Yiaourti Me Meli (Greek Yogurt and Honey) Muffins #MuffinMonday

Modeled after the Greek breakfast/snack/dessert of thick yogurt sweetened with honey then topped with walnuts, these muffins have all that, in a tender crumb. 

If you stopped by here yesterday to see my slow-cooked, falling off the bones, lamb shoulder, you’ll know that I’ve had Greek recipes on the brain. Since today is Muffin Monday, the best start to the last week of the month, I decided to take a classic Greek recipe and turn it into muffins as well. May I say that it was an excellent choice. As I mentioned yesterday, I haven’t been to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 but now I have read a few reviews and found them most dispiriting after waiting all this time for a sequel.

Never mind, we have muffins! Make sure you scroll on down and see the other lovelies my Muffin Monday group members have baked up for you too.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups or 315g flour
1/4 cup or 58g demerara sugar, plus extra for decorating, if desired
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 cup or 250g Greek yogurt
1/2 cup or 120ml honey
1/4 cup canola or 60ml other light oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup or 100g walnuts

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F and 180°C and prepare a 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it or lining it with muffin papers.

Measure your flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

Separate out 12 good looking walnuts for garnish and then chop the rest coarsely.

Whisk your eggs, yogurt, honey, oil and vanilla together in a small mixing bowl.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined.

Fold in the chopped walnuts.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups in your prepared pan.

Top each with a reserved walnut and sprinkle on some extra demerara sugar, if desired.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted in the muffins comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes then cool completely on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Happy Muffin Monday from all the Muffin Monday bakers! Look what we've made for you today!

• Blueberry Streusel Muffins from Palatable Pastime
• Cranberry Orange Muffins from Making Miracles
• Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Butter Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Quiche Lorraine Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Yiaourti Me Meli (Greek Yogurt and Honey) Muffins from Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

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Prawn and Curry Leaf Muffins #MuffinMonday

Aromatic curry leaves, fried till crispy in butter, perfectly complement the butter-fried prawns in these delicious savory muffins. 

I have an editorial calendar where I keep track of upcoming blog posts and what I am planning to cook or bake for different group themes. I penciled in Muffin Monday on the 22nd of February and started thinking about what to bake. If you’ve been reading along here for a while, you know that the new Muffin Monday doesn’t have a theme or prescribed ingredients. We are free and easy on the last Monday of each month. But then I discovered that this was a leap year so the last Monday of the month is actually February 29th. How did I get all the way to the middle of February and just find that out? Seems like it would have come up at some point in December or January at least, right?

Soooooo, I had an idea: A leap of faith muffin. We’d each use an unusual ingredient, one we’ve never used before, at least not in a muffin. I proposed it to the group and, good sports that they are, they all agreed. Make sure you scroll down and check out the link list of muffins. Some of them may look normal to you, but I can assure you that the Muffin Monday bakers have stretched themselves this month!

One of my favorite dishes when we lived in Malaysia was something called Butter Prawns. I’ve only made them myself once because they are a bit of a faff but, dear me, they are divine! Crispy curry leaves, crispy prawns and lots of bits of buttery crumbs. I didn’t do the crumbly part for these muffins but all the butter, curry leaves and prawns still gave me the right flavor I was looking for.

My one attempt at butter prawns

Ingredients
10 medium-sized prawns or shrimp, already cleaned and shelled (Mine weighed 5oz or 140g.)
1/2 cup or 115g unsalted butter
Generous handful fresh curry leaves
2 1/2 cups or 315g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Black pepper
1 cup or 240ml milk
2 eggs

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by generously greasing with butter, oil or non-stick spray.

Chop the prawns into three or four pieces and put them in a bowl handy to your stove or cooktop.

Melt two tablespoons of the butter in a small frying pan and then fry the curry leaves briefly.

Remove them quickly with a slotted spoon when they get crispy and are just starting to brown.

Lower the fire and tip the prawns into the browning butter you've left behind.

