Apple muffins

Our apple tree started dropping apples already, so I wanted to make a start on some apple recipes to use them up. I fancied making muffins, even though they are not the most efficient way to use up apples. I liked the sound of this recipe, with grated, diced and sauced apple in it, and decided to give it a go even before I realized it's also a great baking-with-honey recipe - I especially like that it takes into account honey's tendency to dry out / burn.

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup oats
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup grated apple
1 cup diced (1 cm) apple
1/3 cup olive oil (or veg oil)
1/2 cup honey (or maple syrup)
2 eggs (ideally at room temp)
1/2 cup Greek yoghurt
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)
1 tbsp demerara sugar to go on top

Heat the oven to 163C / 325F (218C / 425F for maple syrup). Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin.

In a large bowl, mix flours, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, bicarb and salt with a fork. Add grated and chopped apple and stir.

In a medium bowl, beat oil, honey (or maple syrup) together, then add eggs and beat, then add yoghurt and apple sauce and mix.

Add wet to dry and mix until just combined, adding raisins and pecans in the final few strokes. Spoon into muffin cups and sprinkle with demerara sugar. Bake for c 25 min (13-15 min for maple syrup), until skewer comes out clean.

Rhubarb streusel muffins

At last, we have proper rhubarb harvest. Not epic, but enough, and thick enough. So I got excited and this was what I decided to make... It maybe wasn't the most important thing to do that day, but I felt like it was the thing to do... It's crazy how a little kid makes you prioritize... It's essentially an amalgamation of two recipes: here and here.

(makes 12)

For the muffins:
1 1/2 cups flour (approx 50:50 wholewheat or spelt and plain)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup veg oil
1 egg
1/2 cup runny yoghurt (dilute a little with water if thick)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts
1 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb (approx 1 cm dice)

For the streusel topping:
1/2 cup flour (mix as above)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
3 tbsp melted butter

Heat oven to 165C and line a muffin tin. Mix flour, bicarb and salt with a fork in a large bowl. Beat sugar, oil, egg, yoghurt and vanilla together with a fork in another bowl. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined, adding the chopped walnuts and rhubarb with the last few strokes. Dollop into muffin liners, leaving a little space for topping. To make the streusel, mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl with a fork, then add the melted butter and stir until lumpy, then add the walnuts. Distribute evenly over the muffins. Bake for approx. 30 min, until lightly browned on top and a skewer comes out clean.

Spiced apple muffins with walnut streusel topping

Muffins for our new upstairs neighbours, in the hope we can start our neighbourhood sweetly. Using apples and walnuts from our garden. And a Delia recipe I've never actually tried before.

(makes 12 muffins, or one large cake)

For the muffins:
12 oz (350 g) apples (weight after peeling and coring), chopped into ½ inch (1 cm) cubes
3 oz (75 g) sugar
6 fl oz (175 ml) milk (used yoghurt mixed with water, as we never have milk)
4 oz (110 g) butter
10 oz (275 g) plain flour
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp baking powder
½ level tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
½ whole nutmeg, grated
2 large eggs

For the walnut streusel topping:
2 oz (50 g) walnuts, roughly chopped
3 oz (75 g) flour
3 oz (75 g) sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 oz (25 g) butter

Heat the oven to 190C. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a gentle heat. Put the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves and grated nutmeg in a bowl and mix with a fork.

In another large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and milk together, then whisk in the melted butter. Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined, folding in the apple at the end. Spoon into muffin cups.

To make the topping, mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl, then rub the butter in with your fingers.Add in the nuts and 1 tbsp cold water, and press loosely together. Press the topping on top of the muffins, then bake for about 30 min, until done.

S's pumpkin muffins

S made a pumpkin-carving party for his lab last week. He got them all pumpkins, and asked them to bring pumpkin themed food and then they carved pumpkins together. These muffins were his idea, slightly adapted by him from this recipe, and he even bought special silicone baking forms with pumpkin faces for baking them. He used the guts scraped out of two small-medium sized pumpkins and one butternut squash that he planned to carve the following day to make these. He spread all those pumpkin guts out on a baking sheet and baked them until soft and not liquidy, then blended them up to make the 15 oz of pumpkin puree needed.

(makes 12-13)

1 3/4 cups plain flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp bicarb
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 cup walnuts
2 eggs
15 oz pumpkin puree
1/2 cup sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla essence

Heat oven to 375F and prepare baking tin with liners (not necessary for silicone form). Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl with a fork. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients. Pour the wet into the dry and mix until just combined. Dollop into baking cups, and bake for 20-25 min until a skewer comes out clean.

