I am not a person who feels blue very often, but today I had kind of a blue day. It came at me from out of nowhere. I felt teary-eyed and down-hearted for most of the day, for no real reason. I find that when one of those moods hits, it is best to just get my head down and get stuck into something simple and mindless. I decided to bake muffins.
I didn't feel inspired enough to make any from off my own back, so I turned to one of my favorite sources of tasty muffin recipes, entitled Mad about Muffins by Diana Bonaparte. Its a book I got when I was living down South, on the say-so of my Bishop's wife. All of the recipes are very sound and delicious!
These sounded lovely . . . . and somewhat healthy, aside from the sugar and golden syrup . . . with plenty of oats, sunflower seeds and chopped apple.
If you don't have light muscovado sugar, you can use soft light brown sugar, and in the place of golden syrup you can use light corn syrup, or even honey would work well.
Actually I think I might even try them with date syrup sometime. I think that would be fabulous . . . with some chopped dates instead of apple and maybe toasted walnuts instead of sunflower seeds.
Watch this space. In the meantime we are sitting here enjoying these just as they are. Delicious little cakes that are completely at home with a hot cuppa or a hot chocolate, or even a glass of milk.
They would also make very lovely additions to the kids' lunch boxes I dare say. A delicious way of getting something good into them.
*Oat, Apple & Sunflower Seed Muffins*Makes 12Printable Recipe
In one word, MOREISH. From the book Mad About Muffins by Diana Bonaparte.
285g plain flour (2 cups plus 1 TBS)150g soft light muscovado sugar (3/4 cup, packed)2 tsp baking powder1/4 tsp salt50g porridge oats (2/3/ cup)170ml milk (6 fluid ounces)2 large free range eggs100g butter (1/2 cup minus 2 TBS)50g golden syrup (2 1/2 TBS)1 large sweet eating apple, unpeeled, cored and chopped finely20g hulled sunflower seeds (3 TBS)
To top:2 TBS jumbo oats1 TBS hulled sunflower seeds1 TBS demerara sugar
Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Line a 12 cup medium muffin tin with paper liners, or butter and dust well with flour, shaking out any excess. Set aside.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Push the muscovado sugar through a fine sieve and stir it into the flour. (If you cannot get muscavado sugar, use light brown sugar). Stir in the porridge oats. Whisk together the milk and eggs in a measuring beaker, beating together with a fork. Heat the syrup and butter together until the butter melts. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the milk/egg mixture and the syrup/butter mixture all at once. Stir together just to moisten. Stir in the chopped apple and sunflower seeds. Spoon into the prepared muffin cups.
Sprinkle the jumbo oats on top of the batter, then the sunflower seeds and finally the demerara sugar.
Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until well risen and godlen brown and the top springs back when lightly touched. Scoop out to a wire rack to cool for a bit prior to eating. Lovely warm, and pretty good cold as well!
Hopefully I will be able to shake off this feeling soon. I hate feeling blue, especially when I have nothing to feel blue about. I guess they call it the January Blues and I know I am not alone. We all get them from time to time! In any case I did enjoy these muffins, and I had a good old clear out of the cupboard at the same time! Bon Appetit!
