Friday, December 10, 2010

nutty lemon muffins

Muffins are easy to make. You are not required to whisk the batter and the preparation time is less than 10 minutes. As such, they are something that you can easily make when you come home from work. When you relax in front of the television after work, the aroma of the muffins being baked in the oven is tempting. Often, Da and I would not wait for the muffins to cool down thoroughly before we sample them.

If you have a grater at home, adding some grated orange or lemon zest would give oomph to your muffins. You do not even need to add orange juice or lemon juice to the muffin batter to give it flavour. The zest in itself makes the muffin very flavourful.

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter (softened)
1 cup castor sugar
2 eggs (beaten)
1/2 cup milk
grated zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup chopped nuts - I used a mixture of walnuts, pecans and pumpkin seeds

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.

2. Line the muffin tray with paper muffin cups.

3. Sift the plain flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

4. In another bowl, cream the butter, castor sugar and eggs until well blended.

5. Add the milk, lemon zest and chopped nuts. Mix well.

6. Fold in the flour mixture and stir until just blended. Do not over-stir. The mixture will be lumpy.

7. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling them about 3/4 full.

8. Bake for 18 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the muffins comes out clean.

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