Cruising is hard work, especially when you have days at sea. You wake up, hit the gym then stroll down for a leisurely buffet breakfast. Head back to your cabin and freshen up and then down to the function room to test your trivia skills after a quick stop in on the cooking demonstration.

After stretching your brain it’s off to lunch. Another game of skill usually follows lunch then a little rest time with a good book. When your energy is restored, you shower and prepare for cocktail hour then another lavish 3 course dinner.

It’s tough isn’t it? Mum and I got into quite a routine on our South American cruise in January. My sister and dad had taken up a course which had classes at 9.30am every ‘at sea’ day. Mum and I had taken up a different class which was seeing how long we could sit at breakfast and talk about the upcoming wedding for. We would start with our healthy plate of fruit, cereal or muesli but the best part of the breakfast was our dessert.

Every morning we ordered two warmed blueberry muffins and boy were they good. Yes we spread them with butter and it melted into deliciousness. Each morning they were freshly baked and oh so delicious.

I hadn’t had a blueberry muffin since then but when I saw frozen blueberries on sale I knew the time had come to break the muffin drought. I found a basic recipe in Women’s Weekly Bake and did some serious experimenting. The result was a deliciously soft, light muffin that wasn’t too sweet and not at all stodgy, just perfect. I kept two out for myself and froze the rest individually and they are just as good defrosted as fresh from the oven.

So what did I do? I changed some of the white flour for wholemeal, halved the sugar and added some honey, used some yoghurt in place of some of the milk, reduced the butter and added vanilla. I also changed the method to make it super easy.

Put the flours and sugar in a big bowl and stir them together.

In another bowl stir up all the wet ingredients and then add them to the dry and stir it just until everything comes together.

Fold through the blueberries.

Divide the batter between a greased 12-hole muffin tray. Yes I may have gone a little overboard with the spray.

Bake them at 180C fan-forced for 20 minutes or until they are golden and a cake tester comes out clean.

Leave them to rest in the tin for 5 minutes.

Then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Zap them for a few seconds in the microwave and then spread with a little bit of butter. They’re even good without the butter. Enjoy!

What about you? Do you get into a holiday routine?

 

Blueberry muffins

Yield: 12

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

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Ingredients

• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 1 1/2 cups wholemeal self-raising flour
• 50g butter, melted
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g honey
• 1 cup milk
• 3 tbsp low-fat Greek yoghurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 200g blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C fan-forced and grease a 12-hole muffin tin.
2. In a large bowl, stir the flours and sugar together.
3. In another bowl, combine the honey, milk, yoghurt, vanilla, butter and egg and then add it to the bowl of dry ingredients.
4. Stir the mixture just until it comes together then fold in the blueberries.
5. Divide the batter between the muffin holes.
6. Bake for 20 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
7. Leave the muffins to rest in the tin for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Eat them straight away or wrap them individually and freeze.