Find out how to make muffins from store-cupboard staples – recipes | Waste not

Cooking with out recipes is an effective way to scale back waste within the kitchen as a result of it helps to make use of up all kinds of odds and ends. Soups, stews and smoothies are the apparent beginning factors, however, as your confidence grows, you may be taught to adapt trickier recipes similar to baked items to make use of up a wider vary of the elements in your pantry. My five-year-old daughter likes to invent recipes with me, and we not too long ago made muffins utilizing some brown bananas (her thought) and a wide range of flours, dried fruit, nuts and seeds.

Magical pantry muffins

Though the Lily Cafe blogger Kat suggests including two to 4 tablespoons of sugar per egg to your muffin, I like to increase the ratio and add one half sweetener, as a substitute, making the ratio “double two, triple one”, which continues to be straightforward to recollect. Though some baking recipes have to be very exact, muffins are somewhat extra forgiving, so get creative, experiment and see what works for you. And don’t neglect to notice down your recipe in case it’s a corker and also you wish to make it once more (and if it’s not fairly proper, you may alter the quantities subsequent time).

You need to use any glutinous flour, although in the event you go for plain flour reasonably than self-raising, you will have a elevating agent, too (a teaspoon of baking powder per 100g of flour needs to be about proper). I used entire spelt flour with baking powder. The liquid component covers water, milk (or plant-based different) and mashed or pureed comfortable fruit or greens, similar to brown banana flesh, or apple or pumpkin puree. The fats, too, needs to be liquid – for instance, melted butter, vegetable oil or olive oil. As for the eggs, an egg weighs about 50-60g, so if you’re making a small batch of muffins with, say, 200g flour and liquid, you will have two eggs (ie, simply over 100g), however when you’ve got somewhat roughly, don’t fear: as I mentioned earlier, this recipe is forgiving. And as for the sweetener, nearly any will work, from sugar or honey to maple syrup.

Any extras (added to style) are as much as you: chopped or entire dried fruit and nuts or seeds, chocolate chips and different tasty nibbles are at all times welcome in a muffin. Even slices of uncooked fruit similar to apple, pear and peach, studded all through the muffin or simply on prime, are additionally pretty. I like to recommend including one to 2 elements of such extras, however be sure that they’re in items reasonably than blended into the muffin combination.

I line muffin tray holes with little squares of unbleached baking paper, which I merely push into the greased holes. This removes the necessity for utilizing muffin instances and offers the muffins a pleasant rustic aesthetic the place the corners of paper poke up.

2 elements flour – 200g self-raising flour (or 200g plain flour plus 2 tsp baking powder)
2 elements liquid – 200g mashed brown bananas, apple puree, milk, yoghurt
1 half liquid fats – 100g melted butter, coconut oil or olive oil
1 half eggs – 100g eggs, or about 2 medium ones
1 half sweetener – 100g sugar, honey or maple syrup
Chopped nuts, seeds, chocolate and many others, to style

First collect and weigh out all of the completely different elements utilizing the magical muffin ratio 2:2:1:1:1 – that’s, elements flour, two elements liquid, one half fats, one half egg, one half sweetener.

Put the flour, elevating agent if utilizing (and 100g sugar in the event you’re not utilizing a liquid sweetener) in a big bowl. In a second bowl, combine all of the moist elements, together with the fats, eggs and any liquid sweetener.

Combine the moist elements into the dry till simply mixed, then fold in any chopped nuts, seeds, dried fruit and/or chocolate to style (we added a handful of seeds, chocolate chips and cranberries, and saved some to embellish the tops.

Divide the combination between the greased and lined holes of a muffin tin and bake in a 210C (190C fan)410F/gasoline 6½ oven for about 20 minutes, or till a skewer inserted comes out clear.

Take away and go away to chill within the tray for 5 minutes earlier than devouring, or take out of the tin, cool on a wire rack and retailer in an acceptable hermetic container.