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Ali Baba’s Muffins

Ali Baba's Muffins

In One Thousand and One Nights, Ali Baba stored his treasure in large pots with lids. This inspired the author of the recipe, to give these muffins such an unusual name, because they reminded of the pots. To me, they more seem like the turbans of the 40 thieves. Only, you only get 12 in this version of the story ;)

Maslinka perfected Mignonne’s recipe, by adding spinach into dough and baking them in a muffin pan. I used stinging nettle from the back of my garden. They were fantastic!

Ali Baba's Muffins

For the dough: 120 g whole wheat flour, 120 g white flour, 250 g stinging nettle leaves, 50 g cream cheese, 40 g grated Parmesan cheese, 1 egg, 30 ml olive oil, 50 ml milk, 20 g fresh yeast, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp sea salt

Boil a large pot of water. Put stinging nettle in the water and cook for about 3 minutes. Strain, discard the water and rinse with cold water. Finely chop.

Make a starter combining yeast, sugar and warm milk in a large cup and cover. Leave like that for a couple of minutes (but don’t let it “escape” from the cup).

In a bowl combine stinging nettle, cream cheese, egg, oil, Parmesan and salt. Add starter and both kind of flours. Knead everything into soft dough adding more flour if necessary. Cover with a cloth and let it rest for a while.

Ali Baba's Muffins

For the filling: 150 g diced bacon, 150 g cream cheese and 1 egg white. You can make any filling you think will fit inside this dough.

Assembling: Flatten the dough 4-5 mm thin. Cut out 12 10 cm diameter circles (I used a bowl to cut them out). Place each circle in a hole of a regular sized muffin pan, put some filling inside and slightly press the edges of the dough towards the filling (see Maslinka’s post for the photos, they’ll make this perfectly clear). Cut out 12 4,5 cm diameter circles using your round crinkled cookie cutter and place them on top of your muffins. using a pastry brush, spread 1 egg yolk over them and sprinkle with some flax seed. Bake in a preheated oven on 200°C for about 30 minutes. You will probably have some leftover dough. Maslinka suggests shaping it as grissini and baking along side muffins. Btw, in the original recipe goes 400 g spinach. I added only 250 g stinging nettle because I didn’t have any more.

Ali Baba's Muffins

Note: This is my entry for this month’s FBI Rukavice, created by mamajac, where we’re investigating Maslinka’s blog. Here is the original recipe.

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17 Comments

  • Rosa’s Yummy Yums June 27, 2009 3:36 pm

    Very original! Those muffins look so pretty and delicious!Cheers,Rosa

  • mamajac June 27, 2009 4:18 pm

    Izgledaju savršeno!

  • maybelles mom June 27, 2009 4:22 pm

    what a great use for stinging nettles.

  • Dragana June 27, 2009 5:29 pm

    Molimte mi posalji jednu…ili dve!

  • Dragon June 27, 2009 9:46 pm

    So creative. I can't wait to try them!

  • maslinka June 27, 2009 11:45 pm

    perfektno su ti ispale :)

  • My Little Space June 28, 2009 3:04 am

    Your postings are really beautiful!

  • Junglefrog June 28, 2009 4:02 am

    They look delicious! I sure have enough stinging nettle in my garden so maybe I should finally use them to my advantage instead of ripping them out where they do not belong!

  • lisa (dandysugar) June 28, 2009 10:08 am

    Wow, these are very unique and look fantastic! I love all of the ingredients. Delicious, great photos too!

  • Sweet Corner June 28, 2009 12:14 pm

    fenomenalno izgledaju…a ne mogu se nagledati fotki:))

  • Natalie June 28, 2009 9:15 pm

    These look delicious! I did not know what nettle is so I just read up on it, I do not know if that is available in Texas. Either way I may make these soon!

  • Andrea June 29, 2009 1:02 am

    Stvarno izgledaju savrešeno, prekrasni su. :)

  • cosmo2503 June 29, 2009 7:51 am

    Predivno i opet primjećeno na Foodgawkeru. Pomislih što je ovo lijepo i ima divan naziv i eto opet tvoj post…

  • farida June 29, 2009 6:32 pm

    These are so beautiful! I love what spinach made to the dough adding a nice green color. Unique recipe!

  • Marc @ NoRecipes June 29, 2009 10:08 pm

    Ohhhh I still have a bit of blanched nettle from spring sitting in my freezer I've been looking to put to good use. These look terrific!

  • nlo June 30, 2009 5:01 am

    prekrasne fotografije:))

  • Kalyn June 30, 2009 4:37 pm

    What an interesting recipe, sounds like it would taste great.

Comments are closed.