Quick and Easy Muffins

Quite awhile ago, someone was looking for gluten-free recipes. Since I have developed severe allergies to grains, it was suggested to me by someone here on the echo that it could be the gluten content that was giving me trouble. So I decided to try the gluten-free grains. The gluten-free grains do not interchange readily in baking recipes. A few days ago, I happened upon "The Gluten-free Gourmet: Living Well Without Wheat" by Bette Hagman at the half price book store. This book is a real gem and I hope whoever was looking for gluten-free recipes sees this recipe. We have tried a couple of the recipes and they really are pretty tasty — I hadn't eaten a bakery item in over 3 months! Here is the muffin recipe that I made on Easter morning and everyone thought they were good.
 * Makes 8 muffins.

Ingredients

 * ¼ cup sugar
 * 2 tbsp shortening
 * 2 eggs
 * 1 cup gluten-free flour mix (recipe-follows) or all rice
 * ¼ tsp salt
 * 2 tsp baking powder
 * ½ cup milk or nondairy liquid
 * ¼ tsp vanilla

Gluten-free flour mix

 * 2 parts white rice flour
 * ⅔ part potato starch flour
 * ⅓ part tapioca flour

Directions

 * 1) In the mixing bowl, cream together sugar and shortening.
 * 2) Then beat in the eggs.
 * 3) Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder and add to the egg mixture alternately with the milk. Don't overbeat.
 * 4) Stir in the vanilla.
 * 5) These are best mixed by hand.
 * 6) Pour into greased muffin cups.
 * 7) Bake in preheated 350°F degree oven for about 20 minutes.