Sept 08: How do we like our eggs in the morning? Fertilised, or completely and most definitely unfertilised?

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

A brand spanking new thread where we can chat about the state of our eggs, SWI, our veg patches and any other topic we fancy

Starlight, DD1 found this really easy recipe on the Strawberry Shortcake site , but IT WORKS Nicer with blueberries or raspberries than strawberries though!!

Ingredients:
Makes 12 muffins.

2 cups self-rising flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup strawberries, sliced
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup melted margarine or butter

Directions:

Mix flour, sugar, and strawberries to coat fruit.

Combine margarine, egg, and milk in a
separate bowl.

Add this to the dry mixture.
Stir until mixed thoroughly.

Spoon into muffin pans

Bake about 12 to 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

Also Starlight - is it just me but Muffing IS rude

Mean to say - if you don't have muffin cases use greaseproof paper and cut down the sides a bit. It'll overlap but they look quite rustic this way I think

Muffins hard on the outside might be due to oven too hot?

Wow, someone who knows what they're talking about (Fanny) made the same suggestion I was going to, namely, was the oven too hot? I can now bask in the glory of pretending I know what I'm talking about with something domestic The oven at our old house was awful and we cooked everything at 200, but our new oven nukes everything at that temp and we have to cook at more like 160.
If at first you don't succeed, eat more muffins!
I have a foolproof easy peasy cake recipie if you're interested!

I've just had a lovely hour's snuggle with ds, he keeps waking up and crying, he's so distressed with the pox. But it turns out he'll sleep on me, so I've been watching tv with a snoozing boy lying on my chest, awww for the newborn days again!

carrie How have I fooled you into thinking I know what I'm talking about? I think I have more baking disasters than anyone I know.

To be fair to you, the banana cake was quite nice once we'd scraped the charcoal off the top

:-P to carrie.

star I have no idea about spoon material, but can assure you that the metal 'two-spoon' method is best for getting muffin mix into the cases, according to the expert. See video here. Also, avoiding over-mixing is the big lesson I have learned too. Over mixing makes them dense and fail to rise.

DD is currently at the doctor with DH. After I signed off last night we checked on her before going to bed and she was burning up - frighteningly hot to the touch. Temp was 38.1 but she was weirdly quiet and didn't make a noise. Very unlike her. Very frightening. A couple of other things worried us too: the CM said she was strangely quiet during the afternoon, and when she came home she had a red pin prick rash on one cheek, which disappeared after her bath. I ended up co-sleeping with her for half the night, then putting her in the cot in our room which we've just set up awaiting the baby. Anyway, I am now waiting for a call to see what the doctor says.

fp hope your dd is ok.

Thanks meglet. GP said she is fine. Unspecified minor virus he thinks. Calpol and keep an eye on her. I feel embarassed for fussing, but NHS direct took us pretty seriously last night, and you always dread missing something like meningitis, don't you?

fp phew! Thats good to hear. IME the NHS take small children's illnesses seriously. There's always the questions and top to toe for possible menigitis.

I just made blueberry muffins. In this house there's always blueberry muffins, cheesy flapjacks or lemon cake. I like to think the lemon in lemon cake counts as one of our 5 a day .

Glad to hear dd is ok Fanny.

Does anyone else giggle when they type Fanny?

Starlight:

If you have a fan oven you need to turn the heat down a bit as they can be a bit vicious.

If you think your temp stat is off in your oven get an oven thermometer (about £5). Our oven is old and shite and the temp goes up and down randomly, so an oven thermometer is great.

The reason for having a dry and wet bowl when baking is because the raising ingrediant (self raising flour or baking powder) is activated when it becomes wet, and the active ingrediant in the raising agent only lasts so long once activated.

So, making the mixture in one go, but baking it in two batches means the raising agent had probably stopped working by the time you cooked the second batch.

Also over mixing will cause the cakes to become heavy and dense. With muffins, as long as the flour has all been covered, that's enough, don't worry about lumps.

ILTMIMI are you Heston Blumenthal in disguise . I never knew that's why muffins needed a wet and a dry bowl.

