While concentrating on a half-hearted January detox and the trials of returning to normality after the Christmas and New Year festivities, every year Burns Night seems to creep up on me. Before I know it, it's time to start peeling the neeps and tatties and getting the haggis on to boil.
This year however, I've managed to eke out the Burns Night celebrations with an adaptation of a classic Scottish desert, cranachan.
Although raspberries aren't in season at the moment, many shops will have frozen varieties available and there's no need to defrost before baking with them.
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Makes 15. Preparation time 15 minutes; baking time 25 minutes
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Ingredients
140g plain flour
140g oats
55g light brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
175ml low-fat natural yogurt
4 tbsp clear honey
6 tbsp sunflower oil
3 tbsp whisky
150g frozen raspberries
For the yogurt icing
100g icing sugar
1 tbsp low-fat yogurt
squeeze lemon juice
Method
Preheat the oven to 200ºC / 180ºC fan and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. If you've got time, you can sift these ingredients when adding them to the bowl to make your muffins a little bit lighter but it's not necessary.
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In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs gently and beat in the yogurt, honey, oil and whisky. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid ingredients and the frozen raspberries. Fold together gently until all ingredients are combined. Don't worry if there are small lumps of flour left in the mixture, but do make sure you scrape the flour off the bottom of the bowl.
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Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 muffin cases and bake in the preheated oven for 20-5 minutes or until the muffins have risen and are golden on top. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and make the icing while they are cooling.
To make the icing, combine the icing sugar, yogurt and lemon juice and stir until combined. Drizzle over the muffins once completely cool.
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