Grain-free Ginger Spice Muffin Tops

January 23, 2012 By Leanne Vogel July 1, 2015

The potential coconut sensitivity that I mentioned on Friday = false alarm. Thank goodness. I spent most of the weekend panicking that my love for coconut had eventually led to a sensitivity. (When you eat too much of one thing, especially when you’re prone to allergies, your body can begin to develop a sensitivity to it) What I neglected to think of was that having something high in fat after being on a cleanse for a week; regardless of what type of fat, would lead to stomach pains. Sure enough, I had coconut on Sunday and didn’t have any type of reaction. Boooya!

But there’s a lesson in all of this. Maybe I should try to limit coconut to a couple servings a week just so I don’t develop a sensitivity to it. …. Just after I finish these delectable bundles of ginger spice goodness, kay?

I’m starting up with spin classes again this week and knew that the added cardio would require me to eat more. Instead of grabbing for a LARABAR, handful of store-bought granola, or a packet of trail mix, I wanted to create with something I could really feel good about eating. Something that was,

higher in fat because I know my body likes it
high in protein to keep me full
higher in fiber ’cause we could all use a bit more
big without being big. Read: I like to eat a lot but don’t enjoy feeling heavy and bogged down after ward

I remembered really enjoying these coconut and apricot muffin tops last year so decided to adjust the flavor, cut the sugar; and yes, even reduce the coconut.

Grain-free Ginger Spice Muffin Tops

Author: Leanne Vogel

Recipe type: Gluten free, Dairy free, Sugar free, Yeast free, Corn free, Grain free

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 8

I wanted to make a mid-morning snack that was low in sugar, high in protein, fiber, and less than 250 calories for the perfect snack-sized treat. Enter the ginger spice fluffy muffin top made with coconut flour! Each serving is two muffin tops so you really feel like you’re indulging without feeling too full afterward. Dress them up with nut butter, fresh fruit, or enjoy plain.

Ingredients

Wet

1 cup egg whites
¼ cup coconut oil, melted
¼ cup lite canned coconut milk
2 teaspoon xylitol or 20 drops of liquid stevia
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon natural almond extract

Dry

¼ cup coconut flour
1 tablespoon freshly ground flax seed
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat.
Place dry ingredients in a small bowl and whisk until combined. Set aside.
In a medium sized bowl, combine all wet ingredients with a hand mixer.
Add dry to wet and mix until just incorporated, about 20 seconds.
Let the batter sit for 1-2 minutes to thicken up
Scoop ~2 tablespoon piles of the batter using a tablespoon, leaving 1 inch between each stack – I stacked each tablespoon on top of one another to get really fluffy muffin tops. To do so, put a tablespoon of batter down on prepared baking sheet and then put another tablespoon directly on top of that one then move on to the next pile.
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean and/or the edges are slightly golden. Mine were absolutely perfect at 19 minutes.

Notes

Alternatively, the batter can be used to make mini muffins too. Yields 24 mini muffins. Bake at the same temperature for 14-16 minutes. Mine were perfect at 15 minutes.

View Nutritional Information (once on page scroll down)

You may have noticed the xylitol in the recipe today, a new ingredient to the blog. I’d purchased it when I visited London last year but with the hustle bustle of the holidays, I’ve only just gotten around to experimenting with it. After testing it out in a couple of recipes, I was sure that I liked xylitol more than stevia. But to me sure, I decided to make two batches of muffin tops and performed a little experiment in my make-shift test kitchen. I made one batch with 20 liquid stevia drops and the other with the xylitol called for in the recipe above. Thankfully Kevin volunteered for the blind study. He didn’t know what he was testing for, only that the two recipes were different in some way. If I would have told him there was stevia involved he wouldn’t have volunteered.

He took a little nibble of each one, a big bite of each, then focused in on the xylitol sweetened muffin top and polished it off quickly. I guess that just about sums up which of them was his favorite. He said that the xylitol sweetened treat was sweeter and tasted more real and natural. So if you’ve ever been wondering if xylitol is worth looking into, I’d say heck ya! Okay… off to spin class. Happy Monday!

This entry was tagged: coconut flour, ginger, grain-free muffin, protein snack