Bake these treats in brown paper liners for muffins that look, and taste, every bit as good as the expensive cafe varieties.
Chrissie Swan may not be a professional chef but her experience at home more than qualifies her to talk about food. Since starting a family, the television and radio presenter has cooked dinner for more than 6000 nights.
“Do anything that many times and the shine is going to wear off. It’s natural,” she writes in her new cookbook.
And with that regularity comes a relentlessness, Swan says. “But newsflash! It doesn’t have to steal your soul. A shortcut or two is the sure-fire way to remain sane and maybe even out of jail.”
Her collection, The Shortcut Queen, is all about “permission to take the low road” by cutting corners, cooking smarter and choosing your battles in the kitchen. It includes family favourites such as butter chicken and spanakopita as well as less likely home dishes such as pho and gravlax.
Clever workarounds also help maximise flavour “with minimum madness and mess”, and quite often save money too.
Here, Swan shares her budget-friendly recipe for cafe-style muffins (no sifting required).
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White chocolate and raspberry muffins (aka muffins that won’t give you bill shock)
Excuse me, how much did I just pay for that cafe muffin? My daughter Peg is a fiend for a muffin. And if it’s not raspberry and white chocolate, then it’s a hard pass, I’m afraid. Frankly, she’d better get over her penchant for them because they’re sending me broke. These are every bit as good as the $11 versions. Yes, I have paid $11 for a paper cup filled with cake for a 12-year-old. And from memory, she gave it 3 out of 10 before tossing it in the street bin. Tough customer, but she loves this recipe.
INGREDIENTS
- 350g (2⅓ cups) plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 200g raw sugar
- 300ml buttermilk (see shortcut below)
- 250g butter, melted
- 2 eggs, forked a bit
- 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 100g white chocolate chips
- 300g frozen raspberries
- 6 tsp demerara sugar
- a sprinkle of icing sugar
METHOD
- Preheat the oven to 170C fan-forced (190C conventional).
- Combine the flour, baking powder and raw sugar in a large bowl. Whisk, don’t sift – sifting is for suckers.
- In another bowl, pour in your buttermilk, add the melted butter and mix until the buttermilk cools the butter. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk everything together until smoothish.
- Pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour bowl (but don’t mix it yet!), then throw in your chocolate chips, then the raspberries. NOW mix it all together gently with a spatula until it comes together.
- Put your paper liners in a 12-hole muffin tin. (You can get those gorgeous papery muffin liners they use in cafes from the supermarket. Get them for this recipe. It’s an instant winner.)
- Divide the mixture evenly among the 12 liners. Remember, the key is that these are NOT cupcakes. There’s a lot of batter per liner. That’s the whole point.
- Sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of demerara sugar per muffin, and whack in the oven for 30 minutes.
- When they’re done and on the bench, use a little sieve to sift some icing sugar over them. Bang! You’ve saved $6800 per dozen.
Makes 12
Shortcut: If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, don’t waste your time with a trip to the supermarket. To make 300ml of buttermilk, add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice to a measuring jug, then fill it up with milk until it reaches 300ml. Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes until it curdles.
This is an edited extract from The Shortcut Queen by Chrissie Swan, published by Plum, RRP $44.99. Photography by Mark Roper.
Chrissie Swan is a TV presenter, Sunday Life columnist, and co-host of Mix 101.1’s breakfast show in Melbourne and 3pm Pick-Up nationally. She’s also a mum of two. Connect via X.
