101 alternative flours | sweetcorn oatmeal and spinach savoury muffins with cheddar, served with garlic mascarpone

Sweetcorn oatmeal and spinach savoury muffins loaded with cheddar cheese. This green savoury muffin is something everyone will keep munching the whole day if you don’t restrict them to breakfast only. It is a good ‘make ahead breakfast’ or a lunch box meal that comes handy to every parent, it is so easy it can be made by the kids themselves if they wish to. The use of oats ensures you get loads of added fiber, lowered glycemic index and a filling meal, just add spinach and sweet corn by the cup, blend together and you get the batter to start with. Eggs and cheddar cheese makes it protein and calcium rich and boosts flavours into the muffin, use low fat cheddar if you are concerned about fats but we are not using any fat in the muffin recipe so regular cheddar will be good too. Since this muffin does not use any cooking fat in it, we take the liberty to serve it with a low fat mascarpone frosting and that makes this muffin an instant charmer.

Gluten free snacks and breakfasts are not that difficult to do. Use either barley flour of cornmeal for this recipe and get the same results with the savoury muffins. The texture and flavours will be slightly different but he ease of cooking a gluten free, low glycemic breakfast or lunch box treat was never so easy.

Ingredients

(Makes 9 savoury muffins)

instant cooking oats 1 scant cup (about 80 gm)

fresh sweet corn kernels 3/4 cup

steamed and chopped spinach 3/4 cup

lime juice i tsp

black pepper powder 1 tsp

garlic minced 2 tsp

red chilly flakes 1 tsp

nutmeg powder 1/4 tsp

sun dried tomatoes minced or tomato paste 1 tbsp

grated cheddar cheese 1 cup (about 80 gm)

eggs 2

soda bi carb 1/4 tsp

Procedure

1.       Line a muffin tray with muffin liners or use ceramic ramekins to bake the muffins. Grease the ramekins if using. Keep aside.

2.       Preheat the oven to 150 C.

3.       Pulse the sweet corn kernels and chopped spinach in the food processor for 30 seconds so they get coarsely ground. Do not add any water while blending.

4.       Add the eggs and pulse once again for a couple of seconds so it gets mixed.

5.       Mix the oats with soda bi carb in a dry bowl first and then add to the food processor bowl and pulse once again till everything is mixed to make a thick batter. Empty the contents in a bowl, it will be a barely flowing batter, more like tacky dough.

6.       Add the grated cheese, fold the mixture lightly and pour 1 heaped tbsp in each of the muffin liners arranged in the muffin tray.

7.       Bake for 20 minutes or till the surface of the muffins feel firm to touch. The muffins get doubled in size so take care to not fill up the muffin slots with too much batter.

8.       Serve hot, warm or at room temperature with dill flavoured mascarpone.

To make garlic flavoured mascarpone, just add ½ tsp garlic powder, ¼ tsp salt and 2 tsp minced parsley to a cup of mascarpone cheese, whip to mix and serve.

You can make mascarpone cheese at home using low fat fresh cream. Heat 500 ml fresh cream in a thick base pan, add 2 tsp of lemon juice just as the cream is about to simmer. Stir till the cream looks thickened, it won’t curdle and separate in the pan. Now pour this hot cream in a muslin lined sieve propped over a large bowl and keep this set up in the fridge overnight. You will see all the whey drains in the bowl below and the cheesecloth collects creamy mascarpone. Use as required.

If not mascarpone, use hung curd or Greek yogurt or quark cheese, whatever suits you and whatever you get easily. After all such an easy savory muffin needs an easy topping. But then these muffins are tasty even without the topping. Just reheat them in the microwave and have warm.