experimenting with jam doughnut muffins...

ok, so experimentations continue...i baked some lemon drizzle muffins two days ago and decided not to bore you with the photos as i believe i baked them before and they are lurking somewhere in the depths of the archives. however, jam doughnut muffins, now there is something that i haven't tried before and completely fell in love with the idea when i found them on Nigella Lawson's website. after a little more web research, i located two different recipes that both said they were nigella's and not being 100% sure about either one i decided to try both...

Jam Doughnut Muffin Recipe #1

125ml milk
85ml vegetable oil
1 large egg
1/2 t. vanilla extract
200g self-raising flour
100g caster sugar
12 t. jam

you know the drill for muffins, right? dry ingredients + wet ingredients = muffin batter. don't over mix or you're gonna be in trouble. bake until it looks done and a sharp implement comes out clean...i can't give baking times right now...if you see my oven post you'll understand why, ok!

well, when i started spooning this batter into the muffin cases...it was really runny. so naturally as i plopped a teaspoon of jam on top...it instantly sank to the bottom...you know this cannot be a good thing because jam is sticky and this means your muffin is probably going to stick to the bottom of the muffin case. so as i was going along i was adding more flour to the mixture to thicken it up. i stopped when the jam wasn't sinking anymore. so when they baked, the ones with more flour in them rose more (not sure why i found this so interesting...but hey!)

the recipe called for to brush with butter and roll in granulated sugar but i'm not so sure about that...i kinda like the idea of dusting them with icing sugar (maybe in some very distant memory i ate a doughnut like that?) it seems more delicate and less sugary.

ok so after the all important taste test, disappointingly, the jam sank to the bottom in all the muffins (no i didn't eat them all myself to check!!!!! - i tasted the first and the last) the first muffin with the runniest batter, the jam had seeped through and was all over the bottom and on the muffin case...for the last muffin, with the thickest batter, the jam hadn't seeped through but had sunk to the bottom of the muffin with just a thin layer of cake separating it from the case.

taste-wise the muffin was good...slightly reminiscent of jam doughnuts but definitely not the best likeness i've ever had...and so on to...

Jam Doughnut Muffin Recipe #2

2 c. self-raising flour
1/3 c. caster sugar

1/3 c. vegetable oil

1 egg

175ml buttermilk

1 t. vanilla

8 t. jam

pinch of salt

dry + wet = muffin batter

don't overmix

i started spooning the batter in and putting in the jam...and lo and behold it sank again (this bloody jam thing is going down faster than the titanic, for goodness sake!) and then i realised that in the recipe it said make an indentation in the batter once you have spooned into cup...oops...i think i added too much milk cos mine definitely wasn't indentation-able!

anyway...onwards onwards...i kept going...not adding more flour...just wanted to get the darn things in the oven.

and of course when they came out...the jam had sunk faster than the titanic all the way to the bottom...and taste-wise...not much different than the first one.

maybe jam doughnuts just aren't for me (honestly i currently am in love with the black forest doughnut from J.Co here...but that's for another day)