Chai Muffins

It's Friday morning and I can already smell the weekend from here... And the weekend smells like freshly extracted coffee and baked bread.  It smells like the sea and the market.  It smells like filter coffee poured from a Thermos and fudgy chocolate cake, hand-held and eaten in the chill of the Autumn air.  It smells like bubble bath and red wine.  It smells like spiced tea and muffins, still warm from the oven... It's okay if I start a day early, yeah?

Chai Muffins

slightly adapted from here

Makes 12

225ml mil of your choice (I used low fat cows milk)

2 Chai teabags

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of ground nutmeg

400g spelt flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

150g light muscovado sugar

75g natural almonds, toasted and roughly chopped

2 eggs

150ml sunflower oil

Preheat the oven to 200C.  Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper liners.  Set aside.

Tear the teabags open and tip the tea leaves into a saucepan.  Add the milk and cinnamon and heat over a medium flame until just at simmering point.  Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Put the flour, baking powder, sugar and most of the chopped almonds (reserving some for sprinkling) into a mixing bowl and stir it together.

Once the milk is cool, add the eggs and oil and whisk to combine.  Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula until just combined.  Don't over mix.

Divide the batter between the paper liners and sprinkle with the reserved chopped nuts.  Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Transfer the muffins to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes or so before serving.