Raspberry and Walnut Muffins and Blood Orange and Muscat Raisin Muffins

I made my usual muffin recipe base to a make these breakfast/morning tea/afternoon tea treats. The base recipe comes from a much loved, much thumbed American cookbook The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, one of the best and most inventive vegetarian cookbooks I own.

Here is Molly’s website: http://www.molliekatzen.com/ and this is the website of the Moosewod Collective, with whom Molly was originally associated: http://www.moosewoodcooks.com/

I divided the mixture in half, adding frozen raspberries and chopped walnuts to one half, and some finely chopped blood orange and raisins soaked in muscat to the other.

Ingredients – Base Mixture

1 and 3/4 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bi-carbonate soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
2 tbs honey

Raspberry and Walnut  Mixture

1/4 cup frozen raspberries
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Blood Orange and Muscat Raisin Mixture

A couple of slices of blood orange, blitzed in the food processor
1/4 cup raisins, soaked in a couple of tablespoons of liqueur muscat for half an hour or more (you don’t really need the muscat; I had some on hand and it worked well)

Method

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with muffin papers. Expect to make at least 8 decent sized muffins, or more if they’re smaller.

Mix the dry ingredients for the base mixture with a spoon in a bowl until well combined. Divide into two bowls. In another bowl mix the oil, beaten egg, milk and honey.

For the raspberry muffins, add half the liquid ingredients to one bowl of dry ingredients, stirring until barely mixed. Gently fold in the raspberries and walnuts.

For the blood orange muffins, add the other half of the liquid ingredients to the second bowl of dry ingredients, stirring until barely mixed. Gently fold in the blood orange and raisins. Decorate the tops with blood orange segments if desired.

Spoon each mixture into the muffin papers.  Sprinkle the tops with a little demerara sugar for extra crunch. Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

Remove from the oven – eat  warm or cold.