'Baking' for insomniacs - quick (non-baked) breakfast muffins

By muffins here I mean English ones - hence the 'breakfast' in the title - not the overpumped cake mix ones that seem to come in childs head sizes nowadays.  Ooh wait - I had this rant before right?

This recipe also isn't technically baked but it was made at some godawful hour of the morning. Just gone 5am really but as we switched to BST yesterday technically it was just after 6am. Either way my brain was WIDE AWAKE so that was that.
Now this month I have been tardy with my blog challenges – random recipes should have been in 2 days ago although in my defence it was with some surprise I realised it was April 1st today and not March 31st – oops! One of the other challenges I like is Turquoise Lemon’s ‘No Waste Food Challenge’ which for March was hosted by Elizabeth’s Kitchen and had the theme of eggs.

 One of the *freebie books I downloaded to my kindle some time back was the intriguing ‘Many Ways for Cooking Eggs’ by Mrs S.T. Rorer, a book from the late 1800’s / early 1900’s written by the cook for a substantial household it seems, and I think, in America. It’s one of those old books that have been converted to a digital format by volunteers who don’t want to lose these historical records. I’m fascinated by old cook books as much for the social history they tell you as for the (sometimes hilarious) recipes and thought I’d have a quick skim through that in search of an intriguing egg recipe. Although it’s packed with really random ways to serve eggs they all seemed to take the form of ‘make a sauce with X in it, hard boil / shirr etc your egg. Serve on sippets of toast in a platter and cover with the sauce and send to the table at once.’ Not really the inspiration I was looking for. Until I happened upon the ‘Eggs Benedict’ recipe and saw that it gave a quick muffin method that’s then cooked on a flat griddle on the hob. This was more like it. So – quick non-baked breakfast muffins it is for my entry (if they’ll still let me link in) to March’s egg themed no waste food challenge.
Made 8 muffins
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1.5 cups plain flour
0.5 tsp salt (after tasting the first one I’d up this to at least a full teaspoon)
1 tbsp melted butter
2 tsp baking powder
 >I then also added 0.5 tbsp wholegrain mustard to the mix for 2 muffins and a whole lot of ground pepper and some finely grated strong hard cheese to the mix for another 2.

Separate the eggs. Beat the milk into the yolks, then sieve in the flour bit by bit and beat this in. Add the salt and butter and beat in. Finally beat in the baking powder. The recipe calls for level teaspoons; my BP was out of date so I used slightly rounded ones.

In a separate bowl beat the whites vigorously – I did mine by hand and got them to what I believe would be called ‘soft peaks’. Fold them into the yolk/flour mix.
Cook in very well greased muffin rings on a griddle. I don’t have a griddle so used the frying pan I know has the most even heat distribution. Added a little olive oil and keep re-greasing the rings between batches; due to the size of the pan I could only do 2 at one.
The mix rises as it cooks – if you overfill the rings it will spill over the top! Oops!

About 2/3 full is right I found. Once the underside is nicely golden brown and the mix has risen ease a small knife around the inside of the ring before turning the whole thing over. Then carefully using a glove/ cloth etc ease the ring off – you’ll need to use something like the handle of the knife to press the muffin out from the ring at the same time.

>Once I had the second batch in the pan I split what mix was left and added the wholegrain mustard /cheese and pepper as mentioned above so had 4 plain and 2 in each flavor. I used to love the cheese and pepper muffins S’burys used to do so this is very exciting for me! You could also try adding a pinch of herbs or spices too – endless possibilities.

I had a plain one with a little cheese melted on. Very good indeed and pretty quick and easy – in fact it’s the cooking that took me the time – and cost me a few burnt finger tips – be careful breakfast buddies!
*It’s now 77p. In my version this recipe is 52% of the way into the book.