Puto de Moringa (Steamed Muffins)

Posted by: bellymom on: August 2, 2009

• In: Food
• 19 Comments

I didn’t realize I could use malunggay on muffins until three weeks ago when my daughter’s TLE teacher asked me if I could assist her and my daughter come up with a malunggay snack recipe as they are going to compete on a cookfest in the division level to be conducted by DepEd as part of Nutrition Month 2009 celebration. She said the recipe should be low fat, rich in fiber and most of all nutritious and inexpensive.  I thought of “puto” right away coz even kids can do it.  I started searching for malunggay recipes and there I got an idea that I could use malunggay powder.

The winning snack recipe of my daughter and her teacher in the recently concluded cookfest during the celebration of Nutrition Month 2009

All the blogs I read suggest air drying malunggay about three to five days. I thought that’s quite long, I can’t wait that long so I tried oven drying.  I put a handful of malunggay leaves into an oven toaster, closed its door and set it to low. I noticed the leaves wilted and moisture built up so I opened the door and leave it open for about 15mins.  The leaves became crunchy and retained its natural color .  I crushed the leaves by hands. The outcome was so nice. It worked! 

With that, I used my conventional oven and fill  several layers of cookie sheets with malunggay leaves (about 5 layers x 1 full cup each of leaves ) and set the temperature to 50 deg centigrade, left the oven door partially open so that moisture won’t build-up and make the leaves wilt to a very dark color. The first layer took me almost 1 hour to fully dry it to a crunchy texture. When the top most layer is done, I brought the next layer up, and so on. A layer yields 6+ tbsp moringa powder. I kept it in a sealed plastic container. I am still observing how long will it last without developing molds. So far, the powder I made 2 weeks ago didn’t change at all.

Oven drying is quite costly and time consuming but you can have moringa powder in a few hours (not days) but if you are not rushing and want to save up on lpg/electricity, opt for air drying method.

Here’s the recipe for Puto de Moringa:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup powder skimmed milk
• 3 tbsp moringa (malunggay) powder
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 whole eggs, beaten
• 2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups water

Procedure:

1. Mix well all dry ingredients
2. Add water and vanilla.Fold in eggs, mix well until free from lumps
3. Fill puto molders with the mixture  (3/4 full) and arrange in the steamer
4. Steam for 10 to 12 minutes.
5. Serve with Malunggay-Gulaman Juice (I will post the recipe soon)

Tags: malunggay puto, puto, puto de moringa, steamed muffins