Bharathy,SrivalliandLathamma started this Arusuvai Chain. Now the second season is organised by Sayantani of A Homemaker’s Diary. It is my term in the arusuvai chain. When Divya Kudua posted her recipe, she had mentioned that a parcel has been sent to me. I was eagerly waiting for the parcel to arrive. When I received the parcel from Divya, I was on cloud nine. Atlast I have my mystery ingredient of the Arusuvai Chain. . Divya sent me a hand written note along with a lovely gift, a wonderful book on Home Made Chocolates by Nita Mehta. And there was a box containing the mystery ingredient. I am not that bright in identifying spices. I have seen this spice but didn’t know the name. I usually don’t use this in my cooking. So I started searching the web. As I know that it is a spice , I used the term spice in the search column. I got a lot of photos but not one resembled this spice. After half an hour, I got the result. It is Jathipathri/Mace/Javitri.
Mace is the outer covering of the Nutmeg fruit. It has a beautiful lacy form. The aroma is wonderful. As I searched for recipes using mace, I saw a lot of Indian biriyani and kurma recipes. When I searched for international recipes, I got recipes for cakes and cookies. I didn’t want to try biriyani, because many spices are used for the masala. The flavour of mace will go undetected in those recipes. I wanted to prepare something in which the flavour of mace is the dominating factor. So I decided upon a cookie. When finished baking one batch, I was not satisfied with the results. They were so soft. So I added more buttermilk and prepared a cake batter, Filled some paper cups and baked them. Wow! The result was super soft and spongy muffins with crispy peanuts. The taste was divine. We liked it very much. The aroma of ground mace filled the house. mmmm… yummy.. I prepared this using the home made biscuit mix. You can prepare it in large quantities and store it in the fridge for 2 weeks. If freezed it will be good for 6 months. I got this recipe from here.
Ingredients:
For the Biscuit Mix:
Flour-10cups
Baking Powder-1/2cup
White Sugar-2tbs
Salt-2tsp
Vegetable Oil-1 1/4cups
For the Muffins:
Biscuit mix-2cups
Brown Sugar-3/4cup tightly packed
Ground Mace ( Jathi pathri)-1tsp
Shortening/Vanaspathi-1/4cup
Milk-1/3cup
Buttermilk-1/2cup
Peanut-1cup
Procedure:
Biscuit Mix:
1.Mix flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl.
2.Add oil and mix well. The flour will resemble bread crumbs.
3.When the crumby texture is evenly distributed, store mix in an airtight container and refrigerate.
4.Whenever the recipe calls for biscuit mix, you can use this.
5.I prepared mix with 2 ½ cups of flour for this recipe. I got 3 cups of biscuit mix.
Muffins:
1.In a baking tray, spread the peanuts and bake it for 5-10minutes.
2.When the skin cracks, remove from oven and allow it to cool.
3.When cool, remove skin and chop the nuts. I pulsed it in the mixer grinder for 3 seconds. Keep it aside.
4.Mix the biscuit mix, sugar and mace. (actual recipe called for 1 cup of brown sugar. But the muffins were very sweet. So I have reduced the amount in the recipe. If you have a sweet tooth then go for 1 cup)
5.Add the vanaspathi and mix well.
6.Add milk and butter milk to the mixture.
7.Stir in the roasted and chopped peanuts.
8.Line a muffin tray with cups. Fill the cups to 3/4th with the batter.
9.Preheat oven to 170C.
10.Bake the muffins for 10-12minutes or till the top is golden brown.
11.Remove form oven and cool on wire rack.
12.Enjoy with a hot cup of coffee.
Now I will be sending mystery ingredients to Veena and Shalini. As the pongal holidays are on, I will be sending it after the holidays.
I love painting, dress designing and of course cooking. This blog which started as an online cookery book has given me a great insight into baking and has transformed me into a home baker who is now thriving to learn a lot about cakes and decorating techniques. This blog has thousands of tried and tasted vegetarian recipes around the world and eggless bakes.
thats so so innovative Gayathri. I could have never thought of a cake recipe with this spice but you made it with an amazing result. glad that you enjoyed being in the chain and now will wait to see your recreations from this book. between have put up the running round up of this chain. will include this today. thanks.
A muffin with mace! Till now this was used only in my pulavs and some spicy curries. Got another delicious use for the spice. Muffins look absolutely gorgeous and am sure would have tasted great.
Happy Pongal and congrats on being a part of this chain…mace in cookies…it is a wonderful and novel idea..bet they were delicious…Blogging marathon…welcome… Reva
Never even thought of adding mace to muffins! Looks delish!
Delicious looking muffins nicely flavoured 🙂
Mace is a very fragrant spice..I would never have thought of using it in a muffin but now I am definitely curious 🙂
US Masala
Never thought of using mace … and then jumping from cookie to muffin is a wonderfull experiment..
I will surely try this and let you know
Super Yummy Recipes
wow its really very new to me dear…. to be sure, i dont know there is a spice called mace until now.
and the muffins, simply superb… no words to say….
thanks for sharing…
Event: Dish Name Starts with E
Learning-to-cook
Regards,
Akila
Yummy Muffins!!!!
thats so so innovative Gayathri. I could have never thought of a cake recipe with this spice but you made it with an amazing result. glad that you enjoyed being in the chain and now will wait to see your recreations from this book. between have put up the running round up of this chain. will include this today.
thanks.
have included your post in the round up/ plz check.
Lovely muffins with the fragrance of mace.
muffins looks delicious
A muffin with mace! Till now this was used only in my pulavs and some spicy curries. Got another delicious use for the spice. Muffins look absolutely gorgeous and am sure would have tasted great.
BAKING QUEEN…
I usually use mace in making briyanis, adding them in muffins sounds interesting..Awesome!Welcome to Blogging Marathon..
Happy Pongal and congrats on being a part of this chain…mace in cookies…it is a wonderful and novel idea..bet they were delicious…Blogging marathon…welcome…
Reva
Gayathri, muffins look great!
btw, I am also doing a 15 day marathon.
ஜாதிபத்திரி சேர்த்திருப்பது வித்தியாசமா இருக்கு,சூப்பர் மபின்ஸ்!!
a muffin with mace. wow!!!!truly innovative. waiting to see all those chocolates from the book.Eagerly waiting to see the mystry ingrediet too:-)
Muffin with mace sounds delicious.
muffins looks yummy n soft..
delicious and soft
soft and moist muffins
aah–mace in muffins, whata touch !lovely very well written post and this mystery box chain sounds fun! great job gayathri
Lovely muffins
very innovative. i liked the idea of using the mace as well as the biscuit mix.
Very innovative……muffins n mace….should try it.
that surely sounds interesting 🙂 great presentation !
Yummy looking muffins!!
Very Nice Muffins…looks like to taste it.