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Christmas Morning Muffins

"you may find it easier to measure out the cranberries, flour, baking powder, bicarb and sugar the night before, so that all you’ve got to do is mix together the orange juice, milk and eggs, melt the butter and combine all the ingredients on Christmas morning itself." Nigella Lawson. Makes 12.

200g plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
75g demerara sugar
good grating fresh nutmeg
1 clementine or small orange
approximately 50ml milk
60g unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
150g dried cranberries
12-bun muffin tin with papers
Topping
2 teaspoons demerara sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/gas mark 6.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, bicarb and sugar, and grate over a generous amount of fresh nutmeg. Squeeze the orange or clementine juice into a measuring jug, then pour in milk on top till it comes up to the 150ml mark. Add the melted butter and the egg, and beat to combine. Pour the jug of liquid ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and stir till the ingredients are more or less combined, remembering that a lumpy batter makes light muffins. (Bearing this in mind, you could easily get the children to make up the mixture.) Last of all, lightly fold in the cranberries and fill the muffin cases or cups. The amount of cranberries specified here makes for heavily fruited muffins; if you want them sparser, use half the amount.

Mix together the demerara sugar and ground cinnamon and sprinkle over the tops of the muffins. Stick them in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, by which time the air should be thick with the promise of good things and the good things themselves golden-brown and ready to be eaten – as they are, or broken open and spread heapingly, mouthful by mouthful, with unsalted butter and marmalade.