Lemon and Poppy Seed Muffins

Cherry, oat and yogurt muffins - #LoveFreshCherries

Chocolate muffins

Banana, walnut and maple syrup muffins

Jumbo Chocolate Orange Muffins

Cheese, chorizo and basil muffins

Courgette (Zucchini) & Lemon Muffins

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Courgette (Zucchini) & Lemon Muffins

In this extreme hot weather that has overtaken the country it can be quite a task to keep the garden looking good and all the plants alive and well. We have a particular problem as the majority of our fruit and vegetables are grown in containers. In fact some like the radishes are grown in whatever packaging that happens to arrive at JibberJabber Towers!

Radishes grown in polystyrene box

This proves you don't need a large space to start growing your own produce. A few packets of seeds, a suitable container and some compost and you're ready to go. If you are still a bit unsure head over to the Westland site for some expert advice and tips.

Despite the sunshine not everything is ready to eat yet. The French beans have raced up the bamboo poles but are only just flowering. The first of the tomatoes have started to develop but are still not ready to eat. 

The tomatoes still need to get a bit bigger and to ripen

One thing that has grown well this year are the courgettes. So much so that some of the pots have had to be banished to outside of the greenhouse. 

 

We've gone courgette crazy!

Of course once you have successfully grown all this wonderful produce the problem is what can you make with all of it. I like to grate courgettes and quickly cook them with olive oil and garlic. They also go well as an extra vegetable in a tomato sauce. Alternatively you can try them in a sweet recipe. As ever my solution for any anything is bake it in a cake! I use the fine grater attachment on my food processor to prepare the courgettes. By mixing the yoghurt with bicarbonate of soda and then filling the cases to the top the muffins have a soufflé style top to them. Obviously this does mean they will stink but they still taste great.

Makes 12

Equipment: 12 cup muffin tin and paper cases.

Ingredients

½ tsp (2.5ml) Bicarbonate of soda

10 fl oz (280ml) Low fat natural yoghurt

10oz (280ml) Plain flour

2tsp (10ml) Baking powder

6oz (170g) Caster sugar

1 Large Courgette (about 10oz/280g), finely grated

6 tbsp (90ml) Oil, sunflower, vegetable or corn

1 Large egg, lightly beaten

Zest of 1 Lemon

½ tsp (2.5ml) Vanilla extract

Method

1. Put the paper cases into the muffin tin.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/Gas mark 4.

3. In a small bowl mix together the Bicarbonate of soda and yoghurt and leave to one side.

4. In a separate bowl stir together the flour, baking powder and sugar.

5. Into the bowl add the courgette, oil, egg, lemon zest, vanilla extract and yoghurt mix.

6. Quickly combine the ingredients until mixed and then spoon into the cases. Fill up to the top.

7. Bake for about 30 minutes until the muffins have puffed up but have cooked through.

8. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Westland Horticulture. The words, photographs and recipe are my own.

Bacon and Cheese Muffins

Bacon and Cheese Muffins with a dash of Soy Sauce

Some people ask how I come up with ideas for recipes. This is how I came up with this recipe for Bacon and Cheese muffins. I was idly flicking through a cookbook which of course has the starters at the front. I saw a recipe for something with cheese. Mmm, I like cheese. I don't know what cheese it was for but nevermind. Keep flicking and in the main courses there's a recipe with bacon in it. I like bacon too. I prefer it to be smoked bacon for the flavour. The recipe was for chicken breasts with bacon wrapped round it. Not really interested in that. I move on and I get to the cakes and sweet bakes. Ooh, chocolate muffins. I might make something with chocolate in later and then it hits me – cheese, bacon, muffins. All three of them could go well together. So there you go recipe idea.

Muffins, like in my cookbook, are usually of the sweet variety so you need something to replace the sugar in the basic mix. I added some mustard powder but also some Kikkoman Soy Sauce, which they kindly sent to me. Both the bacon and cheese are quite strong flavoured and salty so to help cut through that I used the Kikkoman Less Salt Soy Sauce.

To get the taste of both the cheese and bacon you do need to use some strong, mature cheddar and also some smoked bacon. Anything milder and the flavours won't be there. You can serve these cold like a sweet muffin or just let them cool slightly before serving warm. If you let them cool they would be a tasty addition to a picnic or an interesting alternative in your lunchbox.

Makes 12

Equipment: 12 cup muffin tin lined with paper cases

Ingredients

4 Rashers smoked streaky bacon

8oz (225g) Self-raising flour

2oz (55g) Plain flour

1 tsp (5ml) Baking powder

½ tsp (2.5ml) Bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp (2.5ml) Mustard powder

6 tbsp (90ml) Sunflower oil

7fl oz (200ml) Milk

1 Large egg

1 tbsp (15ml) Kikkoman Low Salt Soy Sauce

4oz (110g) Mature cheddar cheese, grated

Method

1. Line the muffin tin with the paper cases.

2. Grill the bacon until cooked and crispy. Leave to cool then cut into small pieces.

3. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/Gas mark 6.

