Not that long ago, spicy meant adding spices, not heat, to your recipes. Not that it has many actual spices added, it is very much a victim to the recipe’s age. Half a teaspoon of cinnamon is just a pinch of dust in each muffin. But I know, food with flavor wasn’t a real thing then. That is a real issue with vintage recipes, how seriously bland they can be.
This muffin recipe came from the booklet “Soup Cookery The Savory Heinz Way” either in the 1950 or 1956 edition.
It’s a twist on the classic spiced cake using condensed tomato soup. And no, once baked, you don’t smell or taste the soup. Only five years after WWII and the Great Depression ended, it was an affordable way to have a cake or muffins and use less sugar and oil.
I changed the cooking time to 20 minutes, and as I found 25 produced, I felt the muffins were too dry. Still, they were excellent, with a bit of unsalted butter spread on them and served with soup.
Spicy Muffins
Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground allspice
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- ½ cup raisins
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup condensed tomato soup, undiluted*
- ½ cup water
- 2 Tbsp neutral oil, such as avocado
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375°, and line a 12-count muffin tin with parchment paper liners.
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour through cloves. Stir in the raisins.
Whisk together the eggs, soup, water, and oil in a small mixing bowl.
Add to the dry ingredients and stir till just mixed with a spatula.
Fill muffin liners 2/3 full.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Let cool on a rack for 5 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool before eating.
Makes 12 muffins.
Notes:
Campbell used to make cream of tomato soup in condensed, but that has gone the way in recent years. Regular condensed tomato soup is easy to find, so I used it instead. It has a very short list of ingredients and is refreshingly “real” for a canned soup.
It’s ingredients:
Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Water, Wheat Flour, Sugar, Contains Less Than 2% Of: Salt, Potassium Salt, Natural Flavoring, Citric Acid, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Celery Extract, Garlic Oil.
One thought…I feel these muffins could have used double the oil. It would have produced a moister baked good.
~Sarah