#Recipe: Peanut-Butter Pecan Chocolate Chip Muffins (with sour milk & cooked amaranth)

So I had half a gallon of milk go off on me in the fridge the other day. Not something I was expecting, but not the end of the world. Usually, when this happens, there’s only about a litre to work with, and I usually just turn it into pancakes (which is where the other 4-5C are probably going to go, honestly, tomorrow morning) but I was on my own today and wanted to bake something, so I decided to make muffins.
 
Turns out I’m also out of eggs.
 
This is also not the end of the world. Add extra levener (baking powder, for example), use a solid fat rather than a liquid one, and add a few tablespoons of nut/seed butter for the sticky-protein that makes a binder when you’re baking.
 
Both of the recipes that I based today’s offering on called for leftover oatmeal. I’m not really a poridge person, so I don’t tend to have leftover oatmeal lying around, but I decided to use cooked amaranth (cooked in some of the sour milk, no less) instead, since it also firms up as a it cools.
 
The end result (only a few minutes out of the oven, while still warm) is cakey & rich-feeling, but not too sweet. The amaranth (once baked) adds a nice crunch, too.
 
Here you go. 😀
 
 
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Peanut-Butter Pecan Chocolate Chip Muffins
 
INGREDIENTS
 
3C flour
¾ C brown sugar
¼ C cocoa
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
 
½ C peanut butter (use half if you want to add 1 egg to the recipe)
½ C margarine (use half if you want to add 1 egg to the recipe)
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 C cooked amaranth (cook in further sour milk)
 
1 C sour milk
 
½ pecans
½ C chocolate chips
 
 
DIRECTIONS
 
Cook 1C raw amaranth in 2C sour milk (or water, if you don’t have tonnes of sour milk lying around – you can also use left-over cooked oatmeal for this if you want, though I haven’t tried that route).
 
Mix the dry ingredients together in a big bowl.
 
Mix the peanut-butter, margarine, vanilla, and vinegar together in a 2C measuring cup
 
Spoon the peanut-butter mixture into the middle of the dry ingredients.
 
Pour the hot, cooked amaranth over the peanut-butter mixture (this will get it to melt a little)
 
Mix everything together lightly
 
Add 1C sour milk to the mixture
 
Mix everything together until it’s smooth and there aren’t any streaks of flour in it
 
Add the pecans and chocolate chips and mix in lightly
 
Scoop by the heaping spoonful into muffin cups (I use paper liners, but you do you)
 
Bake at 400F for 20 minutes
 
Allow to cool at least a little before diving in.
Makes ~24 muffins (I got 23, but ymmv).
 
 
~*~
 
I’m thoroughly enjoying these goodies (I’ve had three, in the space of about half a hour, just so you know) and will have to remember to leave room for turkey wings and sunchokes and similar (to be cooked around 7pm for a late dinner).
 
 
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.