Cook them till just pink. Remove the whole pan from the heat, add in the rest of the butter and set aside so the additional butter can melt and the prawns can cool.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt together in a large mixing bowl with a few generous grinds of fresh black pepper.

In another bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs.  Once the prawns are cool enough not to cook the eggs, add them along with the melted butter and stir well.

Add all the milk/egg/prawn mixture to flour bowl.

Gently fold a few turns then add in the crispy curry leaves. Continue folding just until the dry ingredients are moistened.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups in your prepared pan.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until muffins are golden.

Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes before removing muffins from tin.

Enjoy!

Take a leap of faith with us this month – Bake some muffins! Many thanks to all the Muffin Monday bakers for playing along.

• Berry Mango Swirl Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Brown Sugar, Pistachio and Garam Masala Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Carrot Muffins from Kelli's Kitchen
• Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins with Cardamom Browned Butter from The Spiced Life
• Marmite Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Prawn and Curry Leaf Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Rosewater Banana White Chocolate Muffins from Making Miracles
• Spinach, Bacon and Cheese Breakfast Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

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Spicy Loli - Breakfast Flatbread #BreadBakers

Spicy and savory, flakey and rich, loli is a traditional breakfast in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It's tasty, quick to make and goes perfectly with a cup of hot sweet tea.

More akin to shortcrust than more traditional roti where gluten is developed by kneading, loli dough is made quickly, adding fat to the well-spiced flour, then just enough hot water to make it come together.

Our host for Bread Bakers, Anshie from SpiceRoots challenged us this month to share griddle breads and just with that one word, griddle, my head began to spin. A few years ago, I was reading a great book on bread, Going with the Grain - A Wandering Bread Lover Takes a Bite Out of Life by Susan Seligson, (<Amazon affiliate link) and I could only nod in agreement as the author discussed all the ancient ways that bread making sustains civilizations, whether cooked over hot coals in the desert or the communal brick ovens of northern Africa and Europe, both centuries ago and now. Every indigenous community seems to have its own flat or griddle bread, some more than one. If you are a fan of food memoirs and bread, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

A quick Google search revealed that Ms. Seligson is indeed correct about the myriad breads, especially griddle and flatbreads since they are the easiest to make at home or in rudimentary kitchens without proper ovens, even outdoors. I was intrigued by loli, sometimes called koki, because it is savory and considered a breakfast bread in its native Sindh. I’m all about a savory breakfast. Another quick search brought me to this recipe on The Odd Pantry, which I’ve adapted to share here.

Thanks to our host, Anshie, for this excellent challenge and also for her advice on loli, specifically 1. make sure the chapatti atta says 100 percent on it and 2. do use ghee; it’s not the same with just oil.

This recipe is quick, easy and makes only two side plate sized flatbreads, perfect for your breakfast any day.

Ingredients
1/2 small purple onion

1 spicy red chili pepper
Good handful cilantro leaves
3/4 cup or 90g chapatti atta (100%) or whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ghee or clarified butter, plus extra for spreading on the loli while cooking
2-3 tablespoons hot water

Method 
Finely chop your onion and mince your chili pepper. Chop the cilantro.

Add the seasonings to the flour in a large mixing bowl, along with the salt.

Mix well making sure to separate the bits of onion and pepper, coating them with flour. Add in the two tablespoons of ghee.

Use a fork or your fingers to mix it into the flour, rather like you are making piecrust, until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

Add in two tablespoons of hot water and mix again till it just starts hanging together. Add a little more hot water, if necessary, if it’s still too dry to form a ball.

Form the dough – no kneading, remember – into two balls.

Roll or press them out with your hands, one at a time, into rough circles. I found that mine stayed together better on the griddle if I pushed in on the sides after pressing the dough out, to sort of even out the edges. Tiny bits tried to fall off the first one as I turned, but the second loli was perfect.

Very lightly score the dough circles with a sharp knife.

Transfer the first dough circle onto your hot griddle and cook it for one minute. I put it scored side down on the griddle, to help it cook through.

