Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Muffins

It has been a while since I last blogged. Hope my readers are keeping well. Over the summer months I generally have a lot of commitments and when it is too hot I don’t tend to enjoy baking. The last place I want to be is stuck in the kitchen, especially in this heat we have been experiencing in the UK recently.

This summer for me seems to be a time for reunion with old friends thanks to Facebook. It has been really nice being back in contact and re-kindling our past friendships, vowing not to loose touch once more and to stay in regular contact.

Last month I had a friend from my childhood come over to visit with her two daughters, seeing my friend after so long was lovely and we have seen each other twice more since. I baked these muffins to serve with tea when she came over and they went down a treat, with my friend hardly able to believe what a domestic goddess I’ve become since the last time we saw each other. Bearing in mind the last time we saw each other, we only lived for the weekends and partying!! Since then I have only baked a few desserts for my sons’ birthday BBQ party, which did not last long enough to get a picture of them. Today I took advantage of the cooler weather and baked a cake, I hope to get time to blog it this weekend.

Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Muffins

Makes 12 (I ended up with 13)

Ingredients
60g rolled oats
260ml milk
225g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
85g plain chocolate chips, extra for sprinkling (or chocolate chunks, which I used)
1 medium egg, beaten with a fork
140g light brown soft sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
90ml vegetable oil

Method
Prepare the muffin tins. Preheat oven to 190oC/170oC fan oven/375oF/Gas mark 5. In a medium-sized bowl, combine oats and milk. Set aside to soak while you prepare the dry ingredients.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in chocolate chips.

Now to the milk and oat mixture, add beaten egg, sugar, vanilla and oil. Stir well.

Pour all of the wet mixture into the dry. Stir just until combined and no dry flour is visible. Batter should have a good dropping consistency - not too thick, not too thin.

Fill muffin cases three-quarters full and sprinkle chocolate chips. Bake for about 20 minutes, until tops are lightly browned and feel quite firm to touch.