Sunday, June 21, 2009

better than bucket chemistry or leaving nigella

muffins are my new favourite discovery! i have eaten them for many years but only rarely made them and never before realised that they free you from the baking tyranny of sieves and scales.


i love them! they take me back to the heady days of bucket chemistry before the rigorous precision of a-level or restrictive safety policies: we had great fun throwing a load of chemicals together and seeing what would happen (sometimes with disastrous, though thankfully never fatal, results.) muffin making feels that liberating-this is what happened...

i nearly followed nigellas recipe for banana butterscotch muffins in nigella express except i only had one egg and no butterscotch. i substituted raspberries instead of the butterscotch and halved the recipe. they were lovely but esme doesn't like bananas and this was not disguise enough so my adventure continues after the recipe:



1 and a half ripe bananas

125ml vegetable oil

an egg

125g flour

50g caster sugar

1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate

1/2 teaspoon baking powder


few handfuls of raspberries

preheat the oven to 200 C/ gas mark 6 and set out 6 muffin papers in a muffin tin

mash the bananas

pour the oil into a jug and beat in the egg

put flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder into a bowl and then mix in the oil/egg and the bananas

add the raspberries

spoon into cases and cook for 20 minutes

they worked beautifully and were made mostly by esme and elsie who were thrilled by the lack of instructions limited only to the mantra that 'lumpy is good'

so, to muffins with no bananas. my thinking was that the banana might need to be replaced with something to help keep the muffins moist. i used the recipe above with no bananas and a good dollop of greek yogurt and threw in some white and dark chocolate callets. they worked! succulent, tasty and risen to perfection. i had taken my first small muffin step away from nigella and into my own kitchen of creativity...

last night i invented the lemon zest and honey muffins. i discarded the recipe and roughly estimated the same ingredients as my original banana and raspberry muffin minus the bananas and raspberries. i added a dollop of creme fraiche (because it's what was in the fridge), a large spoon of honey, zest of one un-waxed lemon and the juice of half a lemon squeezed. I then sprinkled lemon zest and brown sugar on the top.

i held my breath as the lumpy mixture entered the oven...and about 20 minutes later -perfection! is this now my own recipe? have i let go of nigella's comfortingly warm and reassuring hand and started on a journey of my own?

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