she cooks…he cleans

Having lived most of my life at 1000 ft above sea level, or less, my first instinct when baking isn’t to consider the elevation of my oven.  It did occur to me, too late, when I peeked in the oven to find a pan overflowing with batter.  Oops!  This wasn’t a total fail since the scraps of muffins were still quite delicious after peeling them from the pan, but it certainly wasn’t anything you’d want to serve to people that aren’t obligated to love you anyway.

This is what I should have consulted before mixing the batter, and I would have known to reduce the baking soda by 20% at a 6000 ft elevation.  I’ll do better next time!

The recipe for these gluten-free muffins was from Elana’s Pantry, prepared with some modifications for the ingredients I had on hand at the end of our vacation.  I substituted lime zest for lemon zest, as there were no lemons left.  Also I used extra-virgin olive oil instead of grapeseed oil, and honey instead of agave syrup.  I think lemon zest would be a better match with the rosemary; however, I really like the added flavor from the olive oil!  Next time I bake these, I will try a 50/50 mix of olive oil and grapeseed oil. These muffins are more savory than sweet, and have an enticing Mediterranean flavor.

Here is the modified recipe – if you’d like to see the original recipe plus a photo of how the muffins are supposed to look, check out the Elana’s Pantry link above!

Lemon-Rosemary Mini-Muffins (makes 12 mini-muffins)

Ingredients (for “sea level” baking):

• 1/4 cup coconut flour (I used Coconut Secret Raw Coconut Flour, available at Whole Foods or order on-line here.)
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup grapeseed oil (or mixture of olive oil and grapeseed oil)
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest, packed and heaping (lime zest will do in a pinch!)

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a large bowl, combine coconut flour, salt and baking soda.
3. In a smaller bowl, whisk together eggs, honey, and oil.
4. Blend wet ingredients into dry, then blend in rosemary and lemon zest.
5. Scoop batter a tablespoon at a time into greased mini-muffin tins.
6. Bake at 350° for 7-8 minutes.
7. Cool then remove from muffin tins and serve.

Nothing that tasty could ever be a fail! We’ll try again at lower altitudes…

We had the good fortune to see the most remarkable band in America during our trip, The Low Anthem. Small venue, a stage full of bizarre instruments, and four incredible musicians. Get a sample here.