Banana butternut and choc chip muffins

The grocers were selling bags of over-ripe bananas today, so I set out to make some muffins.  I had a large butternut squash in the fridge and no dried fruit so I used the squash as part of the sweetener for the mixture.  I did add a little sugar as the bananas were not as ripe as I had hoped and I had only cooked the squash in the microwave so the sweetness didn't develop the way it does when it is roasted.

These are quite dense muffins.  I use them as handbag food so I like a nutritious non-messy muffin that can be eaten discretely and will keep me from feeling hungry for several hours.  If you want this lighter add some water or fruit juice to make the batter thinner.

Makes 18 muffins
Oven at 175C

Ingredients
400g over-ripe bananas (4 medium)
350 cooked butternut squash ( peel, chop, ten minutes in microwave)
350g flour (40%urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
6 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
2 tsp cocoa
100g ground almonds
150ml oil
50g sugar or other sweetener
100g chocolate chips (I used dark to avoid the dairy)

30g sugar crystals plus 1/4 tsp mixed spice for topping

Smash the bananas and squash.
Mix the flour, baking powder and spices including cocoa together, whisk to ensure thoroughly mixed
Mix in almonds
Add oil, eggs and sugar to banana and squash mixture, stir well
Add dry ingredients to the banana mixture and stir thoroughly
Spoon into muffin cases

Sprinkle top with spiced sugar crystals if using.  Do this just before putting in the oven so that they don't dissolve before being cooked.

Bake for approximately 25 minutes if large, 17 for cupcake size

Cool on a wire rack. If you leave them in the tin you will get soggy bottoms.

These freeze very well.  Slip one in your bag in the morning, wrapped in plastic, and it will be defrosted for your mid-morning break.  They will keep for a few days in an airtight container.

If you can't eat nuts swap the ground almonds for more flour or just leave out for a lighter muffin.

Toasted quinoa, blueberry and banana muffin

Quinoa is a very nutritious food, being a complete protein, but it can have a rather acrid flavour.  This is caused by the coating the seed has to discourage insects from eating it.  If you rinse whole quinoa you can get rid of this.  I have used rinsed quinoa in these muffins, which I then toasted to a light brown before adding to the flour.  The whole quinoa gives a crunchy texture.  If you don't want this blitz the quinoa in a blender to get a smooth texture.

These muffins turned out to be quite sweet.  You may want to reduce the sugar.

Makes about 16 small muffins.  Use cupcake paper cases to line your tins to make things easier.

Heat oven to 170C (fan)

100g quinoa, rinsed and toasted
100g flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
1 large banana, mashed
50g blueberries or other dried fruit
50g vegetable oil
50g brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs

Whisk the flour and baking powder together then stir in quinoa and blueberries.
Mix mashed banana, oil, sugar and eggs.
Mix the wet and dry mixtures together

Spoon into paper cases - no more than 2/3 full.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes until brown on top.

Tip onto a cooling rack to avoid a soggy bottom.   Freeze as soon as cold for an easy snack.

Date and Banana muffin - gf and no added sugar

These light sweet muffins are easy to make and have no added sugar.  This recipe makes 24 muffins.

4 ripe bananas (approx 400g when peeled), mashed
400g dates, chopped
4 eggs
120ml sunflower oil
400g lois's gf flour (40% urid, 40% tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
8tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon if wanted


Chop dates in the food mixer with some of the flour.  Tip into mixing bowl
Chop bananas and whizz in the food mixer with eggs and oil until smooth.
Whisk flour, baking powder and cinnamon together.  The batter froths because of the high baking powder content but the muffins don't sink when cooked.  You can use less baking powder if you want a firmer muffin.

Mix all together and spoon into muffin cases.

Bake at 180C for 20 minutes.


This recipe has no added sugar.  The dates and bananas give it sufficient sweetness.

Mediterranean Vegetable muffins

I am taking my mother and sister for a day out tomorrow to celebrate my mother's birthday.  I just checked the restaurant details at the place we are going to, and it says that, in the high season, they have 'lunch platters' rather than their usual meals.  This sounds like the sort of think where you don't get much choice, and everything is piled on a plate together and wrapped.  I may be wrong, but the line was busy when I rang to check.  So, the usual - take something with me to eat.

I made these little muffins as they are easy to eat with salad or soup or as a meal by themselves.  They have a little bit of Parmesan cheese (24months matured), so there should be very little lactose in them.  This could be left out.

