Quinoa Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins

Why do I do it? I buy ingredients with absolutely no recipe in mind so they stay in the back of my cupboard for months. Anyone for evaporated milk, Dulce de Leche, sugar paste - anyone ............... anyone at all?  It was the same with a packet of quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah or ke-NO-ah, but I guess you knew that already!). I didn't buy the quinoa for any particular recipe, and to be honest I didn't even know if it was a baking or a cooking ingredient (like I said before, I don't get out much!).   I just figured it would be a nice addition to my already jam packed baking cupboard.

I read in a New York Times article that quinoa could be used in baking, perfect for using my quinoa - I'd have to wait another while to get rid of my packets of red and blue of sugar paste!   Quinoa is a seed that can be used in place of rice in your diet.   It has a very high protein and iron content and is high in magnesium, phosphorous, copper and manganese.   It seems to be fast becoming the new super food and from a quick trawl of the internet, it's journey into the baking world has been relatively recent.

Quinoa seeds have oil in them so they can be substituted for part of the butter in a recipe, while the germ part of the seed replaces some or all of the flour.  For my first time baking with quinoa I wanted to bake something simple so that if it turned out horribly wrong, at least I wouldn't be wasting ingredients and time making it all. So I picked Chocolate and Peanut Butter Muffins. The cooked quinoa replaced all the flour and the butter content is very low (only a total of 60g, including the peanut butter).

Overall, I was really happy with these muffins.  I could probably have cooked the quinoa for a little longer as the overall texture of the muffin was a little bit too crunchy - I'll know next time.  Also, they didn't rise as well as flour based muffins.  But they were perfectly cooked inside and tasted exactly as you would expect Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins to taste.

If you can get your hands on these Peanut Butter Chips, then grab them all.  They really change an ordinary peanut butter muffin, biscuit, brownie etc into something amazing.  I got these in Fallon & Byrne in Dublin but you can also get them on-line

Quinoa Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins (extremely) loosely based on a Mary Berry recipe for American Chocolate Chip Muffins

Makes 10 muffins

Ingredients

30g butter, softened
30g crunchy peanut butter
75g caster sugar
2 large eggs
200g of cooked quinoa
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
150g plain chocolate, roughly chopped
50g peanut butter chips

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).  Grease and line 10 muffin holes or line with paper cases.
Beat the butter and peanut butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.  Using a wooden spoon, mix in the quinoa and vanilla, then add the cocoa powder and baking powder together.  Ensure that it is well incoroprated into the mixture.  Fold in the chocolate chips and peanut butter chips.
The mixture will be much thiner than a normal muffin mixture but persevere and it'll turn out fine!
Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.
These still tasted great 3 days after they were baked.

Lemon and Berry Spelt Muffins

In a foolish effort regain just a teeny bit of normality into my life, I decided  to bring my crew of 3 little people into the Avoca cafe.  For those who don't know, Avoca is a fashion store, gourmet food shop and cafe.  All the food is baked in store and it's always absolutely delicious.  All was going suspiciously well until I had to stop one of the 3 little people from trying to lick a piece of quiche through the glass counter as another was picking his nose (please tell me this happens to other people). I left the cafe with yet another slight Stress Sweat on my brow from trying to keep everyone in check. On the way out I caught sight of what looked like the most amazing Lemon and Berry Spelt Muffins.  I came home and decided to try to make my own version of these muffins.  Maybe eating in is destined to be the new eating out, at least until certain little people reach 18 - you know who you are!

I took a basic muffin recipe and pimped it slightly.  Very, very happy with the results and although I could never say that they're a health food, you could do a lot worse than eat a few of these little beauties.

Ingredients

125g / 4.5oz butter, melted and cooled

125ml milk

2 large eggs, lightly whisked

zest of 1 lemon

225g / 8oz wholegrain spelt flour

2 tsp baking powder

100g / 3.5oz granulated sugar

75g / 2.5oz dark brown sugar

200g / 7oz fresh or frozen berries (I used a combination of cranberries and blueberries)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C.  Line a 12 hole muffin tray with paper cases.

In a large bowl, mix the melted butter, milk and eggs together.  Add the lemon zest, flour, baking powder and sugars until just combined.  Be careful not to overmix.

Fold in the berries into the mixture and pour into the prepared muffin cases.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of one of the muffins comes out clean.

Probably not a good idea to place a wedge of lemon on top before baking - it sunk!

Pumpkin Muffins

Now that Hallowe’en is over for another year, the cheap and nasty sweets have been put out of reach for a while to allow the little teeth to recover, the scary costumes have been put away and the carved out pumpkin has been thrown out.  I still had some pumpkin that I didn’t want to waste so I pureed it the other day and as it’s been calling out to me every time I open the fridge, I decided this morning that’s it’s most definitely time I baked something with it.

I’m a recent convert to both Dorie Greenspan (the American baker) and pumpkin muffins.  Both are American classics and on one of my recent internet cookbook purchases, I bought Dorie’s book called “Baking: From My Home to Yours”.  It’s hardback and is incredibly heavy so it’s a real coffee table classic, a book that will probably take years to get through fully.  This is my first recipe to try from the book and wasn’t disappointed.  These muffins are quite Christmasy with the lovely cinnamon and ginger flavours gently coming through.  You can’t actually taste the pumpkin itself and not having tasted a pumpkin muffin before I don’t know whether this is a plus or not.  The addition of the sunflower seeds on the top of the muffin give it a lovely crunchy toasted flavour.  Beautifully moist with a lovely cakey crumb and with very little fat content (relatively speaking!), this recipe is a winner and I’d be quite happy with one of these little gems and a cup of coffee for a quick breakfast.

Pumpkin Muffins from “Baking: From My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients

125g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

¾ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Pinch of ground allspice

110g unsalted butter (softened)

110g granulated sugar

50g soft brown sugar

2 large eggs

½ tsp vanilla extract

200g pumpkin puree

60ml of buttermilk

50g raisins

50g chopped pecans / walnuts

Some sunflower seeds for topping

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C.  Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases or grease the muffin tin.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.

Beat the butter with an electric mixer until soft.  Add the sugars and continue to beat until light and fluffy.  One by one, add the eggs, beating after each one is incorporated.  Add the vanilla extract.

Mix in the pumpkin puree and buttermilk (on a low speed).  Then add the dry ingredients in a steady stream, mixing only until the disappear.  Do not overmix.

Stir in the raisins and the nuts. 

Divide into the 12 muffin cups and sprinkle with the sunflower seeds.

Bake for about 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of one of the muffins comes out clean.  Allow to cool slightly before taking the muffins out of the baking pan.