Everyone loves the fluffy, big-top muffins that adorn bakery windows and cafe counters. Although they look very professional and taste very moreish, they are actually pretty easy to make at home. In this recipe I have omitted the cake cases as they can prevent the top of the muffin from rising and forming the top that makes the muffins so attractive.
In terms of filling – cherries and chocolate chips are a favourite in my house, but feel free to experiment with all of your favourite chocolates, fruits and flavours.
Top Tip – when adding heavy ingredients like cherries and chunks of chocolate, cover them in flour before adding them to the muffin batter, and this will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of your muffins.
The secret to achieving a big top on the muffins is to cook them at a high temperature before reducing the heat. Therefore, there are two temperatures given in the instructions.
Preheat the oven to 220C and grease a muffin pan
This recipe yields 6 large muffins. If you are using a muffin pan with more than six spaces, fill the remaining ones with a little water, and this will help to achieve a nice top on the muffins.
Ingredients
- 260g flour
- 100g sugar
- 2 tsps baking powder
- 0.5 tsps salt
- 180ml of room temperature milk
- 114g melted, and cooled butter
- 2 large eggs
Method
- Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl, and mix well.
- Beat the eggs and combine with the milk and butter.
- Add the eggs, milk and butter to the flour, baking powder and sugar and combine well.
- Add any additional ingredient such as chocolate chips or cherries
- Divide mixture into six and put into the muffin pan.
- Place in the oven and cook for six minutes.
- Without opening the oven – this risks ruining the rise – reduce the heat to 180C and cook
for a further 6 minutes. - Use a skewer to check that the muffins are cooked through (a few more minutes will do
the trick if they are still a bit gooey). - Remove from the pan and allow to cool.
