Gluten-Free Walnut Muffins

Now that I have decided to go ‘gluten free’, I need to find new baking recipes. The original recipe for this was a very fancy Yotam Ottolenghi dessert cake, that I adapted to be muffins. They are delicious plain or you can turn them into individual dessert cakes.

4 large eggs, yolks and whites separated

200g raw sugar

350g walnut halves, whizzed in a food processor to the consistency of fine breadcrumbs

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

1/4 tsp sea salt

12 Walnut Halves for topping

Place egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl. Whisk with electric beater on high for about 2 minutes, or until pale and fluffy, scraping down sides of the bowl as necessary. Add walnut, lemon zest and salt, and mix well to combine.

Add egg whites to another bowl. Using a clean dry beater, whisk on high for 2 minutes, or until stiff peaks form. Using a spatula, fold egg whites into the walnut mixture a third at a time; the mixture will be thick and quite difficult to bring together at first but will gradually loosen, so the final addition of whites lightens the mixture considerably.

Spoon the mixture into muffin tins (lined with muffin cups or greased) and top each muffin with a walnut half and sprinkle with a little raw sugar.

Bake at 190C for about 25 minutes. The walnut halves can weigh down the rising of the muffins but they should be well puffed. This is a moist recipe, so a skewer inserted inside should not come out completely clean.

Let muffins cool for 5 minutes, then remove from the muffin tins and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

These muffins are delicious as they are. I served them with some fresh raspberries and greek yoghurt flavoured with elderflower syrup for a treat (and they were very well received).