Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

For Mothers Day I was lucky enough to get a red Kitchenaid mixer.  Well Mothers Day was just the excuse. I'm not Guitarman's mother but he knew I needed a new mixer as our 25 year old hand mixer had mixed its last batch of muffins.  I expect that this new mixer will see me through the rest of my baking days and it is so lovely to use.

Wherever I can I cook from scratch.  By cooking from scratch I know exactly what my famly are eating and we take time to sit down together and eat as part of connecting with each other at the end of the day.  I read a blog post today from overamillionorbust about her daughter's milk intolerance.  That post reminded me that I started cooking pretty much everything from scratch when TootToot was a baby. 

TootToot was a premmie and she couldn't tolerate cows milk in any form before she was two.  A lot of commercially prepared foods contain some form of milk solid, never mind all the sugar and salt.  Eight years on TootToot has very diverse tastes and none of the pickiness around food that other kids her age do - and she's a healthy weight because her diet is varied.

The other effect of cooking from scratch is that you can eat really good quality food for a hell of a lot less money.  I'll post a favourite recipe each week.

This week's recipe is Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins.  I picked this up while in the US from a Ghirardelli chocolate packet. The mix makes twelve standard size muffins and would probably make around eight Texas style muffins.

Warning: don't even think about counting the calories in these. Enjoy!

Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

100g butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk ( I use milk powder and water)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 cups flour
225g of chopped white chocolate
1/2 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C
2. Grease muffin cups or line with papers.  I use silicone and don't need to grease or use papers.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until smooth
4. Add egg, milk and vanilla. Mix until well blended.
5. Combine the baking powder and flour.  Add to mix along with chocolate. If you don't have white chocolate you can also use milk or dark but won't be as nice.  I've even used leftover Easter eggs.
6. Mix until just combined.
7. Gently fold in your raspberries.
8. Divide between muffin cups.
9. Cook for twenty minutes (may need slightly longer if your oven isn't fan forced)
10. Cool in tin for ten minutes before turning out.  This is very important - the muffins will disintegrate if you take them out of the tin too soon.
11. Dust with icing sugar.
12. Equally yummy served warm or cold.
13. Can be served warm as a dessert with ice cream.