Friends after school

My daughter invited a friend over after school this afternoon. It was arranged before the Easter holidays so she has been looking forward to it for about 3 weeks. She was quite clear that she wanted some cakes to share with her friend. Certainly not a problem in our house so this morning I made a batch of orange choc chip muffins. To add to the interest, I also whipped up a bowl of orange butter icing and got out the last of the mini eggs left over from Easter. So when they got home, I shared out 12 cakes between 3 girls and they dolloped on butter icing and finished off with a mini egg. OK so the Easter theme was a bit late but they were pretty little cakes. The girls enjoyed the activity as well as eating a cake there and then and my daughter's guest had 3 cakes to take home to Mum too.



Orange Choc Chip Mini Muffins

(makes 12-16)


110g (4 oz) self-raising flour
25g (1 oz) wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
55g (2 oz) caster sugar
Grated rind of 1 orange
1 egg
150 ml (5 fl oz) milk
2 tablespoons juice from the orange
60ml (2 fl oz) oil
25g (1 oz) chocolate chips
40g (1 1/2 oz) butter or margarine
55g (2 oz) icing sugar
Rind and juice from half an orange
12 Mini Eggs

Preheat oven to 200°C. Sift together the flours and baking powder then stir in sugar and orange rind. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, milk, juice and oil. Combine the dry and wet mixes until just mixed then stir in the chocolate chips. Spoon into fairy cake cases and bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. In the meantime, cream together the butter and the icing sugar in a bowl then add the orange rind and juice and stir well. Add butter icing and one mini egg to each cake.