Golden Beet Sourdough Cup Muffins

muffins

So, so good.
I used Mike Avery's Blueberry Sourdough Muffin recipe which can be found here

I doubled the recipe, but instead of doubling the amount of starter, I used one cup of golden beet puree (roasted beets, pureed with a little liquid), added a handful of ground up flax and poppy seeds and omitted the blueberries.

Then I baked them in cups! They were all either Pyrex or pottery mugs. Awesome. Awesome. I imagine other purees would be good too.

Boy do they look good! And real eye openers in the morning. I can just picture serving them in the warmed cups (liners?) and then pouring coffee into the same. Great camping idea too!

WOW!

Thanks guys. Mini O, I didn't use liners, just oiled the cups and they slipped out beautifully. They do warm nicely as well. Yesterday morning I had the oven at 250 because I was drying apple slices (for Hamelman's Normandy Apple Bread, which incidentally came out great) and just put the cup in the oven for 5 minutes. The muffin stayed warm for the whole eating. Too bad they're all gone.

I saw your creative changes and they sounded (and looked) so delicious, I wanted to go make them right then. But- no golden beets in the house- farmers market's on Thursday. So...I tried to improvise. Other purees, as you mentioned. I pureed cooked carrots roughly and added them to the doubled recipe, also leaving out the 2nd cup of sourdough. I used only the 1/4c of oil and added ground flax instead. My other changes were a scant 3/4c brown sugar and double vanilla. I used white whole wheat flour. The results looked good- pretty muffins (just in regular pans) not sweet, a little dry (I think I over cooked them a bit.) They'll be good with some cream cheese. Thanks again for the idea, I would never have thought of it on my own. Marni

Thats great, I'm so happy you tried it. I thought about using carrots as well. The beet muffins weren't sugary sweet, but the beets themselves imparted their own sweetness and it worked out well. I think I'd also like to try using red beets to see what color they come out. I also used whole white wheat flour. Have you tried the unravaged recipe? It's quite fantastic, I really dig using starter in quickbreads and such. My farmer's market is still two weeks from the start of the season. I'm so stoked.

I thought of using red beets but I thought instead of pink I'd end up with grayish/beige- eeww. I have not tried the recipe straight, but I have tried the pizza crusts on the site and they are fabulous! My kids think it is the best crust we have ever made, and we make a lot of pizza here. Are your farmer's markets only Spring/Summer?

Marni

I just tried recipe for 6 "straight" but not sure. Just came out of the oven for Breakfast! I refreshed my rye starter yesterday then thinned and increased it to make a cup for the recipe and set it in the fridge overnight. This morning added a cup of spelt and a cup of frozen blackberries with a little over 1/4 cup powdered brown sugar and came out with 8 muffins. Perfect! Yum!

After throwing the berries into the flour mixture, they did look quite dusty, but in the baking it all evened out. I've got more berries to play with too!

Mini O

Marni - That's what I'd like to find out by using red beets. Who knows, they could go either way I think. My farmers market is only Spring/Summer. The co-op and another local market here buy local winter produce sometimes though, which is nice.

Mini Oven - It sounds like these would be great with rye starter. I believe the purpose for coating berries with flour first is to prevent streaking the batter, but I'm not sure. I like doing it though.

so next time: red beets and rye starter...