Mastering muffins

I made muffins once before, about five years ago and they came out like fairy cakes. So, with typical perseverence, I never made them again. But then I bought the Ottolenghi cookbook, which has a whole section on muffins and, such is my faith in Ottolenghi I thought I'd give it another go.

Although I had a disaster along the way...

.. The muffins came out brilliantly, with that proper semi-bready, light texture. They really taste like muffins, rather than just cake - I think it's because there's not too much sugar in them, so they have a grown-up taste rather than being a sweetie explosion.


When I make them again I'd fill the cases right to the top with mixture as it doesn't rise very much and you do kind of want that spilling-over-the-top Starbucks muffin look, without the greasy Starbucks taste.

So these are blueberry and apple muffins from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, found on page 211. I used frozen blueberries and a gala apple, rather than a Granny Smith. I also halved the quantities and used silicon fairy cake-sized cases, rather than those huge, straight-sided muffin cases and had I not dropped one load on the floor I would have got about 30 little muffins.

Anyway, here is the recipe as it is in the book, which is for blueberry and apple muffins - you can halve the quantities if you like, you still get a vat-load of batter. There is also a crumble topping to these, which I left out because I felt it was overkill. You hear me, Yotam? Stop gilding the lily, ok?

540g plain flour
5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
340g caster sugar
140g unsalted butter, melted
380ml milk
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 Granny Smith apple (unpeeled) and cut into 1cm cube
200g blueberries, plus a few extra for the topping

1 Preheat the oven to 170C and get out your muffin cases
2 Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. In mixing bowl, lightly whisk together the eggs, sugar and melted butter (make sure the melted butter isn't too hot). Whisk in the milk and lemon zest, then gently fold in the fruit.
3 Add the sifted dry indredients and fold together very gently. Make sure you stir the mix just enough to combine; it should remain lumpy and rough.
4 Spoon the mixture into your cases and fill up to the top (this instruction I didn't see, to my peril) and dot with one or two extra blueberries. Bake for 30-35 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.