Cooking with Kumara: Flourless Four Fruit Muffin Bites {Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Secret Vegetables}

Once upon a time, I made a delicious batch of chocolatey rich brownies with a secret ingredient: a little orange kiwi favourite called kumara.  Starchy tubers like kumara can be a great substitute for flours, and are a more nutritious alternative to gluten free flour blends.  It can sound a bit crazy - and I get very sceptical looks and comments every time I use them, but you'll just have to trust me on this one.  Those brownies speak for themselves.  Now for reasons unbeknownst to even me, I haven't featured the kumara brownie on this blog (yet!) but keep your eyes peeled because it's a recipe you'll want to write down and treasure for ever.

In the meantime, here is another kumara recipe.  This one is a yummy, filling, bite-sized muffin with a little something different in each chew.    This is definitely a muffin rather than a cupcake, and probably sits at cafe-style-carrot-cake on the savoury to sweet spectrum. As for the name: "flourless four fruit muffin bites"...? These little morsels are crammed with goodness, including banana, apple, dates and kumara! Now, I know kumara isn't technically a fruit, but come on, don't you love that alliteration?! I used mini-muffin silicone moulds to make mine, but they could also work as jumbo-sized muffins for an on-the-go breakfast option, as long as the cooking time was adjusted.

These muffins are gluten and dairy free, but remember to warn guests about the nuts, nut butter and seeds if you have allergy-prone friends.

Flourless Four Fruit Muffin Bites (makes 24 mini muffin bites)

Choc-Top Banana Bread (gluten and grain free, with vegan option!)

This recipe is one of my favourites. When I was on an elimination diet a few months ago, I put a call out to friends for an allergy-friendly banana loaf recipe to keep my baking hands busy. I was, and still am, very new to cooking without regular flours and none of the recipes I could find online made rhythm or sense to me.  The recipe I use now is adapted from one I was given during that time of crisis.  The original was okay, but I'm a perfectionist! I've made this loaf a fair few times now and have managed to get the recipe just right for me. I've also been able to experiment with ingredient-swapping so you don't have to! Below are options in case you need to make this loaf suit your dietary or lifestyle needs. The base recipe is grain and gluten free, and I have tested it using different types of milk and replacing the egg with flaxseed gel. If you aren't familiar with using flaxseed as an egg replacement, I found this article on a vegan baking website extremely helpful in understanding how it all works.

Breakfast Rice Porridge

For various reasons, I've been experimenting lately with cutting down on my wheat, dairy and egg consumption which has left me in a bit of a pickle over breakfast. It's no secret that breakfast is my favourite meal of the day.  I'm an inconsistent eater and will often skate through a day on two big main meals (breakfast and an early dinner) and a few snacks and thanks to the gap between dinner and morning I often wake up hungry: a delicious and filling breakfast gives me something to get out of bed for and keeps me smiling well through the morning. Don't get me wrong, Marmite on toast has its place, but I'd much rather start the day with a stack of "paleo" banana pancakes or a classic bacon and egg combo and not  have to stop at 10 for morning tea to quiet a growling tum!
Enter porridge... now, I've personally never been a big fan of porridge but after talking to my mum about the ins and outs and alternatives to oats it dawned on me that I could turn one of my favourite desserts - hearty, creamy, old fashioned English rice pudding - into a wholesome and healthy breakfast that's both eggless and actually enjoyable.
Now, I know rice porridge is not news. I've encountered traditional rice porridge, or congee, in a few forms before, most notably in unfortunately bland airline-food form on a long-haul flight.  Traditionally, congee is made with white rice and slow cooked in water, served either sweet or savoury and as a side or main component to any meal, not just breakfast.  It's also just not for me, I guess a combination of its nutritional profile and texture just doesn't suit my increasingly fussy palette.  I wanted to try creating something closer to the rice pudding I grew up with, with the texture of wholegrains and a few nutritional additions to keep me satiated all morning.

Porridge ain't porridge without a square of chocolate :)

The resulting porridge is nutty and oaty in flavour, creamy and crunchy in texture and contains enough low GI carbs, healthy fats and proteins to keep you happy until lunch at the very least. It's also gluten free, dairy free and FODMAP friendly. This recipe serves 1 very hungry person, you can of course double, triple, or half the recipe as suits you.