Christmas Muffins

This cross between a muffin and scone is a perfect, light, delicious, orangey breakfast muffin for the festive period. This recipe is from the delightful Sarah Raven's Complete Christmas Food & Flowers, a fabulous and interesting collection of Christmas recipes and ideas. It was the last Christmas cookery book gifted to me. Dom from Belleau Kitchen has, for his Random Recipes food bloggers challenge, set us the task of randoming selecting a recipe from our Christmas cookery books, and this is the recipe I opened the book at.

Makes 10 muffins
75g caster sugar
250g self-raising flour
25g ground almonds
1/2 tsp baking soda.
1 tsp baking powder
50g dried soft apricots (ready to eat)
zest of 1 orange
75g unsalted butter
4 cloves
100ml freshly squeezed orange juice (2 oranges)
100ml milk
1 egg, beaten

strawberry jam, to serve (optional)

Preheat oven to 180 C.

Place all the dry ingredients and the zest in a bowl. Gently melt the butter and add the cloves to infuse. Cool for a bit. Remove cloves and mix the butter, orange juice, milk and egg together in another bowl.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients. It will look quite doughy. Divide into 10 portions and spoon into paper baking cases in a muffin tray.

Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool slightly. Best eaten warm with jam, but they can be frozen.