I've actually been pretty active in the kitchen in recent weeks, thanks to the wonderful selection of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and meats at my favourite farmers' market, the St. Lawrence Market. We're well into summer now and I've tried recipes with fresh Ontario rhubarb, strawberries, tomatoes, apples, basil, parsley, zucchini, peas in the pod, and more.
My latest passion has been making preserves -- jams, chutneys and pestos, mainly -- but that's worthy of a separate entry so stay tuned.
In an effort to use up some leftover raspberries, I decided to try a recipe for Raspberry White Chocolate Chunk Muffins from Donna Hay's Modern Classics 2 cookbook. Where Modern Classics 1 is devoted more to classic recipes one might serve for breakfast, lunch or dinner, Modern Classics 2 focuses on desserts, from cookies and cakes to pies and squares (or slices as the Aussie calls them).
Aside from the fact that the muffins took quite a bit longer than the suggesting baking time -- unless Ms Hay has a convection oven, 12 minutes seems rather short for muffins to cook all the way through, no? -- they were extraordinarily easy to whip up.
One note: because I used fresh, ripe raspberries they broke apart a bit when I stirred them into the dough. While I don't mind the dough stained with raspberry juice in spots, you might, so one way to avoid it is to partially freeze the berries before stirring them into the batter. That should help them stay whole.
I'm not sure if you can call this a muffin -- with the addition of white chocolate it seems too decadent for breakfast somehow -- but whatever, it's delicious!
Raspberry White Chocolate Chunk Muffins
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
3/4 cup chopped white chocolate
Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).
Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add the sugar and stir to combine.
Place the sour cream, eggs, and oil into a separate bowl and whisk until smooth. Stir the sour cream mixture through the flour and sugar mixture until just combined.
Sprinkle over the white chocolate and stir just until incorporated. Gently fold the raspberries through the mixture.
Spoon into 12 x 1/2 cup capacity non-stick muffin tins until two-thirds full. To help prevent sticking use paper muffin cups. Bake for 12 minutes or until tested with a skewer.*
*When I made these they were in the oven for closer to 22 minutes. Ovens vary, so keep an eye on them. I allowed mine to get nicely golden brown on top.
Courtesy Modern Classics 2, Donna Hay, HarperCollins, 2003
