Gluten-free Blueberry Buckwheat Muffins Recipe

中文

The fact that buckwheat—misleading though the name seems—does not contain any wheat may not be a particularly exciting piece of information; but for our gluten intolerant friends, it is fantastic news. Packed full of nutrients and dietary fibre, buckwheat flour can be used in numerous recipes, offering us a gluten-free option and that unique hint of smokiness.

Soba Noodles

The key ingredients in soba noodles (蕎麥麵) are buckwheat flour, plain flour, and water. The different proportions of flours make various types of soba noodles, for example, 十割蕎麥麵 (lit. 100% soba noodles) is made of 100% buckwheat flour, while 二八蕎麥麵 (lit. 20-80 soba noodles) contains 20% plain flour and 80% buckwheat flour.

Soba? Buckwheat?

The translation of 蕎麥 is buckwheat, hence, 蕎麥粉 is buckwheat flour; however, 蕎麥麵 is translated customarily as soba noodles, instead of buckwheat noodles, where soba is the romanisation of the Japanese word “そば (蕎麦)”.

Gluten-free Blueberry Buckwheat Muffins Easy Recipe

This recipe is gratifyingly simple because it only involves mixing the wet ingredients into the dry. Besides, you can easily please your taste buds on different days by swapping the blueberries for diced apple, raspberries, (gluten-free) chocolate chips and/or dried fruit and nuts. Moreover, you may replace the buckwheat flour with plain flour if you are not sharing the muffins with anyone who has special dietary requirements, though the taste and texture would differ slightly from their buckwheat counterparts.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Serves: Makes 6 muffins

Ingredients

100 g buckwheat flour
2 tsp baking power
50 ml flavourless oil
50 ml milk/ plant-based milk
50 g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
100 g blueberries

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC.
2. Sieve and combine the flour and baking powder in a large bowl.
3. In a jug, whisk the oil, milk, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract together.
4. Pour the jug of liquid ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients, stir to combine, then fold in the blueberries.
5. Use an ice-cream scoop and spoon the batter into six greased silicon muffin cases / a lined six-bun muffin tin, and bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, by which time they will have turned golden.

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Edison Tam MA MCIL CL is a Translator, Proofreader, and Copyeditor (zh-hk/en) who works with students, independent non-fiction writers, academic researchers, and clients from businesses and organisations of all sizes.

He is Chartered Linguist and Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), and has undergone wide-ranging academic training in Business, Modern Languages, and Applied Linguistics in Hong Kong, London, and Barcelona.