Fruited Buttermilk Muffins

Fruited Buttermilk Muffins, or "Sometimes you're the windscreen, sometimes you're the bug.)
I always try to be very truthful on here in the English Kitchen. For one thing you don't get highly edited photographs. Everything I show you is pretty much just as it is in reality. Sometimes you even catch a glimpse of the chaos surrounding the carefully (as if) set up photo!
There have been complaints before that people can see my laundry drying, or the dog looking on over in the corner, etc. That's because I am a realist and I like to present things to the world just as they are.
I am not perfect, nor is anyone and I would hate for the world to think that I am. I just could not live with myself if I thought I was presenting something totally unreal to my readers. What you see is exactly what you get.
And that is real recipes, cooked, baked, photographed in real time and under real conditions. Its just one of my quirks. And always I try to present to you recipes which work and you can rely and depend upon.
I am a realist myself and I get really annoyed when I go to other pages and try recipes and end up having wasted until amounts of cash on things which were never going to turn out. REALLY annoyed.
I cannot impress you with that enough. It really burns my butt!!
By the same token it really annoys me when someone tries one of my recipes and then they come back and say, this recipe is crapola. I added this, and took out that because we don't like it, I lowered this, etc. etc. but it didn't turn out!
In short, when they have totally messed with the integrity of a recipe and then complain that the recipe didn't work for them.
These are really, really good muffins. They are delicious muffins. Moist. Tasty. With a beautiful crumb.
Filled with lovely bits of whatever fruit you want to stir into them. Today I used chopped peaches, strawberries and blueberries. Frozen ones.
  My brother was going to come over this morning and help me cancel my credit card in the UK. I was having a dickens of a time cancelling it. I've been trying since November.
Although I had not used it since November, my biggest fear was that when it expired, the new one would go to my old house and be stolen. So he said he could help me and actually he did! Problem sorted! Yay!!
I really, really wanted to give them some nice baked muffins when they came over this morning. So I baked these Fruited Buttermilk Muffins. Usually they work really well, but I have never baked them in a glass baking dish before.
All I have is the glass dish here in Canada and muffin papers don't fit into it. I figured if I buttered/sprayed it really well, there would not be a problem. WRONG!
They came out of the oven looking alright, maybe not as tall as they usually are, they did spread out a bit, but they still looked nice.
The problem came when I went to flip them out of my pan. STUCK. STUCK. STUCK!! They could not have been more stuck if they tried!
The tops came off beautifully. The bottoms stayed in the pan. In fact I had to use a spoon to dig hem out.
I am not sure if its because today I cut the recipe in half, or if it was because of the pan itself. In any case, I had egg on my face. That makes two things I have cooked for them that have come out badly. My reputation is taking a kicking here!
So here I am on Friday the 13th and my birthday no less, showing you destroyed muffins. Why? Because I always want to be truthful and let you know that I don't always get things right myself. Sometimes I fail abysmally. This is one of those times.
Don't reduce the recipe by half. Don't bake them without papers. Do enjoy, because even though the bottoms were destroyed, we did enjoy the tops. Not all was lost. Sometimes you just have to laugh, lol
I hope you won't let my bad experience spoil yours. Do try the muffins as written in below recipe, without any alterations, and I can promise you, you will have a tasty muffin to enjoy. Moist and delicious and filled with fruit.

Fruited Buttermilk Muffins (small batch)

Yield: Makes 12 muffinsAuthor: Marie RaynerPrep time: 10 MinCook time: 30 MinTotal time: 40 MinThese are delicious muffins. Filled with fruit. You decide which kind. Just make sure you line your muffin tin with paper liners, because they will stick.

Ingredients

1/2 cup (120ml) vegetable oil
1 1/3 cup (270g) soft light brown sugar, packed
1 TBS finely grated lemon zest
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup (240ml) buttermilk
1 large free range egg
2 1/2 cups (350g) all purpose plain flour (you may need an additional 1/4 cup/35g)
pinch salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fruit

To top:

4 TBS soft light brown sugar, divided
8 TBS chopped toasted walnuts, divided

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400*F/ 200*C/ gas mark 6. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. (You may even want to spray the paper with non-stick cooking spray.)
Whisk the brown sugar and oil together in a bowl. Stir in the lemon zest, vanilla and egg yolk until thoroughly combined. Stir in the buttermilk.
Sift together the flour, soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet, just until combined. Fold in the chopped fruit. If you think the mixture is too loose, add some additional flour to make the batter a bit stiffer.
Divide the mixture between the prepared muffin cups.
Sprinkle the brown sugar over each, along with the walnuts, dividing it equally.
Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4. Bake for a further 15 minutes.
Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before tipping them out onto a wire rack. Best eaten on the day.

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