Muffin Meglomania

Waking up to a particularly miserable and rainy Saturday, my room-mate/friend Maddie and I decided yes, it was indeed the perfect day to experiment with muffins. As you have probably gathered from the name of the blog, my favourite food on the entire planet is a good muffin.

small

big

soft

crunchy

hot

cold

I’m really not fussed so long as it’s a muffin. It’s like eating cake but infinitely better. One of my many life plans is to have my very own muffin shop that experiments with bold flavour combinations of muffins and cakes. To kick-start this life plan, I need to perfect the muffin. Enter our Saturday afternoon activity. We decided to cook three batches using the same base recipe but varying the delicious extras that make a muffin, well a muffin. So here they are - the great experiments.

BATCH NO. 1

Mum’s banana choc-chip. There is a bit of a story behind these. Maddie and I have made so many batches of these that it has become not funny, but sad. I think these muffins have been a major contributing factor to my current physique. But as I always say, some things are worth being fat for and these muffins are definitely one of those things.Here is the recipe.

THE MEANS

2 ¼ cups plain flour

½ cup sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1 cup milk

 125g butter, melted

1 egg, beaten

1 capful vanilla essence

2-3 over ripe bananas, mashed

Choc chips (as many as you like!)

Cinnamon sugar

THE METHOD

Mix dry ingredients together (as little as possible!). Add the butter, egg, milk and vanilla together stirring constantly to combine. Add the wet ingredients, banana’s and choc-chips to the dry ingredients and stir with a fork until just combined. Pour into muffin tins and cook at 180°C for 35mins or until golden on top. 10-15 minutes into cooking, sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top of muffins. When they look delicious in the oven, take them out and let them cool just enough so you don’t fry your tongue and eat away! They can be frozen or will keep for a couple of days but they are always best fresh.

BATCH NO. 2

This was a fail of epic proportions. We attempted to make insanely rich double choc muffins but it didn’t exactly go to plan. I do believe the recipe we invented would have worked if we hadn’t fucked it up so badly. It all started when I burnt the chocolate. We then had to melt the chocolate into the wet ingredients. It was all fine but then we had finished up and put the batter in the tray and BOOM  realised we had forgotten to put in the butter. Out came the batter and the butter was added along with A LOT of flour. The result? Muffins that tasted like an incredibly bland cake. Oh and they were a little dry. But they looked bloody fantastic! So much potential, and at the end of the day all in the bin. I’ll have to try them again and see if it works when made properly.

BATCH NO. 3

Blueberry and white chocolate. This one was actually a roaring success! They looked and tasted amazing! Definitely going to be a feature in the muffin shop. Of course they are going to be called Violet Beauregarde after that lovely character in Willy Wonka who turns into a giant blueberry. Oh I forgot to mention, all the muffins in my shop are going to be named after characters in books/movies. Creative right? I’m absolutely stumped when it comes to the banana choc chip so suggestions will be very welcome. Anyway here is the recipe for the Violet Beauregarde muffin.

THE MEANS

2 ¼ cups plain flour

½ cup sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1 cup milk

 125g butter, melted

1 egg, beaten

1 capful vanilla essence

1 block of white chocolate

White chocolate chunks (you can buy a block and chop them or bash them in a tea towel)

Blueberries

Granola (to sprinkle on top)

THE METHOD

Mix dry ingredients together (as little as possible!). Melt the white chocolate. Add the butter, egg, milk and vanilla to the white chocolate, always stirring until combined together nicely. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring as little as possible until just combines. Add the white chocolate chunks and blueberries to the batter (be really careful not to stir too much because the batter will turn blue which let’s face it, isn’t very appealing to eat). Pour batter into muffin tins and cook at 180°C for 35mins or until golden on top. 10-15 minutes into cooking, sprinkle granola on top of muffins. Take them out and voila you have a delicious breakfast treat or mid afternoon snack!

And we have the finished product...

Unfortunately it's a little blurred but that's the only photo I took!

Overall an interesting afternoon, one major success, one tradish muff and one epic fail. Ticks all my boxes if you ask me. What better way to spend your Saturday afternoon than by baking the day away. The only downside will be working up the willpower to keep them frozen in the freezer and not in my belly. 

Zaijian wode pengyou.