Rose Hip Muffins
I LOVE rose hips!
I can’t quite figure out why they aren’t included in more recipes. They have bright citrus notes yet have an earthiness that is distinct and comforting. I grew up with a hot rose hip syrup drink for cold days and a sore throat. There is so much natural pectin in the fruit that making jams and jellies with them is supposedly a breeze.
Yes, they are a bit messy. There are stems and little round disks that need to get strained out, but the results are worth the bother.
Here we have 4 oz. of dried rose hips that I purchased from Sugarpill.
Rose hips, cooked and soft after making Rose Hip Syrup (will post link to that soon!)
This recipe is based on a comparison of muffin recipes I found from Joy the Baker, Smitten Kitchen, and the Bob’s Mills Corn Meal bag. Without going into complete detail, I made a comparison chart of the different amounts of different ingredients, baking times, temperatures, and techniques.
Overall I liked the technique listed in the Smitten Kitchen recipe, which was adapted from a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated. I really liked not having to melt butter in a separate pot, which is called for in many muffin recipes and annoys me for some reason. Probably because it’s an extra step time-wise and it’s something else to clean. Instead, the sugar and butter are creamed at the beginning just like when you make cookies.
3/4 cup oat bran
1/4 cup millet flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 tbsp sweet rice flour
1 cup cooked and strained rose hips
zest of 1 small lemon
6 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 greek yogurt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
Pre-heat oven to 375 F.
Cream together the butter and sugar in a mixer for approximately 3 minutes.
While butter and sugar are creaming, mix together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in separate bowl.
When butter and sugar are combined, add egg plus egg yolk to mixture, and stir until just combined. Then add yogurt and zest until combined.
Slowly add flour mixture to the wet ingredients in the mixer bowl.
Add the rose hips.
Spoon batter into muffin cups.
Makes 12 smaller muffins or 10 larger muffins.
Made these muffins using an over-pureed batch of rosehips (de-seeded, cleaned and cooked first), which I originally intended to make jelly with. (They were so pureed I could barely get any liquid to drain out to make jelly.) I also didn’t have all of the ingredients, so substituted: Spelt flour for the millet flour, lemon extract for the lemon zest, plain white rice flour for the sweet rice flower, a quarter cup soft cream cheese to the yogurt to get it to 3/4 cup overall, half a teaspoon turmeric to jazz up the color. Made 23 mini muffins, and, despite the substitutions, they came out great! Next time I would like to add some poppie seeds and I would have this time but mine had gone rancid.