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Modified Recipe: Gluten allergy leads baker to write cookbook
Journal Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer
Rebecca Griffin Jones has self-published her popular recipes in Recipes From Little Miss Muffin Bakery and more.
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Published: February 18, 2009
Rebecca Griffin Jones used to turn down requests for her recipes.
Now she's sharing all of her favorites in a book, Recipes From Little Miss Muffin Bakery and more, which she self-published.
Jones had kept her recipes secret since 2003, when she started her home-baking business, Little Miss Muffin Bakery and more.
Everything changed last year.
"Last summer, about June or July, I experienced breaking out on my hands and my face," she said.
"Then I got a cold and bronchitis and asthma-type symptoms, and had trouble breathing. And I had never had allergies before."
A blood test confirmed what most bakers never want to hear. Jones had developed an allergy to gluten, which is a protein found in wheat.
"I was very upset at first. Baking was my creative outlet," Jones said.
"But when that door closed, God opened another one, and I wrote this book."
Jones lives in Wallburg. She works as the administrative coordinator, much like an office manager, for the office of the chief information officer in the Information Systems Department at Wake Forest University.
Six years ago, she worked only part time at Wake Forest. She had a second job at the Augustus T. Zevely Inn in Old Salem -- which is unrelated to the Zevely House restaurant in the West End.
"I was making breakfast on Saturday mornings. I started getting creative there and making up my own recipes," Jones said. She started making more muffins so the Zevely Inn could sell them on a regular basis.
It wasn't long before one of her muffins made it down to Chelsee's Coffee Shop & More downtown, where it impressed owner Gena Knighten. That prompted Jones to get certified as a home-baking business so she could bake muffins for sale in her own kitchen.
Later, she took samples around to other businesses and gained such customers as Salem Kitchen Cafe in Kernersville, Confluence Coffee in southern Forsyth County and Sunnyside's gift and coffee shop in Wallburg. She also sold muffins to Wake Forest for use at special receptions.
"I was working part time at Wake Forest because I wanted to be home with my son. But it got to be crazy, baking 20 to 30 hours a week," Jones said.
After Wake Forest asked her to go full time a couple of years ago, she became even busier.
"It got to be where I had to make a decision whether to get a building, quit Wake Forest and do this full time," Jones said. "Then my health made the decision for me."
Learning about her allergy initially saddened her. "It was like I was being slapped. It was like something had died," she said.
She was sad not only about having to give up the baking, but also about having to completely change her eating habits. "Our regular Friday pizza nights with our friends are no longer a thing," she said. "Pizza's what I miss the most.
"I also was surprised by how many things have gluten in them. Some soups have gluten in them. You can't have spaghetti anymore. I can't have fried chicken because of the coating. My most favorite fish in the world is fried flounder. All of these things have flour and gluten in them."
On the plus side, all her symptoms disappeared as soon as she stopped baking.
And Jones is lucky in that she is not as sensitive as some people. Though baking with flour or eating it bothers her, cooking macaroni and cheese for her son Brad and husband, George Jones, doesn't provoke any symptoms. (She also has a married daughter, Jennifer Morgan.)
And without the allergy, she never would have known that she could write a book.
"One night I woke up from a dream and said, ‘I'll write a book.' I'm thinking, ‘I can't write a book.' But I got up in the middle of the night and started scratching down notes. Within a week, I had written it."
Recipes From Little Miss Muffin Bakery and m
ore is a slim volume of 31 recipes. It includes Jones' best-selling muffins, a take on pecan pie in muffin form. These are dense and full of pecan pieces sweetened with brown sugar and contains loads of butter. "These are really dessert muffins," Jones said.
In fact, they are unlike most muffins. They not only taste like pecan pie, but also resemble the pie in texture.
Other muffins include chocolate-covered cherry and peach-pie.
The book also includes her popular drunken brownies, which turn out to be nothing more than a brownie mix doctored with a little espresso and chocolate liqueur. "The liqueur gives them a little kick," Jones said.
Other recipes include pumpkin bread pudding, lollipop cookies, brown-sugar pound cake and peanut-butter Easter eggs.
