I
don’t normally talk about work on my blog but I need to in order to put this
latest recipe into context. Although I am now on my holidays, Thursdays over
the past academic year were the longest day as I would teach 9am-6pm. Now, in
many occupations and in former jobs, that isn’t a big deal but when you spend
all of that time talking, by the time 6 o’clock comes around, I’m ready for
home. That said, I was fortunate enough to have one particular group at 2pm who
were such fun to teach that I decided I would bring them in one of my recipes.
Well, they were always lively, full of life – befitting of their age group as
they were all students who were straight out of secondary school. So, I decided
to bring them in Winter breakfast
muffins and here’s how it went…
Into
a bowl, I sifted in flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and mixed spice and mixed
it all together. I then added butter and worked it until it resembled breadcrumbs.
In another bowl, I whisked up eggs, buttermilk and golden syrup. I then tipped
this wet mixture with chopped stem ginger and sultanas and beat it well. The
next thing I did was to three-quarter fill the muffin cases and into the oven
they had to go for 30 minutes “until well risen”. Well, 30 minutes came and
went, then 35 minutes, then 40 minutes. I gave them a wee press – no spring
back. What was up with that?! Of course, I started to blame the over. Surely it
must be the oven – it’s on its last legs so I checked the thermometer that has
taken up permanent residence inside and the temperature was perfect. As I stood
gawking into the oven like a confused scientist, the reflection of a bowl on
the worktop caught my eye against the oven door. Sugar!!! I forgot to put the
sugar in the mixture!!! Seriously, how in Heaven’s name did I manage that?!
Well, suffice to say, the dogs got that batch of muffins and, as someone who
really doesn’t like wasting food, the other batch that were sitting in a second
tray, nothing would do me that I then took each muffin case and dumped its
contents back into the bowl. Then, added the sugar and repeated the task of
putting them into their cases. Thankfully, they cooked fine.
Still
concerned though that I had made such a hems of the muffins for my lovely
students, I then decided to also make fair cakes with a variety of coloured
icings – a form of buffer, if you like. They might not like the muffins but
everyone likes fairy cakes. So, in I went the next day, complete with a two
tins of muffins and fairy cakes. I actually had to hide them away under my desk
out of site for fear anyone else would see them – I have no shortage of people
offering to try out my baking efforts. So, 2 o’clock came, I trotted over to
class, went in the door, there they were – all sitting working busily at their
computer and, as always, there was my cup of tea sitting beside my desk which
they insist of buying me every Thursday. Yes, you see, they really are such a
good group of students. As they spotted the tins, I could see their eyes light
up and so we congregated around the large table in the centre of the room (away
from the PCs of course!) and had a lovely 5 minutes of debating which were
nicer – the muffins or the fairy cakes. Unfortunately, the muffins (although
very nice, I was told), the fairy cakes won hands down – 10 out of 10. The
muffins got a 7. And just to incorporate numeracy into this non-curriculum
related activity, I got them to calculate the mean and standard deviation of
the 15 scores – lol! You know that saying there’s no such thing as a free
lunch, well there’s no such thing as a free dessert!
In
summarising this recipe, I would say it is straightforward – except I can’t because
I forgot to put the sugar in but that’s my own doing – always trying to be 4
steps ahead of myself. I am going to try this recipe again though. Dear Husband
missed out on these ones this time but thankfully for him, I have lots of
mornings now over the summer to perfect the art of making this recipe…
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