Cranberry and White Chocolate Mini Muffins

I rarely make things like cake and biscuits, mainly because I don't have room for lots of cake tins and if you make cakes and biscuits, you have to eat them all. Between two people, that can be a lot of cake!

We were invited to a barbecue (yay, barbecue!) at a friend's place and seeing the list of everything she had organised, the only missing item was a dessert. It is a fairly long train trip to their place, though, so it had to be something fairly portable. I happened upon some cute bright blue silicon mini-muffin trays in the market near my work and decided mini muffins would be perfect.

The next part was to find a recipe. In the end, I decided on these Cranberry and White Chocolate Mini Muffins, except that I used milk chocolate instead of white. They were pretty good in the end and popular at the barbecue. They were a nice balance between chocolate and fruit and not too sweet. They were also easy to serve and eat as finger food, easy to transport and the silicon mini muffin trays are easy to store - perfect!

Cranberry and White Chocolate Mini Muffins

Makes 24

100g plain flour
1 tsp mixed spice
50g demerara sugar
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
75g white chocolate chips
1 medium egg, beaten
150ml milk
50g butter, melted and cooled
75g dried cranberries

To finish
100g white chocolate
25g dried cranberries

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C, gas mark 6. Line two 12-hole mini muffin tins with mini muffin or petit four cases.
2. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well in the centre. Mix the wet ingredients, pour into the dry and stir for about 20 seconds until you have a lumpy batter. Don't overmix. Spoon into the cases and bake for 15 minutes. Cool on a rack.
3. To finish, melt the chocolate, scrape into a polythene bag and cool so it thickens a little. Cut a tiny hole in the corner of the bag. Drizzle the chocolate over the muffins and top with dried cranberries.