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped
1 red pepper ( I use the pointed variety), charred and skinned, chopped
1 inch round of aubergine, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped finely
Basil leaves, chopped, or other herb as wanted
3 olives, very finely chopped
250g flour (40% urid, 40& tapioca, 20% cornmeal)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp mustard powder
25g Parmesan, grated
3 eggs, separated
225ml water
100ml olive oil


Cook chopped onion and aubergine in some of the oil until soft, add red pepper and garlic and cook for a few minutes more.  Stir in chopped herbs and olives.

Sift/whisk flour with baking powder and mustard.  Mix in with vegetables and Parmesan

Mix egg yolks in with oil and water and add to flour/vegetable mixture.  Stir until fully incorporated.  It does look a bit gross; don't worry.

Whisk egg whites and fold gently into mixture.

Spoon/pour into muffin cases - mixture makes 10-12.

Cook at 180C for 25 minutes.

This makes a light muffin.  If you want a denser one don't whisk the egg white.

The flavour of these is quite subtle - add more of whatever takes your fancy to pep it up- chilli, whole cherry tomatoes, rosemary...

cranberry muffins: dairy and gluten-free

inside - bright berries and loose muffin texture

Busy cleaning out the fridge following the post-festivities gluttony.  There is still a lot of cranberry sauce - I like to make too much as it is depressing to serve a tiny portion and terrible to run out.  The vivid colour does a lot to counteract grey skies and low light levels.

What to do, what to do...invent a recipe for for cranberry and chestnut bread? Sounds a bit serious, so I'll try that later. The last of my carrot muffins got used up yesterday at Tolerant Taster's writers party, so I thought I'd try some cranberry muffins.

I found this recipe - very simple    http://www.cranberryrecipes.org/cranberry-muffins.html

and then read up in Alton Brown's 'I'm just here for More Food' baking book, which I am working my way through at the moment.  A bit of both and a bit of well that'll do produced these muffins.


300g flour (my mix is 40%urid lentils, 40% tapioca and 20% cornmeal)
9g / 3tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1tsp cinnamon
zest of one orange

100g sugar
1/2 cup / 120ml veg oil
3 medium eggs
1 cup / 240ml juice.  I used 3/4 apple and 1/4 orange  (remember - I am tidying the fridge really)


1 cup 240ml cranberry sauce.  I didn't worry about the sugar or water in the cranberry sauce, muffins are quite forgiving.

Mix the dry ingredients together - either whisk, blitz in food mixer or sieve
mix  oil, eggs and sugar together
Mix the wet and dry ingredients together roughly and stir in the cranberries.

raw muffin batter- only just mixed

Put into paper muffin cases or greased muffin tins.  If you aren't very accurate and get some blobs of mixture on the tin just regard that as a way of finding out what a cookie made from the batter would be like.

Bake about 20-22  minutes at 170C fan or 180C.

I find muffins in general freeze well both cooked and raw.  If you freeze them raw you can bake from frozen or let them defrost, just make sure they are cooked all the way through by inserting a thin knife or skewer or using a temperature probe.  The interiors should reach 210F or 100C.

Flip them out onto a cooling rack so that they don't get soggy bottoms

cooked golden muffins

These are quite an interesting muffin, with the sourness of the cranberries and the hit of orange zest.  If you want a milder flavour leave out the zest.  If you are ok with dairy you could swap the fruit juice for plain yogurt.  You could add a bit more cranberries - next time I would put at least another half cup of the cranberry sauce in so that each bite had a cranberry in it.

So I was cleaning the kitchen....but now the sink is full of dirty dishes.  At least the house smells good and the fridge is a bit emptier.

Vegan cranberry and sweet potato muffin Gluten-free

Ingredients:

60g sugar

60g sunflower margarine

50g grated sweet potato (unpeeled)

30g cranberries

gel – 10g tapioca 60ml water

25g urid lentil flour

15g tapioca

15g polenta

1tsp baking powder

1/4tsp ginger

0.3tsp baking soda

Sift dry ingredients together. Mix in margarine then stir in sweet potato and cranberries. Mix in gel – this takes a bit of effort; just keep going until evenly dispersed. Place in muffin cases and bake for 25-30 minutes until crisp and golden on top and springy to touch. Oven temperature 170 degrees C.

These muffins are light and the cranberries shine like jewels. The hint of ginger isn't obvious, just adds a touch of warmth to the flavour.

