Raspberry muffins

Question – “What can I bake this weekend that is not wickedly indulgent but satisfies my need to fill the kitchen with warm aromas of something fresh and satisfying from the oven?.”

Answer – “The easiest cakes I ever cook - which can come in all kinds of mouth-watering flavours - and can be made occasionally to be quite 'virtuous'.  Of course, it must be American-style muffins.

Recipes for these little cakes are numerous but, today, I wanted to keep to the lower fat version using buttermilk and some raspberries that had been reduced to £1 in the supermarket.  Well.....we all like a bargain!

Sadly, it is no longer easy to find churn buttermilk. Years ago local butter producers would sell the liquid left after butter churning, which resulted in an almost fat-free product. Today most modern buttermilk is cultured, i.e. factory-made using a fermentation process with very low-fat milk. The resulting product is thicker than traditional buttermilk but can be used in the same way for making excellent pancakes, scones, soda bread, and more......including muffins.

My low-fat (0.75g saturated fat per cake and 170 calories) raspberry muffin recipe uses:

275g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

115g caster sugar

1 large egg

1 carton buttermilk (around 280ml)

4 tbsp rapeseed oil (or other healthy oil)

150g raspberries (or other fruit)

Icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 200c (or 190c fan) and line a muffin tin with 12 cases. Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl, stir in the sugar, then make a well in the centre.

Mix the egg, buttermilk and oil together in a separate bowl, pour into the flour mixture and mix quickly.

Add the raspberries and lightly fold in with a metal spoon. (Do not over-mix – it’s OK for it to be a bit lumpy.) Spoon the mixture into the paper cases and bake for around 25 mins until golden brown and firm in the middle. Transfer to a wire rack and when cool dust liberally with icing sugar.