BLUEBERRY, APPLE AND ALMOND CRUMBLE MUFFINS

These are the gorgeous little devils I made for my mummy on Mothers Day. And oh what a Mothers day it was. I set out to making her day extra special so I put my baking cap on and set out to producing a little breakfast high tea filled with indulgent little goodies. In doing so I had to get up real early on Sunday morning to start this ambitious undertaking. For those who know me you'd worked out by now that things didn't exactly go according to plan. For instance the original recipe I found here makes twelve muffins so I had every intention of halving the ingredients to half the amount of muffins produced. And I did just that. Right down to tirelessly working out what 2 1/2 cups of flour worked out to be, and by that I mean in a complicated, mathematic sense. Yes, I stood there for a good 10 minutes trying to work that sum out even though in hindsight now I should have just used 1 1/4 cups instead. And that figure may or may not be correct but screw it, maths was never and I mean never my strength and I am not ashamed to admit that. So anyway I got to the last stages of this recipe and as I began mixing ingredients together in my bowl I realised I forgot to halve the butter and sugar.

Yeah, you read right. I incorporated the entire amount. The full 150g of it.

God I can be such a klutz sometimes! And in my haste, horror and irrationality I reached for the flour and milk and started pouring and loading it haphazardly into my bowl. The mixture was a little on the dry side but it still appeared to be ok for consumption so I went ahead anyway. And no the fact that I had less than 15 minutes before my mother was set to arrive had nothing to do with my rash decision. I also had some left over pie apple from some turnovers I also made (see, I was a total machine!) so I decided to add them to the tops along with the blueberries. I'm glad I did because they added a nice texture and flavour to the otherwise dry cake mix.

And when I pulled them out of the oven they looked ok, even smelled appetising so I crossed my fingers and prayed to the Kitchen Gods that these berry-licious muffins would taste as good as they looked and smelt. And since this was Mothers Day after all, being barely edible just wasn't going to cut it this morning.

Thankfully they turned out great, a little on the dry side but they are muffins aren't they. My mum loved them. I ended up adding some custard creme I had left over from baking a Boston cream pie which made it much more appetising for me since I have never been a fan of the dry stuff. Oh and in case your wondering you won't be seeing that pie on here anytime soon. That cake was a colossal f*** up on my part. I won't divulge much but I'll let slip that the sponge itself wasn't baked right through so the centre remained rock hard and was somewhat, mortifyingly lumpy. Nobody wants to bite into that. Trust me. See kids, bad stuff happens to me all the time in the kitchen. It's not as blissful as you may think, despite the cute little picture my photographs paint. Maybe I should have my own cooking show? Running around like a headless chicken and getting freaked out when egg whites touch the pads of my fingertips would make for some interesting viewing no?

And yes, I do freak out when gooey stuff touches my fingers.

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 INGREDIENTS: 
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
150g butter, melted
1/3 cup milk
2 eggs, whisked
1 cup berries, frozen
1 cup canned pie apples

 CRUMBLE MIXTURE: 
3/4 cup plain flour
90g butter, chilled and cubed
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flaked almonds

Preheat oven to 180°C / 350°F and grease a twelve hole muffin pan.
Start by making the crumble topping. Add the flour and butter to a bowl and use your fingertips to rub the two together until they come together as coarse bread crumbs.
Stir in the sugar and almonds and set aside.
In another bowl add the sugar, flour, butter, milk and egg and stir until well combined.
Spoon mixture into muffin pan.
Add the blueberry and apple pieces the tops of muffins then sprinkle over the crumble mixture.
Bake for 20-15 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean then leave in pans for 15 minutes to cool before serving with custard.

Et voila.