Making Winter bloghop for January: Cosiness and comfort

Back in 1999 I was working in Covent Garden as a patent analyst. It was an interesting, if slightly monotonous job. One of the bonuses but also the pitfalls of working in that part of London was that Neal Street and The Bead Shop were just a few minutes' walk away.

My takeaway treat lunch of choice at the time was:

A salad from Food for Thought

A Muffinski's raspberry and white chocolate oatbran muffin 

An Innocent Smoothie

Back then Innocent was a tiny start-up company and muffins were very exotic. The muffin trend had yet to take hold and this was ten years or so before cupcakes, whoopie pies or macarons were fashionable. Despite knowing very little about baking I was keen to make some.

Fast forward five years and I ate my first homemade muffin at a friend's house. I was given the recipe on a scrap of paper. 

The real eye opener was that there was no faffing about with creaming sugar and butter. There was a wet mix and a dry mix. They were bunged together, roughly mixed, some fruit or chocolate added (or both) and that was it bar the baking and scoffing. Brilliant.

Nowadays one small daughter whisks the eggs and milk whilst the other (at school for the baking, arrived home for scoffing) helps to measure out. The thrill they get from knowing that they helped to make the muffins never wavers. They may no longer be the height of baking fashion but their simplicity and tastiness are still top of the pops around here, especially as a treat on a grey wintry day. Funnily enough, raspberry and chocolate is the absolute family favourite (oh and raspberries cancel out chocolate in a matter/anti-matter kind of way. Add wholemeal flour and, really, these are a health food).

The basic muffin recipe below can be fancied up or left plain. It is a good, quick comfort baking recipe. I timed it once. From the first opening of the cupboard to getting the muffins out of the oven was 27 minutes. I'm sure it could even be faster.

One top tip (written on the original scrap of paper) is that if frozen berries are put straight into the mixture from the freezer they are just soft and tender (not mushy) once baked.

Guide to measurements: BLACK Imperial, RED Metric, BLUE Cups/sticks

Wet mix:

8 fl oz/230ml/1 cup milk

4 oz/115ml/1 stick melted butter

1 whisked egg

1 tsp vanilla extract  (optional)

Dry mix

10 oz/280g / 1.25 cups plain flour (wholemeal OR 8oz wholemeal plus 2 oz fine oatmeal for health*)

3 oz/85g/1/3 cup of sugar of choice

Level dessert spoon of baking powder

Bake as they are, or..

For extra tastiness choose from

3 oz/85g/1/3 cup - 5oz/150g/just over 1/2 cup frozen berries or chopped fruit/nuts
and/or

3 oz/85g/1/3 cup - 5oz/150g/just over 1/2 cup chopped chocolate
(3 oz good, 5 oz better)
Orange/lemon zest

To make

Add the wet to the dry mix
Add extra tastiness ingredient(s)
Mix roughly until just combined
Divide into 12 muffin cases.
Bake at 180 C/350 F for between 15 and 25 minutes (or until golden brown and bouncing back when pressed)
Cool.
Eat.

This week is Making Winter Week. If you'd like to share your cosy, comforting wintry creative doings then add your link below, a link in your post and others joining in will come over and visit. If you're new to the project then feel free to grab the button from my sidebar (html code to follow). The Making Winter Flickr pool is just wonderful - pop over for a peep. The first link you see below is Mrs TH's wonderfully simple and soothing balm recipe. I've tried it. It's excellent.

Mrs Thriftyhousehold and I would be especially excited about wintry Comfort Baking recipes over the next two months. As I mentioned yesterday, the plan would be to make and share an online links resource entitled Baking Winter.

* See matter/anti-matter theory above.