Tag Archives: muffins

Beginning to bake #2: Raspberry muffins

This is the second in my series of Lent posts on simple baking. After pancakes we move on to muffins, and the first item that is actually baked.

The word muffins is used for all sorts of things, including split and toasted English muffins, made with yeast, and those cakey things sold in plastic wrappers with a spookily long shelf life. We’re not talking about either of those here. What we’re aiming for is a not-too-sweet bun, with some pieces of nuts or fruit adding texture, that’s moist and quite good with breakfast or a cup of tea. The classic would be a blueberry muffin, the firm berries providing little pockets of purple juice, but in this case, I’m doing raspberries, because that’s what I had in the freezer. And I like raspberries better.

The logic for moving from pancakes to muffins is that the mixture is made in a similar way: you mix dry ingredients, including flour and baking powder, and add wet ingredients, including milk and egg, and mix together very briefly. This is a thicker mix, so it is baked in a muffin tin in the oven instead of being cooked in a pan.

My preferred recipe for muffins uses mashed bananas as part of the wet ingredients. I think this gives a great flavour, and it helps to use up the over ripe bananas that I always seem to have. However, I’m trying to make these recipes as straightforward as possible, and you don’t always have bananas just lying around. So this is a plain version. But if you find yourself with bananas on the turn, I urge you to try one of the recipes in the Variations section below.

This version can be used with other berries instead – blueberries would work very well (it’s originally adapted from Nigella Lawson’s blueberry muffin recipe). Frozen berries can be easier to work with, as they don’t smush when you stir them in. Or you can use other fruit, chopped nuts, citrus zest or chocolate chips as the flavouring instead. As these muffins are quite plain, it’s also nice to add something crunchy to the top – crunchy sugar, and chopped nuts or flaked almonds are good. But all these things are optional and flexible. Start with something straightforward and go from there.

Equipment:

In addition to scales and measuring cups:

  • Bowl
  • Wooden spoon / silicone spatula
  • Jug or small bowl for wet ingredients
  • Muffin tin (can be pretty cheap, doesn’t need to be non stick if you’re using cases)
  • Muffin paper cases
  • Spring-loaded ice cream scoop (entirely optional, but really good for dividing muffin batter into cases. If you get addicted to muffins, get one).

Basic recipe:

Wet ingredients:

  • 100ml/g milk (as before, milliliters and grams are the same thing for milk and water)
  • 100g yoghurt
  • 1 large egg
  • 75ml vegetable oil (near enough 75g)

Dry ingredients:

  • 200g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
  • pinch of salt
  • 75g caster sugar

Flavourings:

  • 200g raspberries – fresh or frozen

Topping (optional):

  • flaked almonds
  • demerara sugar – a couple of tablespoons of each

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C / 180C if it’s a fan oven.

Measure the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Use a whisk to combine them, and make sure the baking powder and bicarbonate are distributed through the flour.

Measure the wet ingredients into a large jug or a small bowl. Use a whisk or a fork to break up the egg and combine it all together.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Mix the two together gently. Once they are most of the way combined, but still with dry patches, add the raspberries. Frozen berries are easier to mix in, but fresh are good too.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cases. Sprinkle a few flaked almonds and half a teaspoon of sugar onto each muffin. Bake for 20 minutes at 180C.

Once they are golden brown on top, and they spring back if you press the top gently with your finger. Leave the muffins to cool for five minutes in the tin, then lift them out using the cases and set to cool on a wire rack (a grill pan will also work).

Muffins are best eaten on the same day, or the day after. If you want to keep them longer, the best thing to do is put them in a plastic box or a ziplock bag and freeze soon after baking.

Variations:

Banana muffin variations: Cherry and almond, Coffee ginger walnut

Dan Lepard has a recipe for mocha fig muffins that are both dairy and egg free.

Marmalade makes a good muffin – it adds moisture from the pectin in the marmalade.

Bakewell muffins (cherry and almond)

Cherry almond muffins
Muffins are not exactly a new topic for this blog, and this basic recipe is one I wrote up not long ago … but then I read that EnglishMum was having a bake-off competition, with the prize of a hamper of Green & Blacks chocolate, and these came out looking so pretty that I had to write about them.

This is the based on the same banana muffin recipe I’ve been making for a while now, originally from Gordon Ramsay’s Healthy Appetite. It’s a good  moist recipe and the banana flavour isn’t too dominant so they lend themselves to flavour variations. As these are a pretty healthy variation of muffins, with oil instead of butter, bananas replacing some of the fat, and wholemeal flour, I feel just fine about consuming them everyday. I like to freeze them and take them into work as a mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack.

