Just a quickie - Mary Berry's blueberry muffins

I sincerely apologise for the number of blog posts I've thrust at you in such a short space of time, but I thought that, as I haven't done a baking one for a while, I'd show you a little something that I made today.

Introducing a new-and-slightly-experimental bake - blueberry muffins, a la Mezz Bezz!

Now, I have made muffins before and they're not extremely difficult to do, but I hadn't previously used Madame Berry's recipe - nor had I ever baked with blueberries, which transpired to be quite enormous in comparison to how I had always thought they looked. Or maybe under the fluorescent lights of Co-op, the mind just plays tricks on you.

Anyway, the only problem I had with this bake, the apparent and unforeseen magnitude of blueberries aside, was its consistency. You see, all the dry ingredients go into the mixing bowl first, like so:

No, it didn't look very appetising at this stage, but don't worry yourselves. All the yellow bits are lemon zest, which gave the muffins more of a noticeable flavour, as blueberries are a bit more subtle, apart from the fact that they are massive and blue.

But once the eggs and milk were added (no oil in la Berry's version, my sister was pleased to hear), I had a challenge getting the mixture into my cases without throwing it everywhere. This is partly my own fault, I'll admit, for using flashy tulip cases instead of normal ones, so avoiding getting batter all over the 'leaves' requires a little extra coordination and dexterity (two of my most prominent attributes, I'm sure you'll agree...)

But any potential spillage crises were averted and the muffs went into and subsequently came out of the oven quite satisfactorily. Thanks to the mixture's gloopiness, they were nice and moist, which is good because who wants a dry muffin? 

One of them was allowed into the garden to have its photo taken, which it thoroughly enjoyed (and so did I, because I then promptly ate it).

So there you have it; Mary's muffins seem to have been a success. The real test will come tomorrow when they are delivered to my granny in deepest, darkest Cornwall (i/e Liskeard) - although the main issue is probably not whether or not my grandparents will like them, but whether the muffins will survive  the transit...

Fingers crossed!

(: xx