We’re really on a roll with our muffin making lately! While developing the Clover Cakes for the March ’20 Irish pack we’ve been stuck in muffin mode (not really a terrible mode to be stuck in our families might say) and experimenting with many ingredients to make sweet and savoury muffins..
Much like the Veggie muffins in a previous post these savoury muffins pack a powerful punch for lunch or an easy tea. They’re quite filling and each muffin manages to deliver on plenty of goodness through the spinach, sweet potato and protein rich chickpea flour. They’d make an awesome picnic dish too! One of our favourite flavour additions in baked savoury dishes makes another appearance here: nigella seeds. These ancient seeds are not actually related to onions despite often being called black onion seeds, but instead are part of the buttercup family. Who’d have thought?! We love them in flatbreads & naan (have you tried the instant version you can make with self raising flour & yoghurt? See here for recipe), on salads or thrown onto cooked rice before serving.
As you might have guessed from the name, this recipe uses sweet potato in two forms plus crumbly salty feta which can be swapped out and replaced with more hard cheese or cheddar if you have feta refusers, sad as that is! Also feel free to add in some other grated veg if you like, though if it has high water content that might affect the end result…
Ingredients
- 1 medium sweet potato cut into half (you need approx 180g grated & 150g/200g chopped)
- A big handful of fresh spinach
- 200g feta block
- 50g hard cheese/cheddar
- 75ml olive oil
- 2 eggs/flax eggs
- 200ml whole milk/plant milk
- 0.5 lemon (juice only)
- 0.5 tsp salt
- 150g gram/chickpea flour
- 100g wholemeal flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 0.5 tsp bicarb of soda
- 1 tsp nigella seeds
Method
- Grate the 180g of sweet potato & finely chop the other half into small cubes
- Roast the cubes in a drizzle of olive oil at 180C for 25mins & set aside
- Finely shred the spinach
- Mix the milk with the lemon juice & salt into a measuring jug and set aside for 5mins
- Grate the hard cheese while you are waiting
- Mix the eggs & oil into the milk after the 5mins
- Add the flours, raising agents & nigella seeds to a mixing bowl & gently mix together
- Pour in the liquid, stir until combined
- Mix in the grated sweet potato, spinach, hard cheese and crumble in all but around 50g of the feta
- Spoon into lined muffin cases & top each muffin with a little extra feta and the cubed roasted sweet potato
- Bake for approx 20-30mins until risen and set (test with a sharp knife through the middle to make sure no mixture stays on the knife)
Enjoy warm – these keep for approx 3 days in the fridge or freeze for up to 3 months. Heat through in the oven before eating.