Apricot muffins

I started my new job on Monday last week, and by Friday I had somehow managed to volunteer to supply some sort of home-baked snack for my team at Monday’s team meeting. I thought about making my Victoria Sponge, but didn’t like the idea of trying to cover it with whipped cream on Monday morning with a toddler clinging to my leg. Not to mention trying to get it to work in one piece, given that it would have to ride under the pram. So instead I decided to make apricot muffins. I found a couple of recipes online and combined them to come up with what turned out to be a very tasty result. I did some in paper muffin cups and some with a silicone muffin tray. If you’re using a muffin tray, make sure the muffins are cooled before you attempt to pop them out. It’s a good idea to run a butter knife or rubber spatula around the edge to loosen them.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

• 130g dried apricots
• 250g plain flour
• 150g white sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda or 2tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt (omit if using baking powder)
• 55g melted butter
• 60ml vegetable oil
• Just under 1 cup milk (read method below)
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 egg

Method

Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Grease a 12 cup muffin tray, or use paper muffin cups.

Place apricots into a small bowl, and cover with boiling water. Let stand for 5 minutes, drain and repeat.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.

Put the vinegar into a measuring cup and fill to one cup. Stir gently.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, oil, milk mixture and egg.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until just blended. It is okay for the batter to have some lumps.

Drain water from apricots, chop them into small chunks and mix them into the batter.

Spoon in even amounts into the prepared muffin cups.

Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Cool in the pan/cups on a wire rack. (Dust with icing sugar if desired.)