Carefully turn it over with a big spatula and spread the top with some ghee. Cook for a minute on that side.

Turn it over once more and spread a little ghee on the other side. Cook for another 30 seconds to one minute or until it’s golden on both sides. You can turn it again, if you need to.

Repeat the same steps with the second dough ball. You now have two loli flatbreads to enjoy with a cup of hot sweet tea, which is their traditional accompaniment in a Sindhi breakfast.

Enjoy!

Are you a fan of griddle breads? Check out all the other regional specialties the Bread Bakers have for you today!

• Amaranth (Rajgira) Paratha from Herbivore Cucina
• Cheese and Potato Gözleme from Cook's Hideout
• Corn Pancakes from Magnolia Days
• Cornmeal Griddle Cakes from Noshing With The Nolands
• English Muffins from La cocina de Aisha
• Fruity Hemp Seed Pancakes from Cindy's Recipes and Writings
• Griddle Scones from Hostess At Heart
• Homemade Corn Tortillas from Kylee Cooks
• Lachha Paratha - Indian Layered Flatbread from Sara's Tasty Buds
• Masala Poli - Spicy Potato Masala Stuffed Poli from I Camp in my Kitchen
• Masala Roti from Sneha's Recipe
• Paneer Kulchas - Griddle Fried Cottage Cheese Flatbread from Sizzling Tastebuds
• Paruppu Poorana Poli from Gayathri's Cook Spot
• Peanut Butter and Apple Griddle Cakes from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Phool Makhana Parathas (Puffed Lotus Seeds Parathas) from Seduce Your Tastebuds
• Saffron Unleavened Bread from Kidsandchic
• Satpadi - Spiced Griddle Bread from Spiceroots
• Scallion Pancakes from A Shaggy Dough Story
• Sourdough English Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Spicy Loli - Breakfast Flatbread from Food Lust People Love
• Spinach and Feta Gözleme from Spill the Spices
• Stacked Apple Arepas from The Schizo Chef
• Staffordshire Oatcakes with a Bacon & Cheese Filling from Ruchik Randhap
• Stove-Top Muffins (Diphaphata) from Wholistic Woman
• Swedish Polar Bread from G'Gina's Kitchenette
• Vitumbua (Coconut Rice Pancake Balls) from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Welsh Cakes from Passion Kneaded
• Yeast Raised Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pancakes from Pastry Chef Online

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send me an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com.

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Gouda Herb Muffins for Derkje #MuffinMonday

Loads of cheese, fresh herbs and a bit of spicy cayenne pepper make these savory muffins rich and flavorful. 

Every Monday I get together with a lovely group of ladies for Bible study. We come from many countries and varied backgrounds but we enjoy our time together trying to learn whatever God wants us to learn, whether from the Bible or each other.  And, with such a diverse group, as you can imagine, there is so much we can learn from one another. The last couple of weeks we’ve been joined by someone special, the mother of one of our little group, who has been visiting since the holidays. As you might have guessed from my title, her name is Derkje.

As I left our meeting last week, she leaned over and almost whispered, “Do you have a recipe for a savory muffin? Perhaps with cheese?”  Well, I have plenty! But most of them make 12 muffins and our dear Derkje recently lost her husband, love of her life and best friend of more than 60 years. Even though they freeze well, 12 muffins is an overwhelming number and I didn’t want to discourage her from the outset with a large batch she’d never end up baking. So I worked out a recipe for just six, baked them up, and passed them over with the printed notes. I wanted to use a cheese that was readily available where Derkje lives in the Netherlands so I made them with Gouda, but you can substitute any aged cheese you have. A nice cheddar would work just as well.

At today’s meeting, I told her that I’d be sharing the recipe with the rest of you for Muffin Monday but, not to worry, I wouldn’t use her name. Derkje replied that she would be delighted if I would. It’s a name that was given to her by her father and she is very proud of it. Isn’t that lovely? She heads home tomorrow and we are going to miss her lively contribution to our group.

