Kitchen Experiments: Mini-Muffin Mania

I recently acquired a mini-muffin tray. Of wobbly silicone. In a briaght-and-pretty-cherry red. Of course I had to use it!

So mini-muffins it was a la maison today. I chose muffins over cupcakes because:

1. We’d already had 2 kinds of cake around here in the last 2 weeks
2. There’s something so wholesome and virtuous about the idea of biting into a sturdy muffin along with a tall glass of milk for breakfast, rather than say, nibbling at a dainty-prettily iced-and-fluffy cupcake

(An aside – while Googling for the exact difference between muffins and cupcakes, I came across this hilarious yet true differentiator on several websites and forums – “If you hit a wall with a cupcake, you’ll get a ‘poof’ sound, but if you hit it with a muffin, you’ll get a ‘thud’ sound!” Hahahahaha – I still cant stop chuckling at that one…)

So it was muffin-recipe hunting for moi and while several chocolate chip recipes beckoned enticingly, I steadfastly turned my back on them, so determined I was to be good and virtuous. (The fact that the chocolate-mango cheesecake from a few weeks ago and an unblogged chocolate cake just last week had given me mild chocolate-chip ennui is incidental…: P)

I came across a simple banana-and-butterscotch muffins recipe on Nigella’s website (it’s her recipe, not a guest’s one) and it was love at first sight – it was so easy! I didn’t have the required butterscotch morsels, so substituted them with almond flakes and chopped cashewnuts. Also, I used half-atta-half maida (the next time I make these, I’ll go atta all the way – a muffin is supposed to be sturdy!) instead of only maida. Topped the muffins with a half-moon cashewnut each and popped them into the oven.

25 minutes later, the whole house was redolent with the comforting smell of banana-and-fresh-baking. Yummm...

A confession – I clean forgot to add the stipulated 100gms sugar in the batter and poured the sugarless batter into the greased muffin tray. I was about to shove it in the oven when I realised my mistake….and was too bored to scoop out the batter again to mix in the sugar. So I added honey in half the muffin moulds and sugar in the rest, stirred them up then-and-there (I used my finger, ssssssh!), popped them in the oven and left them to Providence. :D

I was going to initially make banana-and-walnut muffins and a second batch of mango-and-almond ones. But the lack of walnuts and a reluctance to make 2 batches of sweet muffins coupled with my experimental side waking up and sniffing the air for a challenge meant that my second lot of muffins was a chilly-cheese-coriander savoury variant.

I improvised based on Nigella’s recipe but since I simply throw things together when I experiment, I have no fixed quantities. (They aren’t needed – except for the essential ingredients like flour-oil-eggs-baking powder). I made the basic batter as per her recipe and then added a handful of grated Cheddar, about 2-3 sprigs of chopped coriander, a squirt of HOT Sriracha chilly sauce (you can use any hot chilly sauce) and a finely chopped green chilly. And yes, some salt too, for taste.

Baked them for 25 minutes till golden brown and let them cool on a wire stand. Gobbled one up with a dab of Sriracha sauce while still warm. :)

Note: While the savoury muffins are tasty, they lack a dominant flavour (say like banana or chocolate in sweet ones). They need either a component with a strong flavour that can give body to the entire muffin (chopped prawns or grilled-and-sliced sausage come to mind) or a dominant flavouring (like vanilla or nutmeg in sweet muffins) – pav bhaji masala or mint chutney seem like workable options here. I WILL fine tune the savoury muffin recipe – it’s too good and versatile to let go!

If you have any flavour ideas either for sweet or savoury muffins, please post them here as comments!