Spiced Orange and Treacle Muffins

I baked these muffins on a cold and wet Autumn afternoon for a nice warming treat with a cuppa.  The muffins went down well with adults and kids alike.  You can vary the ingredients to suit your taste, use ground ginger instead of mixed spice, golden syrup instead of treacle, lemon icing instead of orange or leave them uniced.  Whether you follow my recipe or change it to suit your taste, these morsels will be a welcome treat.

Spiced Orange and Treacle Muffins

125g butter

100g light soft brown sugar

185g treacle

190g plain flour

1 tsp ground mixed spice

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 free range egg, lightly beaten

160ml milk

Finely grated zest of one orange

Orange Icing

2 - 3 Tblsp orange juice

300g icing sugar, or more as necessary

Preheat oven to 170ºC /150ºC Fan.  Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.

Put the butter, soft brown sugar and treacle into a saucepan over medium heat.  Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally.  Once the mixture boils, immediately reduce the heat to low and allow the mixture to simmer for 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.

Sift the flour, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl.  Make a well in the centre of the sifted dry ingredients and pour in the cooled treacle mixture, milk and lightly beaten egg then add the orange zest.  Stir gently until well combined.

Spoon the batter evenly into the paper cases. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.  Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the tin before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.  Spread each muffin with some orange icing and decorate with more finely grated orange zest.

Orange Icing

Combine orange juice and icing sugar in a bowl and mix to a spreadable consistency.