75% as sweet as sugar. But it is sickenly sweet to me. What I did eat of these muffins were too sweet. And I’ve learned that the very best sugar replacement (that is what works most like sugar in baking) is a mixture of 1/2 Splenda and 1/2 Erythritol. So… well try that and less water tomorrow night. I had greased the muffin cups religiously and then sprayed them with olive oil spray. I’ll do that again. It may be the cast iron mostly. It’s a new pan so it’s not that smooth. They would have been beatiful last night had I used a non-stick pan, but I don’t use non-stick…
j
Craig,
As far as I know, Almond flour, Almond meal and ground almonds are the same thing.. I buy Bob’s Red Mill Almond Flour/Meal.
Funny you mentioned the paper muffin cups. I had the same thought last night in bed when I was thinking of it.. I think I will try them…
Ground, meal and flour – it depends on how finely the almonds are ground, flour being the most fine, but there isn’t a huge difference.
I’ve ever only bought Bob’s Red Mill, and that is how he labels it.. as Flour/Meal. It’s grainy. I’ve often wondered about throwing it in the food processor to try and get it a bit more powdery. I need to order some Soy milk powder online b/c I can’t find it anywhere, and it’s in many of these low carb recipes. The author says it’s a powder made from soy milk. Not ground soybeans, which is soy flour, nor Soy protein powder. She says it acts just like flour and tastes much better and is lower in carbs.
She suggested lowcarber.com as a place to purchase it if you can’t find it, so I’ll be doing that today. And when I’m on that site, I’ll see if maybe they have finely ground almond flour.
Okay, off the subject, but on your random family photos, I saw one of someone leaning against a tree stump with what looks like Lake Coeur d’ Alene in the background? Am I right about that? Is it my beloved lake? I didn’t know that you had ever gone back there from the day Allison and Kristin had come to see me there. If I am right, what do you think of that lake and the city? Lovely place, isn’t it?
LOL>.. I really need to read my posts before clicking on the submit button. “One of someone” didn’t quite come out right.. Sorry..
Yup! Tubbs Hill. 🙂 The kids love to take the trail around the hill.
One of these times, have them take the trails over the top of it. A much better view of the lake from on top than on the lower trail that goes around it. I saw a fox up there once..
Okay, I’ve discovered why the muffins I made last week were too sweet for me to eat (I had to throw them out actually). I am making them again tonight with paper liners. As I am assembling all the ingredients together, I see it called for 1/4 cup Erythritol. Not 1 cup.
Gosh my eyes are bad. I can’t read labels on food products. Yesterday Javier and I were hunting for an apartment, and I couldn’t read the ads in the paper. I’m going to have to get me a magnifying glass I think. Can’t make these kinds of mistakes if I am going to cook for others, and I do..
I also used Salt in place of sugar…. when I worked in the bakery at Deer Valley Ski resort. It ruined 350 muffins… Lot’s of stories from my years there…
They were pretty dang good though!
You must have missed something. Mine spread out, but only just a bit. They remained a nice oval shaped mound, and tasted much like shortbread.
I hope I didn’t mess up the recipe. But in looking it over, it looks right. It may just be something as simple as you used a different kind of whey powder. They vary quite a bit in fat content and texture.
Maybe I’ll make some and send them to you guys… : )
Good luck with the Pecans, those are a bit of heaven on earth..
This is the whey protein I use. Buy it at Whole Foods:
http://www.jayrobb.com/cat_proteinWheyVan12.asp
LOL… I happen to have a double batch of them in the crock pot right now.. 1 hour to go. I had to double them b/c Javier and I usually eat 1 batch before they cool. There’s something about the butter/curry/splenda mix that is heavenly…
I have a question I hope someone knows the answer to. I decided to try cheesecake tonight. I’ve never made one. Years ago I bought the spring form pans, but have never used them. And I won’t. I have a thing about cooking in metal other than stainless steel or caste iron. I think these are tin or aluminum and so won’t use them.. They just sit on the shelf to make people think I am a good baker. : )
Anyway, I decided to try this pralines and cream cheesecake recipe from the low carb cookbook, and I made the almond meal crust and patted it into a large ceramic pie plate. I suspected the filling portion was too much for the pie plate, but I made it in accordance to the recipe. And yes, it was Waaaayyyyy too much. So, I have about 2 cups of cream cheese cake filling, with the cream cheese, sour cream and eggs.
Can I freeze that? Anyone know if I can freeze that and then use it in the future?
If not I likely will have to throw it out and I hate to waste anything..
Thanks Craig.. I’ve had partially frozen cheesecake too. But what I was talking about was the left over filling that wouldn’t fit in the pie. It was never cooked. I wondered if I can freeze it to use in another pie later. I’ll try it and see. I poured it into a plastic container.
This one turned out pretty good. This is the first time I’ve made a pie crust from almond meal, and it was very similar to a graham cracker crust..
This one was surprisingly good.
1.5 cups almond meal
1/4 cup vanilla flavored whey protein powder
4 Tbsp melted butter
Mix and pat into the pie plate or spring form pan…