Something out of Nothing: Bottom of the Bag Poppyseed Muffins

Every year at about this time I make my bottom-of-the-bag bread (or BOTB cookies or something) in which I use up the very last bits of all the flour in the house in preparation for Passover. Every year the ingredients are very different, of course, but so far (turn away, evil eye!) I have always been delighted by the results. This year, I had flour, semolina and a bit of Aunt Jemima’s cornmeal mix, made of flour, white cornmeal, baking powder and salt.

Also in need of a home was some leftover poppy seed filling I made for Purim a few weeks ago. I used to make a cardamom-scented poppy seed cake for a movie place downtown, and the preparation of the poppy seeds for the cake (grinding, cooking in milk with citrus zest) was close enough to the process for making the filling that I thought it might just work.I decided to do muffins rather than cake so that the crunchy poppy seeds could better enjoy higher crust-to-crumb ratio, and because I was a little afraid a cake might not hold together with the improvised flour combination. The poppy filling is made with poppy seeds, milk, honey and orange and lemon zest, and I added zest from one more orange and lemon because they were there, and because I like to play with my micro-plane grater.

What with the poppy seeds and seasonings this may not seem like the most frugal recipe, but in the current circumstances in my kitchen, this really was Something out of Nothing. Thanks to Lindy for the challenge!

Bottom of the Bag Poppyseed Muffins

About 13 ounces flour (I used 7 ounces all-purpose flour, 3 ounces semolina flour, and 3 ounces Aunt Jemima’s cornmeal mix)
1 cup sugar (these were a bit sweet. You may want to moderate the sugar)
¼ teaspoon cardamom
rounded ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup oil
3 eggs
1 teaspoon rosewater
½ cup milk
1 ½ cups poppyseed filling leftover from homentashn

Preheat oven to 400 and prepare muffin cups or a tube-pan. In a large bowl, stir together the flours, sugar, spices, salt, and baking powder. In another bowl, beat the eggs with the oil, and add rosewater, milk and poppy seed filling. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the poppy seed mixture. Combine gently but thoroughly. If the batter is too stiff, add a bit more milk. Scoop the mixture into muffin cups (or tube pan), and place in the oven. After 10 minutes, lower heat to 350. Bake another ten minutes and rotate the pans front to back and top to bottom. Bake ten more minutes. The muffins are done when the edges are golden. This recipe made 14 large muffins. If you only have one muffin pan, bake the extra batter in a small skillet or steel bowl.