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The post Gluten Free Lemon Poppy Seed Pumpkin Muffins appeared first on Your Fit Day.
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Hi Your Fit Day Friends!
Well, spring is here in the Bay Area and the days are getting warmer and longer.
And with more warm weather comes sunshine. And as always, that means more lemons from my friend’s lemon tree. Actually, here in California we are blessed with lemons hanging all year round.
I love lemon-y anything!
So when life hands you lemons, what do you make?
Cakes, cookies, muffins and pies. That’s what!
And what goes with lemon? Poppies Poppy seeds, that’s what. And I love poppy seeds.
Those little crunchy poppy seeds with their bursts of nuttiness. There’s nothing like a sweet pastry, cake, cookie or dough laced and filled with poppies…Â IÂ mean poppy seeds!
I first developed this muffin a couple years ago, after my shoulder surgery, when I started using the Carnbite® Solution Plan, which I stayed on for about 1 1/2 years ( A little too long, but that’s another blog I’ll be following up with).
So it was during this time I was inspired to start baking more gluten free deserts for both me and my clients.
And I had a real yen for lemon poppy seed bread.
After many failed attempts, and a bunch of bricks, I finally came up with my own gluten free version for lemon poppy seed muffins, which are also delicious baked as small tea cakes.
I use Kabocha squash, also known as Japanese pumpkin, because of it’s rich creamy texture, and is my ‘go to’Â substitute for fat in almost any baked good. But you can also use canned pumpkin, or another winter squash.
As you make more of my recipes, you’ll see that I use Kabocha in most of them. It’s super nutritious and packs a punch with vitamin A. It’s a bit starchy though, so a little goes a long way.
This muffin is by no means low carb, so it can be a great addition to your post workout protein to round out the meal.
But my favorite time to have this is for my desert after dinner, when I let those carbs coax me into a deep sleep, where I dream of…  poppies …I mean my next days challenge in the weight room!
Be careful though, as the Yum factor of this muffin is quite high, and you may find yourself stuffing your face with the whole bunch!
Let’s start baking!
Photo credits go to my good friend Jos at www.delightfultastebuds.com. Make sure to visit her site full of yumminess!
t have any winter squash.
re using small muffin cups or 2 larger ramekins. Smaller muffins check at about 25 minutes. Mine usually take about 35 minutes, but it depends on if my oven is running on the cooler side.

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]]>The post Lemon Curd appeared first on Your Fit Day.
]]>This is Jos and I’d like to thank Debby for having me doing a guest post on her blog.
I’m sure you’re all still remember her delicious Low Carb Melt-In-Your-Mouth Lemon ‘Chiffonâ€
Poppy Seed Cake? If you haven’t made it yet, go shop for the ingredients and make them pronto!
When Debby shared her recipe to me, I couldn’t wait to try them out and it has become one of my staple low carb treats whenever I need a sweet-tooth fix. FYI, in general, I am not a sweet tooth person but once in a while, that thing kicks in.
I enjoyed her Low Carb Melt-In-Your-Mouth Lemon ‘Chiffonâ€
Poppy Seed Cake (in these photos, I made them in muffin tins). When she posted her recipe, she told me that the cake will go very well with my Lemon Curd, which I posted on my blog here.
Since her recipe yields extra 2 egg yolks, I am thinking instead of having you figuring out how to scale down my original Lemon Curd recipe, might as well I do it for you, right?
Anyway let’s proceed with the recipe, shall we?
Poppy Seed Cake.
Poppy Seed Cake!The post Lemon Curd appeared first on Your Fit Day.
]]>The post Low Carb Melt-In-Your-Mouth Lemon ‘Chiffon’ Poppy Seed Cake appeared first on Your Fit Day.
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HI Your Fit Day Friends,
Are you ready to got to low-carb heaven? Wait until you try my Low Carb Melt-In-Your-Mouth Lemon ‘Chiffon’ Poppy Seed Cake. This was really just an experiment and it was the first try. I wasn’t even sure it would come out OK.
When I tasted it… I almost died. But I didn’t, thank god. Instead, I ate the whole cake. I couldn’t help it. It literally melted in my mouth.
So here’s how I came up with this delectable lemony lusciousness. Â I thought I’d try to make an angel food cake using coconut flour. I was hungry, wanted something sweet, it was a low carb day, and I still had macros left to consume for the day.
And when I’m in the mood for baking I love to experiment and come up with goodies that I can make into a complete meal…and gobble them right up after I make them!!
So I got to baking and this is what I ended up with.

