Nigella Lawson's Lemon-Raspberry Muffins: A "Baker's Delight"

This week the theme for I Heart Cooking Clubs is "Baker's Delight", providing infinite choices of Nigella Lawson's sweet or savory baked treats, especially when you open up her book, How To Be A Domestic Goddess, Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking. I had several recipes tagged in the book to make, but a sale on two containers of raspberries for $4.00, (a very low price for here) made her Lemon-Raspberry Muffins the winning choice. 

Nigella says, "I think of these more as teatime muffins than breakfast ones, but please don't feel constrained by my prejudices (and it's not often you'll hear me say that)."

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins

How To Be A Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson

(Makes 12)

1/4 cup butter

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

juice and finely chopped zest of 1 lemon

approximately 1/2 cup of milk

1 large egg

5 ounces raspberries

12-cup muffin pan lined with 12 paper baking cups

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Melt the butter and set it aside to cool. Stir together in a largish bowl, the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, and zest. In a measuring cups, pour in the lemon juice, then enough milk to come up nearly to the 1 cup mark (and it will curdle, but that's just fine), then beat in the egg and melted butter. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir briefly; the batter should scarcely be combined. Fold in the raspberries, spoon this lumpy mixture into the muffin cups and bake for about 25 minutes. When cooked, the tops should spring back to your touch. Leave in the pan for 5 minutes to cool slightly, then set them on a rack to cool for another 10-15 minutes. 

Notes/Results: These are some tasty muffins! My Mom especially liked the texture, they are moist and tender. I did make a few changes--although oddly for me, I didn't do anything to make them healthier--other than using the non-fat milk I had on hand. We have been being pretty good this week and I thought we deserved a little treat. The changes I did make were to reduce the oven temp to 375 F because I way over-baked a batch of Nigella's Lavender Trust Cupcakes several months ago that were also at 400 F, so I find a bit lower temp to be a better way to go. One lemon and 1/2 cup of milk did not give me the "nearly up to the 1 cup mark" the recipe called for so used the juice (and zest) from a second lemon. This gave the cupcakes a better, more intense (but not overpowering) lemony flavor so I would keep that second lemon in the recipe. Finally, I sprinkled just a bit of demerara sugar (raw cane sugar), on top of the batter for a nice sparkle and crunch. Nigella is right, these are perfect with a cup of tea, but we will be trying them for breakfast too. ;-)  I would make these again with my changes. (BTW: Aren't the little muffin liners cute?! I owe them to the wonderful Nancy since I won a gift card for King Arthur Flour on her blog several months ago and they were part of the goodies I ordered. Thanks again Nancy!)

You can see what the other IHCC members picked for this week's baking theme by checking out their links at the I Heart Cooking Clubs site, here.