It’s the last week of the Summer Holidays and the sunshine is back, so Luca & I are enjoying a rare day alone and decided to go Blackberry picking. We returned with a fair sized haul, covered in scratches and a few nettle stings and with purple fingers and mouths we looked forward to making something nice.
 
We Googled blackberries to see what came up, hoping to find a good muffin recipe and maybe even a sneaky Schnapps one.
 
We were in luck and have found both. We are off to Sainsburys later to buy Vodka for the Schnapps, but below is our muffin recipe. It’s delicious, we ate ours whilst they were still warm in the garden with a cup of Earl Grey for me and a cup of mint tea for Luca. I am sure the others will enjoy the rest when they get home. If there are any left !!!!!!!!
 
Buon appetito
 
 
  • Makes 12
  • 250g butter
  • 200g sugar
  • 5 eggs
  • 250gplain flour,
  • 20g baking powder
  • 70g blackberries
 
Preheat the oven to 200ºC/Gas 6.

In a large mixing bowl cream the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon until well-blended.

Add the eggs, one by one, mixing thoroughly with each addition. We only had goose eggs !!! But it worked.

Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl and lightly fold into the egg mixture.

Divide the muffin mixture among the muffin cases, filling each case no more than two-thirds full. Press a blackberry into each filled muffin case. I decided that one blackberry per case was not enough, so I added about 100g or so to the mixture & gently folded through. It worked so well and the colour was amazing.

Place the muffin cases on baking sheets. Bake each batch for 15-20 minutes until risen and golden.

 
I must admit that I didn’t entirely follow the recipe exactly as I did mine all in the Artisan, but it worked out just as well and saved me a lot of arm aching work. The muffins were soft, moist and very seasonal. Its nice to have something other than crumble to make with the blackberries and the kids will love helping pick them, make them, licking the bowl, (Luca did) and will love eating them. Have fun, we did.
 
 
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