Teff Gingerbread Muffins

Teff? Really? You bet. I love teff. Because I love whole grains!

Teff is originally from Africa. It's related to millet but with a much deeper, more sophisticated, almost molasses-like taste. It's stocked with phosphorus and thiamin; it's got seventeen times (!) the calcium as wheat or barley. And it's got a great fiber profile. As you may know, the specific mix of fibers in whole grains makes the nutrients more readily available to the body, far more accessible than refined grains that have those very same nutrients "added back" after processing.

Teff is the world's smallest grain, tiny little grains about twice the size of the period at the end of this sentence. In fact, "teff" in Amharic (a language of central Ethiopia) means "lost," probably a reference to how easy it is to lose track of those Lilliputian grains.

Ground, teff grains become a whole-grain flour. If you've never tried teff, now's the time! You can find teff flour in almost all large supermarkets--and in any health-food store, as well as from online suppliers. And since the flour is just the ground whole grain, you're getting the full teff punch in every bite of these muffins.

I'm going to give you them in two forms: one with butter and one with walnut oil. Either way, they're spicy and delicious, a real treat in the afternoon or for breakfast. Let's get to it.

First, position the rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 425F/220C. Lightly grease a standard-sized muffin tin. (More on that in a second.)

Whisk all this in a large bowl: 1 1/4 cups (150 grams) teff flour, 3/4 cup (90 grams) whole wheat pastry flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves.

Next, use an electric mixer at medium speed to mix these together in a second bowl until creamy and smooth: 1 large egg, 1 cup (240 ml) milk, 1/2 cup (90 grams) muscavado or packed dark brown sugar, and 6 tablespoons (90 ml) walnut oil or 6 tablespoons (90 grams) melted and cooled unsalted butter.

Three notes:

1. The amount of sugar is much lower than in some muffins. Some people "hide" whole grains behind copious amounts of sugar in an effort to introduce the uninitiated. I don't mean to go off on a jag, but that's not the best way to train your palate. You should find out how teff tastes--and discover ways that you can come to like yet another whole grain that's so good for you. Keep an open mind, not an overworked pancreas!
2. Use walnut oil or melted and cooled unsalted butter. Natch, the walnut oil makes these muffins vegan.
3. You can use any sort of milk you please. I made my batch with fat-free milk, so they won't stay as fresh and are best eaten within an hour or so of their coming out of the oven. But feel free to use low-fat or even full-fat milk.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, using a wooden spoon. The batter will get sticky but work at it--without overworking the batter. You want to make sure all the dry ingredients are moistened--and then stop stirring to avoid stretching any glutens and rendering them tough as they dry out in the oven.

Divide the batter among the indentations in the muffin tin. Fill each indentation about two-thirds to three-quarters full. Because there's no standard muffin tin, you'll need to eyeball this step. If your batch makes eleven muffins, so be it. You don't need to do anything except leave that empty indentation alone.

Bake until puffed, until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out with a couple of crumbs attached, 18 minutes, maybe a little more or less depending on the size of your tin's indentations. Cool the muffins in the tin for a couple of minutes, then turn them out onto a wire rack and continue cooling for at least 5 minutes--or until room temperature, at which point you can seal them in a zip-closed bag and keep them on the counter a couple of days or freeze them for up to 4 months.

Comments

[R]

The egg and milk keep this muffin from being vegan, even if you use the walnut oil. As you say, one can use any sort of milk (presumably including non-dairy milks, e.g. soy or almonds), making this an easy substitution, but the egg is far trickier. I enjoy the blog, but you might want to watch the use of the v-word.

[Mark Scarbrough]

R:

Yep, my fault. Sorry. I can only chalk it up to a very busy day with a blog post at the end--and then my thinking, Oh, no butter, so they're vegan. Of course they're not. Duh. I've changed the post--and I really appreciate your comment.

M.