Many of you already know I recently invested in a grain mill, the hand-crank variety. Now, I have a cookbook to go along with it. If you buy only one book on the subject, this is it: The Essential Home-Ground Flour Book by Sue Becker [1].
Sue is incredible, as she covers just about any aspect you can think of on home milling, flours, grains, and with 100 delicious recipes to boot. Everything is very well researched, and extremely well written.
The amount of information is incredible, but I found it a fabulous read. Yes, I read cookbooks, and I really like this one. (Maybe you have noticed that by now.)
It was a tough choice deciding which one to do first, but I settled on the Buckwheat Corn Muffins, the fruit variation — I used blueberries (it wasn’t easy hanging on to the berries until baking time — the blueberry vultures were about).
I am also doing Dark Molasses Oatmeal Bread, and you will hear about that in the next blog post. Some of you know that oatmeal is one of my favourites, but this one is with a twist. Stay tuned.
Right now, let’s make some of these absolutely delicious muffins. You won’t regret having these for breakfast!
Buckwheat Corn Muffins Recipe
Ingredients:
• 1 cup freshly milled buckwheat flour
• ½ cup freshly milled corn flour
• 2 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ cup oil
• 2 Tbsp liquid honey
• 1 ripe banana, mashed
• 2 eggs
• 1 ¼ milk or nondairy alternative*
And for the variation: ½ cup light evaporated cane sugar, and ½ cup blueberries**
You will need a greased 12-cup muffin tin, a 24-cup mini muffin pan. I used unbleached paper liners by If You Care [2].
Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together buckwheat flour, corn flour, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center. Set aside.
3. In another bowl, whisk together oil, honey, banana, and eggs. Add all at once to flour mixture. Mix just until incorporated.
4. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups, filling three-quarters full. Bake in a preheated oven for fifteen minutes (12 minutes for mini-muffins), until golden brown and tops spring back when lightly touched.
*Sue suggests almond, rice, soy or coconut in this recipe.
**Buckwheat-Corn Fruit Muffins Variation
In Step 1, add ½ cup light evaporated cane sugar (I confess, I didn’t add the extra sugar — apologies, Sue!).
After mixing batter in Step 2, gently fold in ½ cup blueberries, diced peaches, or sliced strawberries.
References
1. Becker, Sue. The Essential Home-Ground Flour Book. Toronto, ON: Robert Rose Inc., 2016.
2. Try Unbleached, Totally Chlorine-Free (TCF) baking cups by If You Care. They’re as good or better than parchment, no greasing required. Imported from Sweden.
Sue Van Slootenteaches cooking and baking classes at her home on beautiful Big Rideau Lake, Ontario, Canada. She specializes in small classes for maximum benefit. Follow her homesteading adventures and check out her class offerings at www.SVanSlooten.com. If you wish, you can email Sue atsuevanslooten@icloud.com. She would be thrilled to hear from you! Read all of Sue’s MOTHER EARTH NEWS posts here.
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