Breakfast Muffins & Green Seasons Cookbook
Muffins for breakfast are a real treat, especially if you eat them warm from the oven. These ones are slightly healthier than the average. They’re made with spelt flour and contain yoghurt, berries and dark chocolate.
As some of you will know, I’m a vegetarian and have been so for about twenty years. I have to confess that this is not a hardship as I’m not particularly keen on meat and never liked fish.
One not so fine day at the village primary school, I sat for an hour chewing on a piece of gristle which I just could not bring myself to swallow. For those were the days when you were not allowed to leave the dining room until you had cleared your plate. I had packed lunches from then on and although I always ate my mother’s meat dishes, that was the day meat fell from favour.
Green Seasons Cookbook
So what’s this got to do with chocolate you may well ask? Well, one of my go to vegetarian cookbooks is Rachel Demuth’s Green Seasons. Rachel is a fantastic vegetarian cook. She not only, in my humble opinion, has the best restaurant in Bath – Demuths, but also runs a vegetarian cookery school.
A couple of year’s ago, I attended a day’s course there. It was on Middle Eastern cookery and not only did I get to eat a lot of delicious food, I picked up some really useful tips, as well as recipes.
The book is divided into the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter for ease of using seasonal produce. And it’s also conveniently colour coded to help keep you on track. Each season is divided into seasonal vegetables, small eats, large eats and sweet eats. It includes such delights as: sorrel frittata, beetroot tzatziki, courgette filo pie and leek and potato hash.
The book does of course have some chocolate recipes, as you can see with this recipe for delicious breakfast muffins. Mexican chocolate pudding has been on my list since I first got the book, but it took me a while to actually make it. Nor have I yet made the white chocolate cheesecake, the chocolate pistachio roulade and the chocolate cheesecake brownies.
A Win Plus A Givaway
Anyway, the real point of this post is that I recently had a lovely surprise. I’m thrilled that Rachel picked me as a finalist in the recent Vegetarian Cookery School’s veggie breakfast competition. It was for my frumenty recipe.
Update December 2020. After several years, I finally put that recipe on the blog.
Although, sadly, I didn’t win the grand prize of a cookery school place, the ten finalists won a copy of Green Seasons. Now as I already have a copy of the book, I asked if it would be OK to use it as a giveaway on my blog instead. So you are now in the lucky position of having a chance to win your very own copy.
Breakfast Muffins
Sundays is the day I do the housework, the washing and various other chores. It’s always really busy. Today I have the additional task of making our annual batch of chilli sauce. So, just to give myself a bit more work and, more crucially, the incentive to keep me going, I decided to make some muffins for breakfast.
I used Rachel Demuth’s recipe for Blackberry & Chocolate Muffins in Green Season’s Cookbook. Having discovered last week what a good combination chocolate and ground cherries made, I substituted the blackberries for ground cherries.
As mentioned earlier I used spelt flour rather than plain. And the spelt flour was a mixture of both white and wholemeal.
Unless you grow your own, ground cherries are hard to get hold of. So it’s fine to swap them for your berry of choice. Blueberries are an obvious one, though blackberries or raspberries would be good too.
We ate the breakfast muffins warm from the oven. Some of them anyway. They were great, not too sweet, but with a big energy giving chocolate and berry boost. What a nice change from a slice of toast eaten whilst dashing to the station in the mornings. I might have to do this more often.
Other Ground Cherry Recipes You Might Like
- Chocolate ground cherry upside-down cake
- Coconut and ground cherry blondies
- Ground cherry crumble
- Eve’s pudding with apples and ground cherries
If you’re after more breakfast ideas, why not take a look at some of my breakfast recipes?
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you try this recipe for breakfast muffins, with or without the ground cherries, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or advice for making breakfast muffins? Or for using ground cherries for that matter?
Please rate the recipe. If you post pictures of your creations on social media, use the hashtag #tinandthyme so I can see them.
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If you’d like more cupcake recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Breakfast Muffins. PIN IT.
Breakfast Muffins
Ingredients
- 300 g spelt flour (I used half wholemeal and half white)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt
- 2 large eggs (I used duck eggs)
- 75 g golden granulated sugar or caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 100 ml natural yoghurt
- 100 ml milk
- 200 g ground cherries or berries of your choice
- 100 g dark chocolate chopped (I used a bar of 70%)
- 100 g unsalted butter melted
Instructions
- Sift the flours into a large bowl along with the baking powder, cinnamon and salt.300 g spelt flour, 2 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp ground cinnamon, 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt
- Beat in the eggs together with the sugar and vanilla extract until smooth.2 large eggs, 75 g golden granulated sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Add this to the flour together with the yoghurt and milk and mix until just incorporated.100 ml natural yoghurt, 100 ml milk
- Fold in the ground cherries and chocolate bits.200 g ground cherries, 100 g dark chocolate
- Finally stir in the melted butter.100 g unsalted butter
- Divide the mixture between 12 muffin holes lined with cases and bake in a preheated oven at 200℃ (400℉, Gas 6) for about 20 minutes until risen and golden.
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Sharing
I’m sharing these ground cherry breakfast muffins with Lost in Food for #CookBlogShare.
I love a muffin for breakfast when I need a quick fix. And so many shops that sell them are all loaded in sugar! These sound delicious and perfect for the freezer so I can have them fresh when I need them. Thanks for linking up to #CookBlogShare. Michelle x
Freezers are wonderful things. I always have good intentions of doing just what you say, but when I try and do it, I can never find any room.
