Gifting

Well, the season of goodwill is over for another year. It takes me all year to build up my stock of presents and then a few days for them all to be given to the right recipient. Yesterday was our traditional family get together with my dad's sisters and their children (and their children). We were supposed to be heading for Essex for the afternoon but the sickness bug struck that side of the family down. I hope they start to feel better soon. Instead, we travelled to Kent to my cousin's house as she agreed to host at the last mint. What a star. Even though it was a last minute change, there was still loads of food (thank you to the local pizza takeaway) and laughs. I made some more muffins for the party (way too many this time). I added a mincemeat muffin to my repertoire which proved just as yummy as the rest. As I had run out of muffin cases before Christmas Day, I used my silicone cases and some cup cake cases which meant that I managed to get 24 small muffins out of a 12 muffin recipe. To make the muffins you need to mix all the dry ingredients together...

280g self raising flour (you can use plain flour and add a tsp of baking powder but I had run out)
Half tsp bicarbonate of soda
Half tsp salt
85g caster sugar

Add all the wet ingredients...

8oz milk
3oz vegetable oil
1 egg
A jar of mincemeat (I used a jar of homemade mincemeat that I found at the back of my preserves cupboard).

Mix so that you can't see any flour but the batter should look lumpy. Don't over mix. Spoon into muffin cases and bake at 200 degrees centigrade for 20-25 minutes.

They didn't go as quickly as the Christmas Day muffins so now I'll need to reorganise the freezer so I can find a space for them. Also lurking in the freezer is the bread that we got on Christmas Eve for 10p - I think Christmas Day is now the only day of the year that the supermarkets aren't open. That's a bit of a sobering thought.

I hope you all have a restful rest of the week after the exertions of the last couple of days. I have managed to fit in watching Dowton Abbey between putting and taking it the muffins so at least I've had some time on the sofa. The wonderful thing about I-player is at you can pause when things need to be taken from the oven. We have also managed to fit in a couple of walks.

Enjoy the rest of the holidays.