Rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit....

Happy Easter 2011 offering from Magog Muffins is lemon & poppyseed - light and lemony like the Spring. The eggs we use are from Gog Magog Hills Farm Shop - huge, free-range woodland creations that challenge the carrying capacity of a standard egg box.

Also with a spring in her step today is the Easter Bunny - but all out of chocolate having spread it around a bit. What's with all these eggs and rabbits and why Easter? The link seems to be in the time of year... the emergence of Spring in Europe. Eggs and rabbits are both symbols of fertility - check out rabbits and "superfetation". The tradition of coloured eggs left by a "spring hare" emerged in Germany in the 1500s, moving with German immigrants into the US in the 1700s.

This is of course their year - the Chinese Year of the Metal Rabbit which has a special significance for the head chef at Magog Muffins. Anyone coming across this metal rabbit is welcome to steer it in this direction - any metal egg will do... gold, silver, anything really.

Muffins in Manhattan

No resting on laurels at Magog Muffins. "Around the world in 80 muffins" is the story of our quest for perfection beyond the boundaries of Cambridgeshire and into competitor territory. "Spying" if you will. First, we take Manhattan.....













.... and the breakfast tray at the Harvard Club of New York left us speechless. A fresh plate of perfect fruit and a newly-baked blueberry muffin that awakened all the right taste buds. Pity about the coffee - never good out of metal - but the muffin scored on all counts:

Looks 4/5 Classic, simple, elegant. Topping 4/5 Unadorned but lightly crisp. Texture 4/5 Warm, crumbly but intact Taste 5/5 No artifice here. Plenty of fresh blueberries too Aftertaste 5/5. None - did they even use raising agent?












Of course we had to snoop further - and the fruity carrot version was a triumph - just look at this texture. Fresh-baked in the club kitchens every morning so it must be chef Angelo Ljubicic to whom the accolade belongs. Sadly we couldn't find him to check out the palm oil credentials but if he'd like to reassure us the address is MagogMuffins@gmail.com. For now these Harvard Club muffins are a contender for "Ms Muffin World". Onward into the Big Apple ....

Coalition Muffins!

Well, our election muffin poll did not quite reflect the UK election results, but we are now all out of election muffins, and are offering mixed packs of "Coalition muffins" instead. They contain some voter favourites with a sprinkling of new varieties and work well together, nestling side-by-side in their tissue-lined postal box (no bitter aftertaste with Magog Muffins...).

Election Muffins - YOU decide!

We had to do it, didn't we? Magog Muffins of course is non-partisan but, beset by election fever, could not help coming up with partisan treats:

In the red corner is our "Crunchy cranberry with smashed hazelnut topping";

In the orange corner is our "Adversarial apricot with flakey almond topping"

In the blue corner is our "Blistering blueberry with no toffing" and

In the green corner we offer "Astringent apple with fairly traded pistachio topping"

We tried to come up with a UKIP variety but they were totally without taste and instead of rising with applied heat they deflated and sank without trace.

For the next 9 days (ending on Sunday 9th with the post-election parties) we are offering these varieties as election specials. In true free and fair spirit (fair, anyway) you choose the percentages of each colour - contact magogmuffins@gmail.com with details of what you would like to order and we will tailor them individually to your needs:

To arrive in time for the election, last orders by Tuesday 4th May (6pm) for posting first class on Wednesday 5th.

DIRECT DELIVERY (Cambridge area) Any number at £1 per muffin

Minimum order 10. £2 delivery charge per order but free for orders of 20 or over.

We will also deliver free any order with more than 50% green variety muffins, or to a household displaying a green party sticker. Although we remain non-partisan (really!) we greatly admire Tony Juniper who is standing for Cambridge and feel that whatever colour of government we end up with on Friday, he would be a valuable voice within it

Enjoy your muffins and, whatever your colour preference - vote, vote, vote!

Morning Muffin - your wake up call

Giving up chocolate for Lent? So are we, but here's the antidote to brains and bodies suffering from serotonin deprivation (see "chocolate on the brain). Munchable Midi Morning Muffins crumble beside your coffee, kick-start your day and don't sabotage any diet aspirations.

