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| My first attempt! |
changes;
learning to bake sugar free in our Motor Home.
Last month was quite a challenge. We found out Hubby is diabetic and has heart disease. Our planning and packing to move into our motor home was put on hold while we waited for test results and hoping he would be cleared for travel. Being cleared was a dream come true but changes are still needed in our diets for both heart health and sugar control.
I grew up baking every Saturday for my brothers and sister and I to have after school snacks for the week; cakes and cookies mostly. My sister and I also did a great deal of cooking as both our parents worked; potatoes and pasta were always on the menu. Over the years I stopped using recipes and started making my own. Now, I have something new to learn. Sugar-free baking and low carb cooking. Oh and I need to learn all of this in a tiny kitchen with a very reluctant dishwasher named Hubby.
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Here is my first baking attempt; healthy fats, sugar-free, high fiber banana muffins with only a few dirty dishes! After a month of no baked goods I did not really think they would flop but I did not expect such success.
Since space and doing dishes are a huge obstacle to enjoying our day, I fought my frugal and eco-friendly nature and tried a low mess option for making our muffins. My mixing bowl was a 1 gallon storage bag!
I started by adding all of the dry ingredients and shaking them to distribute the leavening evenly.
I then set the bag in a bowl to support the bag while I added the liquid ingredients.
Next comes the fun part! You mush it all together inside the bag. Squishing the bananas is a little like playing in the mud as a kid! Keep squishing and mushing to mix the the batter. There is the added bonus that you can see all of the batter and know when it is well mixed.
Then I cut a corner off the bag and piped (like you would with a pastry bag) the batter into the parchment liners. Over the years I have tried many liners and parchment is my favorite as there is less bleed through. Using the taller liners, the muffins do not spread over the edges for less clean up. I topped mine with unsweetened coconut chips before baking.
I made a small batch as it was a first try. I look forward to trying it with Sweet potatoes in place of the bananas. I usually switch up my healthy grain addition. I keep a wide variety of Bob's Red Mill grains on hand at all times. This time it was flax but you could try a large variety of whole grain flours. I will likely use coconut oil for its healthy fats but any oil could replace it.
Powdered peanut butter is my new best friend. It is a great way to add protein to level out the effect of the carbohydrates. I am suddenly using a lot of it!
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| Bob's Red Mill Whole Grains |
Resources:
This is my first choice in powdered peanut butter as it is GMO free: Just Great Stuff.
I Love Bob's Red Mill! Today I used Flaxmeal and Whole Wheat flour.
Oh, and a huge bonus picture. This is all of the dirty dishes from making muffins for breakfast (okay, I wiped off the muffin pan with a damp rag too.)
