Sunshine muffins (gluten + dairy-free)

Somewhere amidst the last 6 months I decided to start using my dehydrator more often than I have previously, to preserve some of the things I tend to just bung in the freezer. No, I haven’t turned into a doomsday prepper (yet) but I have definitely thought more about preservation techniques that don’t rely on power. I already bottle tons of summer and autumn produce, that line the shelves in my studio (studio sounds fancier than it really is, in reality it’s just our spare room, filled with all my props and every other piece of junk my family decides they no longer want in their own rooms. It’s also where I take most of my food photos). But for many things like grated ginger and turmeric, I’ve always just finely grated and frozen it for later use. A few months ago though, I decided to dehydrate a whole lot of fresh turmeric and ginger slices to use in my herbal teas, and it was this that got me thinking ‘why not just make my own turmeric powder too?’

I’d made and gone through a couple of batches of dried turmeric slices in teas, when I noticed down the bottom of the empty jar was what looked like ground turmeric. My friends in Sri Lanka (and millions around the world who do this on a daily basis) will laugh, but it’s never before occurred to me to make my own ground turmeric.

The result? The freshest, most vibrant and flavour-packed turmeric, ever. Sure, you can buy pre-ground turmeric for a very reasonable price at the supermarket (and with the amount I go through, I won’t be stopping doing that any time soon). But it sure is a lovely treat to cook with freshly dried and ground turmeric, and well worth the effort.

To make; I simply peeled fresh turmeric root, sliced thinly, dehydrated until crispy and fully dry, then I used my little blender attachment to blend to a fine powder. In Sri Lanka, India, Bali and throughout South East Asia, they sun-dry whole peeled turmeric roots before grinding. But that would have taken days to dry in my dehydrator and sadly we don’t have the same level of heat from the sun here in NZ to naturally dry them, so thinly slicing is the way to go to speed things up.

Of course this vibrant turmeric powder would be the perfect addition to all manner of curries, from a simple potato curry to the more elaborate Thai red curry. But I wanted to use it in a sweet recipe to highlight it’s distinct flavour and colour. Heady with lemon and turmeric and with a hint of ginger, these Sunshine Muffins will bring a little brightness to your day. And lets face it, we can all do with as much of that as possible this year.