Overview:
By: Matthew Bates
Meal Type: Dessert
Cook time: 25 Minutes
Servings: 12 Muffins
These tasty muffins make excellent healthy snacks for hungry children during the holidays and are also great for lunchboxes or picnics. Try them warm, halved and spread with a little butter alongside a bowl of soup.
This recipe has endless variations – instead of carrot and courgette, why not try sliced and fried mushrooms with chopped spinach or ham and sweetcorn? Feta and roasted red pepper or broccoli and stilton are also good combinations.
I like to make these with half wholemeal flour for added goodness, but they work just as well with all white flour.
Ingredients:
Method:
- Grease a 12 hole muffin tin or line with muffin cases.
- Using an old, clean tea towel, squeeze the moisture from the grated carrot and courgette. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt and pepper. Add the grated cheese, carrot and courgette and mix together.
- In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, eggs and oil.
- Add the buttermilk mixture to the ‘dry’ ingredients and stir until just combined. Do not overmix!
- Divide the mixture between the holes of the muffin tray and sprinkle the tops of the muffins with a little grated cheese.
- In a 3-4 oven Aga range cooker: slide the muffin tin onto the third runners of the baking oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden. In a 2 oven Aga range cooker: slide the muffin tin onto the bottom runners of the roasting oven and slide the cold plain shelf onto the second runners. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool in tin for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Tip for use with Aga range cookers...
- Remember to keep your cold shelf in a cool place, away from your cooker. Use it to shield the muffins from the high heat at the top of the roasting oven.