American muffins are absolutely nothing like an English muffin, which I am sure you have discovered in your visits to Florida.
The name muffin comes from the French word for soft bread and it has been re designed in different ways either side of the pond.
Muffins have a very light almost cakey texture and are suitable to eat from breakfast to supper.
A good muffin is quite expensive to buy in the U. K. but they are so easy to make, so why not have a go?
INGREDIENTS for standard muffin
1 cup of natural yogurt
2 cups of plain flour
2 large eggs
half cup of golden caster sugar.
1 teaspoon baking powder.
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt.
quarter cup of butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Muffin cases
Pre heat the oven to gas mark 6; have your muffin cases ready.
Melt butter gently. Mix together eggs, sugar, vanilla, yogurt and melted butter in a bowl. Sieve into this mix all the other ingredients.
Pour quickly into muffin cases and place immediately into oven.
Bake in a hot oven for around 20 minutes when they should have doubled in size. Test they are cooked through with a knife; texture is supposed to be lighter than, for instance, a fairy cake.
For choc chip cookies
1 egg
handfull of choc chips
8 ounces of plain flour
2 tbs cocoa
3 fluid ounces vegetable oil
8 ponces butter milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
quarter teaspoon bicarb
6 ounces golden caster sugar
little vanilla extract
Method is as above
VARIATIONS
Substitute one cup of flour with bran and some chopped dates
Add a hand full of raisins (large ones are best)
Throw in a cup of cranberries(dried or fresh)
Blueberries are good and colourfull
Dried ir fresh apricots are lovely (soak dried apricots if you do not like them chewy)
.
Add the zest of a couple of lemons
Add the zest of 2 oranges
Fancy savoury? Try leaving out the sugar and adding well squeezed out frozen, thawed leaf spinach, cream or ricotta cheese and parmesan. Add a shimmer of cayenne pepper
Grated carrot and orange zest
Top with streusal
Mix in chopped banana and walnuts
Substitute the milk for butter milk.
Top with poppy seeds.
Just a few top tips. Use an ice crean scoop to fill the cases; this is usually one perfect measure.
Do not over mix; this will make the mufins tough. You have raising agents to do the lightening for you.
Preheating the oven is vital as the raising agents get to work right away therefore you do not want your batter to be kept waiting.
You can put the mixture straight into muffin tins in which case grease the tins well first.
The name muffin comes from the French word for soft bread and it has been re designed in different ways either side of the pond.
Muffins have a very light almost cakey texture and are suitable to eat from breakfast to supper.
A good muffin is quite expensive to buy in the U. K. but they are so easy to make, so why not have a go?
INGREDIENTS for standard muffin
1 cup of natural yogurt
2 cups of plain flour
2 large eggs
half cup of golden caster sugar.
1 teaspoon baking powder.
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt.
quarter cup of butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Muffin cases
Pre heat the oven to gas mark 6; have your muffin cases ready.
Melt butter gently. Mix together eggs, sugar, vanilla, yogurt and melted butter in a bowl. Sieve into this mix all the other ingredients.
Pour quickly into muffin cases and place immediately into oven.
Bake in a hot oven for around 20 minutes when they should have doubled in size. Test they are cooked through with a knife; texture is supposed to be lighter than, for instance, a fairy cake.
For choc chip cookies
1 egg
handfull of choc chips
8 ounces of plain flour
2 tbs cocoa
3 fluid ounces vegetable oil
8 ponces butter milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
quarter teaspoon bicarb
6 ounces golden caster sugar
little vanilla extract
Method is as above
VARIATIONS
Substitute one cup of flour with bran and some chopped dates
Add a hand full of raisins (large ones are best)
Throw in a cup of cranberries(dried or fresh)
Blueberries are good and colourfull
Dried ir fresh apricots are lovely (soak dried apricots if you do not like them chewy)
.
Add the zest of a couple of lemons
Add the zest of 2 oranges
Fancy savoury? Try leaving out the sugar and adding well squeezed out frozen, thawed leaf spinach, cream or ricotta cheese and parmesan. Add a shimmer of cayenne pepper
Grated carrot and orange zest
Top with streusal
Mix in chopped banana and walnuts
Substitute the milk for butter milk.
Top with poppy seeds.
Just a few top tips. Use an ice crean scoop to fill the cases; this is usually one perfect measure.
Do not over mix; this will make the mufins tough. You have raising agents to do the lightening for you.
Preheating the oven is vital as the raising agents get to work right away therefore you do not want your batter to be kept waiting.
You can put the mixture straight into muffin tins in which case grease the tins well first.