I’m not sure where I got this recipe from but I’ve had it for years. I was never one much for muffins, rather preferring cake or biscuits but since having the kids they’re a great, healthy little bundle of goodness that can be thrown together in a minute while you’ve got the oven on and can have so many different things added to this basic recipe. I like this recipe because it doesn’t have a lot of fat or sugar in it. The picture above shows coconut muffins I made this afternoon for B’s Kindy lunch box.

Basic Muffins

2 cups Self Raising flour
1/4 cup oil (I used Canola)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg

Add all ingredients, mix lightly and pour into cupcake papers and bake in a 180 deg C oven for 15 minutes. Makes a dozen large sized muffins, 18 cupcake sized muffins or 24 mini muffins.

Variations:

• Coconut:  Add half a cup of coconut and a teaspoon of coconut essence or use coconut milk instead or normal milk.
• Choc Chip:  Add half a cup of chocolate chips.
• Banana:  Add 1-2 mashed overripe bananas.
• White Chocolate & Macadamia:  Add half a cup of white choc chips and 1/2 cup roughly chopped macadamias.
• Breakfast:  Add half a cup of rolled oats, half a cup of chopped nuts and half a cup of any dried fruit.
• Walnut & Carrot:  Half cup of chopped walnuts and 1-2 grated carrots, 1 teaspoon cinnamon.
• Apple & Cinnamon Crumble:  One grated apple and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Make a crumble mixture of 1 tablespoon of rolled oats, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, 1 tablespoon of plain flour, 1 tablespoon of butter and mix together. Top each muffin with a sprinkling of the crumble mixture before baking.
• Muffin Doughnuts: Make a batch of basic muffins in small cupcake/muffin pan. Once cooked, brush with melted butter and roll in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.
• Chocolate & Zucchini:  Add 1/2 cup of cocoa, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts and 1-2 grated zucchinis.
• Pumpkin: I tend to add pumpkin puree to anything I bake so the kids get their vegie intake and I have added 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree to any of the above variations.