Toffee Apple Muffins

So remember how summer was 'over'? Apparently the weather's had different ideas and is treating us to one last blast of sunshine before everyone heads back to uni...and who am I to complain? Plus it means that I can pack away all my jumpers ready for the Oxford winter, and still have things to wear for the next few days. Excellent. So this week I've given up on work really, and have been preparing mentally and physically (packing, not working out, although I have become rather addicted to a Zumba game over the last few days) to go away again, and of course that means baking. These toasty-warm lovelies don't really go with the weather, but we had some good homegrown apples this week and I wanted to use them. And toffees.

Adapted from the 'Apple Spice Muffins' recipe in 'Muffins fast and fantastic' by Susan Reimer

Ingredients

9oz plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3oz caster sugar

1 egg

6oz chopped apple 

150ml milk

90ml sunflower oil (or 85g melted butter)

about 7 toffees, chopped

Preheat oven to 180 degrees for a fan

Sift the flour, baking powder, spices and sugar in a large bowl, and in another bowl beat the egg. Stir the chopped apple, milk, and oil/butter into the egg until its all nice and eggy. 

Pour the eggy-apple mix into the flour bowl and stir, adding the toffee pieces in the final few stirs. The batter will be quite gloopy and lumpy so don't worry! 

Fill muffin cases and sprinkle with demerara or brown sugar and bake for about 25 minutes until they're golden brown. Take the muffin cases out of the tin as soon as poss, as the toffee WILL leak everywhere and if it cools you won't get the cases out at all. 

Soak the pans so no-one else sees the mess.

Enjoy the melty, spiced apply cakes.

Note the crater where some toffee was?

Porridge Muffins

This summer has been most strange so far, I can't really think of what I've been doing, but it seems to be going rather quickly! So I'm sharing another older recipe, in lieu of me having anything interesting to say. I actually made these over Christmas, having eaten far too much porridge in my first term at university and thus having it pervade my baking endeavour once I got back home. So these aren't especially summery, but then they kind of fit in with the weather we've been having recently. Let's hope it holds up for my brother's open air performance at Stratford-upon-Avon tomorrow...?

‘Porridge’ muffins
Adapted from a maple pecan recipe in ‘Muffins, fast and fantastic’ Susan Reimer (on account of me not having pecans, or indeed enough maple syrup) These ended up tasting like porridge, in a muffin, and I was told by my sister’s boyfriend that they ‘taste warm.’ Not sure about how that works, but they are certainly very comforting, and have oats in so are obviously good for you! 
Ingredients
1 egg
240 ml milk
60 ml golden syrup
30 ml maple syrup
2 oz 60g rolled oats (or porridge oats, never sure of the difference)
3oz 85g unsalted butter, soft
3oz 85g caster sugar
8oz 225g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Topping (optional)
Crumble topping
Walnuts, chopped
Demerara sugar
Cinnamon or mixed spice

Preheat oven 180 for fan oven
Beat egg with a fork and add milk, both syrups and oats. Try to stir in as much as possible (slightly tricky with the golden syrup) set aside so that the oats soak up all the syrupy goodness. In a separate bowl, cream the softened butter and sugar together. Sift flour and baking powder into the butter mix and rub until it looks like breadcrumbs
Pour wet ingredients into dry, and stir till just combined (you can add chopped walnuts/pecans here if you like)
Spoon into muffin tins with cases, and sprinkle with your favourite crumble topping, finely chopped walnuts, extra sugar and maybe a touch of cinnamon on top before baking for 20-25 minutes

Not looking particularly attractive, it has to be said...

Slightly blurry, but note the festive red and green cases (!)

 

Pear and Ginger Muffins

Having sat pondering for a good ten minutes on possible pear and ginger/ Fred and Ginger puns and coming up with nothing sensible, I decided to let the title stand on its own. I made these to use up a free morning and some slightly over ripe pears (those tricky fruits of the blink-and-you-miss-it ripeness) and they went down rather well, so enjoy! 

Adapted from ‘Muffins, fast and fantastic’ by Susan Reimer, these smell delicious; gingery and subtly fruity. Using fresh pear keeps these nice and moist, and I added more ginger, mixed spice and honey and reduced the caster sugar for a warmer flavour.

Ingredients
10oz self raising flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon mixed spice
3 oz caster sugar
1 egg
100 ml milk
80 ml apple and pear juice (or just pear if you have it, or if you like just have 180ml milk instead, this just adds a bit more fruity flavour)
6oz well chopped pear
3 tablespoons honey
3 oz melted unsalted butter

Topping
Mine was a handful of dark brown sugar, a handful of oats and three walnuts (all I could find!) roughly chopped and mixed up to make a sugary crumble topping

Preheat to 180 for a fan oven and prepare your cases. I used my silicone cupcake moulds again, and a 6 hole silicone muffin tray (hence the varying sizes and shapes of muffin…clearly I wasn’t going for regularity here!)

Sift the flour, bicarb, ginger, mixed spice and caster sugar together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the egg and add the milk, juice pear, honey, and butter. Stir this really well to make sure all the different things combine (the honey is particularly tricksy) and pour it as soon as possible into the dry ingredients. Stir until just combined as you don’t want it too smooth and obviously the pear will make it a lumpy batter anyway.

Fill the cases and sprinkle the topping on top (again if using, I like the occasional walnut flavour and crunchy sugary oats but these would be nice without as well) and bake for 20-25 minutes.