Bush Tucker Muffins - how you like yours?

[Shalem]

What's your favourite bush tucker muffins and recipes?

How about sweet and savoury muffin ideas?

I've made lemon myrtle & sour cream muffins...yummo.

also made munthari berries muffins using Mark Olive's recipe.

[Shalem]

Though I haven't tried it yet, there's a Fruit Muffins recipe in Kay Joyce's book "Bushfood Herbs & Spices" in which she uses cinnamon myrtle, fruit (eg mashed banana, diced apple etc) and melted butter, plus other ingredients.

I made some non-native (blueberry) muffins this week and used macadamia oil instead of butter. The muffins resulted in supermoist, light and spongy muffins, so I hope the maca oil contributed to that. My only disappointment was that I didn't put a native fruit in them instead of blueberries, and it's sad that many Australians probably seem to be familiar with "blueberry muffins" but not as much with native fruit muffins. So many conventional cookbooks and recipes (non-native) I come across in Australia have "blueberry muffins" but nothing on indigenous fruits. More saddening is that I find muffins are quite easy to make as some of them just involve throwing a lot of things into the bowl and giving it a stir until just combined, or they will go dense and heavy when baked.

If were to do a bushfood muffin with native fruit, I'd like anyone to give me some ideas which native fruits would be good in muffins (other than munthrie beries which I've already tried in muffins)??

[Shalem]

oh so why did I make blueberry muffins this week instead of native fruit muffins? Because when I bought the blueberries, they were on a rare sale of only $3.50 a punnet! Otherwise I would have to go and buy native fruit for around $60/kg average from a nearby gourmet store, since I don't go hunting for native fruits in the local city streets, and I don't know anyone who can give them to cheaply and in small amounts for a home cook.

Go Native Wildfood cookbook has muffins made with macadamia oil and riberries. Plus another one with midyim berries which I know nothing about these berries.

[Shalem]

Here's those blueberry muffins I made. They were really light, spongy and so delicious. I used plain flour & baking powder (but from now on I'll use self-raising flour), macadamia oil, buttermilk, eggs, sugar, salt, and a spice. The same muffin batter could be used for native fruits & native spices, instead of the blueberries. I'm planning to get some native fruits next week so will post some pics & recipes then.

Generally muffins are quite straightforward to make as they don't need an electric appliance, though I chose to make these ones in my mixer. They basically involve some simple stirring until only just combined, otherwise if they get overbeaten or overmixed, they will turn out dense and heavy when cooked. All muffin recipes I've seen warn not to overbeat.

There are trillions of muffin recipes around, and there are sweet and savoury muffins, like breakfast muffins.

There are various sized muffin cases available, from small to large (eg texas muffins), and likewise for muffin tins (eg mini-muffin tins to texas muffin tins).



Here's the muffin batter in cupcake cases placed in muffin tins.

The place where I will buy some native fruits & native meats next week, also sells gluten free bushfood muffin premixes, which can be another option to try if one doesn't want to make a muffin from scratch.

[Shalem]

Munthari berri Muffins using a base recipe from Mark Olive's Outback Cafe book.

Munthari's bit like sultanas in taste and texture.

Batter: self-raising flour, buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, sugar, fruits.

Icing: ground lemon myrtle, icing sugar mixture, milk, macadamia oil, lemon juice.



Took 15-20secs in a mixer but muffins can easily be made by hand but I don't know how the final results compare with each other. These ones had similar texture to the blueberry muffins above.


Some of these muffins have riberry instead of the muntharis.







200g Munthari berries (top), 100g Riberry/Lilly Pilly (bottom)

Syzygium leuhmanii

[Shalem]

Munthari berries muffins split open.

I found it interesting that the muntharies "cook" up more when they're baked, and become even more characteristic of sultanas.

This is similar to what happens to the blueberries, at least in muffins. When they're raw, they differ to when they are baked in a batter.

[Shalem]

Australian NATIVE FRUIT MUFFINS



Recipe: based on Kay Joyce's Fruit Muffins "Bushfood Herbs & Spices" book.

My Substituitions : Macadamia oil instead of melted butter; Buttermilk instead of milk; Outback Pride's Wild Fruit in Syrup instead of her fruit. Kept Cinnamon Myrtle like her, but Fruit Spice (Cherikoff) would do well too.

Mixer: Placed all ingredients (including native fruits) at once into mixer bowl and beat with flat beater on slow speed to start with, then on packet cake mix speed, beating only till just combined and smooth. Took approx 25secs.

Of course easily done by hand. Trillions of muffin recipes around; most state to mix it by hand. However, with this mixer, muffin results are really good (light, supersoft, even distribution etc).

Taste: Recognised something similar to cooked apple slice, and baked sultanas.




Added slightly more buttermilk & oil into batter than the recipe, as if the batter's too thick, what tends to happen for me are denser heavier results.

Bakeware: Highly recommended Chicago Metallic. Never achieved muffin shapes and size like these with my other old one (glad it got the boot!).


Muffin Shape & Size: So thrilled was I at these, which are the best muffins I've ever made in terms of shape/size. I feel this is contributed by the bakeware; using a different brand of self-raising flour; adding baking powder in addition to this flour; the type of mixer used; buttermilk.




Outback Pride Wild Fruit in Syrup.

A nice change from blueberries....I hear and see that many blueberry muffin recipes, it's starting to get boring for me (yes, blueberries are a nice berry, and generally not cheap, where I live).

In Australia, why can't we hear more "Native Fruit Muffins" or "Muntries Muffins" or "Lilly Pilly Muffins?!!

The jar was the only native fruits I had available; Of course other native fruits could be used in Kay's recipe.

[Shalem]

PACKET MIX MUFFINS DECORATED WITH SUGAR-CURED RIBERRIES

Using packet mix below, no appliance required. Stirring with wooden spoon till thoroughly combined, taking me 45 seconds. Icing (not included in muffin box) is Betty Crocker ready-to-spread frosting. Decorated with ready-to-serve Riberries, which I drained syrup off so it didn't stain white icing. Mix comes with packet of berry puree.

These Betty Crocker muffins are so yummy, but I don't know how healthy they are since I don't know what goes into making the mix.



Sprinkled with Lemon Myrtle Sprinkle






This packet mix gives a really lovely texture, and it may also have something to do with my brand of muffin tray.

Unfortunately, packet of berries didn't mix through my muffins like it did in this photo of muffin box, which looks pretty. Instructions said to drop berry mixture into each muffin & stir through, but next time I might mix the entire packet of berry mixture lightly through the whole batter first.

[Shalem]

Lemon myrtle muffin mix and lemon myrtle cupcakes......see my Cakes cooking topic page 4-5 I think.