Rustic Classic

Ask me which I prefer and it will always be rusticity. Don't get me wrong, I love sophistication and all but sometimes when it comes to taste, the classic rustic always wins. Take for example, Muffins vs Cupcakes. Despite looking all pretty, cupcakes (or rather those I've tried) lack the yum factor, whereas muffins always owns. 

Simple Classic Blueberry Muffin

I can't describe how delighted I was last sat morning as we were gonna make scones and muffins!! We started the morning with scones- both sweet and savoury. Honestly, I've only eaten scones once and once was all it took to convert me into a scone-hater. 

2010-It was a bright sunny day at St Ives and I bought myself a scone for 2 pounds. 

I bit into it, spit it out and that's the end of my appetite for scones.

2010 England- a picnic at the park

But when I bit into the lovely raisin scones which we made just 30 minutes ago (yes it only takes 20 mins to bake) I was in love.....

Raisin Scones with Jam and cream cheese

The raisin scones were delicious and was a far cry from the ones I had at St Ives. I reckon the ones we made aren't as traditional as the ones I had in the UK nonetheless I prefer my scones the nontraditional way :) The scones were buttery and moist, it tasted like the love child of a biscuit and a bread, in other words just plain fantabulous. 

Raisin Scones in the making

The best part is, they are darn easy to make! No fancy ingredients, no machine required, just the usual "get in there and mix it all up" method. You could also shape the scones into whatever shape you like. These are some of the round ones we made.

Traditonal Round Scones

Next up, the savoury cheese scones. The cheese scones were equally easy to make however, it didn't taste as good as the raisin ones. I found the cheese too subtle and failed to stand out, resulting in a really bland plain scone. I must say, the whole wheat did add a nice texture to the scones and I might just make some whole wheat raisin scones some time soon :)

Cheese Scones

I don't know whether resting the dough had an effect on the texture, but the scones we made were very much fluffier and moister as compared to my previous scones encounter. If you are considering making cheese scones, do use Gruyere cheese instead, I think cheddar isn't strong enough to bring out the cheese flavour. 

Cheese Scones in the making

After the scones were done, we moved on to the highlight of the day: muffins! We started off with the chocolate chip muffins. The recipe given to us involved an "all in" method which basically is what its name suggest- mix it all in. Muffin making was easy and we made all 4 in a jiffy. 

Chocolate Muffins in the Making

Now onto taste, we kinda over baked the chocolate muffins as the timer in the oven went haywire. Hence, the chocolate muffins were a tad dry but I liked how these muffins rose. This is never the case for me especially my home made muffins :( The muffins tasted better when it is kept overnight though, do your muffins taste better overnight?

Rusticity at its best

Next up, the banana walnut muffins. These muffins were horrendous as 3g of banana essence was an overkill. I think these would have tasted a godzillian times better if the banana essence was omitted. In any case, I loved the texture! what a pity...

Banana Walnut Muffins

We actually different fats for the different recipes; I'm not sure whether it affected the end product but these muffins had an amazing texture.

Banana Walnut Muffins with 50% butter and 50% shortening

The Blueberry muffins were stunning too, albeit the ghastly looking blueberry toppings. I got greedy and topped the muffin with too much blueberry. I think the butter made these muffins incredibly moist and fluffy.

Blueberry Muffins

Blueberry Muffin with 100% butter

Lastly, we made some savoury muffins just to balance the yin from the yang (or vice versa). The savoury muffins were..... different, to say the very least. I didn't quite like it however it did open my mind to the different possibilities of a muffin. 

Savoury Muffins

Aloysius and Malcolm made their savoury muffins without onions and it tasted a whole lot nicer! It was lighter and flufflier which made me have a second helping.

Savoury sausage, onion and cheese muffins

I brought home at least 20 muffins and scones... this is the best day ever! The best part was I got to share it with my relatives from M'sia. My popo actually loved the scones! that's new... She called it 饼, well she's not totally wrong :)