#29 RASPBERRY + LEMON MUFFINS

Well as some of you might now, I'm quite late posting this because I actually made it for my kind of birthday get together with my friends. But as I already mentioned on facebook and twitter I did prepare a lot of these recipes before going back to uni a few weeks ago so that I could still post while being busy studying and going to lectures. I hope you guys don't mind and you enjoy this lovely muffin recipe. It's actually kind of summer-y but I like to deny that it's winter and especially with all the snow outside I can't wait for it to be summer and spring again. So this is something for spring/summer of course, but also something to cheer you (and your friends) up on a snowy/cold day.

So I had people over the other day and I always expect myself to make something lovely for when I have friends coming over. And it's a good way to try new things and see what people think about it. Most of the time they do.

So that day I decided to make muffins. But what muffins?
Well we all know and love blueberry muffins, but I had some raspberries in the freezer and I thought well, why not try that. So I made up this recipe for some lovely fruity raspberry muffins, added some lemon zest to make it even fresher and fruitier.
And it worked! Even I was happy with how they turned out and I am not usually happy about things when I try them for the first time. But I loved them and my friends loved them too. And that's why I want to share the recipe with all of you.

They're really easy to make and as usually with muffins it doesn't take that long either. they're perfect for a little sweet snack when you're having friends over or are invited over somewhere. I hope you love them as much as I did. I can't wait to make some again sometime soon.

Raspberry + Lemon Muffins
for 12 Muffins
150 g raspberries (fresh or frozen)
20 g sugar

250 g flour
80 g sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla sugar
1 lemon (zest)
3 eggs
100 g butter (melted)
150 ml buttermilk

first if you are using frozen raspberries you'll want to
take them out of the freezer and mix them with
the sugar (20 g) and either leave to defrost
at room temperature or heat in a pan over low heat.
but make sure you take 12 raspberries and leave them
aside (1 for each muffin).

mix all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, vanilla sugar,
salt, lemon zest, baking powder) together in a big bowl.
melt the butter and mix all the liquid ingredients
together aswell (make sure the butter isn't too hot
when you mix it with the eggs, they'll
denaturate otherwise).

carefully mix the liquid ingredients into the dry ones
to make a smooth dough. you'll then add the raspberries
with the sugar and mix well. you'll get a slightly pink
dough out of this. now put the dough in the fridge
and leave it to rest for about 15 minutes at least.
(you can preheat the oven while doing that, or just
leave it to rest for longer.)

preheat the oven to 180°C and butter your muffin tray
or put paper muffin cups in it.

fill each each muffin case with about two tbsp of the
mixture. that's where you get back to those raspberries
that you have set aside, put one on top of each muffin
and push them in about half way (as you can see in the
picture below).

bake the muffins for about 20 minutes.
you can eat them warm and cold. they're great and fluffy
either way.

Magdalena.