Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

It's been a long long time since I was so buoyed by a baking experiment success that as before the cakes had even finished cooling I was on the Air blogging about it. But this has JUST happened, and I am so excited because it is something that is so damn good that I just want to tell the world. And typical of me, it's almost a bullshit recipe - i.e. mix all items together, whack it in the oven and Bob's your uncle.

Peanut butter and jelly (or jam since we're Aussies here) is something that I am just obsessed with at the moment. Having not eaten it since I left primary school, for some reason, this is the one thing that I must eat everyday now that I'm in my second trimester. I eat it on toast every day for breakfast and this strange obsession is showing no signs of waning - in fact, it is going so strong that I was beginning to dream of baking PB&J cakes, brownies, biscuits... but in the end, I decided on a muffin since it's my go-to breakfast item at present.

This recipe is incredibly simple. No butter. No eggs. No sugar. Yes, you read that correctly.

Oozing piping hot jam, straight from the oven!

Ingredients - makes 6

1 cup plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons peanut butter - smooth or crunchy, up to personal preference
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons honey
3/4 cup milk - I used skim
Jam - try to use a good one, I used St Dalfours raspberry jam which you can pick up at any supermarket

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease 6 holes in a muffin tin.
2. In a bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Add the peanut butter and vegetable oil, and then using a fork, mix under it looks like crumbs.
4. Add the honey and the milk, and mix under combined. It will look like runny oatmeal and that's the way it should be!
5. Half fill each of the 6 muffin holes, then set aside the remaining muffin batter.
6. Spoon a teaspoon of jam onto each lot of batter, then cover with the remaining batter.
7. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into each comes out clean.
8. Remove from the oven, turn out to a wire rack to cool and enjoy!

I couldn't wait when these babies came out of the oven. I eagerly took one out of the muffin tin, and sliced it open and there it was in all its gloriousness: piping hot, oozing jam. This muffin is simple, it's quick and most important, it is DELICIOUS.

So there you have it. A rare moment when you dream something crazy and it somehow just works out. I look forward to eating these over the next couple of days!

thesuzchef x