Blackberry, oat and yoghurt muffins

S made grand plans to go on a foraging mission on Saturday. We biked through Nokken and around the Amagerfælled, with our eyes out for tempting stands of sanddorn (aka sea buckthorn aka havtorn ahhhh living in three languages is a little crazy sometimes, I just hope I get so I can really use the other two for stuff other than berries before too long!) or blackberries (aka brambles aka brombær aka brombeere)... We were also looking out for mushrooms but not so much luck this time - although we did find our first Danish edibles (oysters and chanterelles) a couple of weeks ago in the Danish Switzerland. We gathered some sanddorn near Nokken - more on that here. We hit up a couple of blackberry patches in the Amagerfælled (and they hit back...). We filled all our containers... then biked on to Amagerstrand for a swim and a Lidl picnic (really good gazpacho and S's fave pretzels).

Quite a few of the blackberries have gotten mixed into yoghurt, with or without muesli, and eaten just like that. I decided to freeze the remainder before they got too soggy, to keep them for future muesli (spread them on baking paper / baking tray in a single layer to freeze before putting in a bag or container so they don't stick together). But first, 5 oz got made into these muffins.

I used to make these muffins a lot. They were from a muffin recipe book my uni flatmate S had when we lived together, and I made them loads and wrote the recipes down when we moved out. This is a particular favourite - they work well with blueberries or raisins, but I reckon the blackberry-yoghurt-cinnamon-oat combination is a real winner.

(makes 12 medium sized muffins)

3 oz / 75 g oats
8 fl oz plain yoghurt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
7 oz / 175 g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4-5 oz / 100-125 g brown sugar
1 egg
3-4 fl oz milk
3 fl oz vegetable oil
5 oz / 125 g blackberries (or other berries, or 3 oz / 75 g raisins)

Heat oven to 200C / 170C fan / 400F. Grease and/or line a muffin tin. Mix oats, yoghurt and bicarb and let stand for a minute. Mix the remaining dry ingredients in a large bowl with a fork. Add the remaining wet ingredients to the yoghurt mixture, whisk and then tip into the dry stuff. Mix until just combined, adding berries in the final few strokes. Then dollop into prepared muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 min, until well risen and golden. Let cool ten min before moving to a cooling rack.

Stikkelsbær og hyldeblomst / gooseberry and elderflower muffins (Danish summertime)

S came home with a punnet of gooseberries when he went on a chestnut rice related mission to Istedgade the other day. The previous lot of gooseberries (stikkelsbær) we had this season I had simply stewed and eaten, mostly with skyr. But I was a little unsatisfied - gooseberries are so tart they definitely need quite a bit of sweetener and/or dilution with something cakey or creamy.

This time, I was thinking of making muffins in the morning before N awoke, and S suggested doing gooseberry ones. I checked my Delia veg collection book and she didn't have anything with gooseberries, but the first recipe that came up online was a Delia one that I had all the ingredients for (including elderflower cordial I made a few weeks ago) so the gooseberries' fate seemed a foregone conclusion.

These were part of our 'balcony brunch', which also featured avocado on Manfreds sourdough toast with a softboiled egg on top, and tomato-mozzarella salad. I started with four eggs: one for the muffins and one each for the toast. Perfect.

(makes about 8)

150 g plain flour
1 level dessertsp (11 ml) baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 large egg
40 g golden caster sugar
2 tbsp milk
75 ml elderflower cordial
50 g butter, melted and cooled slightly
225 g gooseberries, topped and tailed

For the topping:
18 extra (approx 100 g) gooseberries, topped and tailed
1 heaped tbsp demerara sugar

Heat oven to 200C / 180C fan. Line a muffin tin. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl with a fork. In a separate bowl whisk together egg, sugar, milk,elderflower cordial and melted butter. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and fold together until just combined. In the final few strokes add the 225 g gooseberries. Spoon the mixture into prepared muffin cups. Lightly press 2-3 of the extra gooseberries into the top of each muffin, and sprinkle with a little demerara sugar. Bake for 30 min until well risen and golden brown. Remove the muffins from the oven, and transfer them straight away to a wire rack to cool.


These are really good! The elderflower doesn't come out very strong but that's OK. Perhaps my homemade one isn't as strong as the shop bought one? My gooseberries were pink but green ones would be good too, These are really well balanced - the sugar sprinkled on top (I didn't have demerara so just used golden caster) is the final touch to offset the tartness from the berries.