Ingredients
8 1/2 oz or 240g Gouda cheese
Small handful mixed fresh herbs of your choice (green onions, thyme, basil, parsley, coriander, rosemary, etc.)
1 cup or 125g flour (or 125g + 1 tablespoon self-rising flour)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (Omit if using self-rising flour.)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder (Derkje says use more! And I agree!)
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
1 egg
1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and generously grease your 6-cup muffin pan.  I would suggest putting the batter into a greased tin rather than muffin cups because the cheese in these makes them bake up lovely and browned and crunchy all over.  You’d miss that in a paper cup. I used non-stick cooking spray but you can use butter or a little more oil.

Grate your cheese, setting aside a generous handful for adding to the top before baking.

Pull the leaves off of any herbs with woody stems, then mince your herbs, saving a few tiny sprigs or leaves for decoration, if desired.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your dry ingredients, including the cayenne pepper.

Then stir in the big pile of Gouda, making sure all the bits are well coated with flour. Add in herbs and mix well.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, milk, and oil together.

Pour milk mixture into dry ingredients and fold until it is just combined.

Spoon the batter into your very well greased muffin pan.

Top with the reserved cheese and decorate with a herby leaf or two.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until they are looking browned and crispy and delicious and you can’t wait another second to eat them.

BUT, allow the muffins to cool for a few minutes then use a non-pointy knife to loosen/remove them from the muffin pan.

Enjoy!

Check out all the other great recipes my Muffin Monday bakers are sharing today!

• Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Chocolate Chip Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Cinnamon Pear Muffins from Making Miracles
• Coconut Lime Mango Muffins from The Spiced Life
• Glazed Orange Poppyseed Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Gouda Herb Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Nutmeg Banana Muffins from Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Orange Muffins from Passion Kneaded

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.


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Sticky Toffee Bran Muffins #MuffinMonday

Just as in sticky toffee pudding, Medjool dates sweeten these tender bran muffins but since we are making muffins instead of dessert, no added sugar is necessary. That doesn’t mean these wouldn’t make a lovely sweet thing to end a meal with. But they’d also be a delightful breakfast.

Despite the holidays, or perhaps because of them, we’ve got some lovely muffins for you this month. When complicated holiday baking starts to overwhelm you, always remember that muffins can be baked quickly, often in less than half an hour.

This recipe takes just a bit longer since one must wait for the scalded milk-soaked dates to cool, but that step can actually be done ahead of time if you are going to be pushed for time before baking. But it’s worth it, I promise!

Make sure you scroll down to see all the muffins my Muffin Monday bakers have for you this month! As usual, they’ve out done themselves and I love the challenge of keeping up with their creativity.

Ingredients
9 large Mejool dates, separated
1 cup or 240ml milk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cup or 160g all-purpose flour
1/2 cup or 70g oat bran
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1⁄4 cup or 60g butter, melted and cooled

Method
Pit and chop your dates, setting one aside for garnish.

Put the rest in a heatproof bowl. Add in the half teaspoon of baking soda. Scald the milk and pour it over the chopped dates.

Stir to help separate the bits of sticky date and set aside till cool. It will cool faster if you stir it occasionally. You’ll notice it begins to thicken as it cools as well. At this point, you could just eat it with a spoon, but do resist!

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin pan by greasing it with non-stick spray or line it with muffin paper cups.

In a large bowl, sift your flour with the baking powder and salt and then add in the oat bran. Mix well.

Add your eggs to the cooled date mixture and whisk with a fork to combine.

Add the butter and whisk again.

Fold your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

Divide the batter evenly between the 12 cups of your prepared muffin pan and then top each with some of the reserved chopped date.

Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until springy to the touch.

Cool for a few minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Check out all the fabulous muffins we've got for you - sweet and savory - this month!

• Bacon Cheddar Corn Muffins from Making Miracles
• Banana Cranberry Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Banana Streusel Muffins from All Roads from Lead to the Kitchen
• Healthy Morning Glory Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Lemon Ricotta Muffins from Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Savory Corn Bread Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Sticky Toffee Bran Muffins from Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

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