This week we’re not featuring a UTM professor or staff member; instead, it’s just me, your dear features editor. We’ll cut them some slack on the recipe front. I mean, it is the last week of the term.
I had hoped to share with you a treasured family holiday recipe, but to be honest, despite the amount of cooking I do, I’ve never prepared a full-out turkey dinner all by myself. And my father, who takes on that responsibility in our family, is a no-recipe kind of guy. However, I’ve selected what I believe to be a fairly holiday-appropriate recipe for that timeless baked good, the “scuffin”.
Yes, I’ve admittedly jumped right on the crossbreeding baking trend, which includes such classics as the cronut, and brought together scones and muffins into one single bundle of goodness. I’ve rebaptized Jack Munroe’s soda bread recipe from my current favourite cookbook, A Girl Called Jack, which I consider a must-read for any student cook—I mean, this is the lady who rose to fame after blogging about cooking for her and her son on only £10 a week, or about $17 Canadian.
The beauty of this simple recipe is that it can take the brunt of most holiday leftovers from dad’s Thanksgiving cranberry sauce to Mini Eggs and the other remnants of last year’s Easter candy. Free feel to add whatever dregs of your holiday meal remain. (My next venture includes pumpkin puree.) And who says your additions have to be sweet? Be adventurous and try a savoury version with chunks of turkey, perhaps, or roast beef and gravy, along with some complementary cheese. Likewise, I’m sure any vegetable side dish would sit nicely in the shelter of the doughy scuffin.
May these fine scuffins nourish you during many a late night study session this exam season and renew tired holiday leftovers. And with that, class is dismissed—we’ll reconvene with more recipes in January.
Leftover-Eating Scuffins (adapted from Jack Monroe’s A Girl Called Jack)
Makes 12 scuffins
INGREDIENTS
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) lemon juice
- 1½ cups (300 ml) milk
- 2½ cups (625 ml) flour
- 2 tsp (10 ml) baking powder
- 1½ tsp (7.5 ml) bicarbonate of soda
- 3 cups (750 ml) holiday leftovers—meat, fruit or vegetable puree, chocolate, etc.
METHOD
- Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C).
- Add the lemon juice to the milk and put to one side.
- Mix the flour, baking powder, and bicarbonate of soda and make a well in the centre.
- Pour the lemon juice and milk mixture in the flour and fold together with a spatula. Be careful to combine the ingredients in as few movements as possible.
- Scoop 12 portions of the dough into lightly oiled muffin tins.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and the tops are slightly browned.
