You know you’re experimenting with grains when you tell your son, “Just grab the muffin with the dent; that’s the one you liked the best.” It was baking with einkorn flour day, and I was trying 3 different things at once!
Thank goodness muffins are forgiving like I discovered when I made our favorite pumpkin muffins into totally allergy-friendly, gluten-free pumpkin muffins. Everything works!
On this particular day, son-who-isn’t-all-that-fond-of-peanut butter needed to know how to avoid the very peanut-buttery version of this delicious whole grain einkorn applesauce muffin.
Einkorn vs. Spelt
As we learned in my interview with an einkorn farmer the other day, einkorn is a much, much older cousin of spelt. With only 14 chromosomes, it sort of puts spelt’s 42 chromosomes to shame when it comes to being an ancient grain. 😉
I enjoyed the banana spelt muffins from a reader very much, but my daughter-who-isn’t-particularly-fond-of-banana made me wonder if I could use the same recipe without the banana – how about applesauce instead? And of course I wanted to try my hand at adapting to einkorn, so off I went! As you might imagine, the recipe isn’t all that similar anymore.
RELATED: Instant Pot Applesauce (with no added sugar!)
When I experimented with einkorn instead of spelt, I both reduced the liquid a bit and the flour. That wasn’t really following the directions for translating whole wheat recipes to einkorn but it was a busy Saturday and I honestly got confused!
The original spelt recipe had 5 eggs, and when I halved it, I used 3. When I switched to whole grain einkorn flour, I used only 2 eggs. The number of bananas in the original recipe was a LOT, too, more like 2 cups, which I changed to only 1 cup of applesauce. I didn’t use the peanut butter in version 1.
At first, I tried just a cup-and-a-half of einkorn flour (instead of 2 cups spelt). Those muffins worked out and were the favorite of my oldest, but when I added another 30 g or about a quarter cup flour to the next batch, they did rise and hold their shape better. The batch with less flour fell in the center a little as they cooled (the dent!). My husband thought those were a bit underdone.
It goes to show that muffins and quick breads are often pretty foolproof. They’re very forgiving and flexible and always work, but sometimes one is better than the other.
Trying Peanut Butter Einkorn Muffins
For those of us who like the taste of peanut butter, adding peanut butter was the best version. Those whole grain einkorn muffins rose best, looked fluffiest and held their shape beautifully. I can only imagine that any nut butter would be lovely – I’d like to try almond or cashew butter next.
The quarter cup of peanut butter definitely lent a peanut butter flavor to the applesauce muffins, but in the banana-spelt version, it was very much in the background, hidden by the bananas. I would recommend a quarter cup unless you want peanut butter muffins with a half cup. Note: After we froze and ate some of this bread, the peanut butter taste almost completely disappeared! So…that was a surprise. If you want PB at all, use the half cup!
Spiced Einkorn Applesauce Muffins
Print
Spiced Einkorn Applesauce Muffins
- Category: Bread
Ingredients
- 1 stick butter
- 1 c. unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 c.honey
- 2 large eggs
- 1 3/4 c. freshly ground einkorn flour(165 g)
- 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. Real Salt
- 1 tsp. Cha’s Organics cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. nutmeg (optional)
Instructions
- Melt the butter over low heat.
- Mix the applesauce, honey
and eggs. Once the butter has had a minute to cool, stir in the butter. (While you’re waiting, weight the einkorn berries in a bowl.) - Grind the einkorn directly into the bowl and sprinkle baking soda, salt (Use the code kitchenstewardship for 15% off of your first purchase), cinnamon and optional nutmeg on top.
- Stir everything together until uniform.
- Line muffin cups with If You Care muffin liners OR butter a loaf pan.
- Bake in a preheated 325F oven for: 12 Muffins: 25 minutes, 24 Mini muffins: 16 minutes, Loaf: 45-50 minutes (this will vary greatly based on how deep and wide your loaf pan is and the material it’s made of) – check for doneness with a toothpick; it should come out clean.
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No need for freshly ground einkorn in either recipe; however, you should look for whole grain einkorn flour if you’re going to buy it. A lot of the einkorn flour you can find to buy commercially is actually refined or partially refined. Since the bran absorbs a lot of liquid, you’d need more flour if using refined einkorn.
Or of course, you could start looking into getting a Mockmill! It grinds the whole grains for these muffins in way under a minute!
Mockmill has a great offer for Kitchen Stewardship® readers!
- Free US shipping
- Full 6-year warranty
- Info/ebook about freshly milling grain and recipes
Click over to Mockmill using this link for the free gifts.
