I love muffins for breakfast. I’ve recently become obsessed with all sorts of different single serving Muffin in a Mug recipes – they abound on Pinterest! There’s a muffin for every occasion. Sad? Eat a muffin. Happy? Eat a muffin. Hungry? Eat a muffin. Bored? Eat a muffin. Full? Eat a muffin but don’t tell anyone. Plus, single serving muffins mean you don’t have to share. “No, you can’t have a muffin. This is the only one – go eat some carrots or something.”
Most of the time I use nut or seed flours for single serving muffins. Why? I don’t know – it just seems easy because I only need a small amount and don’t want to mill only two tablespoons of flour with my Nutrimill. Maybe I should start looking for more flour based muffins and start pinning some of those – you’re welcome. I love Pinterest.
More Than Alive sent me some awesome blanched almond flour to try and is going to let me give away TEN POUNDS! Hip, hip hooray for one of you! See giveaway at the bottom. But anyway, I thought I would answer some questions that you guys send me about almond flour. Here we go!
1. How do I substitute almond flour for other flour?
Well, for me I find that it works in a 1:1 ratio MOST OF THE TIME. Sure, I’ve had some duds. This works best in muffin and sweet bread types of recipes. You can’t really make a yeasty sandwich bread with almond flour. So, I only use almond flour in certain settings. Recipes on Pinterest abound. Have I mentioned that?
2. What kind of almond flour do you buy?
I only use Blanched Almond Flour. Blanched means there aren’t any skins from the almonds in the flour. The flour is finer and it works better – you’ll get better results using blanched. Not all almond flours are created equal. The blanched almond flour from More Than Alive is excellent and makes a very tender muffin. “Almond meal” usually includes skins.
3. What can I use in place of almond flour?
Well, that depends. In this muffin I’m about to share, you can just use all flax. You cannot substitute coconut flour 1:1 with almond flour – coconut flour requires much more liquid. You could use another nut flour – or you could try whole wheat pastry flour. Playing with flours can be tricky, but it’s lots of fun. I tried this muffin below about 5 times before I got it right.
It’s hard to find things like blanched almond flour locally – at least here. So, that’s why I’m glad I can rely on places like More Than Alive to ship me some high quality stuff! Just because you can’t find certain things where you live, try not to let that keep you from trying new things.
Now, let’s eat a muffin!
Pancake In a Mug
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons almond flour
- 2 tablespoons flax meal
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoons sugar of choice (you can use stevia to taste if desired or 4 teaspoons Homemade Truvia)
- 1 teaspoon maple extract
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
- Whisk egg in a mug or small baking dish (I actually like to make my batter in a small mixing bowl and pour it into a greased dish).
- Add almond flour, flax, baking powder, sweetener, and extracts. Whisk until combined and no lumps remain.
- Stir in melted butter.
- Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until done in the center. You can also microwave this, but I don’t know how long or anything because we don’t have a microwave.
- Serve with maple syrup, just like a pancake. I also like mine smeared with cream cheese and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Also GREAT with fruit syrup.
Yield: 1 serving
NOTES: You can use refined coconut oil in place of the butter if you like, but we find that butter gives this muffin more of a pancake taste. If you use virgin coconut oil, you’ll get a coconutty flavor to your muffin.
I didn’t have almond flour so I used 1 1/2 tbsp. coconut flour, plus I added 2 tbsp. almond milk, I didn’t put the butter in the recipe but used the melted butter with some maple extract in it for my topping, it was delicious, loved it, thanks so much for posting!! 🙂
I made these pancakes today as waffles! I quadrupled the recipe and made it in my waffle maker. Yum! Thanks for the recipe. Should I call them pancake waffles?? 🙂
Sounds good to me!
thanks for linking this on Friday Food frenzy last week, we have showcased it on this week’s post. http://www.stayingclosetohome.com/new-year-healthier-food-choices-fridayfoodfrenzy.html
YAY! Thanks!
I love the taste of almond flour good recommendations for subsittuting. I didn’t know about the blanched flour. Thanks for sharing this on foodie friday. happy new year.
How would you label this for THMers? I’m thinking S if served with berries instead of syrup?
I realize that you do just like the alternative flours, but regarding your comment about not wanting to grind flour in your Nutrimill for small amounts, I keep a small amount (a few cups) of flour ground with my Nutrimill in the freezer. It works just fine for muffins, etc. I don’t believe I have ever used it for bread, but am pretty sure I have used it in pizza crust as well. I always use it fairly quickly, so I don’t know how long I could keep it in there.
This looks relish.
Just taken off of gluten til March and can’t wait to try this. While we were already dabbling with gluten-free stuff here and there, now I’m flat out restricted through Christmas and Valentine’s Day…. Yikes. My hubby’s company party and our daughters’ birthday dinner this weekend + our home school co-op last class day before Christmas break yesterday made for some challenging eating/snacking decisions… but I survived.
I think I better quickly build my planned arsenal of options, and quick prep GF alternatives like this will, hopefully, keep me on track.
Thanks.
Mmmm this looks delicious — and something my son would love!!
Sounds yummy! I just can’t see heating the oven for 20 min for one muffin but would love to make a batch of these. Surely leftovers would keep well.
I just put mine in the microwave for 115 seconds, it works fine 🙂
I grind pumpkin seeds in my coffee grinder and I like them a lot for part of the flour in a recipe. It is much better than all flax and much tastier than sunflower seeds. I love almond flour but rarely use it because it is so expensive.
coconut flour works well too, I used 1 1/2 tbsp. and added 2 tbsp. unsweetened coconut milk or any nut milk will do; coconut flour isn’t as expensive so I use it more 🙂
Stacy this was absolutely delicious. Thank you for this. There are many mornings that I want pancakes but don’t want to go through the work to make them, so this was right on the money. 🙂
Probably about 2 minutes for the microwave – maybe 3. We don’t use ours for much, but I do find it handy for this sort of single-serving muffin. Since I’m the only one GF in my house, sometimes I want something I can snack on last-minute.
I did it in microwave for 115 seconds, works well 🙂
Thanks for the post…I’d love to try some Blanched Almond Flour, but I do not see a widget…
Try a different browser. It’s there!