Double Chocolate Muffins

My form at school has decided to have breakfast together every Tuesday, with us taking it in turns to bring the food. It’s been going since about October, meaning we’ve had quite a variety – despite only having a microwave and kettle in our common room kitchen. We’ve had American pancakes and maple syrup, chocolate brioche, iced fingers, croissants, bacon sandwiches and more. When it was our teacher’s turn she brought in a full cream tea – scones, clotted cream, jam, strawberries and hot tea. Slightly strange at 8:30am but delicious all the same! Sometimes the breakfast is homemade, sometimes its shop-bought but either way it’s nice for us all to get together and there’s always a slight twist to the meal, be it Sri Lankan tea bought home from somebody’s holiday or cinnamon rolls made using a family recipe. My friend and I were the first to bring food so we played it safe with something we knew everybody would like – chocolate muffins. They went down so well that when our turn came round again there was no chance we were allowed to try something new: the muffins made a comeback. At the end of the day my History teacher came up to me and said ‘So, I hear you’ve been making muffins…’ – word clearly gets round fast when it comes to chocolate! No doubt I’ll be making more of these soon then!When I made these for the second time, I made a few slight changes to the recipe. The recipe (courtesy of Nigella) has a generous amount of chocolate chunks but I thought the actual sponge could do with an extra boost of flavour so I swapped out 2tbsps or so of flour for some more cocoa. I make these in the morning so they’re still warm and fresh out of the oven at breakfast club and this is definitely a recipe best eaten on the day of baking as they dry out quite quickly. Overall though they are moist, sweet and perfect for an indulgent breakfast! You can find the recipe here or in Nigella’s Feast book. Enjoy!

Banana Oat Muffins

I’m never very inspired to eat breakfast. No matter how much I hear that it is good for you, that it is bad for your health to skip it, that it gets your metabolism going…something in me would really just prefer that extra ten minutes sleep. My morning routine is often pretty rushed and breakfast is the thing I always skip – making an exception at the weekends for toast. Its not just a time issue, I’m rarely hungry at that time of day and standard breakfast options – cereal, bread, yoghurt – fail to motivate me. This recipe, however, might be just the thing to make me change my ways.My sweet tooth means that I can pretty much cope with something sweet any time of day. These banana muffins make me feel like I’m eating cake for breakfast, but in reality I’m safe in the knowledge that the muffins contain fruit, oats, wholemeal flour and no butter. All the more reason to have another one then…These were super simple to make. It’s a classic muffin recipe in that you mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl, all the wet in another and then you introduce the two bowls  to each other and mix everything together! Gathering all the ingredients from around your kitchen probably takes as long as making the muffin mixture itself. One tip: I forgot to mash the bananas before adding them to the wet mixture (smooth one, excuse the pun) so I used a hand stick blender to whizz  them and all the wet ingredients together and it worked really well. The full batch of twelve muffins costs just pennies to make as well, so there’s no excuse not to give them a go.The results were a really moist muffin with a crisp topping, full of banana flavour, some extra sweetness from an icing sugar covering – quite moreish! The recipe was from English Mum’s blog here – enjoy :)

The Blueberry Muffin

The blueberry muffin is thought of by my family as a classically American treat - whenever we travel to the USA my Dad always eagerly anticipates fantastic breakfasts finished off with a moist and fruit-heavy muffin. Along with treacle tart and coffee cake, muffins rank amongst his favourite ever bakes. In our recent trip to America, the muffin adapted to become our perfect afternoon tea treat. Bought from a Wal-Mart and carefully packed and brought to the beach the huge, blue juice stained delacies filled the afternoon gap perfectly  Once we returned to rainy England, we weren't quite ready to give up the muffin habit and so to the kitchen I was headed...

After a couple of baking flops recently, I wanted to be certain that these muffins would be a success. I have certain authors in the cookery book cupboard who I head to when looking for a reliable recipe for a true classic. These authors also tend to be the ones who have several books on the shelf, all with a particular favourite well-thumbed page. Examples include Rachel Allen, Delia Smith, Mary Berry, Nigel Slater and, in the case of todays recipe, Nigella Lawson. Just one look at the chocolate brownie page in our Nigella book FEAST shows the many many times it has been used (and the many many times brownies have been enjoyed in my household). Nigella's book How To Be A Domestic Goddess is full of delicious and irresisitible and so turning to it today I was certain there would be a decent blueberry muffin - and I was not to be disappointed.

Whilst perhaps not quite as large as their Wal-Mart relations, these muffins were good. Completely loaded with blueberry goodness (the more fruit involved = the more muffins acceptable to eat at one sitting!) and with crackly demerara sugared tops - I was happy. And with a recipe yielding 12 best-eaten-on-the-day-made muffins - I was settled!

