Easter Muffins, typically decorated with mini eggs!

Easter isn't really a big deal in my household but I used it as an excuse to make these simnel muffins. I've never made Simnel cake before because it just looks too rich and I only want to attempt to stuff myself with marizpan-y fruit fake at Christmas. These muffins are a great take on the traditional cake. They have a little bit of marzipan on the inside and make these a real treat.



Simnel Muffins

Ingredients

250g/9oz mixed dried fruit
Grated zest and juice of one medium orange
175g/6oz butter, softened
175g/6oz golden caster sugar (In the US, this would be golden superfine sugar or just ordinary fine sugar would do. The only difference this sugar makes is a slightly darker colour, I think.)
3 medium eggs, beaten
300g/10oz self-raising flour
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
5 tbsp milk
174g/6oz marzipan

For the icing
200g/8oz icing sugar
2 tbsp orange juice for mixing
Mini eggs or sugar eggs

How-to

1. Tip the fruit into a bowl, add the zest and juice and microwave on medium for 2 minutes (or leave to soak for 1 hour). Line 12 deep muffin tins with paper muffin cases. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/150F.

2. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Beat in the eggs, flour, spices and milk. Sir the fruit in well.

4. Half fill the muffin cases with the mixture. Divide the marzipan into 12 equal pieces, roll into balls, then flatten with your thumb. Put one into each muffin case and spoon the rest of the mixture over.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, until risen, golden and firm to the touch. Leave the muffins to cool.

6. Beat together the icing sugar and orange juice to make the icing thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. You may need to use more orange juice than the recipe asks for, I certainly did. The trick is not to make it overly runny, it just wants to be able to drop from the spoon onto your muffin. Drizzle the icing over the cooled muffins and top with a cluster of eggs.





Also apologies for the lack of updates recently, I haven't been feeling too well!