Whip up some Muffins (Muffins Fast and Fantastic - Susan Reimer)

Member Name: jo@145

Product:	Muffins Fast and Fantastic - Susan Reimer
Date:	30/10/09 (121 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic recipes

Disadvantages: Fattening if eat too many

Until recently we had a card to shop at Costco and usually ended up buying a tray of their delicious muffins. Towards the end of the year they had a selection of Mincemeat and Cranberry muffins, my husband and son loved the Mincemeat and I had the Cranberry ones. But as we stopped shopping at Costco I had to find a Mincemeat muffin recipe to make my own muffins.

So when I spotted the Muffin Book as a prize on the Kingolotto site I decided to use my points and get the book. The price on the back is £5.99 and for anyone interested in obtaining the book the ISBN is 978-0-9528858-3-2. My book is a more modern version that the photo and has a blue background with a lovely fruity muffin. First published in 1996, my book was reprinted in 2008 and over 200,000 copies have been sold.

In total there are 64 pages, but only half have recipes the other pages are full colour pictures that make you salivate as you look at the pictures, if you are a muffin fan.

There is a content page at the start of the book, an introduction and some notes on Muffin making including information on the ingredients used and storing and freezing - if of course they last long enough! At the end of the book is an appendix with the North American equivalents, which I find useful when using Canadian recipes I have in another book, as cups are a different amount to our teacups!

There is a basic recipe with ingredients in both ounces and grams - I prefer the ounces! The method is easy to follow and the result is fantastic. I like the fact it uses milk and plain yogurt, making a really moist muffin.

The recipes include Apple Spice, Apricot almond, Banana, Carrot, Cranberry, Peach or Rhubarb, tropical fruit, pear and ginger and Lemon in fruity muffins. Savoury Cheese and also Pumpkin, plus Bran and Oatmeal in the plainer muffins. Several recipes with Chocolate, like Chocolate cheesecake, chocolate and cherry, chocolate chip and iced. Date and walnut is a good lunch box filler and my favourite is the Mincemeat although for breakfast I do like the Marmalade Apricot muffin.

I was lucky that my book arrived last year the day before the Women's Rural show which is like the WI in Calendar girls! One of the competitions was 3 Muffins so I used a brand new book, with a new recipe and added an extra teaspoon of cinnamon and guess what? I won! Most people had gone for Double choc chip, and the comment I received was a delicious well made and flavoured muffin.

In case you want to try the recipe I will add it below.

Mincemeat Sultana Muffins

Makes12 standard size muffins.

10oz (280g) Plain flour
2 tsp (10ml) Baking powder
½tsp (5ml) Bicarbonate soda
¼tsp salt
3oz granulated sugar
1 egg
8 fl oz (240ml) Milk
8fl oz (240ml) Ready made mincemeat
3 fl oz (90ml) vegetable oil
3oz (85g) sultanas
icing sugar to dust tops

Method
1. Prepare muffin tins. Preheat oven to 375-400F, 190-200C or Reg 5-6
2. In a large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, bicarbonate soda, sugar and salt.
3. Beat egg with milk and stir in with mincemeat and oil in separate bowl.
4. Pour all liquid ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir just enough to combine and add sultanas and stir in. The batter will be lumpy, but no dry flour should be visible. Do not over stir.
5. Fill muffin cases ¾ full. Bake for about 20 minutes until tops are lightly browned and spring back when pressed gently. Allow to cool before removing them. Sieve icing sugar over tops.

There is a note saying if you use Self-raising flour omit Baking powder but include bicarbonate of soda.

I add 1 tsp. Cinnamon as I like them spicy. I now have some silicone muffin cases, but you can buy paper muffin cases in Tesco and other shops or make smaller muffins using cake cases, if you do this they will cook a little quicker.

There are even two recipes for gluten free muffins which I think is great for people on a gluten free diet, although a lot of money to buy the book just for two recipes, so worth looking at the library! Although I have shelves of cookery books and admit I some I only use for a couple of recipes!

This is an excellent book for muffin fans and they do freeze well if you don't want to eat them all in one day, I sometimes pop them in the microwave to warm slightly, but not the ones with icing.

Summary: Muffin recipe book