07 February 2013

Enjoy Freshly Baked Muffins Whenever You Want Them

Freshly baked muffins are delicious and when you can just whip them up in 20 minutes, OK, 22 minutes, you need to fill the muffin tin, why wouldn't you? I was talking to my friend Jordan on Skype earlier this evening about this recipe, and how I've adapted it from the original to make it slightly healthier, when she asked how Cheapskaters liked it.  Well I don't know how Cheapskaters like it because I haven't shared it, so here goes (and I've put it in the Cheapskates Club Recipe File too, so you can find it there as well).

This is one of those amazingly simple recipes that makes really delicious muffins. It also makes a huge muffin batter, and around 3 dozen muffins. That's a lot of muffins to have in the cake tin at any one time. You can freeze them, but if you like freshly baked muffins for breakfast, morning tea or lunchboxes, you'll love this recipe because the batter keeps in the fridge for up to four weeks (or so I'm led to believe - it never lasts that long in our house).

It also used basic pantry items and is cheap. The batch I made this afternoon cost approximately $4.30 to make! That's just 11 cents a muffin! Make them in patty cake pans or mini muffin tins and they'll cost even less, and if you have small children a mini muffin is the perfect size, no half-eaten muffins to compost.

Now for some of you, if you aren't regular bakers, may find the ingredients interesting. There are some different ingredients in this recipe.

Raw sugar - you can substitute brown sugar if you don't have any raw, but the raw gives a nice caramel flavour.

Molasses - it's thick, black and very sticky. Butter your measuring cup before you measure it so you can get it all out.

Coconut oil - this replaces the butter or vegetable oil. If you must, use butter, but don't try to substitute vegetable oil, it won't be the same. The coconut oil gives a silky smooth texture to the batter and we like it so much I've started using it in other cake and muffin recipes too.  Coconut oil is very good for you. You'll find it in the health food aisle or at any good health food shop. It comes as a solid, so just measure your half cup and then cream it with the other ingredients as per the instructions. The coconut oil will whip up beautifully, better than butter or margarine.

And real, old fashioned rolled oats. Not quick oats. Not instant oats. Proper rolled oats (like the ones your Grandma cooked for breakfast).

I use olive oil spray to oil the muffin tins and they turn out perfectly every time, I am trying to get away from using paper liners, especially the coloured ones. They may look pretty but I was quite upset a little while ago when the dye from the papers I used actually bled into the cupcakes! I have no idea what the dye is, and I think it must be food safe, but really we don't need to eat it so coloured papers are definitely out and when my supply of unbleached ones runs out I'll stick to oiling the muffin tins for all my baking.

Refrigerator Muffins
Ingredients:

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup hot water
3/4 cup raw sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 cup coconut oil
2-1/2 cups Spelt flour (or whole wheat flour or gluten free flour blend with xanthan gum)
2 tsp bicarb soda
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk (or milk with 2 tbsp lemon juice; dairy free milk will work too)
1 cup dried fruit, chopped into small pieces (I use dried apricots)

Method:
Mix oats and hot water. Let them stand 5 minutes to soften oats. In a separate bowl, cream coconut oil, sugar, eggs and molasses. Add oat mixture, bicarb soda and flour alternating with milk.  Mix until just combined. Store, covered,  in the fridge up to 4 weeks.

To cook:   Fill oiled muffin tins or muffin papers (or your cupcake papers or mini muffin tins) 2/3 full.  Bake at 205 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Makes about 3 dozen.

Cook as many as you need and chill the remaining batter for next time.

Wayne and the kids love them because they are just plain good, I love them because they are quick, easy, frugal and healthy.  Let me know how you like them.

4 comments:

  1. These were great, I only made half the mix in case they weren't popular with my children but they loved them! Made 24 mini muffins and still have some mix in the fridge, love it :)

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  2. This is one of the healthiest recipes I have seen on your site/newsletter. I look forward to trying it. Glad you are starting to use coconut oil, molasses and raw or brown sugar. Thanks for the tip about oiling the cup for molasses.

    I believe that economising by using ingredients that are less healthy, like non organic white flour, sugar, vegetable oil etc is a false economy so I'm very happy to see a recipe that, whilst still a'treat' is fairly healthy.

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  3. Sounds good but I have one query - I have a jar of treacle in the pantry - could I use that instead of buying molasses which I might never use again?

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    Replies
    1. Treacle or even golden syrup would work. They do taste better with molasses though :)

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