After recently perusing through our culinary library, we decided to pull out an old faithful – Delia’s Cakes. When it comes to baking, it’s hard to look past Delia and she has been a cooking inspiration to Helen for years. We recently visited Belfast’s St George’s Market (review to follow) and we picked up some amazing fresh fruit, including a punnet of blueberries. We decided to put these blueberries to immediate use by replicating Delia’s blueberry and pecan muffin cake although we did make some slight changes to the recipe and decided to go with white chocolate instead of pecans. Delia’s recipe makes a cake, while we decided to make a scrumptious batch of muffins. We also drizzled our muffins with some local honey before baking them. Muffins are a sure fire winner in our house and no doubt a popular choice in homes throughout Britain and Ireland, so let’s take a look at how to make them.
Ingredients:
- 275g plain flour
- 1 level tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 level tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 170 ml milk
- 75g golden caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 110g butter, melted and cooled
- 275g blueberries
- 50g white chocolate drops
- 4 tbsp honey
Makes: 10 – 12 muffins
Prep time: 10 – 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
1. Prepare the dry muffin mix:
Pre-heat your oven to 180C and put paper bun cases into a muffin tray. Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside. This dry mix will be sifted again at a later stage.
2. Make the muffin batter:
Whisk together your milk, sugar, eggs and cool melted butter into a separate bowl. Sift the dry ingredients from stage 1 into this bowl and fold in the dry mixture. It is important to combine all the ingredients quickly and not overwork the batter. Resist the temptation to stir the mix or remove the lumps that form, as this would prevent the muffins from having a light texture.
3. Add the blueberries and white chocolate:
Pour in the blueberries and white chocolate to your mix and fold gently into the mixture.
4. Fill the cases and bake:
Spoon the mixture into the cases, ensuring an even distribution. Drizzle a little honey on the top of each wet batter mix. Transfer the muffin trays to the pre-heated oven and bake for 25 minutes. You can check that the muffins are cooked through, by piercing them with a skewer. If the skewer comes out with residue, bake for another minute and repeat until skewer comes out clean. When your muffins are ready, remove them from the oven and the tray, and leave them to cool. If you can’t wait however, they’re great to enjoy straight from the oven (although do give them a few seconds).
This short video shows the different stages involved in making these muffins.
Serve and enjoy 🙂
These muffins will have a light yet gooey texture, with the blueberries and white chocolate providing that sweet, sticky taste that we all look for in a muffin. You can also substitute the blueberries with raspberries or else experiment with other flavour combos that you enjoy.
Tell us your favourite flavour of muffin and whether you like them warm or cold, by commenting below. You can also keep up to date with all our latest recipes by following us on Facebook and Twitter and watch our latest recipe videos on the Pikalily Instagram page. Until next time guys, enjoy 🙂