Chocolate raspberry hazelnut muffins

All weekend I was resisting a craving to cook, all the time... We had pretty epic evening plans: Friday was dissection party followed by cabaret in the Dome of Visions. Saturday was Sonar Copenhagen (Zebra Katz!). So daytimes needed to be a bit chilled. It wasn't quite as sunny as some days recently, so cooking and chilling didn't seem like a bad use of time.

Biggest part of the craving was baking-related. I am very much hooked on anything with chocolate, hazelnut and/or raspberry at the moment. So made these muffins, with all three. Hazelnuts just on top, as I find they are wasted mixed inside a cake. Had been a while since I baked anything with egg, and these are appropriately light and fluffy. Slightly adapted this recipe.

(makes 12)

200 g / 7 oz plain flour (used about 70:30 plain and white spelt)
25 g cocoa powder
15 g / 1 tbsp baking powder
115 g / 4 oz sugar
100 g dark chocolate, chopped (used 50 g)
2 medium eggs, beaten
150 ml / ¼ pt milk (used yoghurt mixed with water 50:50)
115 g / 4 oz butter (used coconut oil), melted
200 g / 7 oz raspberries (skimped a bit)
2 tbsp chopped hazelnuts

Heat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/GM 4. Prepare a muffin tin. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in the sugar and chocolate nd make a well in the centre. Mix the eggs, milk, and melted coconut oil/butter together and pour into the well, then stir until just combined. Fold in the raspberries. Spoon the batter into the muffin cases. Sprinkle chopped hazelnuts on top of each one. Bake for about 25 min, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Best still warm from the oven, but still good when cooled.


Hit the spot, predictably. Very light and tender.

Chocolate, banana and okara muffins

So many possibilities with okara... Pondered making cornbread again. Decided to go the sweet route this time - would be nice to have a pudding option ready for S when he returned as well as salad...

Unusually had some almost overripe bananas (prob due to not modifying banana purchase quantity while S was away), so decided to follow this muffin recipe (note that site has lots of other interesting okara ideas).

(makes approx 10 muffins)

1 large banana 
1 cup okara
1/4 cup fake milk
1/4 cup veg oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp baking powder 
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350F. Prepare a muffin tin with liners or grease. Mash the banana in a medium bowl, then add the okara, veg oil, sugar and vanilla and beat with a fork. In a separate mixing bowl, mix the baking powder, bicarb, flours, salt and cocoa together with a fork. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined, adding in the chocolate chips in the final few strokes. Transfer mixture to prepared muffin cups (fill each ~ 2/3 full). Bake for 20-25 min, until a skewer comes out clean.


These were good. The okara does a lovely job of adding texture and moistness without doing much in the way of taste.

Popcorn muffins

I made a lot of popcorn and started daydreaming about baking with it. I was running short of snack muffins so muffins were the obvious choice (referred to this recipe). These are fun!

(makes ~9 muffins)

5 cups popped corn (2 1/4 cups after homogenising)
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (use less if the popcorn was salted)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup fake milk
1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 2 1/2 tbsp boiling water
2 tbsp veg oil
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Version 1 = dark chocolate, sour cherry and thyme - add 1 tsp dried thyme, handfuls of sour cherries and of dark chocolate chips/chunks in with the dry ingredients.
Version 2 = mango, coconut and cardamom - add 1/2 tsp freshly ground cardamom, 2 tbsp dried shredded coconut and ~4 tbsp diced mango (from frozen) to the dry ingredients.

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare a muffin tin. Grind popcorn (I used the blender) until it is mostly pulverised (don't worry about a few remaining unground kernels - they will be fine+fun). Put ground popcorn in a medium bowl with flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and any additional dry ingredients (see Versions) and mix with a fork. In a separate bowl, beat together the fake milk, linseed mixture, veg oil and vanilla essence. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Dollop into prepared muffin cups and bake for 25-30 min, until lightly browned and a skewer comes out clean.


They are tasty but with so many additional flavours the popcorn is lost. I plan to tweak this to get a version that actually tastes like popcorn!

Pumpkin, cranberry, chocolate and orange muffins

I had experiments with a bag of fresh cranberries in mind - first crumble (with apples I scrumped with M the other day), then these. I based them on a pumpkin muffin recipe I'd used before, but tweaked the flavours to incorporate the chocolate, ginger and orange I wanted to be in there. It's kind of a second iteration of these ones.

