Mango & Yoghurt Muffins : UPDATE!

Just wanted to publish an update to this recipe, as I'm not sure it's exactly the same for every kind of fruit.  I've made it twice in the past week and the mixture has been too thick and I've had to add more liquid to sort it out.  I made it once with fresh apricots and today with fresh blueberries, and both needed more liquid - I think mangoes are wetter fruit, and that was the reason they were okay. 

I added another egg and a big splodge of yoghurt to the apricot one to sort it out, and just more yoghurt to the blueberry ones - both have turned out fine.  Oh, and the blueberry one had coffee yoghurt instead of plain, and a teaspoon of instant espresso powder added during the dry mix section - fab!

So, basically, the message is to follow the recipe, but if it looks too thick then just use your imagination and add what you've got in the fridge to sort it out - you're cooking muffins, not soufflés, you can wing it a bit without too many dramas.  Mmmmm, warm muffins!  Get cooking!

About four years ago, on holiday in Greece, my friends and I tried these most amazing Apricot & Yoghurt muffins.  I asked for the recipe, and was sent it via email, but do you think I can find it now?  They were the best muffins any of us had ever tasted, and we all wanted MORE!

Anyway, I'd made raita last week to go with some Indian Chicken Wraps and had half a pot of low fat plain yoghurt left, so I thought I'd try to find the recipe and make some muffins.  No luck with finding the recipe I was sent, but I did find another recipe that used strawberries - which I couldn't find in my supermarket.  For some strange reason, they did have really cheap mangos though, so I grabbed some of those and set about making Mango & Yoghurt muffins instead.

Here we go, my notes in italics as usual:-

• 1 & 3/4 cups all purpose flour (plain flour)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I used cinnamon)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup fat free plain yoghurt (apparently you can use flavoured yoghurt too, e.g. fresh mango with mango yoghurt, but I had plain yoghurt in the fridge)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled (but still soft)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 & 1/4 cups coarsely chopped mango (or any other fruit you've got kicking around and want to try)
• Cinnamon sugar (if you want to add it just before you put it in the oven)

1. Pre-heat oven to 375f/180c.
2. Grease your muffin tin, or line with muffin cases.
3. In a bowl, combine the first four ingredients.
4. In another bowl whisk the eggs, yoghurt, butter and vanilla.
5. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just moistened (I stirred the wet into the dry - I'm such a rebel!)
6. Stir in the fruit.
7. Fill up your muffin tins or cases to about 2/3 full.
8. At this point, before they went into the oven, I sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top of each one.
9. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a skewer inserted near the centre comes out clean.
10. Cool for five minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.
11. Makes about 12.

I took them up to the barn and had four willing taste testers (hi Anne, Julia, Elena & Marissa!), who all said they were fantastic.  Give it a try!

I'm sure the horses would have enjoyed them too, but there weren't any left!