How to Make Muffins from Store-Up Staples – Recipe | Cake

CParsing without recipes is a great way to reduce waste in the kitchen because it allows you to use all sorts of odds and ends. Soups, stews, and smoothies are obvious starting points, but as your confidence grows, you can learn to adapt tricky recipes like baked goods to use ingredients in your pantry. My five-year-old daughter loves to find recipes with me We recently made muffins using some brown bananas (his idea) and a variety of flours, dried fruit, nuts and seeds.

Magic Pantry Muffins

Although Lilly Cafe blogger Kate recommends adding two to four tablespoons of sugar per egg to your muffin, I like to stretch the ratio and add one part sweetener instead, creating a ratio that's still easy to remember, “double two, three one.” While some baking recipes require more precision, muffins are a little more forgiving, so be inventive, experiment and see what works for you. If it's a corker, don't forget to mention your recipe if you want to make it again (if it's not right, you can adjust the amount next time).

You can use any gluten-free flour, although if you choose plain flour rather than self-rising, you'll also need a raising agent (a teaspoon of baking powder per 100g of flour should be about right). I used whole spelled flour with baking powder. The liquid element mashes or purées water, milk (or plant-based alternative) and soft fruit or vegetables such as brown banana pulp, or apple or pumpkin puree. Fat, too, should be liquid – for example, melted butter, vegetable oil or olive oil. As for eggs, one egg weighs about 50-60 grams, so if you make a small batch of muffins with 200 grams of flour and liquid, you will need two eggs (that is, more than 100 grams), but if you have a little more or less, don't worry: I As mentioned earlier, this recipe is forgiving. As for sweetener, anything from sugar or honey to maple syrup.

Any extras (added to taste) are up to you: chopped or whole dried fruits and nuts or seeds, chocolate chips and other tasty nibbles are always welcome in the muffin. Even chunks of green fruit like apples, pears, and peaches, embedded throughout or on top of a muffin, look great. I recommend adding one to two portions of such extra ingredients, but make sure they are chunky and not mixed into the muffin mix.

I line the muffin tray holes with small squares of unbleached baking paper that I push into the greased holes. This eliminates the need to use muffin cases and gives the muffins a nice rustic aesthetic where the corners of the paper poke through.

2 parts flour – 200 grams of self-rising flour (or 200 grams of plain flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder)
2 parts liquid – 200 grams of mashed brown bananas, apple puree, milk, curd
1 part liquid fat – 100 grams of melted butter, coconut oil or olive oil
1 part eggs – 100 grams of eggs or about 2 medium eggs
1 part dessert – 100 grams of sugar, honey or maple syrup
Chopped nuts, seeds, chocolate etcto taste

First gather and weigh all the different ingredients using the Magical Muffin ratio of 2:2:1:1:1 – ie parts flour, two parts liquid, one part fat, one part egg, one part sweetener.

Put the flour, raising agent if using (and 100g sugar if you are not using liquid sweetener) into a large bowl. In a second bowl, mix together all the wet ingredients, including the fat, egg, and any liquid sweetener.

Mix the wet ingredients together, then fold in chopped nuts, seeds, dried fruit and/or chocolate to taste (we added a few seeds, chocolate chips and cranberries and saved some to decorate the tops.

Divide the mixture between the greased and lined holes of a muffin tin and bake in a 210C (190C fan) 410F/gas 6½ oven for about 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cool on the tray for five minutes before eating, or remove from the tray, cool on a wire rack and store in a suitable airtight container.