(Makes 12)

1 3/4 cups plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup demerera sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
Pinch of salt
Zest of two little oranges
1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup fake milk
1/2 cup veg oil
1 cup fresh cranberries, roughly chopped

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare a muffin tin. Mix flour, baking powder, sugars, ginger and salt in a bowl with a fork. Add orange zest and chopped chocolate and mix again. In a separate bowl beat together pumpkin puree, fake milk and oil. Add wet to dry and mix til just combined, adding the chopped cranberries in the last few strokes. Scoop the mixture into muffin cups. Bake for ~25 min, until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean. Let cool for a few minutes in the tin before transferring to a cooling rack.


These are great. I overcooked them slightly but the pumpkin makes them wonderfully orange in colour, the orange and ginger taste exciting, and the cranberries and chocolate are beautiful to see and insert little jewels of intensity... Yum.

Muesli muffins

I have had to come in to work before 6 am a few times lately. It doesn't make sense to eat my usual muesli breakfast in the wee, dark hours somehow. I just had a brainwave though: what if I transform the muesli into easily-portable muffin form?! It would make a great, practical breakfast for those days and for any other days when I have to have breakfast (or a snack) on the go. My basic muesli bowl contains oats, linseeds, sunflower seeds, flaked almonds, raisins, almond milk, blueberries, banana, a little cinnamon and a splash of maple syrup - I would hardly have to add anything (perhaps some raising agent; perhaps some oil but sunflower oil would effectively be covered already)...

(makes 10)

1 cup oat flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar*
1/4 cup flaked almonds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup raisins
2 tbsp toasted linseeds
1 banana, mashed roughly with a fork
2 1/2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 tbsp boiling water
2 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 cup almond milk
1/4 cup sunflower oil
1/4 cup frozen blueberries

Heat oven to 380F and prepare a muffin tin. Mix oat flour, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, flaked almonds, sunflower seeds, raisins and toasted linseeds in a medium mixing bowl with a fork. In a separate bowl, mash the banana, then add linseed-water mixture, maple syrup, almond milk, brown sugar and oil and beat together with a fork. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and mix until just combined, adding the blueberries in the final strokes. Dollop into prepared muffin cups and bake for ~25 min.

*consider leaving out brown sugar and increasing maple syrup


I made these exactly as above and they were dreamy. Exactly as I wanted. Seriously - perhaps one of the best recipes I have ever made up. They held together and rose excellently and were packed with deliciousness. I took them to the woods with D, K and A and we tested them, and they were good. Might reduce the sunflower seeds to 1/8 cup but apart from that wouldn't change a thing.

Edit: Also, I ate one before aerials one night and it gave me loads of energy. I think it was the muffin anyway, it might just have been adrenaline or who knows what. Will repeat the experiment.

Harvest: quick autumn muffins

I had four and a half pounds of beautiful, black, egg-shaped plums with yellow flesh (harvested Wednesday night in Winter Hill, up a ladder under the Harvest Moon). They are confusing me, actually: they seem to be the variety known as 'damson plums' or 'Italian prune plums'. But they are not what I knew as damsons (the small, sour plum relatives that make the most wonderful jam). Anyway, they are delectable as well as beautiful, and well-suited for baking as not too sweet. I had a few things hanging around the kitchen hoping be consumed: the plums; also some apples and about a cupful of Chimay... It occurred to me to use the ale in baking - its maltiness could lend a dark note similar to the treacle in the apple-caraway muffins I love. Ale plus ginger, pecans, cinnamon, brown sugar (a little, not a lot), wholemeal flour and autumn fruits = quick and easy muffins, full of fall.

(makes ~12 muffins. I used half plums and half apples and halved the batter just before adding the fruit)

12 oz apples or plums (weight measured after coring / stoning)
6 oz plain flour
4 oz wholemeal flour
2 oz sugar
1 oz demerara sugar (plus ~3 tbsp for topping)
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup pecan pieces
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 tbsp boiling water
1 1/2 oz (72 g) grapeseed oil
175 ml ale, heated and cooled

Heat oven to 375F. Chop the apples or plums into ~2 cm dice. Mix the flours, sugars, spices, baking powder, salt and pecans in a large bowl with a fork. In a separate, small bowl combine the linseed mixture, grapeseed oil and ale. Add this wet mixture to the dry mixture and mix until just combined. In the final few strokes add the fruit. Spoon the mixture into a prepared muffin tin and bake for ~25 min, until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

(measurements are all over the systems, oops).

Courgette and banana muffins / cake

This recipe demanded making immediately for several reasons: (1) yesterday was the first day in about two weeks cool enough to even countenance turning on the oven; (2) I had a hugely overripe banana looking quizzically at me; (3) I also had masses of courgettes (about eight: see double-CSA week). Oh and, I do really enjoy courgette cake.

