the fruits of my labour

Don’t know about that, but these muffins sure are good. Yesterday morning I was able to get up and sneak into the kitchen and start making these while both children were sleeping. (Quite amazing as it was after 7:30 and Elliott’s usually up at least an hour earlier.) In an impressive feat of organisation (in my mind, anyway), I had measured and bagged all the dry ingredients needed for the muffins the last time I made a batch. All I had to do was whisk the wet ingredients and add some raisins.

These muffins are surprisingly addictive, given they don’t contain any chocolate and they’re moderately healthy thanks to the oats, wheat bran, vegetable oil and buttermilk. They make a great breakfast, but are equally as good any other time that hunger strikes. The recipe comes from 500 Cupcakes: The Only Cupcake Compendium You’ll Ever Need, a great little book I got as a gift. I might write more about this book in the future, but I will say now that despite the recipe saying it makes a dozen, I always get an extra half dozen, as well as a decent lick of the spoon and bowl. And of course I always let Elliott have that.

Here’s my version of the recipe:

225g (8oz) plain flour
200g (7oz) brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
40g (1 1/2 oz) wheat bran
40g (1 1/2 oz) porridge oats
pinch of salt
450ml (16 fl oz) buttermilk
2 lightly beaten eggs
175ml (6 fl oz) vegetable oil
175g (6oz) raisins

Preheat the oven to 175C (350F/Gas mark 4) and grease a muffin tin or tins (see above) or line with muffin cases.

Mix the dry ingredients together with a spoon in a medium bowl and whisk the wet ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until almost blended, then fold in the raisins.

Spoon the mixture into the tin or tins. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the muffins comes out clean. Take tin from oven and cool for 5 minutes before removing muffins and cooling on a rack.

These muffins keep well for a few days in an airtight container. Not that they last that long here! You can freeze them, too. And of course, there are many ways you could vary them, by substituting something else for the raisins, although I never have. Hmmm, chocolate chips, though…

As for my photography:

There’s much I (clearly) need to learn. I know the right light’s pretty important, but I don’t exactly know what the right light is or where/when to find it. I doubt it was in my dark kitchen on a wet and windy Wednesday morning. I took a few photos, but I think these two are the best. And that’s saying something! The top one was taken with the flash and the on below without. That’s probably pretty obvious. I’m not sure which one’s better (or worse). Maybe I should have zoomed in when I used the flash so it wasn’t so glary? Not sure. I’d appreciate some feedback if anyone has any. Otherwise I’ll just keep plodding along, slowly learning a bit here and there like I so often do.

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Welcome to the fruits of my labour. I hope this blog will help me keep in touch with family and friends, near and far. I also hope it will be a way of recording how I spend my days, especially during this fleeting time with young children. It would be nice to have a permanent reminder, for me and them. I’ve always liked the idea of keeping a journal, but have never had the discipline and I hate writing by hand. Somehow this seems more achievable and attractive due to the flexible, visually appealing and possibly interactive, nature of blogs. I say possibly, because I have no idea whether anyone will actually want to read this, let alone interact. But that’s fine by me; I’m used to entertaining myself!

Because I’ve been inspired mainly by craft blogs, this blog will feature many of the things I make, from bread to bootees. I’m a reasonable cook and baker and a beginner (and somewhat clumsy) crafter, so my results are not always (if ever) magazine cover-worthy. Hopefully we’ll see some progress, though. Who knows, maybe one day even I’ll inspire someone to pick up a wooden spoon or a pair of knitting needles!

the fruits of my labour will not just be about cooking and crafts, though. I will probably talk a bit about parenting, music, TV, books (If I actually find/make time to read one!), world affairs and other things that interest me. Anything I think somebody else out there might be interested in too. So, stay tuned!

If you just happened to stumble across this page and are wondering who the hell (I nearly wrote heck, because I’m so used to having to edit my speech around impressionable youngsters, but I hope I won’t have to edit myself too much here.) I am, check out my “About” page for some background.