Saffron, Courgette and Guanciale Savoury Muffins

So what happened was that last night is that I was home alone, watching an old episode of The Great Bake Off and I did what everyone usually wants to do: go up to the kitchen and bake something. And so I did, and came up with this batch of savoury muffins.

In all honesty, the base of these lovely muffins has been tested more times than I can count, so it wasn’t 100% improvising, but oh well. This is good news for you because this recipe is completely adaptable to any ingredients you have at home. I do feel that the saffron though gives a kick to it so I would recommend trying.

For a veggie version of these savoury muffins, just don’t use the guanciale and maybe switch for a handful of roughly chopped almonds for a bit of crunch. And for more alternatives, just scroll down to after the recipe.

Saffron, Courgette, and Guanciale Muffins

A take on the classic muffin but with a savoury twist.

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 25 minutes mins

Course Snack

Cuisine Mediterranean

Servings 12 muffins

Equipment

• Muffin Tin
• Muffin Cups (optional)

Ingredients

  

For the Savoury Muffin Base

• 200 gr all purpose flour
• 50 gr parmesan cheese (grated)
• 1 egg
• 8 gr instant dry yeast
• 200 gr milk (for dairy-free version: use soy milk)
• 40 gr vegetable oil
• 3 gr salt
• black pepper (to taste)

For the Filling

• 1 courgette/zucchini (grated)
• 100 gr guanciale or other cured meat (pancetta, speck, lardons etc) (diced)
• 15 gr saffron

Instructions

 

• Start heating up your oven at 180°C/356°F on fan.

For the Savoury Muffin Base

• Mix in one big bowl all the dry ingredients – flour, parmesan cheese, dry yeast, salt, pepper. Add the egg and start mixing.
• In another bowl, put together the milk and oil and add this to the dry ingredients bowl, a bit at the time while mixing. If too liquid, add a bit of flour.

For the Filling

• Wash and grate the courgette/zucchini and grate it. You can also use a kitchen robot and dice it very finely. Add it to the base mix.
• Add the raw guanciale and the saffron as well and mix well, making sure that no lumps of flour are sticking to the bottom of the bowl.

Baking

• Time to pour the mixture in the muffin tin: make sure to not fill the holes completely as the muffins will rise. Ideally, if you have an ice cream scoop you can use that to measure as it's the perfect size. If not, usually 1.5 tablespoons of mixture will be enough – or until it's filled for two-thirds.

  Depending on how big the egg is, sometimes you can get more mixture and therefore, some extra muffins as well!
• Put the tin in the oven that should now be hot enough. Let them cook for 20-25 minutes and let them rest for 10 minutes when you take them out before eating (hard, I know!)

Keyword Savoury Muffins

While the savoury muffins bake…

A bit of history on the savoury muffin base: anyone who’s known me for long knows I love this recipe. For so many birthdays, this has been my go-to. It’s the perfect finger food to bring to parties, it’s filling, it’s nice and moist, and it’s perfectly adaptable to any requirements.

If you have many people coming over, it’s easy to upscale and to make each batch a little different. Throw a muffin tin in the oven while you prepare the second batch and you’ll find yourself with a lot of muffins in different flavours.

This is also an excellent way to use that guanciale that you’ve hopefully bought by now to make pasta all’amatriciana — but if you haven’t already, you have a variety of places where to find it at the bottom of that recipe.

Alternatives to this filling

I came up with this recipe yesterday while thinking of a different way to use the latest (massive) courgette we got from Oddbox* last week. However, my history with savoury muffins started a long time back when I started baking them with pancetta, parmesan and a bit of pecorino cheese.

After that, I decided to try with a vegetarian options for my veggie friends and I came up with black olives and sun-dried tomatoes muffins. A success.

Did I stop there? Of course I didn’t, so I added to my savoury muffins repertory (in random order):

• Pistachios and mortadella muffins
• Ground walnuts and speck muffins
• Chopped almonds and confit tomatoes muffins

The opportunities are literally endless with this recipe. You have to adjust the filling cooking time depending on what you’re using as a filling of course (i.e. the confit tomatoes will require their own 20-30′ of cooking before being added to the mixture). However, I find that most things are fine with being thrown in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

Making Hosting Easy

We love to host people at our house (though we’ve done very little since COVID reared its head…) What we don’t like is to be stuck in the kitchen and not actually talk to our guests.

This is why we always try to come up with easy-to-make recipes that we can either prepare or at least organise ahead of time. There’s nothing better than sitting down while your muffins (or potatoes, as another example) are in the oven, snacking and having a drink or four with your guests.

Don’t have time to make them before your guests arrive? Bake them beforehand and freeze them — when you take them out, immediately heat them up in the oven at 180ºC for 5-7 mins until warm.

Where to find Italian ingredients

As usual, I appreciate that not everyone can go back to Rome for a few days and then pop back here with a 1.5kg guanciale in their luggage. Although, I’d totally advise you to do so. For this reason, I compiled a list of places both in the UK and not for you to buy some:

• Italian delis: not all of them will have them so it might be a bit of a hit or miss. If you live in London, drop us a comment and I can share a few of our trusted ones, especially in North and South London.
• Italian produce e-commerces: there are so many of them even I can’t keep track. One of the most famous ones is Nife Is Life – the saviour of Italian people in the UK – they offer a huge variety of Italian food at decent prices. Others are L’Isola Buona, Dolceterra, and Vorrei.
• Other online shops: for when I find myself not going back to Italy anytime soon, I make sure to have a good list of options to buy guanciale from for emergencies, including Kimber’s, and sometimes Ocado. For pecorino, surprisingly enough, you can try your luck at one of the big Waitrose.
• If you’re in London and don’t have an Italian deli close enough for you to pop in, your best bet is head over to Borough Market, and find the stall of Gastronomica. While you’re there, buy everything else as well. Literally. Everything. It’s my favourite stall in the market, makes me feel like home and the produce they sell is absolutely amazing. You can also buy online on their website.
• If you’re outside of the UK, you still have a few alternatives. If you have delis, always try there first (always better to go local where you can). In the US you can try IGourmet, which has an impressive selection of Italian produce. You can also try Eatalian Food for Europe/Worldwide orders, although you might want to do a big bulky order on this one.