Mmmm muffins

March 8th - You have probably already gathered I like a bit of cake from time to time....and the odd pudding.  So muffins fit the bill perfectly for a quick and easy pudding.  I like muffin recipes.  Not too fussy, using cup measures, weighing all the dry ingredients together and then combining with all the 'wet' ingredients with minimal mixing.  And the kids really enjoyed them. My mum brought me the books back from New Zealand, where apparently muffins are really popular, and I have used the books a lot over the years.  Or rather I have used two recipes out of the books over the years, namely chocolate chip and banana muffins and chocolate muffins with chocolate chips (I think there is a recurring theme here) - so much so that the pages are covered with a combination of dried on ingredients, especially chocolate.  But today I tried a new recipe - Rich Raspberry Muffins.  The 'dry' ingredients were listed - 2 cups of self-raising flour, 1/2 a cup of sugar, 1tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of grounds cloves; the 'wet' ingredients were 100g of butter, 1 egg, 1 cup of milk, 1 tsp of instant coffee, the rind of a lemon and 1/2 a cup of raspberry jam.  I thought I could just fling them together in my usual way so only discovered at the end that I should have spooned the jam into the middle of the raw muffins but I had already mixed it in with the egg and butter mixture.  Undeterred, I flung in a few fresh raspberries and here's the result.....

By the time I'd enjoyed my glass of wine and temporary transportation to the Mediterranean thanks to the tuna with salsa I was not too fussy about the result....