But from the beginning, Jones wanted Recipes From Little Miss Muffin Bakery and m
ore to be more than a cookbook. So she includes short descriptions of some of her customers, as well as information on how she developed her business.
"I love Winston-Salem. And it has all these coffee shops that are each unique," she said. "I want everyone to experience that."
"And I want to encourage people to be creative and to make their own stuff -- not just the same blueberry muffins. There's a need for this kind of home-based business."
After she found out about her allergy, she looked into gluten-free baking, which uses alternative flours. She said that the costs seemed prohibitive for a similar home business of all gluten-free baked goods.
Jones would have to totally rework all her recipes to make them gluten-free. And Jones has not even attempted any gluten-free baking. "I'm surprised I haven't. I don't know why. I'm not ready yet."
Though Jones is still sad about leaving the baking business, she has been able to look on the bright side.
"I still miss baking. It's a very big adjustment," she said. "But now I have time to spend with my husband and my kids and my grandchild. I'm hoping someone will pick up my book and start a business."
Muffin book
Recipes from Little Miss Muffin Bakery and more by Rebecca Griffin Jones sells for $12.95. It is available at Chelsee's Coffee Shop & More and the Winston-Salem Visitors Center in Winston-Salem, Salem Kitchen Cafe in Kernersville, and online at www.amazon.com.
Jones will sign copies of her book at Chelsee's from noon to 2 p.m. Feb. 28.
MICHAEL HASTINGS
Pecan Pie Muffins
These muffins contain no leavener, such as baking soda, so they are quite dense, like a pecan pie. This batter will be very liquid, almost soupy. "I know, it doesn't look right," Jones said. "But I worked on this recipe for years." This makes a very sweet, rich muffin best served as dessert. Its texture comes out much more like pecan pie than a standard muffin.
2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 cups packed pecan pieces, coarsely chopped
1 cup plus or minus a handful of all-purpose flour
2 cups of melted unsalted butter
4 large eggs
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Use baking cups to line the cups of a muffin tin (or grease and flour the tins).
2. In a plastic or glass bowl, mix brown sugar, pecans and 1 cup flour. If the air is really damp, add a bit more flour, maybe about ¼ cup. It will taste OK if you don't add enough flour, but it will be gooey in the center and not look done. Once you've made this more than once, you'll notice that when the batter is a lighter color, that means you need a bit more flour.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs and melted butter by hand with a wooden spoon. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix just until combined. The batter will seem quite liquidy.
4. Divide batter among 12 muffin tins, filling cups to the brim. (Some batter probably will be left over; do not try to overfill muffin cups.) Bake 20 to 25 minutes. When done, the tops will lose their shine, but the insides will be somewhat wet. A toothpick inserted in the center will have crumbs on it.
5. Place pan on a wire rack for a few minutes. When pan is cool enough to handle, remove muffins and set on wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 1 dozen.
Chocolate Cherry-Covered Muffins
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups granulated sugar
¾ cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 21-ounce can cherry-pie filling
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 1 large or 2 regular muffin pans (for 18 muffins) with paper liners or grease and flour them.
2. In a bowl, stir together flour, baking soda and salt. With an electric mixer, combine sugar, oil and eggs. Mix wet and dry ingredients just until incorporated.
3. Gently fold the pie filling and chocolate chips into the batter until combined. Divide batter among 18 muffin cups.
4. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Place pan or pans on a wire rack for a few minutes. When cool enough to handle, remove muffins and set on wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 18 muffins.
Drunken Brownies
For this recipe, Jones uses EJ Gallo Cask & Cream Chocolate Temptation, available at ABC stores.
1 package brownie mix, any brand, for a 9-by-13-inch pan
1 tablespoon dry ground Italian espresso (not instant)
1 tablespoon chocolate cream liqueur
1. Remove and discard one tablespoon of the dry brownie mix. Combine remaining mix with the dry espresso.
2. Follow the package directions for making the brownies, but use 1 less tablespoon of water. Instead use 1 tablespoon of liqueur.
3. Bake as directed.
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