Muffins

I have been baking quite a lot the last couple of weeks, partly for procrastination, partly for mental health, partly for my family who are all busy at the moment, and partly to have as a reward for if I happen to do some work.

I have made Nigella's Pear and Ginger Muffins, from Nigella express, many times before, and they are quick, easy and very delicious. The recipe makes a good base recipe for fruited muffins and I have been playing with it a bit of late, with excellent results.



The first was apple cinnamon muffins. Replacing the pear and ginger for apple and cinnamon gave the muffins a much more teacake taste and I also replaced the sour cream with Greek yogurt, as that is what I had, which added a lovely tang to the muffins. The total weight of fruit I used was 200g after it was peeled, cored and chopped, as 300g creates too much batter for the tins. I made two batches of these in the one week, and they remained moist and tender for 3 days after baking, after which time they were all gone.


My second foray was more seasonally inspired, after purchasing several punnets of fresh figs. After eating the figs with yogurt and honey, I thought that teamed up with yogurt and honey in a muffin, they would also be fabulous.

I went for fig and ginger muffins, the spice combination inspired by the fig and ginger pudding served atBadde Manors, a cafe which I go to very often. This time I replaced the caster sugar with brown sugar and again used Greek yogurt. I just tore the figs, letting the juices drip into the mixture. I added a little extra ginger which gave it a nice kick, though some crystallised ginger finely chopped might have been nice as well.




In both instances I forgot to top them with a bit of brown sugar, but I don't think they need it as they are quite sweet already.

HH