Parmesan and Sunflower seed Muffins

Say muffins and the faces light up, but savoury muffins?

Let me tell you that these scrumptious cheese and seed filled muffins will make you change your mind.

Ingredients for the muffins

Plain white flour(maida)- 280 gm

Baking powder- 1 tbsp

Salt- 1/8 tsp

Pepper- 1/8 tsp

Parmesan cheese- 85 gm freshly grated

Sunflower seeds or Pine nuts- 60 gm

Eggs- 2 medium

Sunflower oil- 6 tbsp

optional: butter- 85 gm melted and cooled

Oil or melted butter for greasing

Ingredients for the topping

Parmesan cheese- 10gm, freshly grated

Pine kernels- 35 gm

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C

Grease a 12 cup muffin tray. Grease or line with paper cases.

For the topping

In a bowl, mix together the grated parmesan cheese and sunflower seeds/ pine nuts

For the muffins

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper.

Frankly, I find sometimes the sifting of flour creates quite a mess. I have seen a few of the American chefs praise the shortcut of whisking the flour. That’s what I did.

Take a balloon whisk and whisk the flour around for a few minutes. It helps add the air , which is exactly what we want.

Now stir in the parmesan cheese and sunflower seeds.

In a large bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add in the butter milk and the oil.

Make a well in the centre of the flour and add in the wet mixture.

Stir gently until just combined. Do not overmix otherwise the muffin will not rise. Remember this mixture will be a bit lumpy and not runny like usual muffin mixtures.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin tin/ muffin cases.

Top each of the muffins with the mixture of grated cheese and sunflower seeds kept for topping. Pop the tray into the oven and bake for 20 minutes until well risen, golden brown and firm to touch.

I couldn’t help peeping into the oven to see if they were rising, and they were indeed!

Leave them in the tin for a further 5 minutes to cool and then serve warm.

Best eaten warm.

This post was created for the BBPC assignment # 2 , which was for backlighting plus diffused lighting

ISO 800  f stop 1.7 Shutter speed 1/200 sec