Mincemeat Spice Muffins.

Well I hope you all had a lovely holiday, I haven't posted in a couple of weeks as I've just been getting back into the swing of things, taking the decorations down, going back to work and already breaking my resolutions. The holidays are officially over, oh boo :( lets all have some cake to cheer ourselves up hey? 

Any way I hope you all had a great New Year, I spent mine eating yummy food with fabulous friends and then drinking a lot of wine, It was very much enjoyed. 

So after all the copious amounts of cake I made over Christmas were eaten, I somehow still had some surplus ingredients, including most of a big jar of mincemeat left over from making mince pies. So I looked for a new recipe that would use this up as I think I've eaten enough mince pies for a year. I fancied something a bit lighter than a mince pie but that could still be made quickly and with relatively few ingredients.

I came across a recipe for Christmas Snowflake muffins in The Big Book of Baking, However I have changed the name as because I don't have a snowflake cutter to cut out the icing to top the cakes with the name seemed a little silly. Any way here they are :

 I topped some with a disc of fondant and left some plain.

They came out really nice, the smell just after they come out of the oven is wonderful and the muffins themselves are really light with a good hint of spice and warming fruit. I added some chopped cherries to my batch as my mincemeat wasn't as packed with as much of a variety of fruit as I'd like, this recipe is quite flexible so all different fruit / nuts could be added.

On making my second batch of these I decided to use more mincemeat for that extra kick of flavour and filling. But apart from that the cakes were definitely yummy and a perfect use of any leftover mincemeat or a good excuse to take advantage of the half price offers on it in the shops. 

Here's how they are made:

Mincemeat Spice Muffins (Christmas Snowflake Muffins)

Makes 12:

280g Plain Flour 
1 tbsp Baking powder
1 1/2 tsp Mixed Spice
Pinch of Salt
115g Soft dark brown sugar
2 Eggs 
100ml Milk
6 tbsp Sunflower oil
200g Luxury mincemeat (I would use nearer 300g)
about 8-10 Glace cherries, chopped

To top

1 tbsp Apricot jam
Ready to roll white icing.

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg C and line a 12 hole muffin tray with cases.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, Mixed spice, and salt into a large bowl , stir in the sugar.

Beat the eggs together and then beat in the milk and oil. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid ingredients, mincemeat and cherries and stir until just combined. 

Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for around 20 minutes until well risen and golden brown.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

To top, knead the icing until pliable and roll out, cut out 12 snowflake shapes, however I just cut circles. 
Warm the Apricot jam until runny and brush over the cakes, the top with the icing snowflakes.

And that's it!  The recipe does call to decorate with those little silver edible balls, however I cannot bear these, and why anyone would want to risk cracking their teeth on their rock hard shell I do not know, I did top a few of my cakes with half a cherry though as you can see: 

Any way that's all from me today I hope you are all all having more success with your new years resolutions than I am. Bye for now,

Cupcake Kris xxx