Coconut Flour Muffins

DLD: Coconut Flour Muffins

As I have written about a couple times on this blog, my two sons have a condition called CSID—they lack the enzymes to digest sucrose and starch. It has been a trial to find recipes for them to eat, especially recipes for baked goods. So far, my only successes have been adapting some paleo recipes and some low-carb recipes. Believe it or not, the common solution to baking for people with digestive troubles—a gluten-free diet—is a pretty bad place to look for recipes for people with CSID. The reason for this is that most gluten-free recipes have a ton of starch in them to replace flour. But for people with CSID, the starch is the enemy, not the gluten.

Anyway, so low carb and a few paleo recipes are the way to go. Low carb recipes are generally the most easily adaptable to CSID because reducing carbs automatically means you have reduced sugar and starch. In screening recipes the only things to watch out for are nuts and fruits. Paleo diets require a little more scrutiny because a paleo diet, while eschewing refined grains and refined sugars, has no qualms about using fruits high in sugar—bananas and apples—or other ingredients which aren't CSID friendly.

This particular recipe was passed on to me from my older sister (the same one who gave me the recipe for my Caramel Chex Mix). Her brother-in-law is on the paleo diet, and she occasionally makes things for him. To give you an idea of how much my son loved these muffins, let me tell you a story about the first time I made these. Once the first batch was cool enough to eat (barely out of the oven in my opinion) I gave Jayson half a muffin, which was promptly engulfed. He then proceeded to pester me with his calls of "more, more, more," until I gave him the other half. I was hesitant to give him more, partially because he had never had some of these ingredients before, and partially because he doesn't need to have two or three muffins. So he took matters into his own hands and decided to eat the crumbs...and the muffin liner. Yeah, they are that good.

Frustration with ignorance

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This post will not be a recipe. Instead, I have to rant a little bit about how frustrated I get when I see things posted online which stem from ignorance. For example, I have seen these sentences a few places around sites like Pinterest: "Only five ingredients, and no chemicals. Or, "Only have ingredients you have around your house." Or, "Doesn't have any ingredients you can't pronounce like those horrible, nasty processed foods."

I'm sorry, but really. I know it's asking a lot, but the idea behind those comments is ridiculous. They are implying that commercial bakeries are out there just to fill our bodies up with complicated chemicals and poisons and trick us with misleading ingredient listings. They seem to believe that the food you buy in the store is somehow not "real" food.

Really people?

As a professional commercial baker, I feel it is my duty to rid people of a couple of these misconceptions and hopefully get them to learn and understand a little bit about what is and what isn't in their food.