Blueberry, orange and cream cheese muffins

For my friends BBQ the other week I decided to use it as an excuse for a spot of baking. Yea I know BBQs are usually all about the meat but it’s nice to have something sweet after the feast (although, I say that, I actually ate two muffins before I even got to the BBQ!)

Mary Berry eat your heart out! 

It’s been ages since I did any sweet baking and I am pleased to say that these muffins turned out better than expected! Especially as I accidentally used orange essence instead of vanilla essence, hence the recipe being “blueberry, orange and cream cheese” and not just blueberry and cream cheese!

love  when the muffin 'cracks' & the goodness oozes out

But the orange works! They complement the sweetness of the blueberries brilliantly but of course if orange ain’t your fav taste, then substitute it back for vanilla essence for a sweet but soft taste.

delicious cream cheese center 

These were the right texture of being dense but not soggy, sweet but not too sweet and a great muffin-texture.

For these delicious muffins, you will need:

100g unsalted butter

3 tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil

1 cup (low fat) plain yoghurt

2 tsp orange or vanilla extract

3 eggs

375g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

200g caster sugar

170g blueberries (more if you want)  

120g of cream cheese (more if you want)

Makes 10-12

Pre-heat the oven to 200*c and prepare your muffin cases.

In a medium sized pan (you need it big enough to add more ingredients in a bit), melt the butter on a low heat. Don’t burn the butter!

Once the butter is melted, whisk in the oil…then the yoghurt… then the essence… then the eggs

In a separate bowl, sift in the flour and baking powder, and stir in the salt and sugar. Mix thoroughly and make a hole in the middle of the dry ingredients, like a well.

Pour the yoghurt mixture in to the ‘well’ and fold the dry ingredients in to the wet (best to use one of those rubber, silicone spatulas). Do not over stir, otherwise you’ll take the air out of then and they won’t rise, so go slow!

When most of the dry ingredients have been mixed in, finally add the blueberries and fold them in too. If the mixture is looking less than smooth, don’t worry, these lumps will go!

Carefully spoon the mixture into your muffin cases – I actually used silicone moulds in the shape of roses rather than the traditional muffin cases – and pop in the oven for about 20 minutes. The muffins should go that delicious golden colour and the blueberries will have started to ooze out juiciness

in they go...

out they come...

Once cooked, take out the oven and leave to cool. These are best served straight away of course but they’ll keep in an airtight container for a couple of days.

Enjoy!

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