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Welcome to my blog!


If you ask me what my very favourite thing is I would not hesitate to say my family. I came into motherhood quite late on, and was immediately overwhelmed with how amazing it is. Now I would like nothing more than to be a Domestic Goddess, and surround my family in love, good food, beautiful things and lots of happy memories. And like the majority of families these days, we need to do it on a budget!

I firmly believe we all have a little bit of the Domestic Goddess inside us, just waiting to break out. Whether that is knowing how to make a roast chicken feed a family of 4 for a week, being able to make, repair or recycle clothes, hunting down a bargain, or simply turning everyday, simple things into pretty or useful items, with a little bit of imagination we can all dip in to the Goddess inside and make our lives that little bit more interesting.



I hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy sharing my (challenging) journey into Domestic Goddessness!



Monday, August 22, 2011

Muffins!

I love muffins. Both types, actually, the lovely gooey cakey type and the floury bread ones that go so well with a large, snotty egg.(of which several have passed my lips in the last fortnight, how I missed them!)
But I'm talking about the cake type ones that 'us Northerners' should really call something else I guess! Muffins are so easy to make, all you do is bung your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients, give it a stir, spoon into muffin cases and bake. No problem with beating to within an inch of it's life, if there are lumps in the batter, it seems to make the muffins work and taste better. And although they have more sugar in them than the Tate and Lyle factory, you can kid yourself that they are healthy because the nicest ones are the fruity ones.

I'm pretty new to muffin baking in truth. I have always liked to eat them of course, but never thought to make them. But I discovered the joy of baking them last year when faced with a couple of over ripe bananas and a bored toddler. Enter Nigella's chocolate banana muffin recipe and I've never looked back.
So this week we've been baking muffins. First up was Honey and Raisin muffins from the Sainsbury's Baking book. (bargain at £3 atm)

These were delicious, full of raisins and oats. Although calling them honey and raisin muffins is a bit of a cheat, since the only honey you use is on the top! Even my mum liked these, and she is notoriously fickle when it comes to *foreign muck*!
And then on Saturday morning, for breakfast (although it was nearer lunchtime when we had them) we baked some  apple and cinnamon muffins, courtesy of Nigella (who else?)



I cheated a bit with these. Nigella's recipe calls for chopped almonds. I didn't have any so substituted in porridge oats instead. They had chunks of apple in them which made the muffin denser and moister, and utterly moreish! But baking these with an impatient toddler and a fractious baby was not a smart move and instead of being a lovely calming activity it was a little fraught.

No idea what muffins we will be making this week, but I have definitely got the baking bug. so we'll see what we can come up with. And Caoimhe has her final day at the childminder today so a baking day a week will be one way to entertain her.

Granddad's birthday this week, so some card making is on the agenda. Will need to be timed around Tilly's nap time, but a fun way to spend some quality time with the Flip Flop.

As it's Monday, I don't think I need to remind you to have a bimble over to see what other crafty type peeps have been up to for Handmade Monday Thanks for hosting it again Wendy.

And just a quick mention to anyone who is into charity knitting that The Innocent Smoothies Big Knit is on to raise funds for Age UK. It only involves knitting little hats for their little bottles, I'm sure you've seen them in the supermarket for the last couple of years. The closing date is 14 Oct. Anyway have a look on the website. Oh and while you're at it, Simply Knitting have nominated Refuge as their charity of the year and they are looking for knitters to make blankets for the kiddies and adults at their shelters. More details for that can be found here.

Right, that's me for now,  so til next time!

9 comments:

Carolee Crafts said...

Oh no now and starving, want some muffins. Off to Sainsbury's tomorrow hope they have the baking book in

Wendy said...

The muffins look fab and surely kid you into thinking you've had one of your five a day! I'm doing a bit of experimenting with gluten-free baking atm. Will explain why in a blog post later this week! Suffice to say your muffins are off limits for me :-(

bebebubu said...

Yum yum... Am hungry too after reading your post.

SimJaTa said...

They look delicious reading all these blogs today is making my tummy rumble, I cant cook for toffee you make it sound so easy but they would be like biscuits if I tried.
Good look with the charity knit, cant knit either I'm afraid.

Lynda

Unknown said...

I haven't made muffins for ages your post has got me thinking it may be time to have another go.

Kat Shenton said...

Seriously, will people stop with the yummy food making. It's making me want yummy food stuffs...Mmmmmm cake ;)

Jan said...

Gosh it's a long time since I saw the Tate & Lyle Factory with the huge gantry stretched across the road. (I was born 'n' bred up north)
I seriously love Honey, today for lunch I had (in a bowl) grapes, banana, grated cheese with honey drizzled over to top, mmmm all I needed was one of your muffins, or as my ol' dad would say "one of them big cakes with the squiggy middle"

Jan x

Your Friend Susie said...

Muffins! I am going to have to try some recipes later this year without wheat. I love muffins. I love baking them. Did lots of them for the kids when they were growing up, I agree they just seem healthier than cupcakes (maybe it's the lack of frosting!) I made lots of banana ones when the kids were little because back then you could get bananas for 10 cents a lb (not sure what that works out to in UK currency but it was cheap. And I could whir them in the blender and make banana bread and muffins and fruit leather and the kids ate LOTS of banana stuff. And they lived! :)
Great blog today. :) I love to *listen* to you *talk*!

Martha said...

mmmmmmmmm u made me dribble :P
love muffins, love trying out the muffin recipes, and so many combinations!
i should try apple and cinnamon version, they look yummy!