The body of this bountiful offering brims with fruity chunks of apricot, the odd nuggest of walnut, a smidgeon of toasted oats and a heartbeat of honey. Heaven for healthy hearts.



















The spirit of our rising beauty is the topping of crunchy mixed seeds - pumpkin, sesame and friends. Oh, and a sprinkling of oats and almond flakes for good measure.

So healthy in fact, that we feel they should be prescribed - especially for those seeking to restore hearts to health in the wake of Valentines excesses, or to friends and family undertaking charity miles or marathons. This can be done (see below) . Meanwhile, good luck with that no-chocolate plan!




















While waiting for our website and new payment mechanism to be finalised, we are offering a pack of 8 for £15 including post and packing. Just use the paypal link in the valentines post below or contact MagogMuffins@gmail.com for bespoke packs of other flavours.

Ms February - my sunny valentine

"My funny valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with all my heart
Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable (!?)
Yet you're my favourite work of art"*

Our February Valentine had to be sweet, smooth white chocolate set against fruitful, feisty cranberry. Purists will not allow the word chocolate to apply to the white stuff. But the white chocolate we cut into these muffins is so good it has to be hidden from the family to have a chance of making it into the mix. Made with cocoa butter (not a hint of palm oil in these babies) it fades into the muffin mixture creating a luxurious texture to set against the palate-teasing cranberry (with which ladies have a particular affiliation). Maybe a little sweeter than most of our muffins but, hey, Valentine's day is a treat for loved ones.

Valentine's Pack - 8 x white chocolate and cranberry (UK only) (From 13th Feb, will switch to "Morning Muffins" unless you contact MagogMuffins@gmail.com with other request.)

Order between now and mid-day on the 11th Feb, for your muffins to be delivered in time for Valentine's Day.













*My sunny valentine, according to Sylvia Aprile

For tailored treats (Mr November is a good foil for Ms February) contact MagogMuffins@gmail.com

Do you take sugar?

"White death!" my father used to exclaim as he sprinkled granulated white sugar on his cereal. As a surgeon he saw the impact of excess sugar on the human body - and had long since cut down other areas of sugar intake. This came to mind when, as part of our research on postal delivery, we ordered cupcakes by post the other day. The supplier's web site was appetising and easy to use, but we are not naming them as our disappointment is clear:

Looks: 2/5 Classic cupcake - cheap and cheerful (except at £20 for 6, not cheap).
Topping: 1/5 Pure sugar with artificial colouring.
Texture: 4/5 Sponge was light and moist, as promised.
Taste: 1/5 . Not the "zesty lemon" also promised. Artificial flavour and everything subsumed by the icing sugar wadge.
Aftertaste: 0/5 Sugar does create a desire for more. Fight your sugar-craving brain!

In short, we would only recommend them to Norwich City football fans for whom the yellow and green colours, that startled us as we opened the box, might generate more positive emotions.

Are muffins just naked cupcakes then, without sugary frosting? One of the bake debates, that... start asking what the difference is between cupcakes and muffins and you unearth a war of deeply divided advocates almost religious in their zeal. We started Magog Muffins with the ambition to create healthy, guilt-free treats and have found that you can make delicious muffins with very little sugar but with sweetness lurking in bursts of fruit or chocolate (and 85% dark chocolate will not translate into muffin tops). Sometimes we swish a sweeter shine across a freshly baked variety (e.g. lemon tea muffins) but the only one we were tempted to frost was cappuccino - possibly allowing a cupcake in disguise into our fold.

So, we stand behind the magical muffin. An independent being, secure in its body, without need for a smothering of sugary make-up to face the world. "Naked cupcakes" rule, O.K.?












P.S. And, before you ask, yes, we did eat all of the cupcakes that we rip into above! Testing the limits of that sugar craving, of course - and we are anyway quite shameless. If frosting is your thing, and if you really like sugary cupcakes, fine. Thank you again to all the cupcake eaters who contributed to the Haiti appeal below...