White Chocolate and Strawberry Muffins

I cannot really remember the day I baked these lovely goodies. Most probably it was sometime around mid-June, but somehow I never managed to write about them until now. Things recently have been busy and complicated, and now I’m dealing with grief. I wish the temperatures were still in the decent 20s. Celcius that is. It would have been easier to bake because I know that being in the kitchen often is good for me. If you set aside the eating part, which is something I love most obviously, the act of measuring out the ingredients, putting them all together and waiting patiently for the result takes away a big load of stress and anxiety which unfortunately has lately become part of my life. I am still cooking, well, somewhat; I don’t really know if making myself a green salad is actually cooking but baking is another matter and it’s what I like to do best.

I planned to post this recipe during those two magical tennis weeks, a.k.a. Wimbledon but I spent most of those days in hospital. I feel as if I ran out of time now because strawberry season in Malta is almost gone, if not totally gone, but here it is anyway. I found it to be very similar to an Eric Lanlard’s recipe I posted a year or two ago and was almost going to leave it for next year but I just cannot see the point in that. It is unfortunate but summer here starts really early. Fig season is gone too. What the….! I found myself buying boxes and boxes of strawberries at a time. Four, five, even six boxes once. I buy them, head straight back home, wash the lot, hull them (and here my patience would be truly tested), macerate some with lemon and orange juices, chopped basil leaves, sugar and pepper, yes, pepper and leave some washed and hulled but still whole in a container, covered of course. Then I go ahead and freeze the rest. These are handy for my morning smoothies. And there goes two hours of my time. Icy-cold strawberry beverages make getting out of bed worthwhile!

So if you’re in a cooler part of the world right now and you feel like making these, I can tell you that you can get 12-14 muffins with these quantities. Which is quite the recipe I tell ya! It’s not the first time I come across one that I like the sound of, then try it, then finding out that 10 muffins is all you get. But the baking team at Delicious Magazine sure know what they’re doing. Keep me posted and good luck.

• 375g plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 150g sugar
• 250g white chocolate, cut into chunks
• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 150g butter, melted
• 200g plain yoghurt
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 12 fresh strawberries, washed and hulled
• demerara sugar, for sprinkling
• icing sugar, to decorate after cooling

Line a 12-hole baking tin with muffin cases, and preheat the oven to 200°C.

In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and chocolate. In a separate bowl, tip in the beaten eggs, melted butter, yoghurt and milk. Give these a mix and add them to the dry ingredients. Combine all the ingredients but do not overmix. A lumpy batter is what we should be aiming for.

Distribute the mixture as evenly as you can between the 12 cases, and push one strawberry into each muffin. If you can cover them completely with the batter but really it’s no biggie if you don’t. I didn’t bother with some of mine and they turned out ok. Sprinkle the muffins with demerara sugar or light brown sugar if you prefer, and bake them for around 20 to 25 minutes until the tops are nice and golden. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then place them on a wire rack to cool completely. Sprinkle the muffins with a thin layer of icing sugar and serve.

I inserted a few photos for this recipe instead of just one, but they were too pretty and I couldn’t resist.

Rob.

Recipe is adapted from the Delicious Magazine website.

Advertisement