One morning we were out of oats and just about everything else that I could make breakfast out of. There was, however, half of a pre-baked sweet potato in the fridge and a frozen banana that I could defrost…and some random bags of whole grain flour. The result: these delicious muffins! The whole-graininess of the teff and brown rice flour couldn’t be replaced by wheat flour – they give the muffin almost a crumb topping texture.

Ingredients

makes 12

• 1 c teff flour
• 1 c brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup arrowroot or organic corn starch
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp ground flax seeds (flaxseed meal)
• 1 banana
• 1/2 medium sweet potato, cooked
• 1/4 c maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (gluten-free if you’re allergic)
• 1/4+ c water or non-dairy milk
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• fig jam (I used The Gracious Gourmet brand Fig Almond Spread, which I love)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Combine and mix first seven (dry) ingredients in a bowl. I blended the next 4 (wet) ingredients in my Vita-Mix because my banana wasn’t very ripe and I didn’t want to have to mash them, but if you prefer you can mash the banana and sweet potato by hand and mix in the remaining wet ingredients. Either way works fine.

Add either water or non-dairy milk to the batter until it’s not dry, but still very thick. You just don’t want any dry spots. I’d start with 1/4 cup and add as necessary from there – I believe I used about 3/4 cup of a combination of water and rice milk. It’s impossible to be absolutely precise here what with the varying banana and sweet potato sizes but don’t worry – everything will be ok. Stir in walnuts.

Fill muffin cups just enough to cover the bottom. Add a dollop of jam in each and top with remaining batter. Bake for 20 minutes.

PB&J Variation: Add 2 Tbsp chunky peanut butter or other nut butter to wet ingredients, omit walnuts, and use berry jam or preserves instead of fig!