Carrot muffins with garlic butter

These are wonderful straight out of the oven, with the garlicky butter melting away in a hole in the middle…It’s a great recipe to make with the kids as there’s lots of grating, mashing and snipping, measuring and weighing… If you have no cupcake cases, just melt a tablespoon of butter in a small saucepan and, using a pastry brush cover each hole with a thin film of butter. This will stop the muffins sticking to the pan. We also used chives instead of parsley – snipping them with kids’ scissors – & made them even better!

Carrot muffins with garlic butter

From the garden: carrots, parsley, eggs, garlic
Recipe source: adapted from Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids
Makes: 12 large or about 30 mini muffins

 What to do:

• Preheat oven to 180C. Drop the cupcake cases into the tin.
• Wash, peel and grate the carrot to yield about ½ a cup. Wash, dry and chop the parsley. Weigh the cheese & then grate it.
• Weigh the flour then mix it with the cheese, carrot, parsley and table salt together in a medium bowl.
• In the other medium bowl whisk the egg, buttermilk and oil together.
• Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the liquid mixture. Mix lightly and then spoon into muffin cases to about 2/3 full. Bake for 25 minutes for the large & about 15-20 for the small muffins.
• While the muffins are cooking, make the garlic butter: Squeeze the garlic through the garlic press into the small bowl and add the butter and a pinch of salt. Mix until smooth. Place in a log shape on a piece of baking paper, roll up lightly, sealing the edges and put in freezer until firm.
• Remove muffins from the oven. Allow to sit for a minute before turning out onto the wire rack to cool. Remove the butter from the freezer and slice into thin discs.
• When the muffins are cool, make a slit in the top of each insert a slice of garlic butter and place on serving plates.

 Notes: What is buttermilk? What is a well in the centre of the dry ingredients?

Buttery garlic goodness…