No one can resist the hypnotic call of a delectable and moreish muffin…
By Katie Garner
With the well documented saga of birthday month continuing, I couldn’t let the day before the actual celebration – which happened to be a club night Monday – go past without some form of fanfare. It has become a sort of tradition to bring baked goods and snacks at certain points in the year, usually at Christmas, but I always like to bring along some kind of cakey wonder to the club night before my birthday…after all, what kind of birthday would it be if it didn’t include the sharing of cake?
This year I settled on something simple and hopefully generic enough that everyone would like them – jam filled cupcakes. Styled on the classically popular jam doughnut, these little beauties contained a globule of sticky sweet strawberry jam inside, with a generous dunking of white sugar coating the top. Granted, probably not the easiest to eat courtside, but hopefully they were enjoyed nonetheless! To further hit the sweet spot, I also brought along a Tupperware filled to the brim with a mix of large and small marshmallows – no one can resist those pink and white bad boys.
Luckily, I managed to flog all of my cupcakes before leaving and I am even contemplating bring baked treats more often, so if anyone has any fancies or favourites, let me know and we’ll see what we can do! In the meantime, get your wooden spoon stuck into making some of these moreish munchies…
Jam filled muffins next to marshmallow stash on Monday night
Jam Muffins:
For the cupcakes:
- Oil / melted butter for greasing
- 280g plain flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 115g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 200ml milk
- 6 tbsp sunflower oil / 85g butter (melted and cooled)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 tbsp strawberry / raspberry jam
For the topping:
- 115g butter
- 150g granulated sugar
Recipe:
1) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees / gas mark 6 and grease your 12 cup muffin tin.
2) Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the caster sugar.
3) Lightly beat the eggs in a large jug or bowl and then beat in the milk, oil and vanilla extract.
4) Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the beaten liquids into it and stir gently until combined.
5) Spoon half of the mixture into your prepared muffin tin. Add a teaspoon of jam to the centre of each and then spoon on top the remaining cake mix.
6) Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes until well risen, golden brown and firm to the touch.
7) Melt the butter for the topping and spread the granulated sugar into a wide, shallow dish.
8) Once the muffins are baked, leave them in the tin for 5 minutes before removing to do the topping.
9) Dip the tops of the muffins in the melted butter and then roll in the sugar.
10) Eat whenever you fancy / need one!