Blueberry Muffins from How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson
Ingredients: 75g unsalted butter, melted
200g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
75g caster sugar
pinch salt
200 ml buttermilk — (or 1/2 cup plain yogurt and 100 ml semi-skimmed milk, or 200ml milk and 1tsp vinegar)
1 large egg
200g blueberries ( I used 250g, which made them extra blueberry-y!)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200'C. Melt the butter, and set it aside to cool.
2. Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl
3. In a measuring cup beat together the buttermilk, (or yogurt and milk), egg, and melted butter
4. Using a wooded spoon and a light hand, pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix gently to combine
5. Don’t worry about lumps; the important thing with muffins is that the mixture isn’t overworked
6. Fold in the blueberries, again keeping mixing to a minimum
7. Spoon into the muffin tin & bake for 20 minutes, by which time the muffins should be risen and golden and firm on top

Oaty Raspberry Muffins

There are times, rare times, when I want to bake, but also mind about being that li-ittle bit healthier. But just because thinks are healthier, doesn’t mean they are going to be baked any less tasty! One ingredient that could always make me feel healthier, even if surrounded by kilos and kilos of chocolate – would be oats.

See, as soon as you throw a handful or two of oats into a muffin (or anything baked!) I can feel just that bit better about having a second helping. And once you’ve added some yummy juicy fruit (in this case raspberries) – why stop at two helpings? After all, muffins are best on the day they are made ;)

The recipe for these Raspberry and Oat muffins came from the lovely must-read Bibliocook blog, where the muffins are originally made with blueberries. Having none of these available, I substituted for frozen raspberries, and added a few minutes onto the cooking time. Ooh, these were delicious! The raspberry juices stained the muffin a pretty light pink inside – and they smelled divine! Mmm :) If you’re a muffin fan, then these are most definitely for you. You can find the recipe here. Until next time!

“Ooh Mama!”

Is what I said to my Mummy when she rang to ask how my muffins had turned out. And its true, they really are that good!

The plan to make these muffins came from two main factors:

1) an abundance of lemons.
2) a craving for icing!

Oooh icing cravings. Bad things to suffer from as icing always has to follow shortly! But what better way for it to come then drizzled lovingly on top of a fluffy lemon+poppyseed muffin, the icing itself also tangy and lemony. It makes me hungry writing about it too-many days later!

The recipe for the muffins came from the fabulous Baking: From My Home To Yours, by the equally fabulous Dorie Greenspan. The book is so popular with many bloggers the weekly Tuesdays With Dorie (TWD) event was set up to celebrate the book by baking a recipe from it every week until everything is baked! Interestingly, these lemon muffins haven’t been chosen yet –travesty! I love reading the posts by all the TWD-ers, but haven’t joined myself for fear of not being able to bake the recipe every single week! To see all the great work done by TWD-ers, head here. And if you haven’t yet got the book itself – I urge you to. Even if, as an British person, it means getting your head round American cups and sticks – still get it! The book is choc-a-block full of great recipes and stunning photos. And American measures aren’t thaat confusing, especially with a pretty cup measuring set like mine (although I do still have to convert “sticks” of butter to ounces). And it is all the more worth it, if it gives you the chance to make these muffins!

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins from Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan

[Quick Note: In the book, Dorie says the muffins are best on the day they are made. Sometimes you can stretch these bakes out for a few days or keep safe in a tin and they taste just as great 3 days later. With these though, it really is first day best day. The next day they become heavier and stodgier – so try hard to eat all 12 first day! Trust me, it won’t be hard ;) ]

For the muffins:

· 2/3 cup sugar

· zest and juice of 2 small lemons

· 2 cups all purpose flour

· 2 teaspoons baking powder

· 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

· 1/4 teaspoon salt

· 3/4 cup non sour cream

· 2 large eggs

· 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

· 1/2 cup canola oil (optional, I didn’t use)

· 2 tablespoons poppyseeds

For the glaze:

· 1 cup icing sugar, sifted

· 2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 400F. Prepare your muffin pan or whatever muffin cooking apparatus you will be using, and place on a baking sheet.

2. In a large bowl, rub together the sugar and lemon zest until the sugar is moist and you can smell the lemon.

3. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

4. In another bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the yogurt, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, and canola oil until well blended.

5. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and with a rubber spatula gently and quickly stir to blend. Do not over-mix. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly in 12 muffin cups.

6. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean. Allow the muffins to cool for about 5 minutes, and then remove them from the tin and let cool to room temperature.

