White Chocolate & Raspberry Muffins

I first made these muffins for the participants at one of the Furniture Painting Workshops I run in London. Oh my goodness, they went down so well. Gooey white chocolate and fresh raspberries in what is essentially a cake mixture - you just can't go wrong.

Anyway, yesterday my lovely friend Ali came up to visit for the afternoon and we decided to do some baking. These were number 1 on the agenda of things to make again and were just as delicious second time around. The prep time is minimal too which is always helpful.

YIELD: 18
TIME: 15 minutes prep, 30 minutes baking

Ingredients

• 525g Plain flour
• 4 tsp baking power
• 2 free range eggs - medium size
• 325g Caster Sugar (I use unrefined)
• 140g butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 325ml milk
• 200g fresh or frozen raspberries
• 200g white chocolate (or white chocolate chips)

First thing is to pre-heat the oven to 180C / 350F and line two muffin tins with paper cases. If you only have one muffin tin then bake in batches, the mixture will keep for an hour or so.
Place a pan of barely boiling water over a low-medium heat and gently melt half the white chocolate (100g). Break the remaining 100g up into tiny pieces - a plastic ziplock bag and a rolling pin are very effective. be warned - if there are large pieces of chocolate they tend to sink to the bottom of the muffin case. If you are pushed for time, break up all of the chocolate and pop in the microwave for 30 seconds or until about half the chocolate has started to melt. Then set aside.
Take a large mixing bowl and whisk the eggs, sugar and melted butter with an electric hand whisk or in a Kenwood / KitchenAid mixer. Watch out that the butter is not too hot. Keep the whisk on a low setting and add the milk. Don't panic if it splits or curdles because it probably will. Next stir in the white chocolate pieces and melted chocolate and gently fold in the raspberries.
The next step is to sift the flour and the baking powder into the bowl and gently incorporate into the mixture. It will be quite lumpy and rough looking - this is right, don't worry.
Spoon the mixture into the cases about 3/4 full. If you like, keep some of the raspberries back to add to the top of the muffins. Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from the tins while still warm and leave to cool on a wire rack.