Scallion Pancake Muffins (Cong You Bing)
Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and savory yet sweet at the same time from oily scallions. These scallion muffins are perfect for breakfast on the go or as party snacks!
Cong You Bing (蔥油餅) or Scallion Pancakes
I grew up eating scallion pancakes for breakfast in Taiwan - almost on a daily. They were $20 NT a pop (equivalent of about 70 cents USD?) and you get 4 huge, crispy, oily pancakes. The flakey layers permeating with oily scallion was the best part about it. I never thought twice about how they made the layers so flakey - that is, until I moved to the states and craved these pancakes so badly that I tried making it myself. Turns out, the layers of scallion pancakes are made by folding the dough over and over again, in every direction you can possibly think of, before rolling it out flat. I scoured food blogs after food blog for a simpler version to achieve the same taste without success. But one day I learned to make some Pao de Queijo (Brazilian cheese balls) and experienced the chewiness from scallion pancakes. That’s why I decided to experiment with the star ingredient of Pao de Queijo, tapioca flour, to see if it’d turn out somewhat like the scallion pancakes I so longed after.
And it worked! So buckle up and read on for the simplest way to achieve the same taste of scallion pancakes but without all the hardwork!
Ingredients:
6 - 8 bundles of scallions (or honestly, as much as you want because you really can’t go wrong!)
2 eggs
1/2 cup of milk
1 cup of tapioca flour
3 tbsp of melted butter
2 tbsp of neutral oil
Dash of salt
Oil spray for muffin tin
[Shop all the ingredients HERE]
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees
Mix together eggs, milk, melted butter, and tapioca flour
Chop up a loooot of scallion
In a small bowl, add the chopped scallions, a neutral oil (amount to almost covering the scallions,) and 2 dashes of salt
Microwave the scallion oil for 30 seconds and mix well
Spray muffin tin, then layer the tapioca flour mixture and top off with the scallion oil
Bake for 12 - 15 minutes
Enjoy hot with some cold soy milk (recipe found HERE!)
