basic muffin recipe

basic muffins (these have cherries* in them)

ingredients:

• 2 cups plain flour
• ½ cup melted butter (unsalted/sweetcream)
• 1 cup milk (any)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 cup fruit or chocolate

• 1-2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions:
add flour, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt, baking powder to a mid sized bowl and mix well. It's as easy as that.

add your choice of fruit/chocolate/butterscotch chips and fold in gently.

spoon into muffin pans between 1/2 - 3/4 full .

Bake in preheated 375F (180C) oven 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

* the cherries were from a jar of cocktail cherries that I chopped up. I seem to be short on fruit other than the green bananas in the bowl and the apples that Harrison has claimed as his and his alone.

cook's notes: This is the basic recipe I use for nearly all my sweet muffins... to make savoury you leave out the vanilla and all but 2 tablespoons sugar. I've written up this recipe for a twitter baking challenge. So if you are looking for it on twitter look for the hash tag #michelebakes . Any questions please leave a comment here or on twitter and I will get back to you.

Cheddar and Ham Muffin Recipe

Cheddar and Ham Muffins

Ingredients:
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• ¼ cup finely grated parmesan cheese
• 2 cups plain flour
• ½ cup melted butter
• 1 cup crème fraiche *
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• Black Pepper to taste
• 3/4 cup ham, chopped fine
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

Directions:
Mix dry ingredients together.

Add crème fraiche, butter, eggs and mix.

Add the grated cheese and chopped ham.

Mix well and spoon into muffin pans 1/2 full.

Bake in preheated 400F (180C) oven 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

*Alternatively use plain yogurt or sour cream or ¾ cup milk.

Cook’s note: there are a number of different recipes for ham and cheese muffins out there, I read quite a few then winged it to create this recipe, they turned out great but I will probably tinker with the recipe a bit more the next time I make them, perhaps adding bacon instead of ham, or including some sautéed onion for a richer flavour. My taste testers Matt and Harrison loved it, oh and so did Frizbe too! I used the crème fraiche because that’s what I had on hand that needed using up, I also used thinly sliced sandwich style ham for the same reason though a thicker cut would probably work better.

sweet cornbread with maple butter

Sweet Corn Bread with Maple Butter

Ingredients
3/4 cup cornmeal (semolina)
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup white (caster) sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk (any)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted


Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C).

grease muffin tin or line with paper muffin cups (I used silicon jack o' lantern shaped muffin tin from Salisbury's).

Combine cornmeal, flour, sugar. egg, milk, baking powder, salt, and melted butter: mix until until blended. *

Scoop batter into prepared muffin pans. The batter will be very liquid because of the amount of milk and melted butter this is fine no need to worry it will be absorbed by the cornmeal/semolina.

Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top of muffins before baking if desired.

Bake for 15- 20 minutes remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes before removing from the muffin tin.



*Fresh chopped jalapeno peppers can be added at this time, as can chopped red pepper and/or tinned sweet corn(about ½ to 1 cup tinned sweet corn). I left the muffins plain so that they could be topped with maple butter.


Maple Butter
½ cup butter (slightly salted) at room temperature
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Mix the syrup and butter in a bowl with a spoon or electric mixer. The amount of syrup is to taste if you like the butter very sweet add more, or use very little for the slightest hint of maple flavour. Place in a small bowl or ramekin and refrigerate until needed.


cook's notes: I have been living in England for over ten years and it took a good 8 years to figure out semolina is cornmeal... yeah I know I should have been born a blond.

I made maple butter as I ran out of honey to make honey butter, but M says the maple butter knocks honey butter out of the ballpark... you know big sports enthusiast that he is. H was very pleased with the pumpkin shape and thinks that all muffins should be Halloween shaped!

Strawberry Muffins

Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter ( room temperature)
1 cup caster/white granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt (a good pinch)
2 1/2 cups fresh strawberries (sliced and sprinkled with a tablespoon sugar)
2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup milk

Heat oven to 375° F (180° C ish)

Grease 18 regular-size muffin cups (or 12 large size muffins) or line muffin tins with paper cases.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, beating after each.

Beat in vanilla, baking powder and salt. With a spoon, fold in half of flour then half of milk into batter.

Fold in the remainder of the flour, and then the remainder of the milk.

