Goats chese, red onion and rosemary muffins - Delia Smith

As well as the spinach, carrot and cumin muffins, both in order to further justify having purchased muffin tins and in order to try a different recipe, I also made goats cheese, red onion and rosemary muffins for the party.  I used this recipe from Delia which was similar to the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe but without natural yoghurt.





These came out nicely but I didn't like them quite as much as the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall ones - to be honest, I think mostly they just weren't quite strong tasting enough for me.  I'd be inclined to try them again with a stronger flavoured cheese - perhaps stilton or very mature cheddar.

Carrot, spinach and cumin muffins - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

I bought a couple of muffin tins a while ago and I have been feeling guilty about them ever since.  I love buying things for the kitchen which is already stuffed with things - crockery of various sorts, stockpiles of things like spices and pulses and things I bought for a particular recipe and then pushed to the back of a cupboard - and do try to restrain myself from buying more.  So, having only used the muffin tins a couple of times has been weighing on my conscience. 

So, I decided to bake some savoury muffins for a party that we had recently.  I like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipes so decided to try his one for carrot, spinach and cumin muffins.  The recipe can be found here (need to scroll as it's the last one in the article).  They came out beautifully - I particularly liked the slightly sour tang from the natural yoghurt - and were a big hit at the party.  It was, however, crucial to monitor them carefully in the last few minutes they were in the oven as they went from undercooked to cooked in only a couple of minutes.

 

 

apple muffins

Yummy apple muffins

I don't bake much (because I am a little scared of ovens) but I wanted to take something into work after having been away for a week and a half and, also, I recently bought muffin tins so I decided to bake some apple muffins to take in, using this recipe.  I am not very good at following recipes exactly so I added a bit more apple (because apples don't come in 100g packages!), and a lot more spice (as well as doubling the amount of ground ginger, I also added ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla essence), dusted with a mix of ground cinnamon and brown sugar after baking, and they came out pretty well - if I do say so myself!

Mixture pre-baking

Folding in the chopped apple

I think, for my tastes, they weren't quite sweet enough - I think, probably, because I think of muffins as a dessert, not as breakfast food - so, next time, I might add a little more sugar.  I think some peanut butter would also be nice in them.  And maybe some dates..