raspberry muffins

I felt like it was time to get the apron back on this morning so I thought a few raspberry muffins would be just the trick. I've been a bit obsessed with making muffins since my trip to LA where my brother's supremely lovely girlfriend greeted us with fresh baked blueberry muffins every morning. She put my hosting skills to shame with the ease in which she would just whip up breakfast treats without any of us even noticing. We were too busy snoozing. Very lazy holiday makers we are.

I'm not sure I've been able to replicate her triumphs altogether but I've been trying out a few different recipes since I got home. The first was the one she gave me for blueberry muffins from the food network which I think has been the best to date. Really nice recipe but you have to convert the measurements from US to whatever it is we use here. 

Second off I tried Lilly Higgins raspberry and white chocolate muffins. Which tasted delicious but I thought they looked a bit more like scones when they first came out of the oven. They seemed to be better one they'd cooled down a bit. I brought them to work for a colleague's birthday and they were all devoured but that could have just been my greedy workmates so it's hard to tell!

So today I tried a recipe from the Popina 'book of baking'. It was quite similar to Lily Higgins' recipe. They both use oil instead of butter and had a fairly similar list of ingredients. None of the muffins I've made managed to rise very much at all. Maybe I've been tricked into false expectations by shop bought muffins, but I'm still waiting to produce a muffin that doesn't look like a cupcake. If anyone has any tips for me please do share. It's ironic really. We spend our lives trying to avoid muffin top and here I am crying out for it.

Anyway, I just had one with a cup of tea and it was pretty delicious. Perfect mid morning treat. And let's face it, who doesn't need a mid morning treat these days.

Here's the recipe. I only had raspberries so adapted a little. And I'd no white chocolate so used chocolate orange instead. I'm very bad at following recipes it seems. Maybe that's why my muffins don't look like muffins.

Summer fruit and white chocolate muffins

2 eggs
80g golden castor sugar
50ml vegetable oil
few drops of vanilla essence
150g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder 
1 large nectarine stoned + sliced
70g strawberries
70g white chocolate chopped 

 Preheat the oven to gas 4
Fill a muffin tray with large muffin cases (recipe says it should make 6, although there's enough for 7)

Put the eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla in a bowl and mix well.
Sieve the flour and baking powder and mix together with the wet ingredients.
Stir in the fruit and chocolate.

Fill each muffin case 2/3 full. Sprinkle with sugar to finish.


Bake in oven for 25 mins (mine took more like 35). Don't be tempted to open the oven to check as it may cause the muffins to collapse. (although if they're not rising in the first place this is hardly a problem!) Leave to cool slightly before scoffing the lot.

Enjoy.