‘Can't you make some different muffins?’
My son asked this question some time ago with
the impatience of a little maharaja. Being an obedient Mama, who loves her only
offspring dearly, I set out to work. I read my way through a couple of recipes in cookbooks
and cooking websites. Then I entered my kitchen with a concept in mind.
Like always I tried to combine a maximum of nutritious ingredients with a
minimum of not so healthy stuff…and failed miserably.
My first attempt at
muffins produced not even a lukewarm response from my men. ‘Really not my
favorite, sorry’, said my Italian husband after the first bite. ‘They taste so
much like oats’, complained my son. ‘What is wrong with oats? I
like oats’, was my resigned response. I ended up eating most of the high fiber
muffins myself. They definitely tasted like oats, but not in a bad way…
That’s why I decided to play it safe. With my men that means
chocolate, lots of chocolate - or in the case of these muffins cocoa powder. What’s more, I got inspired by a book I found
with the title ‘Coconut diet’, in which the American author Cherie Calbom
reveals everything there is to know about this ‘secret ingredient for
effortless weight loss’ (that’s how she refers to the humble coconut). I have
written a short summary about coconuts for my first book, (check Kornelia's Kitchen ).
After some more experiments in my kitchen with results, who
found gradually more mercy in the eyes of my men, I am happy to present the
recipe for my ‘Choco-Coco-Muffins’ to you. They are loaded with nutritious
ingredients like coconut oil, grated coconut, whole wheat flour, oats and cacao
(check Kornelia's Kitchen )
I hope you enjoy these muffins as much as my men do. They
make a great breakfast or snack and I put them into my son’s tiffin boxes.
Choco-Coco-Muffins
Ingredients (for 22 small muffins or 12 big muffins):
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla essence
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- 1 cup cold pressed coconut oil
- 100 grams desiccated, grated coconut
- 3 teaspoons baking soda
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 3 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 and ½ cups milk
- butter to grease the muffin moulds
- paper lining for the moulds
- icing sugar for dusting the muffins
How to make Choco-Coco-Muffins:
Start with greasing the muffin moulds. The easiest way is
getting your hands dirty by grabbing a piece of soft butter and wiping it all
around the moulds. Then place a piece of paper lining into each mould and make
sure the lining sticks properly to the sides all around. This takes a bit of
patience, but it is the most demanding job when making these muffins, so don’t
despair…
Next step is switching on your oven to 190 Degrees Celsius.
When making dough with baking powder it is always better to preheat the oven.
The baking powder loses its power waiting around to be cooked. Crack the eggs
into a mixing bowl and add the vanilla essence and the sugar. Stir with a hand
mixer until the ingredients are combined. Then sift the cocoa powder over the
mixture, add the grated coconut and the coconut oil and mix everything well.
Finally blend the baking powder and the baking soda with the flour and put this
into the mixing bowl. Join the oats and give everything a stir, so the dough is
roughly combined. I use baking soda and baking powder because the combination
of both has more power to raise this rather heavy muffin mix.
Distribute the dough evenly in your muffin moulds and bake
the small moulds for 25 minutes, topping the baking off with 5 minutes of
grill. If you use big moulds you have to bake them 5 more minutes in the oven.
Just be careful not to overcook them. Overcooked muffins tend to turn dry. Dust
the muffins with icing sugar, once they have cooled down.
Fats: The good, the bad and the really ugly
When it comes to fat and the human health, it is difficult
to figure out what is really happening, not to mention forming an educated
opinion. Until recently, scientists promoted polyunsaturated oils to keep
cholesterol levels under control. Now it seems that the experts might have been
wrong by condemning saturated fats. I, a humble lay person, cannot help but
feel confused. Maybe all this scientific research cannot be taken too
seriously. After all, there is always somebody paying the bills and this might
influence the outcome of any research.
For me it is time to apply some common sense to the subject:
I strongly believe the more natural the fat, the better. That means in short: I
trust butter and cold pressed oils. Generally I use only butter and olive oil
in my kitchen. However, now a book has changed my mind: In future I will
include cold pressed coconut oil as well.
In the book “Coconut diet” (ISBN-13: 978-0-00-727284-6,
available from HarperCollins Publishers India) the author Cherie Calbom
provides some interesting information about coconut oil. According to her,
coconut oil got a bad reputation due to negative media reports during the
latter half of the previous century. Saturated fats were widely held
responsible for the increase of heart disease in the USA, condemning butter as
well as coconut oil. Polyunsaturated oils were hailed as healthy.
Nowadays it seems exactly the opposite may be true. I
believe refined vegetable oils – even if they are polyunsaturated – are bad for
our bodies. Vegetable oils produce highly damaging trans fatty acids when refined
or heated. These trans fatty acids, according to latest research, are the really
ugly when it comes to our health. The clog our blood vessels and they inflate
the fat cells on our hips in no time at all, not to mention they become quickly
rancid, flooding our body with poison. Most packaged food contains oil of
questionable quality.
On the other hand, saturated fats like butter and coconut
oil are absolutely vital for the human body (the following points are taken
from the “Coconut diet”):
- About half of cell membranes are made from saturated fatty acids.
- Our bones need saturated fatty acids to incorporate calcium.
- Saturated fatty acids protect the liver and enhance the immune system.
- Tissues retain omega-3 fatty acids better when you eat saturated fat at the same time. (Check Kornelia's Kitchen ).
- The heart muscle is embedded in tissue made from saturated fat.
- Short and medium-chain saturated fatty acids combat harmful microorganisms.
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