Alison from Dragons and Fairy Dust finds the origins of nutmeg and the perfect Boxing Day bake - Delicious magazine's Boxing Day Breakfast Muffins! Here's how she got on...
Boxing Day Muffins
Whilst these are best eaten warm from the oven on the day they are baked they can also be made in advance and frozen. Freeze for up to three months. When you want to use them just defrost and warm them in the oven or a microwave before serving.
Make a batch a couple of weeks before Christmas, freeze and have them defrosted and ready to warm on Boxing Day morning. This saves you having to think about what to serve. Muffins also allow people to lie in and help themselves when they get up. Perfect for a lazy day.
Ingredients
Makes 12
- 3 large free eggs
- 150g light muscovado sugar
- 200g self raising flour
- 2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 small banana (150g) mashed
- 1 small carrot (150g) grated
- 225g butter melted
Topping
- 25g light muscovado sugar
- 25g demerara sugar
- 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1½ tbsp sunflower oil
- 75g unsweeted museli or oats
Method
- Preheat the oven to 19C 170C fan Gas 5 and set some muffin cases out on a baking tray.
- Beat the eggs and sugar in a bowl until smooth and light and set aside.
- In a small pan melt the butter. Meanwhile, grate the carrot and mash the banana.
- Add the carrot, banana and butter into the egg and sugar mixture and mix with a spoon until well mixed.
- Sift the flour and nutmeg into the mixture and mix until smooth. Spoon into the cases.
- Mix the topping mixture together and sprinkle on the top of each muffin.
- Bake for 25 minutes until golden, then place on a wire rack to cool (and serve while warm)!
Boxing Day is celebrated the day after Christmas day. When I was little we always used to joke that it was a day for boxing matches and play fight. My mum always insisted it was called this because it was the day the Victorians put all the boxes that had held the Christmas gifts away.
A more likely explanation is that servants of wealthy families were allowed this day off having been expected to wait on the family all Christmas. They were sent home with a Christmas box containing a gift, extra money and sometimes leftover food.
Whilst Christmas Day is always full of hustle and bustle, a day spent celebrating with family and friends. In contrast Boxing day is always a lazy day. Lunch and dinner is usually leftovers. Turkey, ham and leftover trimmings served with stuffing. It is a day off for the cook who needs it after worrying about timing the Christmas dinner to perfection.
Recently I was reading my copy of Delicious magazine which was packed full of inspiration and ideas for Christmas baking. One of the dishes that caught my eye was oaty nutmeg breakfast muffins created by Debbie Major. These were billed as the perfect Christmas day breakfast but I thought they would be perfect for Boxing Day. The rich flavour of nutmeg is ideal for the Christmas season and a tin of these muffins would make an ideal lazy breakfast. Just open the tin when you get up and help yourself.
Delicious magazine also informed me more about the origins of nutmeg. I hadn't realised it comes from Indonesia. The tropical tree Myristica Fragmens produces a yellow fruit which opens up when ripe. Inside the fruit is the nutmeg seed and the lacy red covering over the seed produces another spice, mace. The yellow fruit is used to make jam by the islanders. In the 17th Century the trees only grew on a few hard to reach Indonesian islands and the spice was more valuable than gold. Fortunately these days it is slightly easier to get hold of and can be used in many dishes from rice puddings to fruit cakes to pates!
Try a Delicious magazine subscription for more yummy breakfast ideas, or grab a gift subscription for your favourite well-deserving chef!
This is a guest post via the magazine.co.uk blogger network.