Peanut Butter Einkorn Applesauce Muffins
PrintPeanut Butter Applesauce Einkorn Muffins
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 25 mins
- Total Time: 40 mins
- Yield: 12 muffins or one loaf 1x
- Category: Bread
Ingredients
- 1 stick butter
- 1 c. unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 c. honey
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4–1/2 c. peanut butter
- 1 3/4 c. freshly ground einkorn flour (165 g)
- 1 1/2 tsp.baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. Real Salt
- 1 tsp.Cha’s Organics cinnamon
Instructions
- Melt the butter over low heat.
- Mix the applesauce, honey, peanut butter, and eggs. Once the butter has had a minute to cool, stir in the butter. (While you’re waiting, weight the einkorn berries in a bowl.)
- Grind the einkorn directly into the bowl and sprinkle baking soda, salt (Use the code kitchenstewardship for 15% off of your first purchase), cinnamon and optional nutmeg on top.
- Stir everything together until uniform.
- Line muffin cups with If You Care muffin liners OR butter a loaf pan.
- Bake in a preheated 325F oven for: 12 Muffins: 25 minutes, 24 Mini muffins: 16 minutes, Loaf: 45-50 minutes (this will vary greatly based on how deep and wide your loaf pan is and the material it’s made of) – check for doneness with a toothpick; it should come out clean.
So now all my kids are happy – my daughter loves peanut butter and gobbled these up, my oldest really likes the dented applesauce version, the 6-year-old boy is a superfan of bananas, so he’ll be grabbing the spelt version from the freezer, and my youngest really likes to make a mess of crumbs on the floor eat muffins, any muffins.
And now that I’ve nailed the amounts in the recipe, it will be easy for them to make a few batches on their own since I’ve taught my kids how to cook! Well, at least when these many batches are gone… 😉
More Einkorn Flour Recipes
More Grain Grinding Challenge Series Posts
The Grinding Challenge Series is getting me to use my Mockmill grain mill! Here’s what we’re covering:
- Intro to the challenge and a video of setting up the Mockmill for the first time
- How to Translate Whole Wheat Recipe to Einkorn (and an interview with an einkorn farmer)
- Bio-Individuality – why it’s both the new face of health and the genesis of this whole project
- How to Translate Baking Recipes to Weights
- Why Baking with Weights is the Best for Kids
- Testing Pizza Dough with Freshly Milled Grain: Whole Wheat, Einkorn, Gluten-free (whole grain and not-whole-grain)
- Interview with a Master Gluten-free Baker
- Testing Tortillas with Freshly Milled Grain: Whole Wheat, Einkorn, Gluten-free
- Why Mill Your Own Gluten-free Grains?
- How to Make a Gluten-free Sourdough Starter
- Whole Grain, Gum-Free Gluten-free Flour Blend (& a bit on whether xanthan gum is bad for you)
- Interview with a Grain Milling Expert
- The Official Kitchen Stewardship® Mockmill Review
Plus where to find einkorn and unlock your special offer on the Mockmill HERE.
Recipes We’ve Worked on in the Series:
- Spelt Banana Muffins
- Einkorn Applesauce Muffins (with peanut butter variation)
- 100% Whole Grain Gluten-free Tortillas
- Whole Wheat Pizza
- Crispy Crust Gluten-Free Pizza (amazing!)
- Einkorn Pizza Dough
- 100% Whole Grain Gluten-Free Pizza Crusts (no gum!)
- How to Make a Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter
Don’t worry, if you don’t have a grain mill or couldn’t imagine yourself grinding grain yourself, I’ll be sure to address when any of these CAN’T be done with commercial flour. Usually, recipes are very compatible!
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All I have on hand is Jovial foods all purpose einkorn flour. Can I use that type of einkorn flour in this recipe?
Yes. That’s what use all the time. You may want to increase the flour amount to 2 cups. I presume her freshly ground flour is whole grain, which absorbs more liquid than all purpose einkorn.
Could we substitute all purpose or whole wheat or white whole wheat flour for the einkorn flour? If so, would there be any other adjustments?
Yes, you can use other wheat flours! You may need a bit extra flour if you use all-purpose flour though since it will absorb liquid differently.
Thank you!
Made these with sunbutter and demerara sugar instead if honey. Added chocolate chunks, because they are delicious. Kids said they were the best muffins I ever made (and we make a lot of muffins). Also, try preheating at 425F then reducing to 375F to improve spring. Mine were done in 17 min.
Ooo that sounds delicious Em! thanks for sharing your edits!
Made these with a quarter cup of almond butter and they were great. Thank you!
★★★★★
This looks like a really interesting recipe. I have never used this type of flour / grain before.