7. To make the glaze, whisk together the icing sugar with 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Add more lemon juice as needed to get it to the consistency so you can drizzle the glaze over the muffins (I recommend putting a big sheet of cling-film under the muffins at this point to catch all the soft icing drips :D).

A lot going on…

My latest bake has a LOT going on. It has sharp plum compote. It has sugary sweet marzipan. It has hard-hitting cinnamon. It has vibrant zesty orange. It can only be…Plum, Marzipan and Cinnamon Muffins!

These muffins were verrrrryy good :) Even though they do have lots of components, they worked together and were tasty. The compote was an absolute, total, 100% success :D . I couldn’t find a cinnamon stick so I sprinkled over 1tsp of ground cinnamon and it was lovely. The sweet sticky sauce, the soft plums and sharp cinnamon – mmm! There wasn’t quite enough and next time I would probably double it as there was hardly any in the muffins and not quite enough for the top of each muffin. I didn’t put the compote on each muffin straight away as they would go soggy, everyone just helped themselves when they had their muffin. I have since made the compote again without the muffins to have with Greek yoghurt – scrummy!

The thing I would say though, is that the method of grating the marzipan is a new one and I don’t think it really worked. The marzipan melted into the muffin and was not noticeable. Its a shame because I chopped up a few squares of marzipan and put them in the last muffin, and they were delicious! I would definitely do this next time.

 The muffins without their pretty toppings.

The recipe comes from Ottolenghi – The Cookbook. Ottolenghi is a food shop with four different branches around London – in Kensington, Belgravia, Islington and Notting Hill. I haven’t yet been to one but from their website it looks such a gorgeous place! Each branch is slightly different, but they are famed for their patisserie and huge meringues. They also have a blog. The two men who run it: Yotam and Tami, are from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the cookbook is totally lovely. Filled with beautiful photographs and lots of tasty recipes – I can’t believe I have never cooked from it before. A very good read too – I would strongly recommend it! Yotam and Tami also run cookery classes at Leith’s Cookery School. Now, for the recipe...

Plum, marzipan and cinnamon muffins, from Ottolenghi

makes 12

for the compote: 700g ripe red plums, stoned and quartered

60g caster sugar

1cinnamon stick/ 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

for the muffins: 480g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

200g caster sugar

2 free-range eggs

110g unsalted butter, melted

280ml milk

grated zest of 2 oranges

120g marzipan

icing sugar, for dusting

1. Make the plum compote first. Preheat the oven to 170’C/gas mark 3. Place the plums in a shallow baking dish, add the sugar and cinnamon stick and mix together. Place in the oven and bake for 20mins, until the plums are soft and their skin starts to separate from the flesh (the cooking time varies, depending on the ripeness of the fruit). Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt into a bowl. Put the sugar and eggs in a large mixing bowl and whisk together. Add the milk and butter (make sure it is not too hot) and whisk to combine.

3. Grate the marzipan on the coarse side of a grater and add this to a the batter, together with the orange zest. Now add 80g of the plum compote (pulp and juices) and stir together. Set the rest of the compote aside for later.

4. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the flour mixture into the wet mix until just combined – there may still be a few lumps and bits of flour, this is what you want.

5. Line your muffin tins with paper cases and spoon in the mixture, filling them all the way to the top. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre of the muffin comes out clean. When cool enough to handle, take the muffins out of the tins and leave on a wire rack until cold.

6. Just before serving, dust the tops with a little icing sugar and top with the plum compote.

Blackberry Muffins

My final blackberry recipe of the season – and a good one to round them all up. I have made one full batch of 12 yummy muffins, and two half batches of this recipe now which makes 24 muffins for 3 people in less than a week. Proof indeed that these are tasty.

I don’t really know why but I did really enjoy this recipe and now know it pretty much off by heart. You just combine the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet ingredients in another and then gently fold the wet into dry. Finally, being extremely careful not to over mix, you fold in the blackberries.

You don’t need to grease the tins (I used my Jamie Oliver silicone muffin pan) and they pop out really easily. The first time I made them I didn’t have any buttermilk so I used plain yogurt thinned slightly with milk until it was the consistency of buttermilk. The other two times I used regular buttermilk but they both worked perfectly. The original recipe calls for the zest 1 orange per batch, but eve when I halved the amounts of everything else I kept one whole orange, because a)it was silly to grate just half one orange and b) I like them extra fruity. I would use 2 oranges for the whole batch in future.

I liked how the blackberries leaked out juice and made the mix have purply streaks, and then cooked to stain the muffin around it all pretty and pink! Go to the Good Food website for the recipe.