Wednesday, August 19, 2009

I recommend some courgette muffins

...Or "zucchini", if you are North American.

Yes, my friends. If you are growing courgettes (or zucchini) in your garden and then one day realise that they out of control and enormous, do not despair, and do not think about bad things like stuffed marrow. No. Instead, grasp your over-sized squash in your soft receiving hands and hasten to your kitchen, there to transform them into muffins. (Do not balk at this: carrot muffins make sense, so why not courgette muffins?).

Anyway, I made these on Saturday. They are utterly, remarkably delicious. I found the recipe here and agree with the author in all ways, except I would highly recommend making them with olive oil not butter, and (because of what I had in my cupboard), I replaced all that cinnamon and the nutmeg with 1 1/2 tsp ginger and 1 tsp cinnamon.

If you do not have cups (because you are in Europe and able to do complicated things with ounces and/or grams), I will not translate the measurements but will direct you here instead so you can do it yourself.

INGREDIENTS
3 cups grated fresh zucchini
2/3 cup melted unsalted butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
Pinch salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup walnuts (optional, but I used them)
1 cup raisins or dried cranberries (optional, but I used sultanas)

METHOD
"You don't need a mixer for this recipe. (No, you don't but I made them in the Kitchen Aid and grated the courgette in the processor)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). In a large bowl combine the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the grated zucchini and then the melted butter. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the zucchini mixture and mix in. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir these dry ingredients into the zucchini mixture. Stir in walnuts, raisins or cranberries if using.

Coat each muffin cup in your muffin pan with a little butter or vegetable oil spray. Use a spoon to distribute the muffin dough equally among the cups, filling the cups up completely. Bake on the middle rack until muffins are golden brown, and the top of the muffins bounce back when you press on them, about 25 to 30 minutes. Test with a long toothpick or a thin bamboo skewer to make sure the center of the muffins are done. Set on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from the tin let cool another 20 minutes.

Note, if you are including walnuts and dried fruit, you will likely have more batter than is needed for 12 muffins. I got about 14 muffins from this batch, and that included filling the muffin cups up as far as they could possibly go (above the surface of the muffin tin)."

She forgot "eat them up quick smart before thieving local children steal them as they cool on a rack in the kitchen window".

Note: these muffins contain no calories because they have grated vegetables in them. This also applies to carrot cake (contains carrots) and banana bread (contains bananas), but does not apply to Lemon Drizzle Cake which only has lemon juice in it, and that doesn't count.

11 comments:

Mrs Jones said...

OOh, thank you! I have an allotment hence it is the law that I should have a glut of courgettes at this time of year. So I'm collecting suitable recipes (I have a nice Maltese Stuffed Marrow - that's as in 'Malta' and not 'Maltesers' which would be ... err... interesting). Anyway, have a Chocolate Courgette Cake recipe in exchange (in funny foreign measurements...):

chocolate courgette cake
Preparation Time: 10 mins
Cooking Time: 45 mins
Serves: 6
Ingredients
120g butter (softened)
125ml sunflower oil
100g caster sugar
200g soft brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
130ml milk
350g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp cocoa
450g courgettes, peeled and grated finely
1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

1. Line a 20 x 35cm baking tray with baking paper and set the oven to 190ºC/350ºF.

2. Mix the butter, oil and both sugars together until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, one at a time and then the milk until mixed thoroughly.

3. Sift the dry ingredients together and fold into the mixture. Stir in grated and peeled courgettes, vanilla and spoon into tin. Bake for 35 -45 minutes.

Cut into squares whilst still warm.

NON-WORKINGMONKEY said...

Hoorah! Chocolate and courgettes! Thank you.

Mrs Jones said...

No problem! I've also just found this fabulous blog posting (with wicked photos) of how to make mini-lollipop pies on a stick. Genius.

http://www.luxirare.com/2009/07/alber-elbaz-speaks-about-lightness.html

Special K said...

Oh yes, I grew up with Zucchini bread, as it was not unusual to open the door and find a pile of zucchinis (guess where I'm from) on the doorstep from someone who had too many to handle and was just dumping them indiscriminately around the neighborhood. Yummy. Although I used to get really sick of it.

Megan said...

Growing up our garden could produce two things: tomatoes by the bushel and zucchinis by the truck load. The tomatoes I never tired of - sliced with salt and pepper and eaten daily. Zucchini? Had it raw, grilled, baked, fried, sauteed, and yes, grated into bread. The bread was the only thing I could bear, and even then it was years before I could even think about eating zucchini again. Muffins might make me re-think the ban...

NON-WORKINGMONKEY said...

ALSO. They keep EXTREMELY WELL. That is all.

misterig said...

"Center" of the muffins? What has happened to you? Are you cutting and pasting, or has your brain turned to mush (I don't recommend inserting a long toothpick to find out)?

NON-WORKINGMONKEY said...

YES I AM CUTTING AND PASTING. That is why the receipt is in quotation marks. You knows it!

K. said...

Carrot muffins make sense? This is news to me. =)

NON-WORKINGMONKEY said...

Where do you live? In a place that has no coffee shops? http://www.joyofbaking.com/CarrotMuffins.html

B said...

Yum! Thank you... I had an experiment with adding crystallised ginger too (insted of the walnuts) and that is also delicious.

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