Sesame Date Muffins

These muffins were really good. Definitely one of my best muffin experiments so far! Just in time for the next round of Muffin Monday too! The theme for this round was a muffin and your favourite muffin-matching drink. I've been drinking a lot of apple tea and mint tea lately, so I concocted a muffin to match.

Sesame Date Muffins

1 Cup Self Raising flour

1 Cup Wholemeal Self Raising flour

small pinch ground cardamom

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup milk

1/2 Cup cream (you could double the milk instead)

1 egg

1/3 Cup tahini *

3/4 Cup chopped dates

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease the muffin tins

2. Sift flour into a large bowl with the cardamom, then stir in the sugar.

3. In another bowl, mix the milk, cream, tahini and egg.

4. Combine wet and dry ingredients, and dates. Stir as little as possible to combine. Use a spoon to drop into muffin tins, sprinkling with sesame seeds if you have some. Bake for around 20 minutes or until golden.

I can't wait to see the other muffins at the round-up!

* tahini is sesame paste (like peanut butter, but not). if you have to substitute, canola oil with a tablespoon of sesame oil would probably work.

Chilli Chocolate Muffins - Muffin Monday 3

We got pretty excited when the third Muffin Monday was announced. The first one had started an Iron Chef competition here. The second one resulted in very green Green Tea Muffins. This time we are going spicy!
Ryan and I decided to experiment with Chilli and Chocolate. The trick is making it spicy, without making it inedible. Chilli syrup seemed like a good starting point. And we were encouraged by Clotilde's Chocolate Chilli Bites. Ryan went first with a chocolate chip style muffin, but we weren't brave enough with the chilli's. Mine were much richer, with much more bite. We hope you enjoy!
Ryan's Chilli Choc Chip Muffins
1 1/2 Cups Self Raising Flour
1/2 Cup Wholemeal Self Raising Flour
1/4 Cup Cocoa
3/4 Cup milk
100g melted butter
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons chilli syrup (we could have added a lot more)
3/4 Cup Dark Chocolate Chips.
Sift together the dry ingredients. Mix the wet ingredients together, then stir into the dry ones, with the chocolate chips. Stir until just combined (or as little as possible). Spoon into muffin tins, and cook for 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. The muffins are cooked when they spring back from a gentle touch.

Rich Chilli Chocolate Muffins
1 1/2 Cups Self Raising Flour
1/2 Cup Cocoa
1/2 tsp Paprika
150g Dark Chocolate
100g Butter
1/2 Cup Chilli Syrup
1 Egg
Sift together the flour, cocoa and paprika. Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave, stir well and allow to cool slightly. Mix the egg and chilli syrup into the chocolate mixture. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mix until just combined. Spoon into muffin tins and cook for 20 minutes at180 degrees Celsius. Makes around 12 muffins.

Chilli Syrup
4 birds eye chillies
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup water
Bring to the boil in a small saucepan. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the chillies and cool the syrup. Keep in the fridge until needed.

Green Tea Muffins

Elena Ho at experiments is hosting Muffin Monday again. The theme this month is 'muffins that make you go ooooh'. But I think my muffins are more likely to make you go eewwwww. They are really quite green, even if they don't look that way in the picture. After my green tea cheesecake adventure I was determined to get my hands on some matcha powder, and do some more experimenting. When Elena challenged us to make some muffins you wouldn't normally see in the shops, this seemed like a great opportunity.

The green cheesecake didn't look particularly green (actually kinda grey) but it did taste pleasantly tea like. These muffins had a much more exciting colour, but unfortunately a very mild taste. They were pretty good anyway.

On the subject of frugality, matcha powder isn't cheap. However, most recipes only call for small amounts, so now I've got some, I think I'll be experimenting for a while...

Green Tea Muffins

2 C Self Raising flour

1/2 C Sugar

2 teaspoons matcha powder (Japanese powdered green tea)

1 C skim milk

1 egg

90g melted butter

Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease the muffin tins (this recipe makes about 15 muffins). Sift the dry ingredients together. In another bowl, mix the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry with as little stirring as possible. Spoon into muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden.

These muffins are not very dessert-like. They are more like scones or rock cakes in consistency, but still quite sweet.

Muffin Monday (Wednesday? Sunday?)

When I saw this event on Elena Ho's experiments blog, I knew I had to join in. Muffins are a big deal around here, mostly because they are the only snack food Ryan deems worthy to take to work. Biscuits and cookies just aren't filling enough. I showed Elena's post to Ryan, precipitating a huge storm of activity in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon. The results follow:

Pineapple Coconut Muffins
This was my contribution, working from a tried and true base recipe. These muffins were mostly of the bready, breakfast variety rather than something decadent and cake-like. They could have benefited from more sugar, but I thought the syrup from the pineapple was going to be sweet enough.


1 Cup plain self-raising flour
1 Cup Wholemeal self-raising flour
1/2 Cup dessicated coconut
2 Tablespoons raw sugar
1/2 Cup skim milk
1/2 Cup juice from tinned pineapple
1 egg
1/3 Cup vegetable oil
1 Cup tinned pineapple chunks

1. Preheat oven to 180 Degrees Celsius. Spray muffin tins with non-stick spray.
2. Mix flour, coconut and sugar in a large bowl. (I'm usually too lazy to sift)
3. In another bowl mix egg, oil, milk and juice.
4. Pour the egg mixture into the flour and mix as lightly and quickly as possible. Stir in the pineapple chunks as well.
5. Spoon mixture into muffin tins, and cook until golden and cooked through (around 20 minutes). Allow to cool in the tins before turning onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Ryan's Cappucino Date Muffins
2 Cups flour
1/2 brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 Cup strong percolated organic coffee
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 Cup milk
1/2 Cup melted butter
1 egg beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/4 Cup diced dates

1. Grease muffin cups and preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
3. In another bowl, whisk together milk, coffee, butter, egg and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
4. Scoop batter into muffin cups, and bake for 20 minutes.

We couldn't decide whose muffins were better - they were just too different. Ryan's tasted nice and caramelised from the dates, but could have done with a stronger coffee flavour. Mine were ok, but needed more sugar. I'm sure the experimenting will continue next weekend, with all the inspiration from the Muffin Monday round up so far!