High-fibre Savoury Corn Muffins

Another on-going love affair of mine is with Sweet Corn…ooooh yes I have so many of them affairs going on with different foods, if you tried to count, you’d most certainly faint! These High-fibre Savoury Corn Muffins were born on what would have been an otherwise boring Sunday evening, and did we love it, or did we love it?!! Like I mentioned, I’m on this weight-loss spree, and when my dietitian put all of my favourite foods into the list of ‘Do NOT even dream of eating’, read rich, calorific foods that weren’t doing me any good, I thought “Sigh! There goes my baking wish-list down the drain”. But then, when I was driving back home, I had a brilliant idea, in fact, the most brilliant idea that my brain has churned out in the recent past if you asked me. And what was that you think? I decided that ahem, I would still bake (!!), but but but, I’d be a good girl and bake healthy, as healthy as it can get. And since that was me being angelic for once, I really wanted to make the most of it!

Sooooo…I present to thee, a successful experiment from my kitchen, a really healthy option to tingle those savoury taste-buds. Think of this: Its pouring cats and dogs, its evening chai time, and you’re craving some hot (deep-fried) snack. No, don’t rush to make yourself some fritters…make these instead, and you’ll thank me for not adding on any more of those unwanted calories. Read on, and I’ll take a bet you’ll be running to your kitchen in no time, to make yourself some of these.

Ingredients:

• Fine Cornmeal/Maize Flour – 1 cup (You could use coarse cornmeal too. Fine cornmeal is what I get at my grocers)
• Wheat Bran – 1/2 cup
• Instant Oats – 1/2 cup
• Baking powder – 1 tsp
• Baking soda – 1/2 tsp
• Flax seed powder – 3 tsps mixed in 3/4th cup warm water (substituting 3 eggs; though I’ve used them in place of egg here, I’d still thrown in the flax seed powder for health reasons if I were using the egg)
• Buttermilk – 1 1/4 cups
• Sweet corn kernels (off the cob) – 1 cup
• Spring Onion shoots – 1 cup (finely chopped)
• Red Chilli flakes – 2 tbsps (alter to suit your taste)
• Low fat Cheese powder (optional) – 2 tbsps
• Sugar – 1 tsp
• Salt – to taste
• Olive Oil – 2 tbsps (you could use any oil; I wanted to make mine as healthy as I could)

Note: This proportion makes 12 standard-sized muffins.

Procedure:

• Pre-heat the oven to 190c/375F.
• The batter is pretty easy to put together. Lets start with all the dry ingredients – cornmeal, wheat bran, instant oats, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, cheese powder (if using). Yeah, just dunk them into your bowl and stir well to incorporate everything.
• Next, tip in the sweet corn kernels, spring onion shoots, chilli flakes and stir again. You should have a crumbly mixture now. Work with your hands at this stage, a couple minutes if you feel like getting messy.
• Now add the flax seed powder-water mixture, buttermilk and oil. Stir well again, this time with a nice clean spatula (and not your hands, ‘cos its icky).
• Place muffin paper liners in your muffin tray, and spoon the readied batter onto readied muffin moulds, about 3/4th full. These aren’t going to rise very much, just a wee bit.
• Garnish with more sweet corn kernels and spring onion shoots if you like. They really add to the colour, which is what I love the most. See those lovely hues of yellow and green on the muffins? That’s what I meant…you like it too? Come join the club.
• Bake the muffins for 20 minutes or till firm. They should feel springy to touch, and the toothpick test should give you a clean toothpick.
• Cool on a wire-rack turned upside down so that they cool faster and you can attack them even sooner! Enjoy them muffins with a nice hot cuppa, as you watch the rain from your window just like I did, and revel in the corn-nirvana! What’s more, you needn’t feel guilty one bit, cos you’re doing your bod a lot of good with every muffin that you pop in your mouth, so binge away!

You bet I’ve gotten myself some of that Muffin-mania, and looks like the Muffin-Man’s here to stay, so watch this space for more of such healthy baked goodies. For those of you who don’t want to eat as healthy, I’ll continue to mollycoddle you too, for I went on this ‘let-me-eat-all-I-want-to-before-I-go-on-the-goddamned-diet’ spree right before I started my diet, and they’re all awaiting their turn in my drafts, so stay tuned, whether you’re dieting, or not!