Savoury Muffins

Millie is now nearly 8 months old and she absolutely loves food. So I’m always on the hunt for baby safe recipes, especially finger foods, as she loves to feed herself and it leaves me free to eat my own lunch.

(Nb. For interested parents reading this, I have done a mix of purees and baby led weaning with Millie. She’s pretty independent and likes to feed herself but I also like to know she has actually eaten something. Generally she feeds herself breakfast and lunch and I spoon her tea – I’ll do some future blogs on good batch cooking ideas, although I’m by no means an expert.)

I thought savoury muffins would be a great lunch, easy for at home and on the go. I tried a recipe from, “Yummy Discoveries, The Baby-Led Weaning Recipe Book” but they ended up like pancakes. Millie still likes them, but muffins they are not. Then I came across a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe online (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/05/savoury-muffin-recipes-fearnley-whittingstall) and adapted it slightly so it’s OK for babies. Luckily they are still actually delicious and I have had a couple myself, they are great as a bread alternative with soup.

Basically I cut out the salt and ‘bits’ so my ingredients were:

200g plain flour
40g jumbo oats
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
8 large basil leaves, shredded
60g parmesan, coarsely grated
2 eggs
250g whole milk yoghurt (I used Yeo Valley Organic)
4 tbsps olive or rapeseed oil (I used olive)
250g courgettes, coarsely grated

Method:

1)      Pre heat oven to 200 degrees/gas mark 6

2)      Combine the flour, oats, baking powder, bicarb, basil and parmesan in a large bowl

3)      In a seperate bowl whisk together the eggs, yogurt and oil

4)      Pour the wet mixture into the dry and combine with a spatula (try not to mix too much!)

5)      Then add the grated courgettes

6)      I then took Hugh’s advice and used an ice cream scoop and put two scoops in each muffin pot. I used my trusty silicone muffin tray and cooked two batches – it made 10 muffins overall

 

7)      Pop in the oven for about 20 mins - They are ready when a knife or toothpick or similar goes in and comes out clean!

 

I kept some in airtight containers for the next couple of days and froze the rest. I’ll be experimenting with different recipes (I’m thinking of a breakfast one for adults with black pudding, yum!) – I’ll let you know how I get on.

Happy baking!

Em x