Recipe of the Week

Last night I decided to format my C drive and reinstall Windows, as a couple of programs were getting increasingly flaky. I've got to admit that I was more than a little disappointed when, after a format and total clean install, my Olympus software is STILL returning an error message and shutting down. A very helpful support guy made all sorts of suggestions over the course of a week, none of which sorted it out. So I had high hopes of my fresh install. Hey ho, at least I can view EXIF data in Irfanview, even if it's not quite so user-friendly.
Anyhow, it being a holiday weekend C got up late, so breakfast was almost at brunch time, and lunch wasn't till around 3. So we didn't bother with dinner - I made these muffins instead - after defrosting the freezer on Thursday I must admit even I was embarrassed to find how many cranberries were lurking there.

Cranberry Walnut and Orange muffins.
12 large muffins

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tblsp baking powder
1/2 tsp each baking soda and salt
10 tblsp / 5 ounces soft butter
1 cup less one tablespoon sugar ( 7 1/2 ounces)
Grated zest of 1 orange
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups (12 fluid ounces) plain yoghurt.
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped cranberries

Preheat oven to about 180C, 375F.
Grease the muffin tins (I prefer this to using paper liners, which they always seem to stick to).
Stir together the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.
Beat the butter, sugar and orange zest together till light and creamy.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Beat in half of the flour mix.
Beat in half a cup of yoghurt.
Add the remaining flour half at a time, alternating with a half cup of yoghurt each time.
Stir in the nuts and cranberries.
Spoon evenly into the muffin tins and bake for about 25 minutes, till golden brown. Leave in the tins for 5 minutes to cool before removing.

A photo from the archives - sitting in the Tuileries when we visited Paris last March.