Mincemeat Muffins
One of the many lessons I remember my Jr. High Home Ec. teacher, Mrs Phelps, teaching us is that you can always tell how ‘healthy’ a muffin is based on how textured its top is — healthy-for-you muffins have a lot of texture, and not-so-good-for-you muffins have a smoother top. Who knows if that’s really true or not, but it’s something I think of whenever I see muffins. Ever look at a ‘chocolate chip’ muffin-top? Pretty smooth, eh? I rest my case.
These muffins have a fairly textured top in-spite of their richness. Their flavour is a little bit spiced, and their crumb is, well, crumb-like and a little bit dense. It’s a really good muffin if you like dried fruit and peel — its’ the focus of the muffin and has nowhere to hide.
If you like to spread butter or jam on your muffins, these will do well. At the same time, so long as they’re not over-baked, they are moist enough and have enough flavour to stand on their own without any added toppings.
Bonus: this recipe will use up that mincemeat at the back of your fridge that you’ve been wondering how to use now that Christmas was four months ago (don’t worry, mincemeat has a very long shelf life.)
Actually, one of my deep dark secrets is that at Christmas I buy extra jars of mincemeat so that I have some to make these with later in the year ;-)
The Recipe
from Company’s Coming’s Muffins and More
makes 6 jumbo or 16-18 regular muffins
1 egg
1/4 cup / 60mL vegetable oil
1 cup / 250mL mincemeat
1/2 cup / 125mL milk
2 cups / 500mL flour
1/4 cup / 60mL sugar
1 tsp. / 5mL baking powder
1 tsp. / 5mL baking soda
1/2 tsp. / 2mL salt
1/2 tsp. / 2mL cinnamon
How-To
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees (F) / 200 degrees (C).
Combine the egg, oil, mincemeat and milk in a bowl and stir well. It might take a minute or two to break up the mincemeat, but don’t worry and do it.
Measure out the flour, sugar, baking powder & soda, salt and cinnamon on top, then stir just to combine. Dough will be smooth but with lumps (which are the fruit from the mincemeat.) Don’t over stir as it will make the muffins tough!
Bake for 20-25 minutes. Just like other muffins, be sure not to over bake these puppies — it will dry them out. Check them regularly and remove them from the oven as soon as the crumbs on your tester look dry.
3 Comments
[...] have mincemeat left over at the end, and want to try making something else, try making a batch of Mincemeat Muffins (another [...]
This is the best muffin receipe . Easy to make tasty and good for you . I tried different mincemeat(jared and bulk). The mincemeat from the Bulk Barn is by far the best and no suet to upset my vegan friends.
Yes, this is a favourite of mine. I just use whatever mincemeat I have left over — this year it was the President’s choice stuff (which also comes in a vegetarian version). Glad to hear you enjoyed :-)