It's Sunday morning and I creep downstairs before anyone else. This will give me enough time to enjoy a quiet cup of coffee- and enough time to plan a leisurely breakfast.
Perhaps it's because of the early-morning chill, or maybe it's because I've promised myself to return to what I love most (cooking and making my house a home), but this morning the thought of muffins just won't let me go. I'm not good at making decisions so I veer between a recipe with the prunes I bought back from Agen this summer to one with the three little apples I picked from our tree a few days ago.
And then I catch a glimpse of a lonely, forgotten lemon. It has been patiently waiting to jump into something delicious for a whole week- to no avail.
I take heart and happily start to bake these tasty little muffins:
Zingy, Nutty Oatmeal Muffins
Makes 12 muffins
200g flour
80g oatmeal
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp ginger
pinch of salt
75g mixed chopped nuts of choice
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
125g whole yogurt
2 eggs
80ml sunflower oil
175g raw cane sugar
juice of ½ lemon
Preheat oven to 200C and line a muffin tine with paper liners or grease the muffin tin and dust with flour.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal, baking powder, ginger, salt, nuts and lemon zest.
In a jug, whisk the yogurt, eggs, oil, sugar amd lemon juice.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine. Remember, don't stir your muffin batters too fanatically!
Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tin and bake for about 20 minutes, or until skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
These muffins are perfect with a cup of milky Earl Grey.
