THE award-winning ex-dinner lady Jeanette Orrey, who now advises the Soil Association on school meals policy, was unable to do her demonstration in Abergavenny, Wales, last week, so my daughter Lili and I stood in for her.
Lili was horrified to discover that we had to make Jeanette's beetroot-and-chocolate muffins. "Yuk," she said. But guess what? The muffins were delicious.
We discussed roasting beetroot a few weeks ago (September 7). You will need 250g of roasted
and peeled beetroot and then you need to whiz the beetroot in a food processor. This is the tricky bit and perhaps a little messy, but the muffins are very easy to make. I also met Charlotte Hume and her son Freddie (aged nine) at Abergavenny Food Festival. Together, they have written a cookery book with vegetable recipes for each letter of the alphabet (
www.greatbigvegchallenge.blogspot.com).
BEETROOT AND CHOCOLATE MUFFINS
Serves 12175g plain flour
1 tsp (heaped) baking powder
75g cocoa powder
225g caster sugar
3 eggs
200ml corn oil
250g blended cooked beetrootPreheat the oven to 190°C/gas 5. Wash your hands before lining a 12-mould muffin tray with muffin cases. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a bowl. Add the sugar and mix all of the dry ingredients together.
Break the eggs into a bowl and use a fork to whisk in the measured corn oil. Add the beetroot to the beaten eggs and oil, and whisk well.
Add the liquid beetroot mixture to the dry ingredients and mix everything together until it is just combined. Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases and bake for 20-25 minutes until the muffins are well risen.
Fi Bird(
www.stirrinstuff.org)
The full article contains 294 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
