Orange Poppy Seed Muffins

I have a lot of cookbooks, and recently, when thinning out my general belongings, I decided that the cookbooks I own need to pull their weight or else I might be forced to donate them. Sounds cold, eh? Well, I've moved so many times in the last few years, and I acquire lots of books via my reviewing gig, that I've gotten quite ruthless with not only my books, but all of my possessions.

I've had The Essential Baking Cookbook for quite a while, and it has not been pulling its weight. I actually have a whole bunch of The Essential...series, and to be honest, none of them have been pulling their weight lately. Problem is, they're just so darned nice! Anyway, I took a good hard look at this book last week and it actually has a lot in it that really appealed to me, so I marked off some recipes and on I decided to try out the Orange Poppy Seed Muffins on page 31 right away.

What had I been waiting for? The muffins were awesome!

Now, this is an Australian publication, so self-raising flour is found in most of the recipes, but it is available in these parts (Brodie XXX brand) and I did have some on hand. The measurements are in volume and weight, so if you don't have a good kitchen scale you're not totally hooped. For the purposes of this post, I'll just use volume except with the butter where no volume is given.

Orange Poppy Seed Muffins

2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 cup poppy seeds
1/3 cup sugar
125g/4oz butter
1 cup orange marmalade
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tbsp orange zest

1. Preheat oven to 400F and prepare enough muffin tins for 12 muffins.

2. In a small saucepan, heat the butter and 2/3 cup of the marmalade until the butter is melted and the mixture is combined.

3. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk. Add this to the well and stir. Add the butter/marmalade mixture. Fold gently and don't overmix. The batter may still be lumpy but don't panic! It'll all work out!

4. Fill muffin cups and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown and a tester inserted in centre comes out clean.

5. Heat the remaining marmalade in saucepan and brush it over the tops of the warm muffins. Remove the muffins to a rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!