mastering muffins

sarah is the family expert on muffins, able to whip them up in seconds using anything she has about and they always taste delicious. i, on the otherhand, seem to be able to mess them up even if i'm following a recipe to the letter. i think this is quite an achievement...

i finally managed to produce a batch with the right texture, good distribution of exciting bits and they managed to rise and look good too so i feel i am on the right track towards mastering muffins. the recipe is sort of based on one from the times newspaper but with a few alterations.

blueberry, raspberry and white chocolate muffins.

makes 12

ingredients

100g raspberries

60g blueberries

40g white chocolate drops

200g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

125g caster sugar

175ml milk

2 free range eggs

125ml vegetable oil

method

1. heat the oven to 180c. fill a muffin tin with muffin cases.

2.in a bowl sift the flour and baking powder into the sugar. in a jug mix the eggs, milk and oil unil smooth.

3. make a well in the centre of the dry mix and lightly stir in the wet ingredients. don't overmix it, it is meant to remain a bit lumpy. stir through the fruit and chocolate. divide the mixture between the muffin cases.

4. bake for 25 minutes until risen and golden. cool on a wire rack and ideally eat the same day.

you can use fresh or frozen fruit. I was using up leftover frozen bits and pieces from our summer pick your own sessions, as far as i can tell you can sort of make up the 200g of extra ingredients from any combo of other delicious ingredients that you have around or take your fancy.

the other big advantage of muffin mix is that until it is cooked it tastes oily and rank unlike cake mixture. as a pregnant woman with a weakness for cake mix despite the uncooked eggs muffins may well be the way forward.

happy birthday emily

we had a lovely birthday tea with emily, lola and chris - bump just starting to make an appearance!

i remember one birthday of emily's (25th??) when we were both desperately tempering chocolate at limerick food kitchens late into the hot, pre-air conditioned, july night. We were making truffles ready to set off at dawn the next day to a busy farmers market in dingle.

i often forget the sheer exhaustion of those crazy, early days of starting your own business. i have distilled the dingle days into a few perfect moments: racing down to the sea for a bracing swim before setting off home; having hot port with paulina in a cosy bar after enduring hours of rain; chatting as we all set up stalls in the early morning sun; eating smoked fish and still warm bread for breakfast and swapping star anise truffles for local goats cheese. 4am starts? i'm almost tempted...

back to emily's far more relaxed birthday 2009 and the all important cake! i wanted to try the celebrity masterchef penultimate episode chocolate cake: the one wendy made for the french chefs but i failed to find the recipe on the internet. i then realised i had no self raising flour and it was way too late to go out for some (with aidan out, it would mean waking up all three girls and loading them into the car)

thankfully, i remembered a green and black's recipe that uses plain flour and lots of eggs. perfect. i adapted it slightly, replacing double cream with greek yoghurt and fresh raspberries with frozen raspberries - purely through necessity as i was lacking the original ingredients. it worked fine and i managed to get double cream and fresh raspberries in the morning, for the icing and as decoration.

chocolate raspberry torte recipe

25g plain flour

5 teaspoons cocoa powder

75g dark chocolate

25g unsalted butter

5 teaspoons greek yoghurt or double cream

4 egg whites

3 egg yolks

3 tablespoons caster sugar

250g fresh or frozen raspberries

125ml whipping or double cream to serve

icing

100g dark chocolate

50g unsalted butter

3 tablespoons double cream

1 teaspoon icing sugar

method

butter and line with greaseproof an 18-20cm, 6cm deep cake tin. pre-heat oven to 140c/275f/gas mark 1

sift the flour and cocoa. set aside.

melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl above warm water. removefrom heat, add butter and yoghurt/cream and stir well.

whisk egg whites until stiff peaks, add sugar and whisk again until thick and glossy. in another bowl, beat egg yolks and gently fold the cocoa and flour into the yolks. add the melted chocolate and stir well. spon a few dollops of egg white into this mixture and stir. gently fold in the remainder of the egg whites.

pour half the mixture into the cake tin, sprinkle over the raspberries and then cover with other half of mixture.

bake for 35-40 mins until a skewer comes out clean. cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then take out onto a wire rack.

for the icing, melt the chocolate as before. remove from heat and stir in the butter, cream and icing sugar. pour it all over the cake, top with fresh raspberries and leave for an hour to harden. (don't put it in the fridge at this stage or the icing wil lose it's shine!)

serve with whipped cream.

enjoy the rest of your birthday emily!

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?

super buns

oh yes. they really are. they are a fabulous failsafe party favourite. generous, soft and delicately flavoured. the recipe was originally from the ivillage website but it has gradually been adapted with the addition of various flavours.

sadly these that I made do not contain a single trace of chocolate (it has been an overdose kind of day) but it is easy enough to add in chocolate chips, cocoa or chocolate icing to satisfy your cravings.

ingredients

makes 12 large cupcakes

125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

grated zest of one large orange
125g self-raising flour
2 tbsp milk

method

preheat the oven to 190C. place the paper cases in the holes

in a mixing bowl beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. i thoroughly recommend an electric whisk.

add the beaten egg, a little at a time, whisking to incorporate, then beat in the vanilla and orange zest.

sift in half of the flour and you should fold it in carefully but i have no patience for this and just whisk it in and i have never had a trouble...yet.

add the milk and the rest of the flour and whisk until well combined.

spoon into the tin and bake for 12 minutes or until risen and golden on top.

allow to cool for ten minutes on a rack.

decoration

400g icing sugar

200g softened (but not melted butter)

5ml freshly squeezed orange juice

finely grated zest of 1 orange

plump and lovely raspberries

put all the above ingredients in a bowl and whisk thoroughly til light and fluffy.

cut the very top off the buns to give a flat surface.

generously pile the buttercream on the top and finally top with a raspberry.

variations we have enjoyed...

replace the raspberry with a blueberry, strawberry or bramble.

colour the icing and replace the cut top in 2 halves to make pretty as you like butterfly buns.

add lemon zest instead of orange zest and top with a dollop of lemon curd (preferably my mum's irresistable home made stuff!!)

blend the butter and icing sugar with about 2 tbsp of cocoa powder or 50g of melted dark chocolate.