(made 12 smallish muffins)

1 large very ripe banana
1/4 cup apple puree
1/4 cup veg oil
3/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 cup grated courgette (about 1/3 of a quite big one)
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup raisins

Heat oven to 350F. Prepare muffin or bread tin. In a large bowl, mash the banana with a fork. Add the apple puree, oil, sugar, and vanilla and mix more with the fork. Mix in the grated courgette. Add 1 cup flour, cinnamon, allspice, bicarb and salt, and mix until just combined. Toss walnuts, raisins and remaining 1/2 cup flour together, then add to the wet batter and mix until just combined. Put into the prepared bread or muffin tin and bake for ~25 min (muffins) or 50-55 min (loaf cake). Ready when golden and a skewer comes out clean (cook 10-15 min longer at 325F if it needs more time). Let cool in the tin for 10 min, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.


These were delicious - so many good things in there! And they rose really nicely and coloured up beautifully. I had a couple of cups of apple puree frozen (that I defrosted by sitting the tub in warm water until I could scrape off 1/4 cup's worth), so this was a pretty fortuitous combination of stuff I just happened to have around the kitchen.

Baking with jam: chocolate-mulberry buns and mulberry-thyme (GF) biscuits

After the mulberry harvest I did a couple of weeks ago, I ended up with more mulberry jam than I could possibly use (some that I made myself, and some that came to me as my share from the larger quantity the others jammed). I decided this was an opportunity for baking with jam: jam tarts were a childhood favourite, and I used to make a jammy gingerbread to use up odds and ends of abandoned jam when clearing out the fridge in shared houses. I was thinking of making jam tarts, but then I remembered a recipe for thumbprint cookies I saw recently, and decided they might be a less faffy equivalent (++I have some beautiful thyme growing on my roof that I am not using enough). Also, they were gluten-free, so I could share them with A. I came across Nigella's choc-cherry cupcake recipe while thinking about jam baking, so decided to test-veganise that as well.

Mulberry, rose and thyme biscuits
(makes ~12)

100g olive oil
1/4 cup / 50g sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tsp chopped, fresh thyme leaves
1 cup TJs GF flour mix
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup almond meal
approx 1/4 cup (60ml) mulberry jam, mixed with rosewater (1/2-1 tsp) and honey to taste*

Heat oven to 180C/350F. Grease 1 large baking tray. Mix flour, cornstarch, baking powder and almond meal in a medium bowl with a fork. Beat oil, sugar, vanilla and thyme in a separate bowl. Add wet to dry, and mix / knead until well combined. Roll tablespoonfuls of dough between your hands to make flattened balls, then make an indentation in each with your thumb and place on the prepared baking tray. Fill each with some of the jam mixture and bake for 10-12 min, or until slightly golden. Leave to cool on the tray.

*Added sweetness will depend on the jam used: traditionally-made jam like the stuff I make is plenty sweet already and needs no extra sweetening. But if the jam has been made with less reduction of the fruit and less sugar / more added pectin it may be less sweet (like the one made by the LUrC crew) and, in my opinion, need a little more sugar.

Chocolate-mulberry muffins
(makes 12)

6 tbsp / 90 ml refined coconut oil (liquid state)
4 oz dark chocolate (broken into pieces)
1 ¼ cups mulberry jam
1/2 cup sugar
1 pinch of salt
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 tbsp boiling water
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Heat the oven to 180C / 350F. Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin. Heat the coconut oil in a medium pan. When hot, turn off the heat and add the chocolate. Leave for a moment, then stir with a wooden spoon until smooth and melted. Add the jam, sugar, salt, linseed mixture and vinegar. Mix, then stir in the flour, baking powder and bicarb. Fill the muffin cups and bake for 25 min. Cool in the tin for 10 min before removing and leaving to cool on a rack.


These were both experiments. I thought the choc-jam muffins were the successes at first: they rose surprisingly well, with a good consistency. While I thought the biscuits were disasters: many of them split while baking, and the dough was very crumbly (might need to add more oil or some milk?). But people seemed to love the taste of the biscuits despite their appearance (I fed some to S, and took some to a brunch - where en route they got even more bashed up riding around on the potholes aka streets of Greater Boston on the back of my bike), while the muffins were fine but not as well-received.

Pumpkin in June (M's birthday): Pumpkin muffins

I defrosted a cup of pumpkin puree to use for M's birthday pumpkin granola, and since I had half a cup left over I decided I may as well make something else pumpkinny too. Muffins seemed like a straightforward option, and this recipe looked irresistible. I have made pumpkin muffin type things a couple of times before, but neither were quite right, and besides I wanted to try these ones.

