Maple Pecan Muffins

I think I may just have found the muffin recipe I have been looking for. I love sweet bread (e.g. banana bread, wheaten bread etc) for breakfast and recently I have taken to making muffins to satisfy this craving. For a number of reasons (a) they are easy to make and bake fresh in the morning and (b) I generally have the wherewithal to make them in my cupboards.



Now while I have had some very pleasing results with the muffins I have baked of late, a lot of them have been too sweet for breakfast. But not this one. It is from Nigella Lawson's book 'Feast' adapted slightly, of course. She describes the maple pecan combination perfectly as having a 'smoky austerity'. I will re-iterate though - they are breakfast muffins. The maple syrup give them their sweetness and the wheatgerm and pecans gives them a sort of 'wholesome' taste. If you want something sweet as a dessert, it's not these.

And when I say bake fresh in the morning I mean I measure all the dry ingredients into a bowl and cover with cling film and similarly measure all the wet ingredient into a jug and leave, covered with cling film, in the fridge. I even put muffin cases into a tin. Then in the morning I mix the contents of the jug and the bowl, pour into the cases and stick in the oven. By the time I have my little one up and changed they're ready for us (yes, he's a fan too). I spread a little butter on mine but you don't have to or you could, of course, drizzle over a little maple syrup.



MAPLE PECAN MUFFINS

Ingredients:

125g shelled pecans
275g plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
50g wheatgerm
pinch salt
125ml yoghurt
125ml maple syrup
125ml sunflower/vegetable oil
1 egg
1 tblsp dark brown sugar

Serves 12*

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 6/200oC. Line a 12-bun muffin tin.

2. Chop the pecans roughly, reserving about a quarter of them to use later to strew on top. Combine the rest of them with the flour, baking powder, wheatgerm and salt in a large bowl.

3. In a measuring jug (or another bowl), whisk together the yoghurt, maple syrup, oil and egg.

4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix to combine but do not overmix. The mixture will still be lumpy. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin.

5. Chop the reserved nuts a bit finer and mix with the brown sugar and then sprinkle a little on to the top of each muffin. Don't skip this step as it just completes each muffin beautifully. Bake for 20 mins. They will have risen but will not be very brown apart from the sugary topping.

6. Remove from the tin to a cooling rack and eat while they are still warm (with butter or maple syrup)!

*I halved this recipe without any difficulty or ill-effects. I just added what I thought to be half of the beaten egg (and used the other half to dip my little ones bread in for lunch)!