McDoodle Muffins

Basic McDonald (“use your imagination” Muffins

2 C flour (500 ml) 1 beaten egg

¼ C sugar (62 ml) 1 C milk

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder (12 ml) ⅓ C oil (83 ml)

1 teaspoon salt (5 ml)

Sift together dry ingredients.  In another bowl beat moist ingredients.  Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients.  Pour moist ingredients all at once into the centre of the dry ones.  

Stir until just moist.  Pour into well greased muffin cups.  Bake at 190∘C for about 20 minutes.  Makes 10-12 muffins.      

Variations:

The FLOUR can be any combination of whole wheat, nutty wheat, bread or cake flour.  I like to add at least ¼ C of pat bran/  you can also add up to ½ C of rolled oats for texture and flavour.  Another interesting ingredient is mealie meal (especially the yellow stone-ground meal!).  the flour portion of the ingredients should equal 2 cups.

 

The SUGAR can be any combination of the following:  regular sugar, castor sugar, brown sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup.

The MILK ingredient can be make up of one or more of the following:  milk, soured milk, yoghurt, sour cream.  I generally measure a cup of milk and then add 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice and let it sit for a few minutes.  The milk sours and becomes slightly curdled and it takes away the taste that the baking powder can sometimes give the muffins.

For the EGG, if you wish, you can substitute 2 raw egg whites for the one whole egg.

Hint:  with most sweet muffins, adding 5 - 10 ml of vanilla essence enhances the flavour.

Apple-cinnamon: add 1 chopped Granny Smith apple and 2 Tbs cinnamon or mixed spices to dry ingredients.

Cheese:  Eliminate sugar and add 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese.

Three Cheese:  No sugar. Add ½ cup shredded cheddar, ½ cup Parmesan and ½ cup crumbled Feta

Cheese & Ham (bacon): No sugar.  Add 1 cup shredded cheddar and ½ cup cooked crumbled bacon or sliced ham and 1 tsp basil or mixed herbs.

Olive & Feta: No sugar.  Add ½ cup chopped olives (retain a whole olive for the top of each muffin), ½ cup chopped feta cheese and 3 Tbs of fresh chopped basil (or 1 Tbs dried)

Banana-Nut: decrease milk to ½ cup and stir in 1 cup mashed banana and ½ cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)

Oatmeal-Fruit: decrease flour to 1 3/4 cup and add ½ cup oats and ½ cup fruit cake mix

Lemon Poppy Seed: decrease milk to 3/4 cup and after mixing muffins, fold in 1/3 cup lemon juice and 2-3 Tbs of lemon rind and 1/4 cup poppy seeds.

Carrot:  Add 1 cup shredded carrot to moist ingredients and 3 teaspoons of cinnamon to dry ingredients (nuts optional)

Chocolate Chip:  gently stir in 1/2 cup chopped chocolate pieces  into batter.  For Chocolate-Chocolate Chip muffins stir 1/2 cup cocoa powder into dry ingredients.

Cappuccino: Add 1/2 cup cocoa powder and 2 Tbs coffee powder to dry ingredients 

Best muffins of all:  Look in your fridge for leftovers and create a muffin flavour al your own (i.e., pizza muffins, chilli cheese, chocolate chilli, Italian herb, etc)

These muffins will get better and better with time, as you experiment and add the amount of ingredients to your muffins that you enjoy.  Most important:  HAVE FUN!