(half the quantities below made 9 small muffins)

1 3/4 cups plain flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground cloves (left this out)
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup fake milk
1/2 cup veg oil
2 tbsp molasses
1/2 cup raisins (or cranberries, or walnuts, or pecans, or some combination of all of those)

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare a muffin tin. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices in a bowl with a fork. In a separate bowl, beat together pumpkin, fake milk, oil, and molasses. Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. Fill the muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake for ~20 min, until they are lightly browned on top and a skewer comes out clean.

Parsnip muffins (savoury and sweet)

Yesterday was crazy.

We biked the course of the Boston Marathon overnight on Sunday night: took a train from South Station with 700 other bikers at 10pm, started the course around 11.30pm having biked from the train station in Southborough to the start line in Hopkinton among a vast throng of red blinking lights (lots more bikers arriving in buses and cars as well as the train). S and I lost the others quite early but we sailed all the way: it was a beautiful night: so much energy, fun, camaraderie. Finished about 1.30am, but then I was too excited and didn't really sleep - got up early and went to work in beautiful Spring sunshine. Felt off-kilter, but like the first weekend of Spring... almost Summer.

Food for lab meeting was cheesy pizza (was a last minute solution as originally ordered from the other side of the marathon route), so I couldn't eat it and went down to Brigham Circle about 3pm to get something to keep me going. I was in Green T (tea shop) waiting for a banana-coconut-pineapple smoothie as masses of sirens started speeding past. So many. Unusually many, despite being in an area full of hospitals. There was rolling news on a little TV in the shop. The headlines were about explosions at the marathon finish line. Two and two came together, and my heart clenched. The girl brought out my smoothie and we stood watching the headlines with another customer for a few minutes, exchanging words of shock and disbelief, before I ran back to work: my heart still aching; my thoughts with the people at the finish line, the people in the hospitals, with this tough little city, with all my friends who could so easily have been in the wrong place on this sunny holiday Monday.

Baking can be my way of winding down and taking my mind off things. So I made these last night, after I eventually biked home, having waited for the runners to finish passing our street and the hubbub to die down. I'd wanted to do more, different things with parsnips, the idea of making a bread occurred (thanks to Delia), then I decided to adapt it into a savoury muffin to make it quicker and more portable, then decided to try sweet ones too. Used this recipe as a base; borrowed the idea of a rye-wholemeal-cornmeal flour mix (in the savoury version) from Boston Brown Bread (I needed something Boston-related to creep in, somehow).

Savoury:
(makes 12)

1 cup wholemeal flour
1 cup rye flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp ground cumin
2-3 tbsp pumpkin seeds
1 1/2 cups grated parsnip
1/3 cup oil
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 1/2 tbsp boiling water
1 1/3 cups fake milk mixed with 1 tsp cider vinegar

Heat oven to 350F. Prepare a muffin tin. Mix flours, cornmeal, baking powder, bicarb, thyme, cumin, salt and pumpkin seeds in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl mix the oil, linseed mixture, milk mixture and grated parsnip. Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. Dollop into prepared muffin cups and then bake for ~25 min, until a skewer comes out clean.


Sweet:
(makes 12)

1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 1/4 cups wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup slivered toasted almonds
1 1/2 cups grated parsnip
1/3 cup oil
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 1/2 tbsp boiling water
1 1/3 cups fake milk mixed with 1 tsp cider vinegar

Heat oven to 350F. Prepare a muffin tin. Mix flours, baking powder, bicarb, sugar, spices, salt, nuts and raisins in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl mix the oil, linseed mixture, milk mixture and grated parsnip. Add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. Dollop into prepared muffin cups and then bake for ~25 min, until a skewer comes out clean.


Sweet ones are good: not too sweet, nicely spiced. Think pecans or walnuts might work better than the almonds. You can't really taste the parsnip.

Gluten-free baking

Photo by Alvin

My friends A and K asked me to teach them what I knew about GF baking. I was unsure at first: unconvinced that I knew any more about it than they did. But they persuaded me that even what little I knew would be helpful to them, and I figured it would be fun whatever happened - I like hanging out and drinking tea and cooking, and they are good company. So we got together for a day of GF baking.

I think the main thing I have figured out about GF baking is that you often need a combination of flours - something like glutinous rice flour or tapioca flour or cornstarch or potato starch to stick it together, and then a combination to give good texture: rice flour alone is light but tastes dusty, gram flour is heavy and its taste is overpowering (although lends a pleasant eggy flavour when used in small quantities), oat flour I like, others such as quinoa or millet flour are different again, and some combination (varied depending on the taste you are looking for / what goes with the other stuff in the mix) is what will make it good. Getting a good rise is doubly challenging when doing vegan+GF (no eggs, no gluten).

