Gingerbread muffins

Everyone likes a good muffin, and during Christmas time, this should be a Christmas muffin :)

There are endless variations on the theme. You could bake small cupcakes and garnish them with something Christmassy. Or you could simply add your favourite Christmas spices (say ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom) into your regular plain muffin recipe (and still glaze them afterwards). Or you could throw in a generous handful of red berries (lingonberries or cranberries) into your muffin batter to give them the festive feel.

Here's a recipe for very simple muffins - made special by the use of dark muscovado sugar and a mixture of gingerbread spices.

Note I've measured the dry ingredients in a cup. A standard American cup is 240 ml, so 100 ml of muscovado sugar would be a half a cup minus a heaped Tablespoon etc.

Gingerbread muffins
(Jõulumuffinid)
Makes 12 medium-sized muffins

2 large eggs
100 ml dark muscovado sugar
50 g butter, melted and slightly cooled
100 g sour cream or creme fraiche
150 ml plain/all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
50 ml ground hazelnuts
2 tsp gingerbread spice or mixed spice or pumpkin pie spice

icing sugar, for dusting

Whisk eggs with sugar. Add the melted butter and sour cream. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, fold into the egg-sugar-butter-sour cream batter.
Spoon into muffin cups and bake in the middle of 200 C/400 F oven for 10-12 minutes, until muffins are cooked.
Let cool a little, then dust with icing sugar.