Buckwheat cupcakes (gluten-free, egg-free)

Buckwheat only cupcakes 

1 stick butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup almond milk

splash vanilla

1 1/2 cups buckwheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners. Cream butter and sugars. In a separate bowl combine buckwheat flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add almond milk, vanilla, and butter/sugar mixture. Mix well. Fill muffin cups about half full.

Bake 350 for 40 minutes. Cool cupcakes on wire rack. Top with chocolate frosting from recipe below.

PS Let cool completely before trying to remove paper liner. If not, it turns into a crumbly mess. On the other hand you might just use the frosting to hold all the crumbs together!

Zucchini Bread (gluten-free, egg-free)

I have two zucchini plants and four yellow squash plants in the garden which are all going a little crazy.  We eat zucchini or yellow squash every day, but I'm not complaining because I love it, and I don't have to go to the store to get it! My neighbors also love me...so far.

This recipe was adapted from Starting from Scratch at http://www.getezpockets.com/blog/egg-free-gluten-free-zucchini-bread-recipe/

I've made a change as of August 2, 2014.  I found the original recipe I posted was more cupcake-y than muffin-y, so I changed sugar amounts - original had 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar if you want zucchini cupcakes instead of muffins. :)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup buckwheat flour

3/8 cup chickpea flour

1/4 cup coconut flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup brown sugar

⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons almond milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups grated zucchini 

½ cup chopped walnuts, or cranberries, or raisins, or pecans, or chocolate chips, or...

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well with a spoon. Add olive oil, milk, vanilla, and zucchini and mix again. Add the walnuts or other goodies and mix one last time.  I put it in a greased square baking dish (about 8x 8), baked for 60 min.  

OR put paper liners in 12 muffin cups. Evenly distribute the batter into the muffin cups. I filled them to the top. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  

This last batch of muffins I put a few chocolate chunks (Enjoy Life mega chunks) on the top and when they came out of the oven I waited 5 minutes, then spread the chocolate around like frosting. Turned out very sweet, but we ate them with ham for breakfast and they were very delicious.

Notes:

**Looks a little dry? Keep stirring! The moisture from the zucchini will make it turn out just right. 

**Be sure to let it cool completely before cutting. If you try to cut it while it is still hot, it is just a gooey mess (but it still tastes really good).

**You can also use 1 1/2 cups gluten free all-purpose flour if you don't want to or don't have access to the flours listed.  I'm trying to avoid gums which are often found in store bought all-purposes. 

**On a whim I tried substituting apple juice for the almond milk and it worked just the same.

**Last note, I promise! While eating this I thought maybe it would be good with raisins or chocolate chips added, so that will be the next version. :)

Enjoy!