Raspberry & White Chocolate Muffins
I had a streak of making muffins a few months back that led to me adding another 4 recipe books to our bookshelf that was already struggling to stay on the wall. My next phase of my cooking journey led me to baking bread and now with the birthdays and events of close people mostly behind me, I have gone full-circle and back to sweet breads/muffins! (Equally bread making is for patient people and we always found ourselves staying up later than we wanted waiting for the bread finish proving for that perfect loaf.)
On my husband’s return from work this week, he brought me a large punnet of raspberries, fresh from the fruit farm in Cheshire. How thoughtful! 🙂 I love them and sometimes eat them all up in one sitting. This time, given the quantity, I would have needed a couple of rounds. The next day he also brought some cherries home when he was just supposed to get some vegetables we needed for a pot-luck dinner (my list for him did not include cherries!). Again very thoughtful, but how was I going to finish all this fruit before it went bad (haha, there is no pleasing women! :))? As raspberries perish the fastest, I decided to make these muffins and to follow the Strawberry Bread, share them with my work colleagues. It’s so great I now have people to bake for at anytime I want. These muffins were quick and simple to make and more importantly not a daunting task to start at 9 pm!
As with any adventure in the kitchen (or in life) I undertake, I consulted quite a few sources as I wanted them soft, moist and bursting with raspberry flavour with every bite! I finally found one from Nigella Lawson that I felt happy to challenge myself with. After watching many of her TV shows, I know her recipes are more on the decadent side and thought it would be a good place to start.
Here are my alterations:
1. I used 300g of raspberries instead of 100g. I thought 100g was not nearly enough for 300g of flour. Plus I wanted raspberries to dominate.
2. I used 150g of white chocolate and 160g of sugar to compensate the tartness of the additional raspberries.
With these small alterations, I made about 24 mini muffins. My husband and I really enjoyed them, especially warm out of the oven. Equally they were well received from my co-workers! I was a bit nervous with my extra additions, but they worked a treat and just how I wanted! 🙂
VegDelights 