Lemon and Blueberry Cheesecake and Cherry Bakewell Muffins

 

My wife and I decided to have a bit of fun together by doing a home bake off competition. She chose the challenge of something that I confessed to not having that much experience with, muffins. My version are a lemon and blueberry muffins filled with a lemon cream cheese mixture, and my wife's are a glace cherry and flaked almond muffin filled with raspberry jam and topped with icing and a cherry half. I've put the recipe below for the blueberry muffins and if you want to make the cherry bakewell ones you can find the recipe here. 

The only issue with our bake off competition is that we didn't have a neutral judge, so it did make it hard to decide on the winner. There were points of improvement to consider for both. Shannon's had a really nice crunchy from the flaked almonds and sweetness from the jam but the texture could do with some improving through a bit less mixing and possibly chilling before baking to relax the gluten, and Nicole's were light and soft but needed some more flavour from the blueberries as they weren't very ripe or a little more sugar. I think we overall agreed it was a draw, but we'll definitely be trying a bake off competition again. 

Recipe - Makes 8 muffins

For the muffin batter:

• 75g melted butter
• 1 egg, beaten  
• 120ml milk 
• 100g caster sugar 
• 200g plain flour 
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda 
• Zest of 1/2 lemon
• 200g blueberries

For the cream cheese filling:

• Zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tsp lemon juice 
• 80g cream cheese 
• 1 tbsp icing sugar

Prepare the tin by brushing a small amount of melted butter in 8 holes of a muffin tin. Dust with flour and tip out the excess. Alternatively, you could use muffin cases to line the tin. Set aside until needed. 

Whisk the melted butter, sugar and milk in a jug then add the egg. Tip the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt and lemon zest in a bowl. Pour in the liquid ingredients and fold to smooth, being careful not to overmix. Chill for 30 minutes in the fridge. 

Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan). Remove the battery from the fridge and fold in the blueberries. Divide the batter between the prepared muffin holes. Bake for 20 minutes until risen and lightly browned. Remove and transfer to a wire rack to cool. 

Make the cream cheese mixture by combining all the ingredients in a bowl. Chill until needed. Once the muffins are cool, transfer the cream cheese mixture to a piping bag fitted with a 1cm piping nozzle and pipe some of the cream cheese mixture into each muffin before serving.