Gently fold strawberries into the batter and spoon into muffin cups.

Bake 20 minutes, or until golden brown and springy to touch.


cooks notes: I made these last Saturday to use up some strawberries that were of the use them or compost them state. We had Flame staying with us so I thought muffins would be a nice morning treat. Any excuse really, you know me and my baking. M said they were the nicest ones he has had and H didn't want to stop eating them so I must have done something right.

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Sorry I'm behind on updates, I will be posting a few more things soon.. as well as a giveaway when I have managed to actually sell something in my etsy shop *tilts head meaningfully to the right* to pay for a giveaway.

Blackberry Muffins

Blackberry Muffins

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter at room temp
1 cup caster/white granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt (a pinch)
2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blackberries
2 cups self- raising flour
1/2 cup milk

Topping
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
2 tablespoons porridge oats
Heat oven to 375° F (180° C ish).

Grease 18 regular-size muffin cups (or 12 large size muffins) or line muffin tins with paper cases.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, beating after each.

Beat in vanilla, baking powder and salt. With spoon, fold in half of flour then half of milk into batter.

Fold in the remainder of the flour, and then the remainder of the milk.

Gently fold blackberries into the batter and spoon into muffin cups.

Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle onto each muffin.

Bake 20 minutes, or until golden brown and springy to touch.

cooks notes: we picked our blackberries from the thicket in the park around the corner from our house. M says these taste nicer than my blueberry muffins. I'm not the biggest blackberry fan but it was fun picking the berries together as a family, and it made me remember all the times I used to pick them as a child to be made into blackberry pie served with vanilla ice-cream. H said he wasn't going to eat any as he was in a stroppy mood but he still managed to eat two.

Chocolate Chunk Muffins

chocolate chunk muffins

ingredients

1/2 cup butter (melted)
1 cup caster (white) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt (a pinch)
2 cups good quality chocolate (around 70% cocoa) roughly chopped (or use chocolate chips)*
2 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup milk

Heat oven to 375° F.
Grease 18 regular-size muffin cups (or 12 large size muffins) or line muffin tins with paper cases.
In a large bowl, mix together flour, melted butter, sugar, salt, baking powder, vanilla extract, and melted butter. Mix until just combined.

Fold in the chopped chocolate.

Spoon the batter into muffin cups.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and springs to the touch.

Then can be served warm or let them cool completely.

Once cooled they can be frozen to be consumed another day.

* about 2 ½ bars (250g )of chocolate roughly chopped. Use 3 bars if you want it very chocolately

Cook’s notes: I used green and blacks cooking chocolate, its 72% cocoa so is very dark, you can use any good quality chocolate you prefer, 55% cocoa, milk, or even white chocolate. H grumped at how dark the chocolate was, but at the same time still managed to eat a huge muffin, and didn’t actually complain about the darkness of the chocolate until he was nearly finished eating it. I thought they turned out pretty good but next time I may use a lesser percentage of cocoa. I only used the 72% because it was the only chocolate in the house that M and H hadn’t devoured.

Blueberry Muffins

Best Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter at room temp
1 cup caster/white granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt(a pinch)
2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
2 cups self- raising (or all purpose) flour
1/2 cup milk

Topping
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons porridge oats

Pre-Heat oven to 375°.

Grease 18 regular-size muffin cups (or 12 large size muffins) or line muffin tins with paper cases.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, beating after each.

Beat in vanilla, baking powder and salt. With spoon, fold in half of flour then half of milk into batter.

Fold in the remainder of the flour, and then the remainder of the milk.

Gently fold blueberries into the batter and spoon into muffin cups.

Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle onto each muffin.

Bake 20 minutes, or until golden brown and springy to touch.

cook's notes: These muffins are more cupcake with fruit in than pure muffin, though I have never properly understood the dividing line between cupcake and muffin. I like to mess around with my basic muffin recipe and seek inspiration from other recipes and then go my own way. The inspiration for the recipe is H wanting to make cupcakes and needed to use up some blueberries that were on offer in the supermarket. I trolled through some recipes in my recipe folder, and had a browse through recipezaar to see what other recipes people use. I find it quite facinating that there can be hundreds of diffrent recipes for simple blueberry muffins... or rather hundreds of diffrent variations on a theme. M and H very happy, so I must have done something right.