My Anything Goes Muffins

Here's the recipe for my "Anything Goes" Muffins. This started as a proper muffin recipe I found in a magazine but over the years I have discovered that I can change or substitute the ingredients and still end up with a yummy muffin. The good thing is that as long as you stick to the basic quantities of wet and dry ingredients you can use up many different leftover fruits and dairy sitting around in your kitchen. Give it a try and let me know what you like or don't like about it.

Ingredients

1 egg (large and free range, preferrably)

1 cup yoghurt (plain - I like to use Greek yoghurt for a nice tangy result - or fruit yoghurt or custard or buttermilk – whatever you have sitting around in the fridge)

1/3 cup oil (I use sunflower but you can use rice bran or vegetable or light olive oil –just don’t use full bodied olive oil as it’s too strong)

1 cup mashed bananas (about 2 ripe bananas) or grated pear or apple or carrots or berries of some kind (fresh or frozen) - be creative almost any fruit can be mashed, grated or finely chopped

Optional: some grated lemon or orange zest for extra zing and/or ½ cup of white or milk chocolate bits and/or some chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts or almonds - extra good if you toast them in the oven for a few minutes first, nice and crunchy) and/or craisins and/or sultanas - almost anything you like

1 ¾ cup self raising flour (or 1 ¼ cups s/r flour and ½ cup almond meal for something a little different)

¾ cup caster sugar (or fine brown sugar if you prefer)

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees if not fan forced or 170/175 degrees if fan forced - nice moderate oven, not too hot.

Beat the egg lightly in a big bowl. Add yoghurt and oil and mix with a fork. Add fruit and mix.

Sift flour and sugar over the wet ingredients and mix with a fork until just combined. You’ll get a thick batter. Make sure it’s evenly mixed throughout (no leftover dry flour on the bottom) but don't over mix.

Spoon into a 12 regular cup muffin tin or 24 cup mini muffin tin (I like to use paper muffin cases so that the tin stays clean). I like to add a whole almond or pecan to the top of each muffin, but that's up to you. Bake for about 20-30 minutes. Keep an eye on them after 20 minutes. You just want golden brown on top. It depends on your oven how quickly they cook and brown. If using mini muffin tin possibly only 15-18 minutes might do the job.

Enjoy and let me know if you give it a try. They keep reasonably well - still good after 2 or 3 days, just microwave fro 20 seconds if they start getting stale.