Muffins!

Yesterday I made muffins. I love muffins, and eating cake makes breakfast acceptable. I decided to make raspberry muffins and white chocolate muffins. I started with the white chocolate ones and this is how it went....


3.30pm
After looking for some recipes online I found two that looked fabulous. I printed them off and went into the kitchen to discover I had forgotten to clean it. I decided it would be muuch better to make the muffins first, because if I made them after cleaning the kitchen I would have to clean up twice.
I use a fair few American recipes, which all call for cups. After spending a frustrating couple of years worrying about what size a cup was I eventually found some in a local supermarket. I then discovered my two cups sizes are different. The plastic ones I bought from Morrisons (which have a handy spoon size on it too) were smaller than the metal ones from Tesco. Decided to use metal ones as they looked posher.
Washed hands, checked recipe, turned oven to 350 and realised it didn't go that far. Went into living room and converted it online...works out at around 180. Took muffin tray out of cupboard, looked for muffin cases, found them, and lined the muffin tray with them. Much easier than nessing about and greasing everything in sight.
Found really large posh glass mixing bowl that recently purchased because was on sale. Found another bowl for dry ingredients. Measured out 2.5 cups of all purpose flour, 0.5 tsp salt, 3.5 tsp baking powder. addition on baking powder suggested I should have used plain flour and not self raising. Added 1 tsp instead to make sure they had no choice but to rise.
Got glass bowl. Recipe asked for 12 tbsp of butter at room temp. I used 12 tbsp of marg at fridge temp. Added 1 cup of suger, not sure which kind so used caster sugar. Turned on electric whisk and whisked away for the 2-3 required minutes. Realised had not bought chocolate chips. Took out white chocolate bar (it's cheaper for a start) and bashed up with the tin opener while whisking. Put in 2 eggs one at a time. Was supposed to add 1.5 tsp of vannila extract but didn't have any pods left, so left that out. Time to add half of flour mixture. Hand whisked flour too as had forgotten to sieve it. This new method worked, and stopped flour flying all over place when sieved. Added half flour to wet mixture. Whisked. Add 3/4 cup of milk. Whisked. Add rest of flour, making sure did not over beat. You have to then fold in tin opener bashed chocolate with a spatula. Realised had broken spatula some weeks ago so used one with no handle. Hands got a bit messy.
Put the mix into cake cases. Woman was right, she said the recipe was for 12, should get 14, I got 16. Only have one muffin tin so sat 4 in a normal cake tin and left them for a while. Slid muffins in oven, took other recipe.

4.00pm
Took posh glass bowl over to sink and washed it. Have just realised should have had oven higher for this one, but I didn't! Melted 6 tbsp marg in the microwave. Added this to 3/4 cup packed dark brown suger. didn't have dark brown sugar, used light brown instead. Added 1/2 cup milk and 1 egg. Whisked on high speed to save time.
In the plastic bowl whisked together 1.5 cups flour (used plain this time), and added 1.5 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp of cinnamon and the recipe asked for 0.5 tsp fleur de sel which I had never heard of but translated to salt flour, which I didn't have, so I used normal salt. Added dry ingredients to wet. Whisked until just incorporated. Took raspberries and blackberries from fridge. These had been frozen so they were a bit mushy. Drained juice to drink later. Added to the mixture.
Tasted juice, was v not sweet, added to mixture instead, mixture now looked v wet, added a bit of flour to make up for it.
Realised I couldn't put them in the oven as the others still weren't ready yet. Tidied up a bit fo the kitchen while I waited.

4.35pm
Muffins were ready! Took out of oven. Was supposed to let cool in tins but couldn't be bothered. Took them out and wondered if I was getting chef hands like they are always taking about in Market Kitchen. Lined with more cases, added raspberry mixture which honestly looked like brown sludge. Chucked them back in oven.
Tidied up a bit more of the kitchen.

5.15pm
Took nearly burnt muffins out, should not check emails while stuff is cooking. Realised husband would soon be home and no dinner was made. Kept oven on and chucked a couple of chicken kievs in. Couldn't eat them as looked yuk, so made me chips for a treat. Needed to leave room for all the muffins! Sat muffins on table to take a picture. Dropped one on floor, it went everywhere.

5.45pm
Took spare four muffins out of oven. Kitchen was tidy, but not amazingly so. Sat muffins at front of kitchen so husband would notice my wonderful home cooking skills and not the nearly clean kitchen.

6.00pm
Husband has finished dinner. He tried to eat three chocolate muffins and discovered three is too many. Caiden ate the other one. Have sat some in freezer, some for kids to add to packed lunches, and eaten rather a lot myself. They really are v scrummy.



For thise interested in the proper way to make these muffins, I took the recipe from this site:

Annie's Eats - Raspberry Muffins

Annie's Eats - Chocolate Muffins

Have fun and enjoy!

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