Mum’s the Blog‘s Christmas Baking Carnival means a very festive 12 days of cakes. Which is a great idea at any time of the year, but particularly at Christmas, when it’s practically the law to fill the house with home-baked smells. The idea is for 12 bloggers to come up with a favourite yuletide cake recipe. I hope Mum’s the Blog won’t mind that my chosen baked treat isn’t a cake, but a muffin, because it involves a mixing bowl and an oven, not to mention sugar, spice and other things nice. To find out where on the blogosphere to find the other cakes, click here.

Christmas Spice Muffins. Taste nicer than they look. Luckily.

I love these Christmas spice muffins because they make a great breakfast warm from the oven, and taste just as good later in the day when you need some fuel to get you through a frozen shopping trip or yet more present wrapping. The spices make the kitchen smell wonderful in the mixing and the baking, the citrus zest give an additional Christmas zing, and the nuts and seeds give crunch and the kind of essential oils that really are essential at this time of year of colds-a-plenty. If you look closely, you can see a little bit of edible glitter (‘snow’!) that you can buy for £2.70 at the Mums who Bake which, as you’d probably expect, is packed with everything to do with the art of baking.

The recipe is for 12 large muffins, but you can stretch the mixture to 18 small ones, which would go down a treat as an alternative mince pie.

INGREDIENTS
100G light muscovado sugar (caster/granulated will also do)
175ml sunflower oil
2 large eggs
225g plain flour
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 heaped tsp mixed spice
Pinch of salt
Zest of 1 orange
Zest of ½ lemon
150 g (roughly two large) carrots
100 g walnuts/pecans, chopped
50g raisins
Handful of pumpkin seeds
Heaped tbsp of poppy seeds, or anything else you’ve got in the kitchen (optional)

METHOD
1)Preheat oven to 200/gas mark 6
2) Mix sugar and oil together, then beat in eggs one at a time.
3) Add sifted flour, bircarbonate, mixed spice, salt and citrust zest, then fold in grated carrot, nuts and seeds. Don’t mix too hard, but make sure the flour is incorporated.
4) Spoon into 12 muffin cases or 18 small cupcases and bake for 20 minutes (15 minutes if making small ones).
5) Cool on a rack, and serve warm, cold or however you want!