Was there a “special breakfast” you ate growing up or always made for your kids?
Whether it was Mother’s Day Brunch, Easter, or my birthday, for my family’s “special breakfast” we always had blueberry muffins.
And while I don’t encourage eating baked goodies on a daily basis, eating them for a week straight isn’t likely to hurt your gut and likely may help your emotional body. So if you make them, I hope you enjoy them without shame or blame or concern.
The Right Flour
This recipe uses a blend of coconut flour and tapioca flour for a light and chewy texture that is grain and nut-free.
Why nut-free?
While nuts aren’t an inherently “bad food,” nut-flour-based baked goods are a surefire way to eat too many nuts, too quickly. Instead of almond or other nut flours, we use a blend of coconut and tapioca.
While no flour-based food (be it nut, coconut, tapioca, or any other type of flour) should become a staple food in your diet, we love having the flexibility to make a muffin or pancake out of grain-free flours.
Just Sweet Enough
Just 1/3 cup of honey or maple syrup provides subtle sweetness that allows the other flavors to shine through.
Unlike store-bought gluten-free blueberry muffins that contain 21 grams of sugar per muffin, these muffins have just about 7 grams each. The gentle sweetness allows the blueberry flavor to stand out.
About Baking Powder
This recipe uses baking powder, not soda.
Have you ever wondered what the difference is or when you can switch them out?
Both baking powder and baking soda help the muffins to rise up and be airy. Just like when you combine baking soda and vinegar, the reaction between the soda or powder and an acid create air bubbles in the batter.
The difference is that baking powder contains baking soda plus an acid. If you combine some baking powder with water, you’ll see it fizz up. Baking soda, on the other hand, must be combined with some acid – like lemon juice or vinegar – to create a fizz. If a recipe doesn’t contain an acidic ingredient, you’ll get better results using baking powder than soda.
But many commercial baking powders contain added aluminum. We recommend you look for a brand that either doesn’t contain added aluminum, like this one, or make your own using baking soda and cream of tartar.
To make your own baking powder, just combine 1 part baking soda and 2 parts cream of tartar. For this recipe, combine 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda with 1 teaspoon cream of tartar, stir to combine, and then measure out 1/2 teaspoon of the mixture for the recipe.
An Egg-Free Option
Are you avoiding eggs? This recipe can still work for you.
Make sure you check out this article to learn how to make gelatin eggs.
Replace the 4 eggs in this recipe with 4 gelatin eggs to make these muffins egg-free (If you are wondering – yes, they still taste good).
Year-Round Goodness
This recipe works equally well with frozen or fresh blueberries – that means you can enjoy them year-round!
To keep the batter from turning blue or the berries from sinking to the bottom, try adding the blueberries to each individual muffin tin after the batter has been poured. Just drop as many blueberries as you want on top, mix them in with a spoon, and bake.
I hope you enjoy them!
– Steve
Nut-Free, Grain-Free Coconut And Tapioca Flour Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 1 cup tapioca flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder (or see note above)
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 4 eggs (or 4 gelatin eggs)
- 1/3 cup coconut oil or grass-fed butter, melted
- 1/3 cup honey or maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup full-fat coconut milk (canned)
- 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
Directions:
- Prepare 12-cup muffin tin by greasing each cup or using muffin tin liners.
- Combine all dry ingredients in a medium size mixing bowl. Whisk to combine.
- Add wet ingredients (except blueberries) and whisk until batter is smooth. If batter is too thick to stir smooth, thin with more coconut milk, 1 tablespoon at a time.
- Divide batter evenly into prepared 12-cup muffin tin. Divide 1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries on top of batter. Use a small spoon to gently stir blueberries into batter.
- Bake at 350°F for 25-30 minutes, until edges are golden and a toothpick inserted in center of muffin comes out clean. Let cool before serving for best texture.
P.S. If you try this recipe, leave us a comment and let us know how it turns out.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I made mini loaves with it for a woman’s tea I was cooking for. It is nice to have a healthy alternative. They looked and tasted like mini blueberry loaves. Some went home with guests.
That sounds great 🙂 So glad you enjoyed this recipe!!
I am sensitive to coconut products so need an alternative, please
Thank you.
Ann Short
Hi Ann – you could try subbing out both the coconut AND tapioca flour for almond flour instead – but full disclosure, we haven’t tested it that way. You may need to reduce the amount of milk a little if you do so.
These were wonderful! Changed the flours a little and ended up with 18 muffins.
Awesome! Glad you enjoyed the recipe Amy!
What a flop! I followed the recipe exactly. I can eat eggs but tried this using gelatin eggs instead as I’m trying to consume more gelatin, used the Great Lakes gelatin. I thinned the very thick and glue-like batter, maybe needed much more thinning though? They needed about 40 minutes for toothpick to come out clean. The inside of the muffins were essentially gelatinous globs, they sunk in the middle as soon as cool, stuck severely to paper liners. They tasted ok. We ate some of them while laughing about how awful they were but I’m not sure of the fate for the remaining 8….
yikes – so sorry these didn’t turn out for you Eileen!! So hard to figure out what went wrong through comments, but I’m sorry they didn’t turn out for you. The gelatin-eeg muffins don’t rise as much as the traditional eggs muffins do – they will fall as they cool. Here’s another recipe that uses gelatin: https://healthygut.com/healing-blueberry-jello/
However I think you should stick to SCD ingredients otherwise you’d might as well put any recipe on here. It’s not helpful to those that need to stick to it 100%
Sorry you feel that way Julie.
We can’t please everyone, but we try to provide a variety of recipes and a little something that can work for anyone! Here’s a good dessert if you’re following SCD strict still: https://healthygut.com/amy-ervin-lemon-bar-recipe/
Hey there! In the Gelatin Egg Recipe that you link here, it states that gelatin can be used to substitute for eggs in any recipe that calls for 1-3 eggs. This recipe, however, calls for 4 eggs. Thoughts on that????
Hi Kristi – if you’re using a recipe that calls for eggs, you generally only want to replace up to 3 eggs with gelatin eggs – if you replace more than that, you usually need to add extra fat or tweak the recipe in some other way. This recipe has a lot of healthy fat (coconut oil and full-fat coconut milk) so even though this recipe calls for 4 eggs, it still turns out when made with 4 gelatin eggs.
Looks like a great recipe and I’m trying to use more coconut flour instead of almond flour. However, both tapioca and cream of tartar are “illegal” in the SCD Diet. Please explain. Thank you! Carolyn
Hey Carolyn – thanks for commenting!!
We believe SCD is a great starting palce for healing the gut, but we don’t think anyone should stick to strict SCD for life without at least testing their tolerance of a wider variety of foods after healing has occured. The goal is to find the customized diet that works for you – and for many people that includes healthy but SCD-illegal foods like tapioca. More info on tapioca here: https://healthygut.com/egg-nut-and-milk-substitutes/
Cream of tartar is SCD-illegal becuase it sometimes contains a little starch. Look for one that doesn’t include starch if this is a concern for you.