Muffins work well frozen, as they can be quickly reheated in a microwave, or left to defrost on their own. As with any cake or bread leavened mainly with baking powder or bicarbonate of soda (such as soda bread) they will go stale quite fast once out of the oven. Freezing is a good way to capture that fresh quality.

Having some ageing bananas in my kitchen last weekend, I cast around for a new set of flavours to add to the recipe. When I found a packet of dried cherries and a half packet of roasted marcona almonds in the cupboard, the decision was made.

Bakewell muffins

Cooling cherry almond muffins

As before, these can be adapted in many different ways. Just make sure to keep the liquid ingredients separate from the dry ones, mix them both separately, then combine gently, folding in any berries or other bits at the end.

Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients:

Dry ingredients:

  • 300g wholemeal self-raising flour (or plain flour and 1 tsp baking powder)
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
  • pinch of salt

Wet ingredients

  • 100g light brown muscovado sugar
  • 2 large ripe bananas
  • 220ml buttermilk, or 180g plain yoghurt and 40ml milk
  • 1 large egg
  • 75ml vegetable oil
  • 1/2 tsp almond extract

Bits and pieces

  • 100g dried cherries
  • 100g toasted chopped almonds (marcona almonds are really good)

Toppings:

  • 6 glacé cherries, halved
  • flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / 350°F.

Put the flour and other dry ingredients into a large bowl and use a whisk to make sure they are thoroughly combined.

Mash the bananas into a medium bowl, and add the sugar and other wet ingredients. (The sugar goes in here, because it’s easier to get the sugar to mix in and remove all the lumps in the liquid).

Add all the liquid ingredients to the dry in one go, and mix gently together with a spatula or large spoon. Add the bits and stir just to distribute them. The more you stir the batter, the more you develop the gluten in the flour, and the tougher the muffins will be.

Divide the batter between 12 muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes or until the tops are just starting to brown and the top springs back when pressed.

Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, the take out a cool on a rack. If you’re going to freeze them, wait until completely cold, then put into a freezer bag within a few hours and freeze. Should be fine for several months.

Cake – a quest for an everyday muffin

I’ve been in denial, but now I need to accept that I have a problem and address it. I like cake.

I make cake at home, I share it with friends. I bake birthday cakes for people. I think most of the cakes I make are better than those that I buy.

And yet, I buy far too many expensive, mediocre cakes and biscuits during the week at work.

THIS HAS GOT TO STOP.

You see, the problem is that I tell myself I don’t need cake in the week, that it’s just for dessert and occasional weekend treats. But this is not true. I eat some form of cake, biscuit or pastry every day, often twice a day. So what I should really do is make my own cakes, try and make them as healthy as I can, with whole grains and fruit in, and take them with me to work, so that I won’t buy the Paul Pain au Chocolat, the Eat Banana cake or the Pret Flapjack thing. (I might have to stick with the Leon Lemon and Ginger cake for a while, just until I figure out the recipe).

The first step then, was to bake some muffins, which freeze very happily, are very accommodating of modification, and fill that mid-morning gap perfectly.

Gordon Ramsay has a nice recipe for blueberry muffins in his ‘Healthy Appetite’ book, which uses wholemeal flour and mashed bananas, so that seemed like  a good place to start.

And then, I was reading Eggbeater, and came across this description by shuna of a muffin she had made for the weekend pastry basket at 10 Downing Street (the New York restaurant where she works):

” buckwheat-banana-walnut-coffee-candied ginger muffin”

Doesn’t that sound amazing? I knew I had to give it a go.

So I started with the Gordon Ramsay recipe and modified it. Unfortunately my modifications weren’t bold enough the first time. The coffee made the dough convincingly brown, but didn’t contribute much to the flavour. The ginger appeared when you got a nugget of candied ginger, but otherwise was quiet. So I tried again, and increased the quantities of flavouring, adding the ginger syrup, and more coffee. I ended up with a great flavourful muffin. The bitter flavours of the coffee and walnuts balance the sugar and bananas to make a not-to-sweet breakfast muffin. The walnuts and demerara give crunch and the bananas keep the whole thing moist. And I get to tell myself that its entirely healthful, so I can tuck in every day of the week.

Ginger coffee walnut banana muffins

Introduction

Based on a single line from Shuna Fish Lydon: “ buckwheat-banana-walnut-coffee-candied ginger muffin”.

