So today, after a shameful couple of days of making nothing more culinary than a cup of coffee, I decided to get my bake on. I opted for a muffin recipe from the show Cook Yourself Thin featuring Gizzi Erskine (one of the many shows that I spend far too large a percentage of my time watching over and over again on 4od). Rather than being a naughty little treat as it were, these muffins are supposedly 'healthy', which is a shocker when you consider the name of the programme. The ingredients list was pretty extensive and strange- grated courgette for a start (although carrot cake is lush so I'll let it go), and have you ever tried to find buttermilk in the middle of Manchester? I gave up and bought yogurt instead with an attitude of 'I can't see what the difference is anyway'.
Despite the long shopping list the method was pretty easy, although requiring a very gentle hand and champion folding technique (both of which I obviously possess). The only things I altered in the recipe were substituting yogurt for buttermilk, which as far as I can see worked fine, and using about half the amount of poppy seeds, as after I'd put that amount in my mixture was already looking like the middle of a dragonfuit, and I wanted to go for bits of crunch rather than full on gravelly. Also- I got 16 muffins rather than 12- a slight pain when I only have one 12-muffin tray- as there was tonnes of mixture. Does this mean they'll be even healthier as there's less in each one? More likely that I'll just justify that it's ok to eat 2 at a time to be honest.
Couple of comments- they didn't rise very much which I'm not sure was mine or the recipe's fault. I also began writing this as the first 12 were in the oven and got a little carried away, which means they are a little darker than I'd like- oops. Oh well, they're not burnt and it all adds to that rustic homemade-y ness. They also stuck a little to the paper, but thats all the better for picking at.