My favourite is Mexican Bean wraps with lots of cumin (Yum!) and served with tons of crispy leaves, grated cheese and sour cream 🙂
My fave dish is mushroom risotto.
Anything involving pasta, fresh tomatoes, and basil. Mmmm.
a wonderful chick pea stew from post punk kitchen!
I love roasted beets, carrots, brussels sprouts, and parsnips.
Oven roasted veg in a creamy cheese sauce
This weekend I made a quiche with par-boiled broad beans, courgette, and mint. It’s my fave veggie dish because it’s so versatile, and can make the best use of what’s in season.
I think my favourite would probably be vegetarian lasagne, made with a ratatouille base, plenty of lasagne pasta layers and a gloriously cheesy sauce on top – ideally made with a red cheese for aesthetic reasons!
Please don’t enter me as I have the book already and it is fantastic! Have done many, many of the cookery courses at Demuths-really good fun and highly recommended!
Stuffed Baby aubergines curried an a bed of jeera rice and cucumber raita.
I am still in the early days of being veggie – just hit the two month mark! So still haven’t got a great selection of recipes going but my favourite at the minute are veg lasagne and dahl. I seem to have a lot of curry since turning veggie!
Congratulations on being a finalist! This book sounds great and although I’m not vegetarian I tend to eat vegetarian at home mainly because I don’t like cooking meat. It’s hard to pick a favourite so can I give you two … or maybe three! 🙂 Veggie pasta, veggie stir fry or veggie curry.
This is very timely having just returned from Turkey where we have eaten everything fresh and devoured with such gusto the best quality local produce ever…and eaten meat only once all week.
It has made me think about reducing my meat consumption but I do struggle for inspiration. This book would help with that.
For a turkish food memory it has to be watermelon and goats these sale with balsamic…yummy, tasty, simple and refreshing.
That is a hard one Choclette. Well that is 5 mins gone. It’s hard to choose one dish. Still thinking…… I could give you ten quite easily. OK, a moroccan vegetable bake with chickpeas and a spicy sauce. served with a fluffy baked potato and some salad.
My favourite vegetarian dish is Chilli con Quorn, home made of course
Don’t enter me choc, but please oh please make the mexican chocolate pudding! I’m intrigued, what makes it mexican type flavours?
It’s so hard to pick one vegetarian dish! I suppose right now I’m leaving towards a sandwich with a garden pesto (lots of greens and herbs rather than your traditional pesto) with tomato, avocado, and goat cheese. Yum!
I’m a pescatarian but not a massive fish fan so I’m quite partial to most vegetarian dishes… My favourite is probably a pizza covered with goat cheese, caramelised onions, an egg, mozzarella and dots of marscarpone/philadelphia cheese all over it.
Well as everything I eat is veggie I have quite a lot of favourites! Depends a lot on the time of year, what’s in season etc but green thai curry with courgettes, green beans and peas is a favourite, as is asparagus, lemon and creme fraiche risotto, veggie enchiladas, cous cous with sweet potato, red onion, haloumi and sweet chilli sauce… literally too many to decide! Always looking for more inspiration though so a copy of the book would be great 😉
I have a lovely veggie cassoulet recipe which is totally delicious. Don’t think I could give up meat though, I like it too much.
at the moment I’m addicted to mexican bean wraps, with soured cream and guacamole!
My favourite vegetarian dish would be a mixture of roasted vegetables (any kind, just chopped fine) over a bed of couscous. I love mixing these all together. By the way, congratulations on winning the book. Being one of the top 10 is quite an accomplishment!
I made some vegan chocolate brownies recently and they were absolutely amazing!
I love a simple risotto or a roast without the meat!… lovely book giveaway, thank you!
I love the sound of this book so have entered a few times, thanks!
My fav veg recipe is one from River cottage veg everyday, Roasted beetroot soup with sour cream. yum
Homemade pizza with roasted butternut squash and gorgonzola.
I adore Mushroom Stroganoff, with plenty of mushrooms, Quorn or pale Soya chunks, red onion, vegetable stock, creme fraiche, paprika and a dash of Brandy or Vodka. It goes really well with rice or crushed potatoes, or even pasta. The whole family love it, so it’s a win all round… 🙂
Oh, for a dish of soft, buttery polenta with carrot and courgette ribbons, sliced red capsicum, steamed unil tender, and seasoned with a squeeze of fresh lemon and a sprinkle of chilli and a drizzle of olive oil. It’s my favourite vegetarian comfort meal!
I like the sound of chocolate courgette cake. We always have too many courgettes from the garden and I hate chucking food away. Another recipe idea is very welcome
I’m not vegetarian but I do like cooking vegetarian food a few times a week. I think my favourite would be spicy roast veg lasagne
What an excellent giveaway! I would love to get a copy of this book. I’ve been vegetarian for over 5 years now and am always after new ideas and recipes. I have so many favourites so to name a few: spinach, orzo and lemon soup; lentil and walnut lasagne; cauliflower and chickpea curry; curried parsnip and wild rice soup; aubergine charlotte; broccoli pesto pasta.
Pasta alla genovese was my first thought, since I cook it often, but then of course, there are so many fab vegetarian Russian dishes too that I love, like pirozhki with rice and mushrooms. @maximka25
Thank you!
At this time of year my favouite vegetarina dish is asparagus risotto
There are so many it’s hard to decide. Right now I fancy a tarka dhall but tomorrow it might be butternut squash risotto.