I love muffins and can’t get enough of them.  I find them easy to chuck together and all my family like them. I don’t make them as often as I would like though I used to make them loads before I went back to work six years ago.  They were useful for the kids’ packed lunches or for taking on picnics as well as some even tasted great at breakfast time.

Yesterday I remembered I had some dried cranberries and some white chocolate chips in my baking stash.  I regularly make cranberry and white chocolate cookies so thought I could try the same flavour in a muffin for a change. I thought it would save my son who is going through a growth spurt at the moment from nicking all the cereal when he comes in starving from school!

If you regularly make muffins then I can’t recommend this book enough (see picture below).  I bought it several years ago in Lakeland so I am not sure whether it is still in print but it contains loads of fantastic muffin recipes with different flavours.  At the front of the book there is a recipe for basic muffins to which you can add your chosen flavour combinations.  I adapted the basic recipe and threw in 100g of white chocolate chips as well as 100g of dried cranberries as well as a teaspoonful of vanilla extract. What is also great about the book is that it gives UK measurements, not American cup sizes which was very helpful.

My favourite muffin book “Muffins Fast and Fantastic” by Susan Reimer.

The basic recipe starts off with weighing out the dry ingredients; plain flour, baking powder and sugar. You then mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl- sunflower oil and milk as well as the free range eggs. When they have been combined carefully by folding in the flour with a metal spoon I could add in the cranberries and the white chocolate bits.  The batter was quite lumpy but I have been told to expect that with muffins.

Spooning the muffin batter into the cases was another matter, I made a massive mess of it and some batter spilled. I suddenly remembered a tip that an American lady had given me a few years ago about pouring the batter into a jug so you then pour it into the cases from the jug! Makes perfect sense to me, I should have remembered it.

The muffins were ready in about 20-25 minutes and didn’t rise as much as you would expect shop bought muffins to look like but maybe it was because I didn’t over fill the cases.  They smelled gorgeous though, and within about 5 minutes my son had pinched two of them! So much for them being an after school snack for him!

Happy Baking!
Love Sam xx

Cranberry and White Chocolate Muffins, perfect with a cuppa or as a snack.