The recipe is adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe for blueberry muffins in ‘Healthy Appetite’.

This is a great breakfast muffin, because the bitter flavours of the coffee and walnuts balance the bananas and sugar to make sure it is not too sweet.

 Tips

You can freeze bananas when they are ripe, even all brown, for baking with later. They will go very squashy, but that doesn’t matter if you’re going to mash them up anyway.

Flour develops gluten when it comes into contact with liquid – the protein that makes bread strong and elastic. If this develops in muffins, it makes them seem tough and chewy, so minimise the gluten by keeping the dry and wet ingredients separate until the last minute, and by then mixing gently together until they are just combined.
Ingredients

  • 2 large ripe bananas

  • 200g wholemeal self-raising flour and 100g rye flour

  • 1/2 tsp baking powder

  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

  • pinch of salt

  • 100g light brown muscovado sugar

  • 1 tsp ground ginger

  • 2 tbsp of instant espresso powder dissolved in 3 tbsp of just-boiled water, or a double shot of espresso

  • 180g yoghurt and 40ml semi-skimmed milk (or 220ml buttermilk)

  • 1 egg

  • 75ml vegetable oil

  • 150g walnuts, toasted and chopped

  • 50g candied stem ginger in syrup, finely chopped (about 3 balls), plus 1 tbsp of the syrup

  • 2 tbsp demerara sugar –> to sprinkle on the top

 Method

  • Preheat the oven to 180C.

  • Mash the bananas.

  • Put the flours, baking powder, bicarb, salt, sugar and ground ginger into a large bowl and combine with a whisk, to make sure the leavening is evening mixed through the flour.

  • Add the yoghurt, milk, bananas, egg, coffee, ginger syrup and oil and stir gently until just combined, but still with a couple of floury streaks.

  • Add the chopped nuts and ginger and fold in until fairly evenly distributed. Mix gently, and don’t overmix or the texture will become tough as the gluten in the flour develops.

  • Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cases in a muffin tin. Sprinkle the top of each muffin generously with demerara sugar.

  • Bake for about 20 minutes or until the tops are brown and crusted, and the top springs back. If you are unsure, test with a toothpick or skewer to check there is no liquid mixture in the centre.

  • Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then remove the cases to a cooling rack until completely cold. Eat immediately while warm, or freeze on the same day. You can take out a frozen muffin to take to work, and it should thaw during the day (or you can help it along with a quick burst in a microwave).

Monday Muffins

At my request, every birthday brings me a new crop of cookbooks to wallow in. This year was particularly fine, bringing me the two books from bloggers: David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop” and Heidi Swanson’s “Super Natural Cooking“.

Banana pecan muffinsSuper Natural Cooking is the one intriguing me most at the moment (and only partly because I don’t have a freezer yet, so can’t make David’s ice creams!) It is one of the most unusual books I’ve come across in a long time: a book of healthy, natural, vegetarian recipes containing a wealth of unfamiliar ingredients … that all look incredibly delicious and tempting. All this has been said before, but this is a really beautiful and interesting book, and I look forward to getting to grips with quinoa, farro and sprouted chickpea burgers in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, something from my more usual baking repetoire – banana muffins. A bunch of organic bananas had been sitting on the windowsill glowering at me for more than a week, and getting browner and browner. This was the solution – and they seemed to go down very well at work to cheer up a grey and rainy monday.

Espresso Banana Muffins

  • 290g light brown self-raising flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • (or 145g whole wheat flour, 145g plain flour and 2 tsp baking powder)
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt
  • 150g walnuts (I used pecans)
  • 1 tbsp espresso powder
  • 85g butter, room temperature
  • 120g soft brown sugar
  • 60 golden caster sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 250g plain yoghurt
  • 310g peeled bananas, mashed (about 3 large bananas, the riper the better)

Heat the oven to 180C/350F. Spread the pecans or walnuts onto a baking sheet and toast for about 8 minutes. Remove from the oven, cool a little and chop. Set aside. Turn the oven up to 190C/375F. Prepare a 12 cup muffin tin with paper cases.

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, espresso powder and around two-thirds of the chopped walnuts together.

Mash the bananas and mix in the yoghurt and vanilla. Set aside.

Beat the butter and sugars together until creamy. Mix in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the yoghurt mixture.

Add the flour, and stir together briefly, just until the streaks of flour have pretty much disappeared. Don’t overmix; it’s better to leave it too lumpy than too smooth.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin cups and top with the remaining chopped nuts.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out without batter clinging to it. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.