Fig & Almond Muffins

One of the joys of eating with the seasons means looking forward to your favourite fruits. Figs are definitely one of them and right now there are plenty of them at the markets here: sweet, fleshy and crunchy seeds combined, ripe figs are one of nature's most moreish offerings. So when I came across this recipe in the BBC GoodFood magazine, I just had to give it a go.

I reduced the quantities as I didn't want to make a big batch and end up eating just that all week. However, even reducing quantities meant that I still ended up with close to the original amount of muffins listed in the recipe. As they were really light muffins, it was easy to gobble up two at a time which meant they didn't last all week.

Fig muffins (makes nine standard sized muffins)

100g flour

1 sachet baking powder

100g butter at room temperature

100g ground almond

1 tbsp rose water

2 tbsp maple syrup

2  tbsp cane sugar

2 large eggs

3 large figs (2 chopped and one sliced thinly for decoration)

Handful of almond flakes

Method

Heat oven to 180° and line muffin tray with paper cases. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar, ground almonds, butter, rose water and maple syrup by hand or in a food processor until smooth batter is obtained. Then divide the batter into the paper cases, filling only half way. Add some chopped fig pieces, then top with more batter. Finish by placing a fig slice on top and a scattering of almond flakes. Bake for 35 -40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from tin and allow to cool on a wire rack.