4. In a large bowl mix together the flours, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and, mustard powder.

5. In a separate bowl beat together the oil, milk, egg, Soy sauce, cheese and bacon.

6. Mix the two sets of ingredients together until just combined.

7. Cook for 20-25 minutes.

8. Leave to cool on a wire. Can be eaten warm or cold.

Kikkoman sent me sample of their sauces to try for free. No payment was made for this post.

Vegan Blueberry Bran Muffin

Vegan Blueberry Bran Muffins

I like a blogging challenge – you may have noticed this if you have read some of the posts on here. So when the lovely Victoria from A Kick at the Pantry Door announced her new monthly blogging challenge of Feel Good Food I was in. To start the challenge the chosen ingredient is the superfood blueberries.

As always I knew I could bake the blueberries into a cake but I was undecided until I saw the theme of this month's Breakfast Club run by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours. This month's host, Elizabeth at Elizabeth's Kitchen, has set High Fibre as the challenge and with some wheat bran to use up my mind was made up – muffins it was!

 

I thought I'd make these muffins vegan not just for dietary reasons but on a practical note. Quite often I run out of eggs but still want to bake so having some recipes that can be made out of store cupboard ingredients is very handy. This recipe contains no strange or hard to get ingredients. The bag of wheat bran came from my local branch of Morrisons.

As these muffins don't contain any eggs they don't rise like a muffin normally does. However, if you don't want to hoof down a bowl of cereal whilst trying to put your shoes on and dry your hair at the same time, this is the breakfast for you. Pop a couple in your bag and eat them at a more digestible moment.

Equipment: 12 cup muffin tin lined with cases.

Ingredients

7oz (200g) Wholemeal plain flour

5oz (150g) Demerara sugar

2½ oz (75g) Wheat bran

2 tsp (10ml) Baking powder

4½ oz (125g) Blueberries, washed and dried

8 tbsp (120ml) Sunflower oil

8fl oz (230ml) Water

1 tsp (5ml) Vanilla extract

1½ tsp (7.5ml) Lemon juice

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/Gas mark 4.

2. In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar, wheat bran, baking powder and blueberries together. Make sure the blueberries are coated or they may sink.

3. In a separate bowl mix together the oil, water, vanilla extract and lemon juice.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just combined. Unlike other muffin mixes this isn't so wet.

5. Spoon the mixture equally between the 12 muffin cases.

6. Bake for 25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Eggless Chocolate Orange Muffins

Eggless Chocolate Orange Muffins

I'll start off by telling you these muffins were born through a forgetful accident. It was Maudy Thursday and I had been out all day and by the time I had got the kids to bed it was quite late by the time I had started my baking list. I'd made the dough for the morning's hot cross buns and left it to prove but I also needed to make something to take with me to the football. I won't bore you with my footballing obsession except that Radio WDON provide radio commentary for AFC Wimbledon's match and are partial to a bit of cake. As I was going to one of the away matches I thought they may like a cake donation to keep them going through the trauma that is watching AFC Wimbledon this season.

So I made these muffins and took them out of the tray to cool on a wire rack. After the hot cross buns were baked I started to tidy everything away and that's when I noticed sitting on the side in the egg box was the egg that was meant to go into this recipe. I looked back at the cooling muffins and thought they looked fine. In fact this is the only muffin recipe I have ever made with or without egg that ever comes out looking like muffins. By this time it was too late to go out and get another orange so my husband offered to be first taster. We split one in half and I was very relived to discover they tasted delicious or as the Radio WDON commentator tweeted to me, “deee-lish”. He also told me he loved me - twice. We still haven't met...

These muffins do have a more heavier cake-like texture than other muffins, obviously due to them having no egg in them. However, if you are allergic to eggs, don't have any to hand or simply don't want egg in your recipe these really are a double chocolate delight with a good hit of orange.

Makes 12

Equipment: 12 cup muffin tin/pan, paper or silicone cases.

Ingredients

8oz (225g) Plain flour

2oz (55g) Cocoa powder

1 tbsp (15ml) Baking Powder

4oz (110g) Caster sugar

6 tbsp (90ml) Sunflower oil

7 fl oz (200ml) Milk

Zest and juice of 1 Orange

100g Dark chocolate either a bar smashed up or drops.

Method

1. Line the muffin tin with the cases.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/Gas Mark 6.

3. In a large bowl sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder.

4. Quickly add the remaining ingredients and mix together again just combined (i.e do not over mix or beat).

5. Put even amounts of the mixture into each of the cases.

6. Bake for around 15-18 minutes.

7. Once cooked leave to cool on a wire rack.