I thought of three things:

1) Oat-sunflower-raisin biscuits
(I knew these would work (and they did), also thought they were interesting because of the lack of flour / most of the fat coming from the nut/seed butter)

2) Savoury corn muffins
Wanted to do a basic muffin type thing. A mentioned he got coarse cornmeal from his CSA and this idea suggested itself - though it would be nice to do something simple and savoury as most of the GF things I have baked are sweet... I also recently noticed that Trader Joe's started doing a GF flour blend (brown rice flour, potato starch, white rice flour and something else), so thought it would be fun to try something with that. This is based on my favourite basic cornbread recipe, made in a muffin form and with lots of additions.

2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with ~5 tbsp boiling water
1 TJ’s GF flour mix (see above)
½ tsp xanthan gum
1 cup cornmeal
4 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
2 tsp paprika (note, spice combination is very flexible; adding dried chili or finely chopped fresh chili would also be good)
1 tsp sumac
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1-2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
2 tbsp honey (or sugar)
1 cup fake milk + 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
¼ cup oil (used grapeseed, any oil would work here really - even stronger flavoured ones - as these are savoury)
Handful sweetcorn kernels, defrosted
~4 spring onions, cleaned, trimmed and chopped
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Heat oven to 425F*. Prepare muffin cups by lining with paper cases. Mix flour, cornmeal, xanthan gum, baking powder, salt, dry spices and seeds (and sugar if using) in a bowl. Add vinegar to the milk, then mix this with the linseed mixture, oil and honey (if using). Add the sweetcorn, coriander and spring onions to the dry ingredients and toss. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix until just combined. Bake for 20-25 min.

These came out well: pleasant, savoury, corny taste, with a robust texture from the cornmeal and a slight sweetness from the kernels. Quite dense, but held together well and rose enough to give a nice shape. *Could perhaps try a slightly lower temperature next time: they browned up on top quite quickly (not a problem really).


3) Little nutty cakes (an educational semi-disaster)
I'd seen these a while ago, and thought they sounded interesting: liked the nuts and the olive oil. But noticed the reliance on eggs and thought maybe they'd be too difficult to adapt. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to try anyway - I think partly because I got into the idea of mixing nut flour and buckwheat flour.

3 tbsp linseed mixed with 7.5 tbsp boiling water (or 3 eggs)
1 cup (200g) sugar
2/3 cup (90g / 3 ¼ oz) ground almonds (or hazelnuts)
1 ½ cups flour – sub ¾ cup oat flour plus ¾ cup buckwheat flour plus ½ tsp xanthan gum
1 tbsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp (200 ml) mixture of extra virgin olive oil and grapeseed oil
About ¼ cup (25g) mixed chopped untoasted nuts for sprinkling (used hazelnuts)

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare muffin tins. Beat linseed (or eggs) and sugar together with a whisk, a lot – til doubled in volume. Mix ground nuts, flours, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt in a bowl with a fork. Add olive oil to the linseed-sugar mix. Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fill muffin cups halfway. Sprinkle mixed chopped nuts on top. Bake for 15 min / until springy (might take a bit longer without muffin tins).

These kind of rose up massively and spilled out of the muffin cups across the surface of the tin, leaving a sunken middle - ended up looking a bit like little bird's nests. But they actually tasted delicious: the top parts were all crispy and like a nutty meringue or something, the middle/bottom was squishier but also lovely and nutty, with a hint of grassiness from the olive oil (although quite well stuck to the paper liners). Could have been fun as Easter nests with Greek yoghurt and fresh fruit (grapes to look like eggs?) in the hollows.

My guess as to what went wrong: they rose due to the baking powder and the air from the beating, but lacked enough of anything (no gluten, no eggs) to hold them up and give structure, so sank right back down again. I forgot to add the xanthan gum, so that was probably part of it, but I feel like that might not have been enough anyway. Perhaps adding some cornstarch or glutinous rice flour would have helped (or using eggs instead of linseed, if that's an option). I also found them a bit too oily and a bit too sweet (reminded me a bit of these) - try dialling down the sugar and oil if making again. And, I wondered how the mixture would have fared in a cookie form: perhaps they would have turned out as delicious, nutty, meringue-like things like the top parts tasted like...

