Every time I listen to a news report about egg allergy, the most convincing evidence of egg allergies is an anecdote in which a child appears to be so allergic that the parents can’t have any eggs at all for a month or more. This story occurs every day, more often than not, in supermarket stores or restaurants. In this country alone, egg allergies have grown to such a degree that, just in the last few months, there were more than 400 kids who became allergic to eggs, and egg allergy is often the cause of lifetime disability or death. For whatever reasons, children have become the target of this significant new surge in egg allergy cases.
About 30 years ago, an article in the American Journal of Immunology recorded 790 new cases of egg allergy every year, and about 600 cases of egg allergy in children were recorded annually. Every five years, the numbers keep going up, by some measure at least doubling.
This has opened up a market for a special diet niche for professional food outlets that use commercial catering systems, one of which was generous enough to share with us a recipe for an eggless muffin.
Baking a homemade muffin might be an interesting pursuit. What better than a delightful cinnamon-hazelnut spread? I opted for one of the simplest recipes of them all (baking a muffin with no eggs is usually rather easy with a standard muffin recipe) and used a mixture of butter, butter-cream cheese and cinnamon and sugar in lieu of eggs*. This was very easy to put together and works well even for muffins that are smaller or larger.
Ingredients:
1 cup milk (1%)
*3 eggs (2 large eggs and 1 egg-size egg)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (1/2 cup of granulated sugar for each muffin.)
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup unsalted butter-cream cheese (chocolate-flavored would be great too.)
1/4 cup pureed hazelnuts (added last)
Directions:
Heat oven to 425 degrees.
Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside.
In a saucepan, mix the eggs, milk and cinnamon. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook until thick enough to be rivalled by a custard in a saucepan. (This will take about 5 minutes.) Then turn the heat to low. (You should be able to easily stir with a wooden spoon.)
In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and cream-cheese together. When the butter-cream cheese is fully incorporated, add the sugar, salt and spices and mix again until well combined. Then add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Add the nuts and mix again until the nuts are fully incorporated. (Set aside.)
Fill each muffin cup halfway with the mixture. (It will make about 12 muffins.) Bake until the muffins are golden brown and the butter-cream cheese is a thick liquid that coats the bottom of each muffin. You will be done about 15 minutes.
Cool before removing the muffins from the muffin pan and putting in a storage container for up to 2 weeks.
Bon appetit!
Want more delicious recipes? Check out my new book ‘Baking From My Heart’, just in time for spring.
Do you enjoy baking? How do you bake?