2010 Cooking Club Week 42: Muffins

catho_monster

This recipe is my ultimate go-to. The kind of go-to that you've yearned for, searched the deepest depths of google for, tried many a random version before and nearly had heart failure when the recipe was left in a friend's house over.

This is my muffin recipe, which I inevitably evoke when the fruit I've bought in an attempt to be healthy start looking like its on their its legs and need to be used pronto. You know, it never occured to me to just eat them?!

10oz plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
pinch salt
4 - 5 oz sugar, granulated is fine
the amount used depends on how much of a sweet tooth I have that day, and what kind of fruit I'm using, or whether I'm adding chocolate
1 egg
8 fl oz milk
3oz butter
5 - 6oz summer fruit
I recommend blueberries or blackberries or strawberries and dark chocolate or raspberries and white chocolate or frozen random summer berry mix. If you add chocolate, try and keep the fruit + chocolate weight to around the 5-6 oz mark. If you use strawberries, chop them into halves or quarters. Likewise, break the chocolate into chunks of a similar size to the fruit.

1) Fill muffin tin with cases (my fav at the moment are from Ikea!)

2) Preheat over to 375F, 190c or Gas mark 5

3) Put flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl. I don't bother sieving.

4) Pour milk into the measuring jug, add egg and whisk with fork until egg breaks.

5) Put butter into a small bowl (I use a mug), put in the microwave for 10 seconds (or thereabouts, keep an eye on it!) until it melts. Stir this into the milk/egg mixture. You should probably wait until it cools a bit, but I never do. And yes, bits of the butter will solidify in the cold milk mixture, but it never makes a difference to the taste for me.

6) Pour the wet into the dry and stir until all the dry has been encorporated. Don't bother overmixing, it'll ruin it apparently, not that I've ever spent enough time stirring it to find out...

7) Fold in the berries (and chocolate) into this mixture with a spoon, taking care not to mush them.

8) Spoon into the muffin cases. I try and evenly distribute the fruit/chocolate into all the cases. There's nothing worse that having a muffin with no yummy in it.

9) Bake for 20-25 mins. I find after 20 mins, I need to turn the muffin tin around in the oven for the last 5 mins because the back ones get brown before the front ones, but I'm sure thats just my oven. If you use frozen berries, give them an extra 4-5 mins. You are aiming for lightly golden brown, crispy, and springy when pressed.

Believe me when I tell you that this recipe has never failed me and I have tried many a muffin recipe. It is my throw together randomly, yet it never goes wrong recipe. It is my I'm having guests stay in the house and I want to make something lovely for breakfast recipe, and my I wish I had biscuits in the house, I'm desperate for something sweet recipe. I've even tried it (in desperation) using apple juice instead of the milk, with blackberries as the fruit and it was still gorgeous. And THE best thing about it? I always stick at least two of a batch in a lunch box in the freezer, and those nights when there's really nothing in the house sweet to eat, you take them directly from the freezer into a preheated 350F, 175c oven and 10-15 mins later, you have gorgeous muffins with no effort.

BaZmO*

Excellent. I love muffins but I've never attempted to make. Can't wait to try this.

unkel

Nice recipe - great post

I've only been making muffins myself for the first time recently (both savory and sweet ones) and they were very nice. Lots of taste and lovely smells in the house for very little effort! I have some left over blackberries so I will give this one a go soon!

The Black Oil

I think this was lacking a little something in the taste department, but I put that down to my forgetting to add a banana and some honey or golden syrup. I enjoyed making them and will definitely be trying this recipe again. I used blackberries as the fruit.

Little Alex

catho_monster wrote: »

There's nothing worse that having a muffin with no yummy in it.

Like that scene in Casino where Robert de Niro gives the chef a piece of his mind because there are no blueberries in his muffin. :pac:

Just made these muffins and they're cooling off now.



The quantities were exactly right to fill all twelve cases! Any time I've made muffins I ended up having to scrounge around, robbing teaspoons of batter out of the other cases to fill the last two.

