Kitchen Classic.

I inherited a bunch of stuff from my Mum. The way she finds Indiana Jones riding a horse very attractive, the way she raises her voice without realising she is doing it so people thinkshe is arguing (we rarely are), her dodgy hips (thanks Mum), and her amazing Basic Muffin recipe which is the base of all of my favourite after school treats growing up.

I always thought she had some secret magical muffin cookbook somewhere hidden away, but it turns out she just has one recipe that she changes to suit whatever she has to flavour it with - handy for entertaining unexpected guests when they pop by for cups of tea, or feeding pesky farm children when they get home from pony club. A classic Mum trick.

I dug this out recently as I had a bunch of nectarines that needed using up. I'm always buying fruit and forgetting to actually use it and these muffins are a great way to make sure it doesn't go to waste. You can always freeze them for later, or take them to work if you are feeling generous.Or not I mean whatever.

The real secret is to remember to swap in/out any dry ingredients so the recipe is balanced. This took me a while to perfect. For this batch, I added half a cup of milled flax seed, which meant taking out half a cup of flour. Forgetting to do this will often result in dry manky muffins, or wet soggy ones. Either way, its basic maths.

I also initially forgot to put in anything sweet (other than sugar) so the bottom layer was a bit flavourless. Adding a capful of vanilla essence sorts that out. Or, if you are using tinned fruit, a splash of the syrup will work. Also lining the tin with paper/liners isn't necessary in the slightest, but I'm lazy and it saves on washing up. Baking paper works fine and check out how rustic it looks. That's fashionable right?

Here's how its done.

2 1/2 cups of self raising flour
90gm butter
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 milk ( tend to find I don't need this much - 1 cup should be find depending on what you are adding - see above note about balancing out wet/dryness with additional ingredients)
1 egg

Preheat oven to 180 cel. Line or grease your tins.
Sift flour into a large bowl, rub in butter until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar, milk and egg. DO NOT OVER MIX. You want it to be *just* stirred together. Over mixing will really bugger this up.

Chuck in whatever flavouring you want, spoon into muffin tin, bake for around 20 -30 minutes. Use the standard 'see if you can stick a knife in and does it come out with bits on' method of testing cookedness. You know.

The genius of these is that you really can add anything. A few suggestions/favourites Mum included for me were -
Banana Choc-chip - 2 -3 mashed bananas, 1 cup chocolate chips
Fruit Salad - 1 tin of fruit salad (this is such a Kathy Tanner classic - tinned apricots or peaches are also good)
Apple Spiced - Stewed apples, cinnamon & nutmeg
Date & Orange - 1 1/2 cup of dates, 3 teaspoons of orange zest (how have I never tried this?)
Or for something different add grated cheese and onion, spinach & feta... these are really good warm from the oven spread with butter for a lunchtime treat.

The possibilities are endless!

Super fast to whip up & you can pop in whatever you have that needs using. Enjoy with friends, or with a book and a coffee on a Saturday afternoon with a cat asleep on your knee when you have the house to yourself.

Try not to eat them all at once. Yomp!