Basic Vegan Muffin Recipe / Pineapple, Coconut and Pumpkin Seed Muffins

I've made all sorts of vegan muffins, but just realised I didn't have a basic recipe - for non-vegan muffins I always had a basic recipe, which I modified according to what I fancied / had in the cupboards. So I went through the vegan recipes I've tried, and this is the basic recipe I came up with.

I wouldn't bother making it as is, it needs stuff added to it before it would taste good, but all sorts of simple additions are possible - a tsp of vanilla essence and some frozen blueberries for blueberry muffins, for example, or a few tbsp of cocoa powder, a tsp of vanilla and some chopped chocolate for choc-choc chip ones... Loads of variations possible!

One example is below - I rescued a couple of huge, almost-out-of-date tins of pineapple juice from work so wanted to experiment with pineapple juice in baking.


Basic Vegan Muffin Recipe

(for 12)

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup soy milk mixed with 1 tbsp cider vinegar
1/2 cup veg oil
1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 2 1/2 tbsp boiling water*

Heat oven to 400F. Prepare a 12 cup muffin tin. Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl with a fork. Mix wet ingredients. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Dollop into prepared tin. Bake for 20-25 min, until lightly browned and a skewer comes out clean.

*may not be necessary


Pineapple, Coconut and Pumpkin Seed Muffins

(makes 12)

2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 tbsp pumpkin seeds
4 tbsp golden raisins
1/2 cup shredded (unsweetened) coconut
1 cup pineapple juice
1 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 2 1/2 tbsp boiling water
1/2 cup veg oil
1 tsp vanilla essence

Heat oven to 400F. Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl with a fork. Add raisins and pumpkin seeds and stir. Mix wet ingredients. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Put into prepared muffin tin and bake for ~25 min, until lightly browned and a skewer comes out clean.


The pineapple taste is subtle, but they are nice muffins - good mix of colours, flavours and textures. Not too sweet - I used less sugar because of the pineapple juice sweetness.

Apple, treacle and caraway muffins

As soon as I saw this recipe I was dying to make it: apple, treacle and caraway seeds are three of my favourite things right now, it sounded like a wonderful combination, and Dan Lepard's recipes are almost always gorgeous. I had all the ingredients (more or less) at home (including eggs as I am picking up Alvin's CSA while he is in Borneo), so all I needed was time.

(makes 12)

120ml veg oil (or 50ml oil plus 100g melted butter)
50g treacle (used blackstrap molasses)
175g soft brown sugar, any sort
3 medium eggs (used 2 large ones plus a bit of linseed-water mix)
3 tsp vanilla essence
3 tsp caraway seeds
150g plain flour
150g spelt or rye flour (used wholemeal as had no spelt)
2 tsp baking powder
3 small apples, peeled, cored and diced
Flaked almonds, to finish

Heat the oven to 190C/375F/GM5. Beat the oil, treacle and sugar until smooth, then beat in the eggs one at a time, until evenly mixed though. Add the vanilla and caraway, mix well, then add the flours and baking powder, and stir just to combine. Fold in the apples, divide the mixture between lined muffin cups, filling them almost to the top, and scatter almonds on top. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven, and carefully lift the muffins from the tray and on to a rack, so they don't sweat as they cool.


These were every bit as great as I hoped. The caraway, vanilla and treacle all seemed like quite large quantities of quite strongly flavoured ingredients, but together they meld and make each other brilliant, backing up the soft, sweet apple perfectly. Somehow seasonal, with the treacle and apple and very British caraway - perhaps I'll make them next Bonfire Night.

Savoury caraway-wholemeal muffins

While looking for the carrot muffin recipe, I came across this one and thought it sounded interesting - why not make double the muffins for the same amount of washing up?

1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
1/2 cup plain flour (original recipe 1 cup rye flour and 1 cup wholemeal)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup cornmeal
2 tsp caraway seeds
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 1/2 tbsp boiling water
1/4 cup veg oil
2 tbsp blackstrap molasses
1 1/2 cups almond milk mixed with 1 1/2 tsp cider vinegar

Heat the oven to 375F. Prepare muffin tins.

Mix the flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a large bowl with a fork. Stir in the cornmeal and the caraway seeds.

In a separate bowl, beat together the linseed mixture, oil, blackstrap molasses and milk mixture. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined.

Spoon into muffin cups. Bake 25 minutes, until lightly browned and a skewer comes out clean.


I really like these - the darkness and caraway are great, and they are proving a handy lunch addition - I keep them in the freezer and throw a couple in my lunch bag if I'm short: they take an hour or so to defrost. Perhaps another time I will try with the prescribed rye flour.