Recipe corner - date and orange muffins

Yesterday, after a day in the classroom, I was seized with the desire to come home and bake. This muffin recipe has been in my file for a long time and, while a low fat cake is a) something of a contradiction in terms and b) never quite the same as a full throttle one, these are tasty moist little things, perfect for those days when you need cake for breakfast. Which, let's face it, is most of them.

I would apologise for the fact that I have half fat butter in my fridge, but it is still quite early in the morning and I'm sleepy. So I'll just say that yes, I know true foodies will snort in derision, hang my head in shame and get over it. I find that Anchor and Lurpak lighter options are both fine for baking and sandwiches and help shave off a few points here and there. Which means that you can have more of the good stuff slathered on your toasted crumpets or freshly baked bread.

Ingredients

200g plain flour
60g muscovado sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g dried dates, chopped
100ml skimmed milk
120g low fat toffee or vanilla yoghurt
1 medium egg
Zest of 1 orange
50g half fat butter, melted, at room temperature

Makes 9 muffins, 5 pro points per muffin

Preheat your oven to 180 and line a muffin tray.

Set aside 10g of the sugar.

Then, combine your dry ingredients: flour, remaining sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate and stir through your chopped dates.

Now whisk together the wet ingredients: milk, yoghurt, egg, zest and melted butter.

Can you guess what happens now? Yep, briskly combine the two. Conventional wisdom is that you should never over stir muffin mixes. I just let my Kitchen Aid at them for 30 seconds or so which was fine.

Spoon in the muffin cases and sprinkle over the reserved sugar. Bake in the oven for around twenty minutes.