Eats:: healthy(ish) breakfast muffins

Not too long ago, I discovered that I love peanut butter. Not only do I love peanut butter, I love peanut butter and blueberries. It might sound like an odd combo but when you get deliciously tart blueberries and a good, smooth peanut butter, it is honestly divine.

Muffins are marketed as a breakfast food all over the world, but most muffins are full of sugar and fat and are a horrible way to start the day... Now these muffins aren't the best thing in the world for you but as a brunch option or a tasty Sunday breakfast, they're a tasty alternative to a fry up or basket of pastries. 

You will need (to make around 8-10 muffins):

A preheated oven at 180 degrees c

A muffin tray

115g of self-raising flour

2 eggs

50g of soft brown sugar

125g of peanut butter (smooth and natural preferably - whole earth brand is great)

100ml semi-skimmed milk

75g blueberries 

Optional: adorable silicon muffin cases (mine are heart shaped)

There's no real method to these bar combining all the ingredients (except the blueberries) in a bowl, adding more milk if your peanut butter is particularly thick, until you get a dense batter. Then add the blueberries, reserving a few to squish into the top before you bake them. Heap the mix into the cases, the more full the better the muffins will be; squash a few berries into the top of each muffin (these tend to explode and go all oozy in the oven) and then bake them in the oven for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the biggest muffin comes out clean.

Enjoy with coffee, or tea, or juice. Just enjoy knowing that there's very little sugar and not as much fat as a coffee shop muffin... They're my favourite weekday breakfast treat.

My love affair with:: coffee

Any one who knows me in real life will know that coffee is possibly my main food group... Well besides cake anyway.

I fell in love with coffee when I was about 16. I'd drank it before then but never really appreciated its glory until I discovered the vending machine in the leisure centre next to my school had fantastic macchiatos - I credit this machine with the fact I survived sixth form.

I love coffee in many forms; flat white, espresso, mocha, latte, iced, shakerato, macchiato (starbucks and real), americano and cold brew. The recurring theme however is that my coffee has to be strong.

For those of you out there wanting to develop your love for coffee, I have a few (pretentious) tips:

1. Invest in a good espresso machine
Last year me and J bought a ROK espresso machine; it's completely manual and uses grounds. Since buying this my coffee game has seriously thrived - I am now a master barista in my pyjamas.

2. Use good grounds
If you're not grinding your own beans, I've found threesixty's ground coffee is excellent. My personal favourite is the ethiopia blend. Taylor's also do good ground coffee.

3. When you're out for coffee, go indie
It's a cliche but independent coffee shops or small chains tend to have better coffee, in fact, we have an excellent coffee shop local to us called 15 on the Corner which does amazing coffee. When travelling, I like to get coffee from carts or markets because they tend to be less busy but you don't sacrifice quality. As for chains: Boston Tea Party (mainly based in the South West but they are migrating north slowly) is one of my favourites; Monmouth (although not technically a chain) is lovely and the one by Borough Market is pictured at the top; and, as major chains go, Nero or Starbucks are good if you know what to order.

4. Experiment
Although I generally will order a flat white when I'm out drinking coffee, it pays to experiment a little. Adding extra shots, adding syrups, changing the milk and having it over ice are all ways of changing up your order that won't alter it enough to make it unrecognisable. If you're making coffee at home, buy some syrups, a milk frother and look at recipes online to give yourself ideas of what you'd like.

I'm off now, I have a flat white to drink.