How did you guess Meglet?!

I guess that's one of the reasons why they say that baking is a science.

I'm watching Marley & Me while ds is having his nap

ILTMIMI Do you honestly think I would be so juvenile as to choose a username with the intention of making people snigger as they write it? I'll have you know I am named after a most respectable literary character.

I am in awe of your baking knowledge.

I also laugh at the novel/film Fanny by Gas Light

There's no need to be in awe of my baking knowledge, it's only been the last few years where I have baked cakes that aren't as hard as rock and that actually rise.

My muffin recipe book has a small paragraph in for each ingrediant and tells you how they interact with each other, as does the recipe book that came with my breadmaker. I think once you understand the science behind it, it makes sense and you don't make so many fundamental mistakes.

My gosh, this thread is turning into a muffin thread! However, Always, remember that I am the orgional mamamuffin !! We should call our next thread the muffin mamas ! I feel so at home!!!!! carriemuffin megletmuffin IL2MMYMUFFIN etc. We could have loads of fun {blush}
Scary for you fanymuffin hope she is feeling better today. There is so many virus s around at the mo.
Oh corrie on!!!!!

Re muffins - must be something in the water as I was trying to make muffins this week. Unfortunately my aim of carrot and courgette muffins to get more veg into A failed as MrNC has tidied away the widget what holds the grater bit of my Magimix. So no grated stuff.

fanny glad your dd is better. So scary when their temp spikes like that x

D&S Loving the letter. Hoping it works for you. x

I use frozen blueberries if I am making bluberry muffins...they turn out fine.

NC I love the word "widget" Not used enough in my humble opnion!

Well, its my dc free "day off" today..soooo what am I doing today??

1. surveyor coming round at 10am to sort windows out
2. New washer being delivered (it went bang in tuesday so also have 3 days washing to do)
3. About 3 hours worth of ironing to do
4. smear test
5. got to get roots done at hairdressers - I look scary at the moment!
6. Tesco

Day off??? Yeah, right!

My 11th wedding anniversary tomorrow and we are supposed to be "doing something"....will see x

Seems it's not the pox after all but no idea what it is. He was fine all day yest (apart from usual snotty nose) and has no new spots. The ones that are there look like they are fading a bit so childinder was ok to take him today. It's her last day before quitting so hopefully the boys will have a good day.

I am going to make some muffings too. Maybe this weekend but don't know when as it's a busy one. I like all the science talk about how they work [geek emotion]

Well, we thought DD was better, but last night her temperature spiked again, way over 39 this time, and she also vomited. Temp would not come down oafter Calpol, in fact it kept going up, so we made a phonecall to the after hours service which resulted in a trip to the clinic at 2am! He gave her a thorough check and said yes, we were right to be concerned but confirmed it is a non-specific virus and said the worst was over. She slept like a log until 9am then ate breakfast and asked me to read her her books, so nearly back to normal. Well hopefully... let's see what tonight holds.

I'm not sure that I'm ever going to get these muffins made. NC I know exactly the widget that you are referring to! star I just take them out of the freezer one by one as needed, and either defrost on the bench, or zap in the microwave. If the latter then of course they end up lovely and warm so it is compulsory to eat with a little knob of melting butter. Nom, nom.

Poor dd Fanny. It's scary when they're ill isn't it?

Starlight:

It is NOT difficult. Just stick to the instructions and correct ingrediants

Strong flour is what you use in bread and should not be used for baking cakes. I think it's something to do with the high gluten content in it.

If you think you're going to do some more baking I would suggest you always have a stock of plain flour, self raising flour and baking powder. It makes life a lot easier. I have learnt that from making lots of shite cakes.

If you've put more mixture in the cases they will take longer to cook. Make life easier for yourself and buy another tin! I think for a fan oven you reduce the temp by 10-20 degrees.

I find defrosting muffins at room temp then zapping them in the microwave just to warm them through gives you the best results.

Someone visited my house over the weekend an commented how much baking stuff i have - clearly they think I'm a great cook