Easy Peasy Muffins

We are mid-winter nesting here in the Attic, and I confess it feels rather lovely. I've been wholeheartedly embracing these weekends spent at home loafing around in fluffy, cosy clothing doing fluffy, cosy things with my family. My particular fluffy-cosy activity consists of crochet and baking/eating the baking, with a smidge of meal making, fire lighting, laundry duties and floor tidying thrown in when absolutely necessary. Not a lot is being achieved, but our family is happy and content it seems.

My cosy fluffy baking (and eating) has been mainly muffin based of late, and I blame Alicia P entirely for this. Her words and pictures sent me into a spin of craving and I just had to go and create a warm, light, fluffy, fresh-from-the-oven muffin experience for myself. I was quite powerless to resist.

I have a basic recipe I use, which I would like to pass on to you. It's an Easy Peasy recipe which contains straight forward ingredients and is easily adaptable depending on the fruit content available at the time the muffin need hits.

I make small batches of only six muffins at a time. Two reasons :: 1) I love fresh from the oven muffins very much more than out of a tin muffins and 2) Little B adores baking and we bake many times a week together, so no need to make huge batches of anything.

The above muffins are Apple and Apricot and were lovely. I experimented with a bit of a streusel topping on these ones, but truthfully I think the effort of making the streusel bit was not actually worth it.

On Sunday I made raspberry muffins, and oh my, they were divine. The raspberries (from Spain) were quite sharp, but had a beautiful tangy flavour and made the muffins very moist and mmmm.

My method of making fresh berry muffins (raspberries or blueberries) is to first make the basic batter without adding the fruit. Dollop about 2/3 of it into the paper cases, then drop the fruit on top. This way, each muffin gets the same juicy amount of fruit sitting nicely right inside the muffin.

Add a little more batter on top of the fruit layer, then top with a little bit more fruit and a sprinkling of light brown sugar.

All being well, they should rise up beautifully and look all lush and plump and golden, with lovely bits of bright juicy fruit nestling on top.

And when you break into one, the texture is light and fluffy and moist. Fruity but not too sweet. Oh mmm mmm, really, they are completely yummy.

Easy Peasy Muffins (makes 6)

In a large mixing bowl, put 125g self raising flour, ½ tsp baking powder and 50g caster sugar. Mix well.

In a large jug, put 4 tbs (60ml) milk, 2 tbs (30ml) sunflower oil, 1 egg and ½ tsp vanilla flavouring. Mix well.

Tip the liquid into the dry mix and stir well to combine. You'll end up with a thick, lumpyish batter.

For apricot and apple muffins, stir in 1 grated apple and 50g chopped dried apricots (you could also use 50g any other dried fruit eg sultanas, raisins or cranberries).

For fresh raspberry or blueberry muffins, add the fruit to each individual muffin in a layer (as described above), with a few bits on top.

Divide between 6 muffin cases and sprinkle with brown sugar if you like (not essential, but nice)

Bake at 180C/Gas 4 for 25 mins.

I think technically speaking the muffins should be placed on a wire rack and allowed to cool, but that doesn't really happen around here. They kind of get pounced upon the minute they come out of the oven, ripped open and shoveled away whilst still steaming.

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Edit to add :: about the paper cases....you need large muffin cases to makes these beauties as they rise a lot whilst baking and ordinary bun/cup cake cases are a bit too shallow. I buy mine from a really lovely local baking shop, they are made by a US company called MeriMeri, see here.

 Another edit to say :: re the fresh berries....in the UK they can be very expensive to buy, but are sometimes on offer in the supermarkets which is when I buy them. Also I never seem to be able to use a whole punnet before they go a bit soggy and mouldy in the fridge, so what I do is buy them when they are on offer and freeze them straight away. Scissor-snip the raspberries into smaller bits first, then open freeze them (ie lay them out on a sheet of baking paper/greasproof paper on a tray to freeze them so they don't all clump together). When they are frozen you can bag them up and they can then be added to the muffin batter straight from the freezer.

One more edit! :: I had this very useful comment from Hannah in the US...it's a conversion from grammes to cups....

"For American bakers, here are the conversions I figured out, because none of my measuring cups have the metric unit. 1 c flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 c sugar 4 T milk 2 T sunflower oil 1 egg 1/2 tsp vanilla 25 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit "

Please note that the flour needed is self raising flour (self rising flour in the US?)

Happy Baking!!

 xx

 

 

Comments

[Kathryn Payandeh]

Just have my muffins in the oven 5 minutes to go.They look amazing.Made them in silcon muffin mould no need for cases then.Although they are pretty in case.Made grated apple with freeze dried raspberries.Thank you for the recipe Lucy Best Wishes Kathryn

[Olga]

Thanks for the recipe, my friends and I loved those pretties. I added a link back on our blog :-)

[Einat Cohen]

thank you! they were everything you promised and more!
juicy, soft, not too sweet, addictive..and the smell!! seductive...
We made them this morning with apple and raisins and dates and I gulped my girls' leftovers ;-)
I am talking about them in my blog today, although in Hebrew.
http://mothercreation.blogspot.com/2014/03/blog-post.html
Einat

[Miriam]

I will definitely be trying these! My tummy (and my children's tummies if I manage to share!) thank you!

