Prince Harry and Megan Markle’s wedding crept up on me out of nowhere and I realised I just had to celebrate somehow! Even here in Australia we haven’t been able to escape the mass media coverage of this global event (and all its dramas) but it seems the celebrations are a little less sought after on the southern side of the equator.
So, a less extravagant way to celebrate is by baking of course! And who doesn’t like choc chip muffins? I decide on plain vanilla muffins with the choc chips as I wanted to top with some colourful icing, so I didn’t want the muffins to be too sweet (but not too plain either!)
This recipe should make 10-12 smallish muffins (or large cupcakes) however it depends on how generous you are with the portions and how much of the batter you eat during the baking process (oops).
INGREDIENTS:
1 1/4 Cups Self-Raising Gluten Free Flour (I used Coles brand)
1/2 Cup Almond Meal/Ground Almonds
3/4 Cup Caster Sugar (you can replace with natural granulated sweetener)
180g Butter (softened)
1 tsp Gluten Free Baking Powder
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Handful of Chocolate Chips, dark, milk or white (I used Coles brand milk chocolate buttons)
TIPS:
Always check the ingredients when buying for gluten free recipes. Make sure they are 100% gluten free as you don’t want to poison yourself or others!
METHOD:
1) Cream together the softened butter, sugar and vanilla extract.
2) Combine the eggs one at a time.
3) Mix in the rest of the dry ingredients, adding the chocolate chips in last.
4) If you’re using a muffin tray, line the tray with a bit of butter or light cooking oil. Otherwise spoon your mixture into muffin or large cupcake cases.
5) Bake in the middle of the oven for around 12-15 minutes at 180°C.
TOP TIPS:
1) I always taste my batter. No, I don’t recommend that you do this since we are now encouraged to steer away from raw eggs, however I think it helps when you’re unsure if you’ve missed something or added in too much/too little of something.
2) Gluten free cake batter needs to be more moist than your standard cake batter. This is to ensure the cakes aren’t too dry and crumbly after baking. If your batter feels too thick, loosen it with a bit of milk. It should be a slightly thick batter but not too dry.
3) Fill your muffin/cupcake cases/trays to just over half-way if you’re planning on decorating your muffins. Filling to half way will ensure an even rise with a relatively flat top, perfect for icing!
4) Don’t add too much baking powder as the muffins may over-rise!
5) Bake in the middle of the oven. I find that even in fan ovens the top of the oven gets way hotter than the bottom. Cook in the middle and keep an eye on your muffins to make sure you don’t over-bake them (I always get distracted!)
TO DECORATE:
The main reason I didn’t make these muffins sugar-free was because I wanted to decorate them with icing and I haven’t quite mastered the sugar-free icing yet (to be honest I haven’t mastered the standard one either!)
INGREDIENTS:
2-3 Cups Icing Sugar
1/3 Cup Butter
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Drop of Natural Food Dye (I used blue and red)
Splash of Milk (if icing is too thick)
METHOD:
1) Sieve the icing sugar into a large bowl and combine with butter and vanilla extract.
2) Separate the icing into separate bowls and add food dye (I had a bowl of the basic white icing, a bowl of blue and a bowl of red).
3) Add the nozzle into your piping bag, then add your different coloured icing into sections, depending on how you want your icing to look. I did a stripe of white, stripe of blue and stripe of red (trying to keep the white in the middle to avoid purple!)
NOTE: You want your icing to be quite stiff to hold its shape!
4) Make sure your muffins are completely cooled then decorate your muffins as desired!
I made my icing way too soft so it didn’t hold its shape well at all! Try and make your icing quite hard if you want it to stay in shape on top of your muffins. Otherwise, the end result wasn’t too shabby and they tasted delicious!
Hope you all enjoyed watching the Royal Wedding! We certainly did 🙂
If you’ve got any top icing tips I’d love to hear them in the comments below!
Happy baking! 🙂
Harriet's Hamper 
Looks yummy
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