I had a very tiring and depressing weekend of sorts, with going to the vet and finding out Henry needs surgery very soon and just trying to deal with this perpetual God forsaken heat in Los Angeles. I thought I’d bake, to calm down my nerves and also so that if someone asked me what I did on the weekend, I can say, “I baked!” Instead of, I took my dog that I love more than life itself to the vet, only to find out he needs surgery on both his knees. Before I had gone to Montreal, I bought some oat flour because I had kept hearing good things about it.

Oat flour is basically what you think it is: flour made from ground oats. It doesn’t have any gluten in it, which makes it hard for the dough to hold together well or rise. I had read to not use it alone, but to combine it with other types of flour because of its drawbacks, but considering what I made came out tasting pretty good, using it alone can be done.

I searched high and low for oat flour recipes online and was more or less disappointed with what I found. I knew I wanted to make muffins, but didn’t know what kind. All the recipes I found called for dates or raisins, and I wanted to use apples or banana, so this was quite disheartening. Plus, they were all for only 1/2 dozen muffins. So I decided to create my own recipe and I was pretty happy with my results.

I used a Ginger Gold apple, which is known to be good for pies, sauces and baking.

I also used Arrowhead Mills Organic Oat Flour. It can be mixed with regular white flour, however if you’re following a gluten-free diet, you can mix it with buckwheat flour.

Walnuts, cinnamon and cloves complemented the apple, and a couple tablespoons of molasses and honey gave it a boost of color and sweetness.

Oat Flour Apple Walnut Muffins

2/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons vinegar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons molasses
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups oat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground clove

1. Combine wet ingredients (milk, vinegar, oil, honey molasses) along with salt and mix until smooth.

2. Add oat flour, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves to wet ingredients. Stir until smooth.

3. Fold in apples and walnuts.

3. Oil muffin cups and divide batter evenly among them. At this point, deciding how much to fill each one is up to you, as oat flour does not rise like normal flour does.

4. Bake at 400° for about 16 minutes, or until lightly browned.

5. Turn over muffin cups on counter or in a towel until muffins dislodge from cups. Dust lightly with confectioner’s sugar and serve!

Yields: 12 muffins