It's gluten or nothing...

That's what I am beginning to think. Granted, I have only experimented with the different flours twice now, but unless I can figure out a way to keep the food from tasting like bark, it's just not worth it. I'd rather do without bread/muffins/cookies than eat something that tastes like dirt! Kris says it tastes more like tree bark...but it's all the same.

This morning I made Stevia-Sweetened Spice Muffins from the "Allergy Cooking With Ease" book. They were...well...I think they were a little better than the cookies, but not much! None of us could eat them. Livvy actually liked the cookies yesterday-but the muffin she spit out. If you can tolerate the grainy, dirt-tasting flours, you might enjoy this. I'm just saying that my family did not!

1 3/4 c amaranth flour plus 1/2 c arrowroot

2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp unbuffered Vitamin C crystals

2 tsp. cinnamon (optional)

1/4 tsp ground cloves (optional)

1/4 tsp. white stevia powder

1 c water

1/4 c oil

Stir together the amaranth flour and arrowroot with the baking soda, Vitamin C crystals, cinnamon, cloves and stevia powder. (Side note-I used PC Cinnamon Plus Spice Blend in place of the cinnamon and cloves). Combine the water and oil and stir them into the dry ingredients. (The dough will be stiffer than most muffin batter.) Divide the dough into a muffin pan-makes 10-12 muffins. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

The book tries to cater to eggs allergies too...and so I don't know if adding an egg would help with the consistency at all. The flavor wasn't intolerable...but because the texture was so heavy, it was hard to swallow the bite I took. The other thought I had was possibly adding less arrowroot. Arrowroot works as a thickening agent, and so if the batter wasn't so thick, perhaps the texture would be better. So, I am still undecided but sometime I might try the muffins again with a few alterations. The other thing Kris suggested was trying a different artificial sweetener other than stevia to see if that made the batter taste sweeter.

Here is what my muffins looked like: