Muffins.co.nz

Back in 2005 I started Muffins.co.nz as a phpNuke blog of muffin recipes, mostly ones that had come from the internet.  A couple of months after that I started dating a lady named Tessa who was a chef who was just getting back into professional cooking after a short break.

In late 2005, my internet hosting unexpectedly vanished.  Once I was set-up on replacement hosting I started restoring and rebuilding the site on Drupal, something I never completely finished, and then I had to move servers again and didn't have the energy to restore it yet again.

Since then I've moved servers a few times, Tessa went back to school for two years to re-train as a pâtissier, started her own gourmet baking business in 2008 and married me in December 2010.

I've  have been with my current hosting company for over 2 years.  I've never really abandoned the Muffins.co.nz content and occasionally thought about restoring the site, all that content just sitting there inaccessible really annoyed me.

Today I launched my b2evolution hosting site R3 (Revision 3) and before I move the other live b2evolution blogs across from my test site I  need something that's worth the effort of setting up. Muffins.co.nz came to mind & I discovered I  was in the right frame of mind to restore it.

So I've put the old stuff I still have access to back into the recreated site and will add new recipes as they come to hand.

Servings:8-9
Preparation Time:0.25 hours
Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup melted butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup apple juice
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup fruit mincemeat
• Sugar cubes
• Rum

Cooking Instructions
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
Combine dry ingredients and mix well.
Melt butter or margarine and stir in juice and eggs. Beat well. Stir liquid ingredients into dry mixture. Add mincemeat and stir until just moistened. Spoon into greased muffin cups.

Soak the sugar cubes in rum and place one on top of the batter in each muffin cup.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Source: Foodista.com. Used under a creative commons licence.

An English muffin is a round yeast-leavened bread enriched with butter and milk, often served at breakfast in the United States and Canada. An English muffin is cooked on a griddle, so that the first side cooked tends to be flatter and firmer. Cooking on the griddle causes a spongy interior with many nooks and crannies. They usually have a white floury band around the circumference and have a bit of grain meal loose on the outside. English muffins differ from the crumpet somewhat, in that the dough is usually drier to start with, so that a muffin ring is not required to hold the batter's shape, although one is often used.

Ten years ago the "English Muffin" was unknown and (as far as I can tell) was introduced to New Zealand by Macdonalds as the major theme of their breakfast offerings. since then it seems to have been adopted as a normal part of Kiwi food.

Servings:

Preparation Time: 0.25 hours
Ingredients

• 3 c sugar
• 5 c flour
• 5 t soda
• 2 t salt
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 qt. buttermilk
• 1 c vegetable oil
• 1 15-oz box Raisin Bran Flakes

Cooking Instructions
Combine first four dry ingredients. beat in eggs, buttermilk, and vegetable oil.

Fold in gently the cereal until conbined.

Bake desired amount at 200 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Refrigerate batter in a covered container.

Can be stored for 6 weeks!
Source: NBL Kitchen
Notes:

The author says about them

"I have no idea from where i got this recipe. the best thing about it is that the batter can be stored in the refrigerator for SIX WEEKS! because it's made with buttermilk. it's so great to fill a couple muffin cups and bake just a couple hot, fresh muffins when you want them. matty bought me some small silicone bowls that i used today to make the large-sized muffins (can't find these anywhere on the web); and i purchased silicone cupcake molds from sur la table (williams sonoma on crack). buy these. now. they are awesome. awesome."

Servings: 12

Preparation Time: 0.25 hours

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup milk (I used 1%)
• 1/2 cup e.v. olive oil
• 1 cup grated parmesan (I of course used extra, and subbed romano)
• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tbsp sugar (I may skip the sugar next time & see if they are even more savoury)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp finely chopped garlic (about one large clove)
• 1 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary (i subbed 1-2 finely chopped scallions)
• about half a cup of finely diced deli ham
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Cooking Instructions

Preheat oven to 175C.

Whisk eggs, milk & oil.

In another bowl, whisk half the cheese or slightly more than half with all other dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients to dry. Whisk to blend.

Line 12-hole muffin pan with paper liners and divide batter among them.
Top with the rest of the cheese.

Bake 20-25 minutes until tester comes out clean and tops are nice and golden. I checked mine at 20 min, and thought they needed 1 or 2 more minutes; they were a bit pale on top and the tester was clean but moist. But cleverly I neglected to put the timer on and sat down to share a bit of tallasiandude's breakfast -- at least 5 minutes later I jumped up with a shriek and yanked them out of the oven, fearing a panful of cinders. But they were just nicely golden and crunchy on top, so I guess this recipe is pretty forgiving. *grin*

Source:FoodNerd Archives. Used under a creative commons licence.