Monday 31 December 2012

Pea, Ham and Feta Muffins

So from a whole book of gorgeous baked delights what do I chose to bake first? A savoury muffin. Of course! The idea of something that everyone associates with sweetness being a savoury dish intrigued me and the recipe looked relatively simple so I thought it was a safe bet for my first Hummingbird creation.

I was right in thinking that the recipe is relatively simple; it's essentially a cake mix minus the sugar. However the one thing I did notice is that there is a lot more flour needed than any recipe I've cooked before. Talking of flour, obviously this needs to be gluten free so I used Doves Farm Gluten Free Plain White Flour; the reason I chose this one above any other brand is that it seems to be the brand most readily available in supermarkets but also it already has xanthan gum added so no additional binding ingredients are needed and it behaves largely like ordinary flour.

The mix is relatively simple to put together and takes no more than about 10-15mins. The recipe states the muffins take 25-30mins and, as I have a fan assisted oven, I go for 25mins as the advice at the back of the book states to go for the lower time if you have a fan assisted oven. However after 25mins the tops of the muffins are still pale and slightly doughy so I returned them to the oven for another 10mins, after which they are crispy on the top and firm on the bottom so I took them out and left them to cool. And boy do they look delicious and the smell is wonderful!


After 15mins of cooling I was too impatient to wait any longer so I eagerly peeled back the case to taste my creation. Firstly the majority of the bottom of the muffin stuck to the case so I was left with a crispy top in my hand and a moist bottom in the case. I blamed this on my impatientness to let them cool and begin to tuck in. The taste is gorgeous, it has the taste of a scone but the texture of the muffin and I am immediately sold on the idea of savoury muffins. However whilst the top is crispy the middle of the muffin isn't quite cooked properly and still tasted a little uncooked. Again I wondered if this is because I haven't really let them cool but when I tried one for breakfast the next morning half the muffin is left in the case and the middle still is a little uncooked. Since making these the first time I've made a second batch but this time I cooked them a fraction cooler (180ºc instead of 190ºc as written in the recipe) and cooked them for a little longer (40mins); this worked a lot better and the muffins were crispy on top, cooked all the way through but still nice and moist. 

I really really enjoyed these muffins, the taste was amazing and the recipe really easy to make- just a little tweak to the cooking time made it perfect!

Sunday 30 December 2012

Welcome!

I suppose I should start off with a little bit about myself! My name is Marie, I'm 22 years old and I live in Ipswich, Suffolk, UK with my husband, two gerbils, three mice and 20+ rats. I say 20+ because we run a rat rescue so numbers can vary between just our own pets at 20 and up to 40 all together when we're full! I could go on about rats all day but this is a baking blog!

I was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance just over three years ago in September 2009. At first it was a mine field- apart from the obvious bread, pasta, cakes etc I didn't realise that gluten was in so many things! Then I went through a phase where I found it all horribly restricting and got very frustrated at all the things I couldn't eat anymore. But recently I've realised that if you're a little creative and with more alternative products on the market, with a few tweaks and a little bit of imagination you can still enjoy the gorgeous things you did before (and some new things as well!).

So why did I decide to start this blog? I was really thrilled to receive The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book for Christmas; it was full of gorgeous looking cakes, cookies, cheesecakes and savoury muffins and I was salivating as I flicked through the pages. Best of all, my sister in law said she had made some of the recipes for her coeliac friend and they turned out well so it should be more than possible to create the fabulous looking goodies but friendly for my belly! I also know how hard it is to find good, reliable recipes online for dietary needs that don't have silly, hard to find ingredients or long complicated methods. The idea behind this blog is to share how I took the recipes in the Hummingbird book and made them tasty but gluten free. I'm going to share what brands I used, whether I had to make any tweaks to the recipes and, most importantly, whether they taste just as good as ordinary food!