Hearty muffs

Jackie asked for this recipe, and since I’ve been doing a bit of editing of Dad’s blog (grad jobs get too much hype), I’ve decided to stage a full on take over. He’s gallivanting in Texas, he’ll never know. Unless he uses his own new subscription service. Add your email in – let me tell you there are some good’uns in the pipeline.

These are proper muffins: loads going on, warmly spiced and bound to satisfy for breaky or when 3pm hits. I’ve inherited Dad’s pet hate of ‘too sweet’, and these balance savoury and sugary perfectly. If you don’t fancy the sultanas, coconut, or stem ginger just leave these goodies out: the spice should nudge you enough. That said, I won’t be impressed if you omit the walnut crunch…

• 3 carrots (around 200g)
• 2 apples (around 200g)
• 175g sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla paste
• 160ml sunflower oil
• 4 eggs
• 30g desiccated coconut
• 90g sultanas
• 110g walnuts
• 1 chunk stem ginger in syrup

• 250g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 30g ground almonds
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp all spice (cumin works great as a sub)

Preheat your oven to 170oC fan.

Roughly grate your carrots and apples then mix in a big bowl with the sugar, vanilla paste (this is black speckled gold – it really is worth the expense), sunflower oil and eggs. Then chop the stem ginger into little chunks, the smell of which reminds me of making much-loved ginger ice cream all summer long. Mix through alongside your coconut, sultanas, and walnuts.

Sieve in the dry ingredients and fold just until everything is incorporated, lumpy and bumpy.

Fill 12 muffin cases and bake for about 25 minutes. A skewer to the centre should come out clean and the muffin tops be rounded, springy and bursting with filling.