It’s actually not a classic chiffon cake, since there is no oil in the batter. And it’s not a classic angel food cake because there are yummy yolks involved. But it has that spongy, light texture, it melts in your mouth, and is just as yummy as both of those cakes. As it turns out, it’s really what I was going for using the coconut flour!
So, with any angel food cake it requires that the dry ingredients be folded into the egg whites in  four equal parts. I’m not sure why, but that’s what I’ve read on many food blogs, and also what my mother taught me. You can’t always trust a blog, but who’s to argue with your mother!
But folding coconut flour into egg whites is not that easy, and takes some patience folding it four times. Because it’s really boring you need to do it slowly and gently. It actually puts me into a Zen state. In fact, I’m sure making this cake lowers my cortisol with all the folding! Just another excuse for everyone to make this cake! Not to lower my cortisol, but to lower yours!
Now… Back to my making and baking…

The first few times I made this cake all I did to combine the dry ingredients was to whisk them together. Then, using a small tea strainer, I sifted and folded the dry mix into the egg whites, in four equal parts.
Sifting and folding the first two of the four portions of the dry mixture was always the hardest to incorporate into the whites. It just didn’t dissolve very well into the whites, like how my other gluten free flours would.
Make no mistake, the cake never failed to come out melt-in-your-mouth, even the first time I made it. But I’m a recipe hacker, and I knew I could make the folding easier, and upgrade the cake.
So I thought, what if the coconut flour was super super fine, and also blended into the protein powder more uniformly.
The secret, which I found out after many trials of baking  and eating every crumb of this deliciousness, was to sift the dry ingredients twice. ( I bet a third time would be even more of a charm, but that would be torture having to wait even longer to eat this cake!)
So here’s what I did: Instead of just whisking the dry ingredients with a fork and calling it a day, I sifted them after whisking them together. And that first sifting made all the difference.
The second sifting comes when it’s time to incorporate the dry mix into the egg whites.
Here is a video on how to fold ingredients into egg whites. Focus on the folding technique.
For my lemon cake it takes about 14 minutes to fold in all the ingredients, including the squash mixture and lemon. When folding in the lemon juice and extract I do that in about 3-4 folds, so I don’t break down the whites. Same with the poppy seeds and lemon zest. Less is more-She’s so right!
The addition of the first sifting really made the difference in how much easier I was able to fold the dry ingredients into the whites. And you can see how creamy and smooth the batter is! (It’s really hard not to eat the cake batter, so I do!).

I really think sifting is key when using coconut flour in any recipe that calls for it, since it’s such a heavy, clumpy flour. And if you’re not afraid of a few extra carbs, like 2 of them OMG, you can always add 1 tsp of cream of tartar to the dry mix, which I find makes the combination of coconut flour and whey protein lighter, and more uniform in texture for folding.
The cream of tartar actually makes for a more fluffy crumb, and I’ll have that recipe posted shortly.
The pictures above and below are of the cake baked at 350 degrees in a convection oven, not a traditional oven, and this one was slightly under baked, where the edges are only slightly brown. It’s OK though, because being slightly under baked can also help give it that creamy melt-in-your-mouth explosion, just with a little less crisp to the crust.
If you use a convection oven, click here to get appropriate recipe adjustments.
I like my cake a bit more brown and crispy on top. So I generally bake the cake so it’s uniformly golden brown, with the edges a bit more brown and crisp. And it still has the melt-in-your-mouth sensation, equally as good. (There’s a picture of this in the baking experiment section below)
The batter also makes super muffins ( I use silicon baking cups so they don’t stick), as well as a yummy mini muffin-cake like this one below, which was baked in a ramekin.

