Chef Martin Anderson
Muffins, cupcakes, wee buns, queen cakes, fairy cakes – these are all fantastic treats for you to try and bake at home but sometimes they just don’t work out!
Saturday morning baking is hard to beat and my own mother produced many a tray of lemon or orange flavoured wee buns, we’d give a hand, lick the spoon even though it was raw egg, who cared so tasty .
The aroma of baking filling the house , burnt fingers lifting them out of the oven , lining them up on the wire rack waiting for them to cool and then being allowed to have a sneaky one before your dinner .
Wee buns are always kept in a biscuit tin and robbed when no one was looking that’s the rules no matter what age you are , baking has become very commercialised now and I think sometimes we need to return to the simpler way of doing things not produced by the thousands but with a little more care and attention , even apple pie!
Is there anything more disappointing that paying good money for an apple pie only to get it home and realise it was made with processed apples thickened with cornflour !!
Not in my kitchen that’s for sure .
All the these wee buns have different names but when you mention Red Velvet for some reason everyone takes notice !
Red Velvet isn’t actually a flavour, it’s the colour of the mix used to produce your final treat. We have red velvet cake, cupcakes, muffins, cookies, cheesecake and even red velvet mousse but that’s really funky!
Red velvet is a very simple cake mixture with the addition of coca powder & food colouring.
The icing on the other hand can be a bit complicated and it needs a wee bit of attention , traditionally it’s butter cream but I find that very heavy to use so I always go for the cream cheese icing , not for the faint hearted but in moderation it’s a tasty topping .
As with all baking have the correct equipment , make sure your oven is working properly if making muffins , queen cakes or even larger sponges have the paper cases or liners ready there is nothing as hateful as making buns and running out of bun cases .
Decide what topping you are going to use and have the ingredients ready if it says softened butter then use real butter and leave it at room temperature to soften , never be tempted to soften it in the microwave the butter only melts on the inside. I would never use margarine as an ingredient for the topping , horrendous is the only word to describe that !
Unsalted butter is a great option but twice the price of salted butter , how does that work , more expensive it its natural form ?
For red food colouring it is best to use the food colouring paste if you can get it , liquid colouring is ok to use but remember a wee bit goes a long way so a few drops at a time while mixing until you get it right sometimes though the brighter the better for red velvet .
So here you go it’s a simple recipe
This will make 12 muffins .
Red Velvet & white chocolate chip muffins
100g of softened butter
140g caster sugar
2 large egg, beaten
225g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
½ tsp baking soda
Bicarbonate of soda
150ml buttermilk
100g of white chocolate chips
Red food colouring
For the icing
150g unsalted butter
45g icing sugar
300g cream cheese
Juice of a lemon
Method For the muffins
Line your muffin tin with the muffin cases .
Pre heat your oven to 170c
Beat the butter and castor sugar together until creamy in colour .
Sieve the flour , baking soda and cocoa powder together .
Add 1 egg to the mix and half the flour mix .
Add the second egg and the remainder of the flour .
Add the buttermilk and your food colouring .
When well mixed fold in the chocolate chips .
Divide evenly into the muffin cases and bake until well risen and cooked through.
When ready cool on a wire rack .
For the cream cheese topping .
Cream the butter and icing sugar together until light and creamy , slowly add the cream cheese beating at a medium speed , finally add the lemon juice .
When the muffins are cooled spread the cream cheese on top .
And there you have it Red Velvet Muffins with very little Bluffin !!
