I stayed with my sister Amelia on my first night in Brighton. Tash arrived with icy cheeks for us to kiss and we two sat with Shaun whilst Amelia busied herself with supper. As time passed the most incredible bready, cakey, fruity smell wafted through from the kitchen. Tasha's birthday had only just passed, so we wondered if Amelia might be baking up some sweet treat for later. Soon, the wait was over and we sat down to hake with fresh thyme, bowls full of watercress and local rocket and roasted root vegetables.
Those roots were delicious, parsnips, carrots and sweet potatoes, cut into chips and roasted until the sugars were caramelising on the cut edges. Amelia explained that there was no desert - we had been fooled by the vegetables. 'But these are amazing!', piped Shaun, who had been quietly munching while we chatted, 'it's like having sweets for supper'. Everyone else politely declined to eat the last sweet potato piece, so I gobbled it up before they changed their minds, enjoying the contrast of smooth fruity orange centre and crisp, chewy caramelised skin.
After supper, even though we had already had 'sweets', I broke out the Valrhona 70% and some Rococo Cardamom chocolate and thanked the universe for taste buds. When I got home, I knew I was going to have to bake some sweet potato into a bread or cake, and here's what I came up with.
Carrot and Sweet Potato Muffins (makes 8)
Those roots were delicious, parsnips, carrots and sweet potatoes, cut into chips and roasted until the sugars were caramelising on the cut edges. Amelia explained that there was no desert - we had been fooled by the vegetables. 'But these are amazing!', piped Shaun, who had been quietly munching while we chatted, 'it's like having sweets for supper'. Everyone else politely declined to eat the last sweet potato piece, so I gobbled it up before they changed their minds, enjoying the contrast of smooth fruity orange centre and crisp, chewy caramelised skin.
After supper, even though we had already had 'sweets', I broke out the Valrhona 70% and some Rococo Cardamom chocolate and thanked the universe for taste buds. When I got home, I knew I was going to have to bake some sweet potato into a bread or cake, and here's what I came up with.
Carrot and Sweet Potato Muffins (makes 8)
As you know, I love a muffin. When I am mulling over tastes and experimenting with flours, I like to trial them in muffin form before I move onto anything more adventurous, or arduous. I tried making some sweet potato muffins with cooked potato and found them just a touch dense. This second effort with grated carrots and lemon zest, hit that carrot cake, baked root button square on. I think they could easily count as one of your vegetable portions - if you think about life like that. Me - I'm just glad to find another way I can eat those orange darlings, go ahead and munch on a raw carrot while you're making them why don't you? I know this looks like a long long list of ingredients, but you should have most of them or substitutes for them in your cupboard - and the mixing is the work of minutes. So get your pinny on, dig out the roots and potter, in under an hour you could be peeling the paper off a moist cinnamon scented muffin....
3 1/2 floz melted butter/coconut oil
3 medium eggs
3tbs date syrup (or 1 tbs molasses and 2 tbs honey)
1 tbs honey
zest and juice of half a lemon
4oz carrots (scrubbed or peeled weight) grated
4oz Sweet potato (peeled weight) peeled and grated
2oz green raisins (or black raisins)
2oz sorghum flour (or quinoa or white teff)
2oz ground almonds (or other ground nut)
2oz sweet potato flour (or tapioca starch or arrowroot)
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Grating of fresh nutmeg
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp xantham gum
Preheat the oven to 170C (fan assisted) 180C if not. Fill a muffin tray with 8 paper cases.
Grate the carrots and sweet potato.
Sift the dry ingredients into a largish bowl and set aside.
Mix together the melted butter, eggs, honey, date syrup, lemon zest and juice until thick and smooth, and mix them into the dry ingredients with the grated vegetables and green raisins. Just mix enough to get everything amalgamated.
Spoon the mixture evenly into the cases and bake for approximately 25 minutes until springy and golden brown on top. Cool on a wire rack while you wander through the house inhaling the delicious scent of cinnamon, baking roots and homeliness
3 1/2 floz melted butter/coconut oil
3 medium eggs
3tbs date syrup (or 1 tbs molasses and 2 tbs honey)
1 tbs honey
zest and juice of half a lemon
4oz carrots (scrubbed or peeled weight) grated
4oz Sweet potato (peeled weight) peeled and grated
2oz green raisins (or black raisins)
2oz sorghum flour (or quinoa or white teff)
2oz ground almonds (or other ground nut)
2oz sweet potato flour (or tapioca starch or arrowroot)
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Grating of fresh nutmeg
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp xantham gum
Preheat the oven to 170C (fan assisted) 180C if not. Fill a muffin tray with 8 paper cases.
Grate the carrots and sweet potato.
Sift the dry ingredients into a largish bowl and set aside.
