Crumble Thandai Muffins with a surprise center

Thandai is almost synonymous with spring. Maha Shivratri and Holi feel incomplete without this refreshing cooling drink. And so rightly so! With all its beautiful flavours and aroma, it really is a crowd pleaser.

Taking inspiration from this wonderful drink, here’s a recipe for a crumble topped muffin that will sure win your heart this Holi! A fluffy and decadent cake perfumed beautifully with rose, cardamom, fennel, black pepper and poppy seeds, a crunchy crumble top with deliciousness of roasted nuts and seeds and a soft, creamy golden saffron center to tie it all together, these muffins are so decadent and flavourful!

Muffin

This egg-free muffin base is a simple cake made with whole wheat flour, raw sugar, ghee and buttermilk. Whole wheat flour obviously has more nutrients than all purpose flour. I used raw sugar here instead of jaggery to keep the colour of the muffins light, so the golden center would look better with it. Ghee provides the fat and richness. You can switch it with butter or a neutral flavoured vegetable oil too. Since there are no eggs in this recipe, buttermilk helps in bringing lightness and air into the cake that eggs generally do.

All the lovely and fragrant flavours of thandai perfume this cake so beautifully! Smell of rose, cardamom and fennel mixed with the pop of sharpness from black peppercorns and crunch of tiny poppy seeds, together they create an amazing melody of flavours!

Crumble

A delicious, flavourful and crunchy crumble top with slices of nuts and beautiful aroma of rose, cardamom and fennel really works great here and provides a contrast with the light and fluffy cake, still complimenting the flavours of the cake.

Surprise center

Saffron brings and beautiful colour and richness to thandai and it does the same here too. The gorgeous golden saffron sauce provides an explosion of colour and flavour in the inside and the smooth, creamy mouthfeel really ties everything together!

These muffins will surely satisfy your sweet craving this Holi or at any other festivities.

Here is the detailed recipe and some notes that you will find useful.

Crumble Thandai Muffins with a surprise center

Serves: 8 muffins Prep Time: 30 mins Cooking Time: 20 mins 20 mins

Rating: 5.0/5

( 1 voted )

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Ingredients

For flavour blend -

1. 3 tbsp - Dried rose petals
2. 1 tsp - Ground Cardamom
3. 1 tsp - Crushed fennel

For the Crumble -

1. 30g - Whole Wheat Flour
2. 20g - Chopped Almonds
3. 20g - Chopped Cashews
4. 15g - Chopped Pistachios
5. 15g - Melon seeds
6. 20g - Sugar
7. 20g - Ghee
8. 1 tbsp - Milk
9. 1 tsp - Rose, Cardamom, Fennel mixture

For the Muffin Batter -

1. 130g - Whole wheat flour
2. 65g - Raw Sugar
3. 50g - Ghee
4. 150 ml - Milk
5. 1 tsp - Lemon juice
6. 1 tsp - Baking powder
7. 1/2 tsp - Baking soda
8. 1/4 tsp - Salt
9. 1/2 tsp - Crushed Black pepper
10. 2 tsp - White poppy seeds
11. Remaining Rose, Cardamom, Fennel mixture
12. 8 tbsp - Saffron sauce frozen into cubes (1 tbsp in each cube)

Instructions

Frozen center -

1. Take a freezer safe ice-cube tray and add 1 tbsp of saffron sauce to each cavity. (Total 8 cubes needed for one batch of muffins)

Flavour blend -

1. Mix everything and set aside.

Crumble -

1. Add all the ingredients to a bowl and mix well until everything is evenly combined.

Muffin Batter -

1. Begin by making a simple buttermilk. Combine the milk and lemon juice in a glass and set it aside.
2. Take the raw sugar and ghee in a large bowl and whisk them together until the mixture becomes pale and fluffy. It will take just a few minutes.
3. Place a sieve over the bowl and add the whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Sift these in.
4. Add the crushed black pepper, poppy seeds, the remaining rose, cardamom and fennel flavour blend that we made, followed by the buttermilk.
5. Using a spatula, mix all the ingredients thoroughly to form an even batter.
6. Preheat the oven to 180 C and line a muffin tray.
7. Scoop 2 tbsp of batter into each muffin cavity.
8. Take out the freezing saffron cubes, place one at the center of each muffin and push it in.
9. Cover with some more batter if needed. Do not fill the muffin cases to the top.
10. Add 1-2 tbsp of the crumble on top of each muffin and press gently.
11. Bake the muffins in a preheated oven at 180 C for around 20-25 minutes, depending on your oven.
12. The crumble top should be nicely risen and golden.
13. Let them cool for 10-15 minutes before taking them out and let them cool completely to room temperature on a wire rack.

Notes

1. You can make the saffron sauce few days ahead and freeze them.
2. To make these muffins vegan, you can replace ghee with vegan butter or a neutral flavoured vegetable oil in the same quantity.
3. You can replace milk with any plant based milk too.
4. Sometimes different flour tend to absorb different amount of moisture. If the muffin batter seems very thick, you make need 1-2 tbsps more milk.
5. The muffin batter has to be thick to get the beautiful dome on top that we associate with muffins. If the batter gets too thin, the top will be flatter.
6. For the crumble, nuts and seeds no not need to be toasted first. They get nicely toasty in the oven.
7. If you do not have time to make the saffron sauce and still want to make these muffins, crush a few strands of saffron and it to the batter.
8. You can skip adding the poppy seeds and black peppers. But if you have them handy, I would encourage you to make the muffins with them. All the flavours together make these muffins amazing!

Did You Make This Recipe?

Have you made this recipe? Tag me on Instagram at @VanillaTrails and use the hashtag #MadeWithVanillaTrails.