What do you get when you cross a doughnut with a muffin? A duffin!
A few weeks ago my colleagues and I were discussing my latest baking experiment (lemon and lime drizzle cake, as seen here!) and one of them suggested a new baking challenge for me. This was how I came to receive an email with the header ‘Your next assignment…’ which contained a picture of a jammy treat with the caption ‘…The Duffin!’
I had been itching to have a go at making doughnuts ever since seeing the challenge on the Great British Bake off last year. The only thing stopping me had been the fact that I don’t own any kind of frying equipment. I hadn’t heard of a duffin before, but when I looked up recipes I found that there is no frying involved. This sealed the deal for me – I was going to have to give them a go. Here’s how!
First you make up your muffin mixture (I used THIS recipe) and spoon two thirds into a greased muffin tray.
Then spoon some raspberry jam on top, or to make it all a bit
easier you can use a squeezy bottle for the jam like I did – no sticky
fingers required!
Now top your jam with the remaining muffin mixture. I had slightly misjudged my measures and it was a bit of a challenge to top all 12 of my duffins although I somehow managed it! Next time I’ll make sure I leave a little bit of extra mixture for the tops.
When I got to this part of the recipe I thought: “this is never going to work.” I was convinced that the jam would just all ooze out as it cooked. Trust me though, just pop them in the oven and watch the magic happen!
The muffin will expand as it cooks, enveloping the jam to leave it
as a filling in the middle. Here’s how mine turned out…
Now at this point if you just can’t wait and eat one of these fresh out of the oven (I may be speaking from experience!) it would just taste like a
muffin with a bit of jam in the middle. It’s nothing mind blowing.
Oh and you will also burn your tongue as the jam will be incredibly hot!
To transform your jammy muffins into delicious duffins is really quite easy however.
Melt some butter in a saucepan and leave it for a few minutes so it isn’t scorchingly hot, then carefully dip coat your duffin and roll it in sugar until coated.
At this point it gets a bit messy but let’s face it, sugar coated fingers are not the worst thing in the world!
And voila – you’ve just made yourself a duffin!
As you can see, my jam centres are a little bit uneven and some are more ‘oozy’ than others, probably because of my slightly uneven tops. However I can vouch for the fact that they all tasted equally delicious.
It was the sugar coating that completely transformed them for me. One bite was enough to transport me back to sunny days eating warm doughnuts from a paper bag at the seaside. Something about that sugar totally tricked my tongue into thinking that they were actual doughnuts. Yum!
I’ll be honest, these are really quite unhealthy so if you make a batch of 12 you might want to give some away super quick before you can eat them all! I am now resigned to a week of eating carrot sticks for snacks as an apology to my hips…
…they were damn good though!
Have you heard of duffins? Are there any fun bakes that you’ve made recently?