Mix together the melted butter, eggs, honey, date syrup, lemon zest and juice until thick and smooth, and mix them into the dry ingredients with the grated vegetables and green raisins. Just mix enough to get everything amalgamated.
Spoon the mixture evenly into the cases and bake for approximately 25 minutes until springy and golden brown on top. Cool on a wire rack while you wander through the house inhaling the delicious scent of cinnamon, baking roots and homeliness
10 comments:
I hope you won't think I'm contemptible for asking this, but the muffins look so absolutely delicious that I'm going to risk it anyway. I'm slowly replacing the less healthy items in my pantry with healthier versions and am wondering if I can substitute regular flour for the sorghum and potato flours in the recipe (I don't have a gluten problem). Is the sorghum flour sweet? I'm not sure of its properties. Can I make my own almond flour by processing whole almonds? I can't wait to try these!
Kathy, I don't think you contemptible at all!
You can substitute wheat flour for the sorghum-as you are trying to be healthy then go for wholemeal. It's not sweet, so you don't need to adjust the syrup.
You can make almond meal by processing your own almonds but it is slightly coarser than commercially ground almonds and slightly oilier - reduce the oil by 1/2 a fluid ounce to compensate.
Gluten free flours tend to absorb less water so you may find your muffins need another few minutes in the oven if you use wheat flour.
Good luck with them - let me know how you get on.
x x x
Naomi,
I really like the addition of sweet potato into your baked goods. I imagine you need less sweetener when you add carrots and sweet potatoes into the equation. I was going to ask about using whole wheat pastry flour instead, so I may try that.
These look almost like buttermilk biscuits. I wonder if you forgo the honey and date syrup you would have a great biscuit to complement a roast beef dinner (I have a roast beef begging to be cooked). Either way, I need to try sweet potatoes in baked goods very soon. Thanks!
- The Peanut Butter Boy
Nick,
what great comments you leave, I like a comment I can get my teeth into. I think if you left out the sweeteners and raisins these would be a great accompaniment to a roast supper. (Over here we call a biscuit, a 'scone' - these are definitely more like muffins than scones).
If I were doing these sugar free, to have with a roast, I would bake them without papers in a well buttered bun tray to try and get a nice crisp outside - making the batter a little wetter and baking a little hotter as you wouldn't have to worry about scorching the fruit sugars.
As far as flours go, just substitute wholemeal wheat flour for the sorghum and sweet potato flour, but keep the ground almond, as it is a good balance for the carbs. The batter will be wetter if you use the same quantity of liquid with wheat flour, so bear that in mind.
x x x
Hi, I just found your site, and have been clicking through a few pita and muffin recipes and have some newbie questions. Another recipe included tapioca FLOUR, whereas this recipe includes tapioca STARCH. I have tapioca STARCH, but not the flour. Could I use the starch instead, or would it change the texture? Thanks.
Shreel,
So glad to have you along. Tapioca flour is exactly the same as starch, most starches are the same, cornflour/cornstarch, sweet potato flour/starch, arrowroot flour/starch.
The only exception as far as I know is potato flour and potato starch - these are totally different. Potato flour is made with the whole potato and gives a very dense, chewy result. Potato starch is pure starch and gives the lightest results of any gluten free flour.
Hope that clears it up - look forward to seeing you again soon.
x x x
Thanks Naomi!! Not only did you clear up the starch vs flour question, but I just found your comment on my post about my gut episode from peas (harder to digest carbs aggravating the intestinal lining until it's healed). I've eaten some of the harder-to-digest carbs you listed without problem, but I'm going to watch out for them now that I'm aware of them to make sure I don't eat a lot at one time.
Just to clear something up, in the US and Canada, corn starch and corn flour aren't the same thing.
I just found your site and I'm looking through your recipes. They look great and I hope to try some soon.
I just tried cooking these, and they are delicious! I used potato starch instead of tapioca, and kuzu in place of cream of tartar. Both worked well. One thing I noticed--perhaps this is because of my substitutions?--is that the muffins didn't fill an American-sized muffin tin. They came out flat, not growing over the lip of the muffin form. I also added grain-sweetened chocolate chips, as I like my muffins sweet, and they worked well. Thanks for the delicious recipe!
Andi, I'm glad they were delicious. The reason that they came out flat is because you substituted starch (kuzu) for an acid (cream of tartar or tartaric acid) what you should do in future is add a teaspoon and a half of vinegar - any kind is fine but I like cider vinegar or rice vinegar for baking.
The reason they didn't rise is that you need an acid to activate the baking powder, so it was the eggs that did the raising in your muffins.
Try them again with vinegar - or even lemon juice in place of cream of tartar and I'm sure you'll be just fine.
x x x
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