Live webchat and baking session with Dan Lepard, Fri 8 Jan, 12-2pm

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We've got a Mumsnet first this Friday - award-winning baker and food writer Dan Lepard is our guest for a bake day and live webchat. Should be just the thing to counter wintry gloom and warm up your kitchen.

Dan's involved with the World Marmalade Festival, which promotes all thing marmalade-y and supports the charity Hospice at Home. So he has chosen Ponymum's muffin recipe and given it a citrus-y twist. Full details, ingredients, plus all Dan's variations on the recipe are here.

Please choose the version that tickles your tastebuds and join us to bake along with Dan on Friday. He'll be online from noon.

While your (and our) culinary creations are cooking, Dan will answer questions and swap tips about baking, bread making, marmalade making and the like.

Once your muffins/pudding/traybake are out of the oven, please share a picture of the finished result on your profile. We'll put up pix of our efforts here.

And, of course, if you can't make it on Friday but have a question you'd like to ask Dan, please post here.

Ponymum, are you still there? Dan says more like 25.

Sorry isn't the marmalade with the sugar a "glaze"?
My muffins have been cooling, so now what?

Yes I agree it needs to be quite a bit shorter, but my timings have been a real muddle today so I think you better go by Dan's best estimation.

Still baking happily here, I'll do my best to answer as many of your remaining questions as I can in the time left, but will then come back later on to round things off!

ahhh read that post just in time. 25 mins, thanks.
still freaked that i was going to make these anyway....

Olivia, Dan says icing when cold but if it melts on (IYSWIM) it's a glaze.

Must confess I havent been baking your stuff but v impressed by a) quick recipe you gave me amd b) promise to come back later and answer outstanding q's.

Gold star from me

Sorry didn't mean to be needy
Thank you

have put a photo of the muffins on my profile, hopefully it should work!

Hi everyone,
I'm signing off now - not for any diva reason, but simply that the car parking uses a permit scratch card and we've run out, so home I have to go - but hope you had a great time. You know, all the questions are really reassuring and it's clear that all this "no-one's into baking anymore" is a load of bumph.

So I'll drive back home and continue this when I get there. Until then...thanks ;o)

Thanks Dan - haven't been baking along as would undo my diet plans (and can't bring myself to bake with gluten as I always end up sucking mix off my fingers without thinking), but it's been great to have you on.

I really like baking, as does my 3 year old, and I think it's great that you are aware of allergy baking. Look at some gf cook books, and it seems the writers think we should all sit quietly with a nice healthy bun, and not have a treat cake everyday occasionally. And some of them look unappetising in the book, which is a real triumph

Posting pics on my profile

The icing gives them the sweetness that they were missing

bluesky I'm dying to see the pics but can't view your profile.

Finally sat down with a cup of tea pregnant lady hot water to munch on a muffin or two. If you can Dan, could you give some tips on getting the best out of this recipe? Mine just didn't rise today like they usually do. The things I did different are:
-Lower oven temp as you said 160 if it's a fan oven (I usually do 180 C fan)
-Used sunflower oil instead of olive oil
-Whizzed the whole lot together in the magimix to save time as the grated stuff was already in there
-Instead of SR flour I added 1 heaped tsp baking powder to 125g flour. Was that not enough?

Any or all of the above likely to contribute to poor rising?

Too embarassed to post a photo but they taste nice.

ponymum, I think it's just gone up, as I notice my posting name now has a line underneath it. I just posted the one photo, quickly before I ate them all, they are delicious with the icing.

I honestly couldn't give a monkey's about muffins (other than eating them of course) but CARRIE - loving the kitchen cabinets!

And Big Tech looks reassuringly exactly as you would expect him too, ponytail and everything.

no not yet, give it 5 mins or so. When your posting name has a line underneath, you have gone "live" so to speak.

TeamEdward
Do you have your profile set to private?

It's working, they look lovely!

As do yours MmeLindt, great to see them as a works in progress in your kitchen!

After looking at MN's pics I realised why my muffins always look so odd shaped. I really must get a muffin tin.

Thanks Dan, and MN for a lovely activity, perfect for a snowy afternoon.