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!