Photo: cbertel / Flickr

In their book Homebaking Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid introduce their rice flour muffin-cakes as follows: ‘Having met people with wheat intolerance, as well as those who are allergic to gluten (celiacs), we’re always on the lookout for baked goods that use only rice or sorghum or corn flour.’ They played with Andre Simon’s plunkets recipe in order to yield ‘small rich muffins using only rice flour.’ The unleavened muffins have a ‘fine, moist, cakelike texture that holds together well’ even when they’re dunked.

Ingredients

You will need the following ingredients to make 12 small-medium sized rice flour muffin-cakes: 4 large eggs (these are to be separated), ¼ teaspoon of salt, 11 tablespoons of soft unsalted butter (not melted), ¾ cup of castor sugar, 1 ½ cups of rice flour and ¼ teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Alford and Duguid explain that ‘the proportions are like those of a classic pound cake: equal weights of eggs, butter, sugar and flour.’

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and place the oven tray in the centre. Butter 12 normal-sized muffin cups. Separate the eggs and then combine the egg whites with the salt and beat until the mixture is stiff. Put the egg whites aside.

Place the sugar and butter into a separate mixing bowl and cream them together by beating them until the mixture is pale in colour with a light consistency. Add the yolks and beat again until the mixture is smooth. Slowly add the rice flour and vanilla extract while stirring gently.

Fold in the stiff egg whites and spoon the mixture into the muffin cups. Fill them so that they are three-quarters full and then bake for 20 minutes. They should be golden-coloured and puffed in the centre when they are ready. Remove the rice flour muffin-cakes from the oven and then let them firm up for five minutes before you turn them out onto a wire rack to cool.

Note: The original recipe for plunkets that inspired Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid can be found in Andre Simon’s A Concise Encyclopaedia of Gastronomy.

Tags: baking