[eclectichomelife.blogspot.com]

Will give these a go, look fab and great quantity, enough for one family sitting. We made flap jacks today, a great thing to do with or without the children around. Pop over and see what you think, oh yes a bit of crocheting on the post too! http://eclectichomelife.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/rainbows-wristwarmers-and-flapjacks.html

[Robin]

My youngest is gluten free. This was an easy recipe to convert! To my gluten free ingredients I added an extra 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking soda. We added frozen fruit to some and chocolate chips to others. They were light, fluffy and delicious! Thank you for such an easy recipe, the delightful peeks into your home and crochet projects. Blessings from across the sea. Robin

[Louise B]

Thank you so much for this recipe. It has been a staple since our oven broke a few weeks ago. I can quickly mix up a batch of 6 and cook them in our fan oven microwave in no time.

[salem]

got to try these muffins "!"! love the little blankets inspired to do these for charity soo cute

[ANB of Suburban Sonnett]

Thank you for this, we have just made them for the second time in a week!

[Fiona Scott]

Thoroughly enjoying reading about your lovely family and I think I now feel brave enough to try crochet! I love making muffins though trying to lose weight so not making them too often!

[Liz Moynihan]

Just made these with frozen raspberries straight from the freezer. Worked well. Next up - blackberries from the freezer? apricots snipped from the bag? Endless possibilities. Thanks for the recipe. Like all of yours I've tried, it worked first go. PS also regularly make the lentil bake you posted ages ago - and add crunchy peanut butter instead of salted peanuts. Luvverly!

[Zuleika]

Thanks for sharing your recipe and for including the US conversion. I've been craving muffins lately myself. :-)

[sue]

The US conversion is CORRECT to have the baking powder added. Self rising flour is used mostly in the South. All Purpose (AP) flour is universal in the US and has no leavening, so anyone not having SRF (incl. Europe) can just add about two healthy pinches of baking powder per cup of AP flour or cake flour for this recipe to work.

A key to good muffins & cakes is to NOT OVERMIX. Fold in the flour to wet ingredients and fold only until all the dry ingredients lurking at the bottom are incorporated. Don't beat, because the leavening starts to work as soon as it hits the moisture. You can easily beat out the rising bubbles! Have oven hot and ready for the muffins to go in the minute the tin is filled. This way you'll get the light texture of Lucy's muffins. Making some blueberry muffins today--thanks Lucy for the hint about snipping the ras-bries before sheet-freezing.

[Melissa L.]

Wonderful idea for adding delicate fruit to the muffins - plus, an equal amount of fruit in each one! I really get annoyed with a muffin with only TWO blueberries!

Thank you to your reader Hannah for converting the measurements to US terms for us Yanks.

[Lesley]

Hi Lucy, many thanks for posting the muffin recipe! I have just made a batch of blueberry muffins using your recipe and they are wonderful and a big hit with everyone here. THANK YOU!!

[maypole]

WELL me muffins were delicious! very easy and the hit of Raspberry in the middle is gorgeous. Thank you for posting this

[janet]

Wow - a recipe which really works! I've tried lots of muffin recipes before and never really had much success. But I've already tried a double batch of this one (half blueberry and half raspberry) and they're fab. Thank you so much :)

[Adrianne]

Mjamm, the muffins look terrific!! I also have bulbs throughout my livingroom, they have such a fresh and innocent appearance!

Adrianne

teenyweenydesign.blogspot.com

[maypole]

Ok just got me rasps, off to do a muffin bake!

[Kate]

YUM. Mine are in the oven now. Replaced milk with apple juice for more appley flavour. Is "appley" a word? Well it should be. Lovely smell filling the house.

[Sandie]

Great post Lucy. Will try your fruit adding technique next time I make muffins. Raspberries and blueberries particularly make for odd coloured muffins when you mix the fruit in the batter!

[Elena]

I made your muffins yesterday. My first attempt and they were a success! :) I put banana inside. I am planning to buy a second muffin form and try make more ;) and with berries.
Thanks for sharing the recipe, it's great!

[Mary Polensky]

Lucy, I made a batch last night and ate 2 of them right out of the oven. Yum. I only had fresh blueberrys on hand, and they worked great. Thanks for an easy but yummy recipe.

[Liz Robertson]

Thank you Lucy! Made a little batch straight after reading your blog yesterday. Apple and dried cranberry. Yummee! And yes they are so easy. Only change would be to make double the amount next time.
Nothing beats a freshly made cake and a cup of tea to make me nostalgic for 'home' in a nice, happy kind of way.

[Sonia Petitpoint]

They look delicious !