Saturday morning, family are fed, as I made them muffins and its time to write about something that I want to share on my blog today. I am not intending to bake today as I have loads to catch up on with regards to coding for the blog and website so I am going to hold my husband to ransom until he finishes showing me how to add the codes ( I think I have forgotten all he taught me). After he has finished helping me I will let him help the children or go and do some fix it jobs around the house as he is not at work today. It may be his day off but he will still have to work on computers.
My second recipe book is progressing nicely and I have plenty of photos to add to the recipes. It will be more pages than the first one so I am quite impressed with myself. All the baking which I made last week for the book has been eaten by the family. Looks like tomorrow will be a baking day but I have a couple of things in mind to finish off the last few recipes in the new book. This second recipe book is all about Easter baking and is ideal for first time bakers and those who want to improve their skills. It has alternative ideas in it and the nutritional information is included so you can make an informed decision and change the ingredients as you need to.
Back to today I am adding my Berry Muffin recipe as a Yummly recipe as I am finding that a lot of my social visitors are coming from Yummly, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. I may even submit this recipe to “Foodgawker” and see what result I have . So far this site is proving very difficult to have a recipe published on compared to other food recipe sites. I think I may have to study a food photography course and invest in a better camera to achieve some quality photographs for the recipes.
[lt_recipe name=”Berry Muffins” servings=”12″ prep_time=”10M” cook_time=”25M” total_time=”35M” difficulty=”Easy” print=”yes” summary=”Nutritionally, one muffin contains 193 calories, 10.2g total fat (13% daily total fat), 22.7g total carbohydrate (8% daily total carbohydrate), 1.3g fibre (4% daily fibre) (based on a 2000 calorie diet).” image=”https://www.love-to-bake.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/berrymuffins.jpeg” ingredients=”For the muffin mix;9oz self raising flour;1 tsp baking powder;2oz soft spread;3oz caster sugar;4oz frozen mixed berries;2 tbsp. lemon curd;2 eggs;1 tsp vanilla essence;250ml milk;For the crumble topping;2oz plain flour;3oz porridge oats;1oz soft spread;1oz brown sugar;;” ]Preheat the oven to gas 6.;Fill 12 muffin tins with paper muffin cases.;Weigh the muffin ingredients into a bowl and mix roughly with a wooden spoon.;Spoon into the muffin cases.;Mix the crumble ingredients together by rubbing the soft spread into the other ingredients in a bowl.;Sprinkle the crumble topping onto the muffins.;Bake for 20 – 25 minutes till well risen and golden brown.;Allow to cool slightly before removing from tray.;[/lt_recipe]
I love messing around with this recipe. I have tried lots of different muffin recipes over the years but settled on a Mary Berry recipe which I have adjusted to suit myself. Sometimes I use chocolate chips instead of berries. It all depends on what I have in stock and what I fancy making for a change. I particularly like the berry muffins with a tablespoon or two of lemon curd added to compliment the berries. I love adding a crumble mix to the top of the muffins as I feel it adds a crunch and different flavour to the whole muffin. I never ice the muffins as my family tend to eat them straight from the oven whilst they are still warm, which is the best way. Depending on the flavour of the muffin I change the sugar to suit for example for apple and caramel muffins I would use soft brown sugar as it adds a toffee taste to the muffin which enhances the flavours carried in the muffin. For chocolate muffins I use half and half dark brown and caster sugar as I like the added taste the brown sugar gives when combined with the cocoa in the recipe. Most of the time I use caster sugar as I maintains a good standard flavour to the muffins and does not mask the other flavours in the muffin recipe.
The main point about muffins is not to over mix the ingredients and it doesn’t matter if some of the soft spread or flour is not properly mixed in because in the oven the muffin mixture bakes to perfection. I tend to allow my children take care of the mixing of the muffins because they don’t over mix the ingredients if you are paying attention. Sometimes I think they would mix the ingredients all day and don’t really mind if the muffins aren’t baked – as long as they are mixing something- especially the younger ones.
The good points about making muffins is that they are freeze-able so if they are not all eaten straight away they can be kept for another time and nothing is wasted. Also you can revive muffins which are one or two days old and make them feel like they are just out of the oven, total freshness. to do this just pop them back in the oven, wrapped in foil, for 5 or so minutes
Nutritionally muffins do not contain too much sugar and the recipe can be altered to not include any sugar if you want, for example, adding bananas only would achieve this. Also they can be made gluten free if the flour is changed. The milk can be removed or use half milk and half water if you wish, maybe if you are running out of milk , as I have done before. Different milk can be used if you need to avoid cows milk for a lactose intolerant diet. There are many different flavours that can be made when baking muffins, the list is endless. The best part of baking muffins is the eating of the muffins so just get in the kitchen and bake some.