Muffin madness

In the last week I have to admit that I have been addicted to: making muffins !!!

Is easy and fun, therefore I want to share with you my recipe so that you can have fun and be muffin happy too:)

The recipe below is for blueberry muffins to make it simple but than I will give you some ideas at the end:)

All you need is:

250g of flour ( I make them with both white and brown flour )
1 tsp of baking powder
4 tbsp of sugar (here you can use white, caster, brown or muscovado sugar you might need to increase qtys for 
                        the last 2 )
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
225ml of milk ( I have used milk substitutes  and yogurt and rice milk and it still works, only be careful with the  
                      sweetness of other milks like soya and rice milk as you need to dilute them or add less sugar)
50g butter or ghee (melted)
225g blueberries
1 grated orange zest from a medium orange

You also need muffin paper cups , or as I did, you can make them out of baking paper;) or if you have, you can use muffin trays.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

In a large bowl add the flour, baking powder and the sugar and salt and stir well .

In a separate bowl beat the egg and add the orange zest and the milk , beat altogether and than add the melted butter.

Pour the mixture into the flour mix and stir for 10 strokes. Stop , the mixture will look lumpy but it's ok :)

Now comes the fun part:
take you baking tray and paper muffin cases and one by one start layering the mixture from the bottom , half way add the berries and than pour over more mixture to cover . Try and keep enough space for the muffins to grow.
You can play with this so you can also mix the berries in the mixture beforehand and add more when filling the cases, you can add more on the top to decorate , you can squash them to create a juicy heart in the middle of the muffin.... so on.

Than place them in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes , until risen and golden. Leave them to cool down a little, if you eat them still warm is the best!

More staffings that I have tried :

Pear and Chocolate
boiled pear sliced and chopped with chocolate (you can use a mixture like the one for hot chocolate and mix it in ) or melt some chocolate yourself and a it in.

Honey , Ginger and Lemon
Grate the ginger and the zest from a lemon and add in the mixture with the honey.

Cheese and Pears
Boil a pear and slice the cheese and grate the cheese.
Add in the mixture and strategically place the sliced cheese pieces in the muffin. This works best with the brown flour muffins.

Amaretti Crumble and Berries
Put the Amaretti in a bowl and crush them, also get different berries mixed in another bowl. When making the muffin you can sprinkle the berries in the mixture and add the crumble where you prefer , but make sure you put some on the top and gently push it n the mixture so that is not going to burn but will stay on the top.

Other ideas:
pears nuts , nuts gianduia choc chip, coconut chocolate and choc chip, cheese pears , carrots ginger orange.....

But the main thing is:  have fun! And make your own, perhaps add it on here after you tried so that I get more ideas too:)

Enjoy:)