Any morning muffins

    Would you like a muffin?

     These are not quite the Christmas Morning Muffins from How to be a Domestic Goddess, but 'almost'. Nigella, naturally, has a constant supply of dried cranberries in her walk-in pantry and gallons of orange juice in her posh fridge. My pantry is so full of dog food and recycling bins that I can hardly get in it, my store cupboard is conspicuously lacking in dried berries, and the orange juice was finished yesterday - for this is the real world, not the glamorous* one of the lady in the Brora cashmere twinset. But when the muffin mood took me, I just improvised, omitted the fancy stuff and relied on the spice content to give the flavour. In the mixture is a generous quantity of nutmeg, and on the top - combined with demerara sugar - some cinnamon, so you can imagine the gorgeous smells which filled the kitchen when I took them out of the oven. I'd make them just a bit sweeter next time (I did put in more sugar than the recipe said to compensate for the missing ingredients) and they'd be wonderful eaten warm.
     They were so quick to make that I'm keen to expand my muffin repertoire. Does anyone know this book - it gets great reviews - or can you suggest another?

*To go off at a tangent, I discover from reading The Thoughtful Dresser that the word 'glamour' was introduced to the language by none other than Sir Walter Scott who anglicised the Scots 'glamer': "the supposed influence of a charm on the eye, causing it to see objects differently from what they really are". Delusive and alluring!

Comments

[Roobeedoo]

Yes ! I have that Muffin book and use it very regularly. Our family favourite is the Hummingbird Muffin (involving pineapple and nuts and coconut). On a slight tangent, we also like "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World". If you don't smother them in icing they are just like muffins! We love the Hot Chocolate cupcakes which have cinnamon and a spike of chilli powder, coconut milk etc... plus they are non-dairy.

[Cornflower]

Yummy!

[Vivienne]

It's the only muffin book I've ever used, and I would heartily recommend it. Excellent instructions and delicious recipes (using British ingredients rather than American, which matters - flour is not just flour).

[krissie]

Love the look of your muffins - yummy! I'm afraid nigella does not inspire me in fact I always feel a tad annoyed when I see her on tv!

[Lisa Guidarini]

Am trying to reach into the computer monitor to grab one of these!!!!!!!!! They look delectable.

[Mr Cornflower]

At the other end of the quality scale, Cornflower could have recalled our trip with a well known regional airline (no names, but they have a stranglehold on the lucrative Edinburgh-Cork route), during which we were served with blueberry muffins which were as far removed from real blueberries as I am from the Queen.

[Dark Puss]

Interested in your comment about the word "glamour" and certainly Scott popularised it, but wasn't its first recorded use about 50 years before Walter Scott was born? I can't get access to the OED for the next few days, but I'm sure Lindsay Bagshaw can answer this question definitively!

[Cornflower]

My OED isn't as big as Lindsay's (he can do dictionary oneupmanship!) but it does say - unless I'm mis-reading it - that Scott was responsible for the introduction.

[Dark Puss]

Thank you very much for the clarification, though why I should have ever doubted the correctness of the information is beyond me!

[Lindsay]

OED says Scott responsible for introduction into the literary language, a version of "glammer" and other variants which appears to have been used rather earlier. As "magic", it appears at an unknown date in the 1700s, but at least as early as 1720. A Scott use is 1830, also Tennyson 1859. As "delusive or alluring charm" the first given use is 1840 (Hood), no Scott references. In its modern meaning, the first source given is Daily Telegraph 1937!!

In summary, Scott brought an obscure word into general use, but it meant magic or enchantment until more recently! So Cornflower and Dark Puss are both right (as usual!).