Before baking this cake make sure to read all of the notes below, including my oven temp experiments, as well as the recipe ingredients and steps. So keep reading…!
Some baking notes before starting:
Oven Temperatures:
Make sure your oven is calibrated and is accurate. Most ovens are not. I always recommend an oven thermometer to make sure.
In fact my oven bounces around and I often have to keep adjusting the oven for the first half of the baking time.
Oven Temperature Experiments:
These all produce yummy  cakes with slightly different textures.
At first I baked this cake at 375 for 30 minutes and let it sit for 10 a few minutes before trying ( I couldn’t help myself, it smelled so good!). It was light and fluffy in the middle, very moist. The top of the cake was deep yellow with deep golden hues. Not deep brown..but golden brown. Â You don’t want to let it get to the deep browned top stage, or else the inside will not have that melt-in-your-mouth experience.
However, this cake is very forgiving, and even if you really brown the top (like, a few times when I forgot-it-in-the-oven for 40 minutes brown!) the cake will still taste great, just a bit more cake-like, with a soft spongy crumb.
I also baked it at 365 degrees for 33-35 minutes. For my taste, I think this is the best oven temperature, and amount of time in the oven. I find at this temp and time the edges and top are crisp, and it still springs back to the touch, leaving you with a light melt-in-your-mouth experience. I prefer the juxtaposition of crisp and melt-in-your-mouth textures. Here is a picture of how I like it…

I also baked it at 350 for 35 minutes (the pictures at the beginning of the blog post) and it was very moist, had the melt in your mouth texture, but the sides and tops weren’t as crispy as the 365 degree cake (and I love crispy!). This is always a good go-to temperature for baking this cake.
And, lastly, like some traditional angel food cake recipes, Â I tried pre heating the oven to 375, reducing the temp to about 365, and lettigng it bake for about 33 minutes, or until the tops got golden brown all over and it was still soft to the touch. These too were delicious, and had the crisp and melt in your mouth sensation.
For convection oven adjustments click here.
Any of these should work!
Mashing the squash into creaminess:
Here’s what the squash/egg/coconut milk mixture should look like. It should be like a thick gravy, that will sit on top of the egg whites and not crash or run through them.

Beating the Egg Whites:
After adding the cream of tartar, beat the whites until soft peaks, where they just fold over. Then add your sweetener of choice. Then beat just until stiff peaks form and no longer. They should look moist and shiny. So check the whites about 30 seconds after you add the sweetener. Â You don’t want to over beat where the whites become dry and crack.
Folding ingredients into batter:
Folding coconut flour:
As you go underneath the whites scraping from bottom, up and over, you will notice pockets of the dry mix as you fold. Be patient and keep folding. It takes time to get the coconut flour all mixed in. Just when you thought it was all mixed you’ll suddenly see another pocket of dry mix on another fold!!! Keep folding!!
Take your time, go slow, and breathe through your tummy!! This is the Zen part of baking. Be super gentle and remember, less is more. Use a soft touch, as if you were helping a wounded chick back into it’s nest. You want to be that gentle!
Frosting And Layering The Cake:
Sometimes we just need a little more decadence in our life! Layering or frosting this cake with Delightfultastebud’s yummy lemon curd is sure to take it to the next level of YUM. And it’s a great way to use up the extra egg yolks, too. Â So go to town. If you count your macros remember to add this in!
I will have a chocolate ganash frosting on the blog soon, too! So check back, or sign up for my newsletter to get regular updates.
Nutrition Values:
The nutrition value for this cake is for using Splenda. So the carb count will be higher. That’s why I divided up the servings into four. But if  you’re not concerned then eat the whole cake if you want!!
If using erythritol/Stevia blend then I count the net carbs at below 10 for the entire cake, since erythritol and stevia don’t spike insulin. Personally no-calorie sweeteners don’t have an affect on my body composition, so I don’t stress about them. Make your own decision.
But I’m not a food Nazi so eat how much of it that you want, whenever you want. Just enjoy it when you do 
Experiment and let me know what you like.
I want to thank my friend Jos, at delighfultastebuds, for baking and taking such lovely pictures of my low carb melt-in-your-mouth lemon ‘chiffon’ poppy seed cake. It was so nice of her to help out. I didn’t hear any complaints, most likely because by the time she was finished her tummy was full. Lucky for me I got such great pictures before she ate up all the goods!
I know it looks like there are a million steps to this recipe, but many of them are just explanations.
If you want more of my low carb and post workout gluten free treats, most of which you can eat as a complete yummy meal, make sure to sign up for my newsletter for weekly updates and recipes 
Alas, let’s get baking!

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