Views of Mr Taster

"The fabric of the matrix holds together in a way that is much more like something with gluten in it. It is springy and doesn't collapse when you bite it or press it with your tongue, keeping its three dimensional structure. Sweetness is evenly distributed and the top has crunchy sweetness - did you sprinkle it with something? Works very well."

Vegan gluten free carrot muffin

Carrot muffins are one of my favourite snack foods and great to keep in the freezer. I put one in a tub for a day out when I don’t know if there will be anything safe to eat. My usual recipe is gluten and dairy free but does contain eggs, so this is an attempt to find a good vegan recipe.

I made two batches of muffins, one with pre-gelatinised tapioca starch and one with the same amount of water and tapioca added to the rest of the ingredients. The second batter was very sloppy so I probably should not have added so much water, just mixed in water until the texture was right, but I haven’t retested this yet.

The muffins were quite different.

The one made with water was wetter, the muffin stuck to the paper case, and the individual ingredients were very visible. The pieces of carrot will still very clear. The taste was light, the texture moist, but this moistness gave a gelatinous feel. The muffin did hold together and was fine to eat. Considering there was no gluten or egg it had a lot more coherence than I had expected, presumably because the carrot strands gave structure.

The one made with the pre-gelatinised tapioca starch (gel) was quite different. If you haven’t seen the earlier instructions on this all I did was mix 10g tapioca flour with 60g cold water and heat, stirring continuously, until it looked like thick wallpaper paste – a clear very sticky gel. Be warned, you need to clean the pan and spoon with paper towel before putting in the dishwasher or you will find blobs of the stuff left in the dishwasher at the end. It really does stick together. Technical papers I have been reading suggest the temperature you cook this to makes a difference as to how it performs but I didn’t do anything other than cook until clear and thick.

I had to work harder to mix the batter, so I started with the gel and worked first the sugar, then flour, then margarine, then carrot and raisins into the mix. As I was making a tiny amount I did this with a wooden spoon; it may well be that in a food mixer it would be easy.

This carrot muffin was lovely. I gave a blind taste test to my resident Mr Taster, who has a fine palate, an analytical mind and a good descriptive capability (he writes novels while I bake). His words were ‘If I came across one in Starbucks I would make a note to have it again. It has a deep, complex mature flavour; an extremely good taste experience.”

In the photo the ‘gel’ muffin is on the left with the reddish colour.

Ingredients (makes four muffins about 70g batter each)

60g sugar

60g sunflower margarine (usually use oil but tried Pure margarine)

50g grated carrot

30g raisins

gel – 10g tapioca 60ml water

25g urid lentil flour

15g tapioca

15g polenta

1tsp baking powder

1tsp cinnamon

0.3tsp baking soda

Place about 70g of batter in each muffin case and bake at 17degrees C for approx 25 minutes until skewer comes out clean.

When cool, ice with a glace icing made with icing sugar and lemon juice.

I’ll run some best-before tests – my usual carrot muffins are still great after seven days. That, of course, needs time. I’ll report back.

I note that lots of sites suggest flax seed as an egg substitute. I’ll try that when I get some, as they have a nutritional advantage over tapioca starch. Will report later.

This recipe will give less protein than the usual one made with egg but is a great way to have a gf, dairy and egg free portable treat.

Great food that just happens (by cunning design) to have no gluten in it.

Today is my birthday. As special treat I let myself test a recipe before I did anything else on my very long ToDo list.

I need something to eat with soup or salad, so thought a cheese muffin with a crunch topping, that could be kept in the freezer until needed, would be good.

Cheese Muffins 
Makes about 9 large muffins.

Ingredients:

Flours – I used this mix to give colour, flavour, cohesion and moistness

1/2 cup polenta

1/2 cup urid lentil flour

1/4 cup almond flour

1/4 cup tapioca flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup oil

2 eggs, slightly beaten

about 3/4 cup milk – to give sloppy batter

1 cup grated Parmesan (using microplane grater so very fluffy – do to taste)

1/8 tsp mustard powder

1/8 tsp hot paprika use more if you want to notice the flavour

Topping:

1/4 cup pumpkin seed

1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Preparation:

Sift together dry ingredients including cheese. Mix in egg and oil and add milk until you get sloppy batter. Don’t worry about the usual ‘be careful not to over-mix stuff’. This doesn't matter if you have flours with no gluten in.

Spoon batter into paper-lined muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. Sprinkle with seed and cheese topping. Bake in 180° C. oven (170 for fan) for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Eat fresh or freeze.