Second breakfast time

It's that time of the week again. The children are swimming, and, while they have had a hearty breakfast including cereal, fruit and a half a crumpet each, they will come through the front door 'starving'.

Of course, I can't go past the freezer full of blackberries, there must be something I can do with these right? Muffins!

Glancing at a few muffin recipes, I finally settle on an idea from Taste.com.au. I then set about muddying the waters with my own preferences. These muffins were originally designed to be pretty healthy. Maybe so, but I am just not a fan of 'light polyunsaturated margarine'. If you are, then feel free to replace the butter quantity exactly with this product - or indeed with oil which would be my second choice after butter. Obviously I am using blackberries rather than raspberries too. A sprinkling of demerara sugar on the top is suggested, but I suspect I used a lot more than one tablespoon's worth in total, more like two or two and a half.

The other main change I made was that I didn't have 'All-bran cereal', The little sticks of bran. I settled for what I had handy which is 'Digestive 1'. It's also a healthy commercial breakfast, though it does have bits of fruit in it too. I wasn't bothered there. I suggest you use whatever breakfast cereal takes your fancy really.

Perfect timing, these were just coming out of the oven as the family arrived home. You can bet they loved the aroma of these fruity muffins wafting over their heads.


Blackberry Breakfast Muffins

300g (2 metric cups) self-raising flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
110g (1/2 metric cup) caster sugar
40g (1/3 metric cup) bran-based cereal
125g butter, melted and cooled a little
250ml (1 metric cup) buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
100g (3/4 cup) frozen or fresh blackberries
1-2 tbsp demerara sugar (depending on how generous you want to be with your sprinkling)

Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a 12-hole, muffin pan with paper cases (and I am using love heart cases in honour of St Valentine).

Put flour and cinnamon, caster sugar and cereal in a bowl and stir to combine.

Whisk together the butter, buttermilk, eggs and vanilla in a jug. Pour over the dry ingredients.

Stir together until almost combined using a firm silicon spatula (for preference) then, fold the blackberries through.

Spoon mixture into muffin cases. Sprinkle with demerara sugar. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of 1 comes out clean.

Stand in pan for 5 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Makes 12 muffins - great to freeze for lunchboxes or a quickly zapped treat - assuming there are leftovers! I used the 'excuse' of needing to hang out the washing before serving, to give the muffins a chance to cool a little, rather than the children scorch their mouths on the berry juices. A delicious and, I think, still not entirely unhealthy treat for a Saturday morning.