Honey Muffins

Yet another basic muffin recipe again. A plain muffin, nothing spectular, but I was really elated when I saw it puffing so high in the oven as the usual smell of baked muffins filled the entire kitchen on a weekday night. If I happened to miss my baking sessions that weekend, I'll satisfy that urge and bake something during a weekday night, more of enjoying the process rather than eating the muffin. :P

This was in fact my very first muffin, yeah and a very successful muffin despite I'm using the old, small oven back then. This recipe was shared by a university friend of mine, who told me that baking was not difficult as she graciously passed this recipe to me, telling me that it's a simple and good recipe and I'll definitely gain more confidence after I succeeded. True enough, the muffin turned out so well that it ignited my passion for baking and probably that's how I continue thereafter... baking whenever I have the time to spare, and even more crazy now that I no longer have to face exams, tutorials, tests, etc and can better plan my time.

Once in a while, I still come back to this recipe whenever I have the ingredients but somehow it doesn't turned out as good as it was and this had been puzzling me until this time round, I think I finally got the answer. As this recipe called for self-raising flour, which I don't often stock up, I tend to replace it with plain flour + baking powder (as a substitution). Although the result was okay, I mean still edible of course but somwhow it was dense and just not right. It did crossed my mind that the flour could be the culprit. So I need to try it out to confirm. I guess I'm right, cos' this time round, I faithfully followed the recipe using self-raising flour and yeah! I got it! The muffin was soft and fluffy, and the sweetness that comes from honey always makes me love it more. My dd's mum commented it's a little dry, though I felt it was okay. Hmmm, well probably adding a little more butter helps?

I baked in mini muffin pans and yielded 16 minis using only half recipe. I deliberately filled the muffin cups with batter right up to the top to achiev a very big dome like a mushroom! I think it looks pretty don't you think so?? :P

Honey Muffins (This is the original recipe, should yield 12 standard size or 32 minis with big mushrom head!)

Ingredients:

300g self-raising flour

150g castor sugar (I reduced to 120g)

15g milk powder

120g butter

30g honey

90g eggs

165g water

3g Vanilla essence

90g Blueberry (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Cream butter, sugar, milk powder and honey until light.
3. Add eggs in stages.
4. Sift in the Self-raising flour and add alternately with the water to the batter.
5. Blend in the blueberries and vanilla essence.
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes (I used 15 minutes for mini muffins) or until done.