Not all muffins are created equal! These savoury muffins are light, flavoursome and filling. A healthy snack or breakfast.
Generally, in life, you are either a fan of The Beatles or The Stones or muffins or scones, hehe. There is something about these 2 little bready distant relatives that generally causes people to choose one over the other. I am most definitely a scone person. I just prefer the texture of them for whatever reason, I guess I just prefer the non batter texture.
But, there always has to be an exception to any rule and my exception is currently the 2 savoury versions of muffin that I have on this site. They are really delicious and they are pretty easy to make.
There are generally 2 techniques to make muffins: stirred or creamed. The stirred version is the one that I use as it is the simplest to make and get right. In the stirred version you mix the dry ingredients together first and make sure that the bicarbonate soda and baking powder is evenly distributed throughout the dry mix. In a separate bowl you whisk the wet ingredients together and then fold them into the dry mixture, generally with a rubber spatula.
The key thing to remember when mixing the wet and the dry together is to not over mix! Over mixing will mean that your muffins come out of the oven tough and may have long tunnels in their centres. So, you want to gently fold the wet mixture into the dry, and with each fold you make gently turn the bowl a little. It doesn’t matter if there are a few lumps here and there. The art to creating a light textured muffin really is in the mixing, but practice makes perfect, if your muffins come out a little tough they will still taste nice and next time you make them just remember to not mix so much.
The other thing that you need to know is that muffins do better when they are put into a hot oven, so make sure that your oven has already reached the desired temperature before putting your muffins in to cook.
Give it a whirl and let me know what you think! Why not serve these savoury muffins as an interesting side with some soup, as an alternative to bread?
- 80 g melted olive oil spread (or butter)
- 150 g spinach, stalks removed and chopped
- 1 red onion, chopped
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 275 g natural yoghurt
- 150 g carrots, grated
- 40 g pumpkin seeds, toasted
- 250 g flour
- 2 tsp cumin seeds
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate soda
- Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
- In a frying pan heat a knob of olive oil spread/butter and add the onion with a pinch of salt and fry until onion is soft (approx. 10 minutes).
- Add the cumin seeds and fry for 1 minute.
- Add the spinach and fry until wilted.
- In a bowl mix together the flour, bicarbonate soda, baking powder and salt. Stir these ingredients thoroughly so that the baking powder and bicarbonate soda are evenly distributed.
- In another bowl whisk together the melted olive oil spread/butter, eggs and yoghurt.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold together until just mixed (do not over mix).
- Add the onions, carrots, spinach and pumpkin seeds to the mixture and mix lightly.
- Pour mixture into muffin tins stopping at least 1 cm from the top.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes (every oven is different, your muffins are cooked when you can push a knife into the centre of a muffin and it comes out clean).
- Leave to sit for 10 minutes on a cooling tray before serving.
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