I made mine with blackberries and apple and it was one of those times when I already had everything there! We had some apple chunks left over and a bag of brambles in the freezer.

I'll update tomorrow with the final verdict.

---

They were lovely! One thing, though... you would probably get away with half or less of the amount of baking powder that you call for.

Thanks for your recipe!

This is the scene that I was talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nsCSwREPHw

unkel

Little Alex wrote: »

Any time I've made muffins I ended up having to scrounge around, robbing teaspoons of batter out of the other cases to fill the last two.

It's not just me then

nice1franko

Did these last night. They were all gone before I could take a picture. Great recipe and very quick n easy to make. I'll be making these regularly - doing another batch tomorrow.

One thing I noticed though: I'd a bag of mixed frozen berries in the freezer and there were some whole strawberries and blackberries but they were too big in the finished muffins - so there were a few large pockets of mushy goo. So next time I'll be smashing the big berries down to size a bit.

Thanks Catho, great recipe.

nice1franko

...for anyone whose scales don't do Imperial:

10oz flour = 285g
5 oz sugar = 140g
3 oz butter = 85g

8 fl milk = 236ml

5.5 oz fruit = 155g

campbellu

The photos look real good, am going to try these, can add zest to berry muffins , vg, also liquid can be part yogurt ? flavoured! buttermilk ? just go fo right gloopy? texture. Muffins are fun to make and eat! and freeze, thanks catho.

fitzcoff

catho_monster wrote: »

And THE best thing about it? I always stick at least two of a batch in a lunch box in the freezer, and those nights when there's really nothing in the house sweet to eat, you take them directly from the freezer into a preheated 350F, 175c oven and 10-15 mins later, you have gorgeous muffins with no effort.

Just wanted to check do you freeze them after or before cooking,

EDIT: If I read the op correctly I have my answer already, they take 20-25 mins to cook but from frozen 10-15, so they must be precooked!!!

catho_monster

fitzcoff wrote: »

catho_monster wrote: »

And THE best thing about it? I always stick at least two of a batch in a lunch box in the freezer, and those nights when there's really nothing in the house sweet to eat, you take them directly from the freezer into a preheated 350F, 175c oven and 10-15 mins later, you have gorgeous muffins with no effort.

Just wanted to check do you freeze them after or before cooking,

EDIT: If I read the op correctly I have my answer already, they take 20-25 mins to cook but from frozen 10-15, so they must be precooked!!!

Defo, cook them then freeze them...

yimrsg

Made some of these last night but modified them slightly to make them with apple, walnut and nutella.

2oz of chopped walnuts
4oz eating apple (peeled, cored, sliced and roughly chopped into slivers)
1 tablespoon of drinking chocolate (I used bournville as it was all I had)
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Instead of the butter I used low-low spread (smoother and less crumbly than when I made them with butter)
Nutella!

I added the cinnamon and drinking chocolate to the dry ingredients as per the original instructions and folded in the apple and walnut.

When I was adding the wet mixture to the cases I only added half and then put in the nutella.

Apologies for the photo sizes and quality. They taste only amazing, the sweetness of the apple, the crunch of walnut and the nutella centre.

pencilsharp

yimrsg wrote: »

Made some of these last night but modified them slightly to make them with apple, walnut and nutella.

2oz of chopped walnuts
4oz eating apple (peeled, cored, sliced and roughly chopped into slivers)
1 tablespoon of drinking chocolate (I used bournville as it was all I had)
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
Instead of the butter I used low-low spread (smoother and less crumbly than when I made them with butter)
Nutella!

I added the cinnamon and drinking chocolate to the dry ingredients as per the original instructions and folded in the apple and walnut.

When I was adding the wet mixture to the cases I only added half and then put in the nutella.

Apologies for the photo sizes and quality. They taste only amazing, the sweetness of the apple, the crunch of walnut and the nutella centre.

They look amazing, always love apple and walnut together- think its a great flavour combination! Can't wait to try!!

sarah88

Made these today which came out really good and tasted great (hence why I only have 11 in the picture :pac:)