It goes with everything.

Necklace – Red Phoenix Emporium, dress – DVF.

It flatters every skin tone and makes monochrome prints pop.  I’m loving being able to finally wear my frocks and to be losing all those winter layers.

Doesn’t everything look more vivid in the soft sunshine of spring?

Pardon the lack of a pedicure.  I’m hoping to get back on the wagon by the summer.  Ironically, it’s proving harder to maintain a regular pedicure regime than it is a fitness one.  Go figure.

The sun warms the pavement on our front verandah just so and it’s one of life’s simple pleasures to just sit there with a mug of tea, your legs outstretched as you feel the warmth radiate from under your feet.  If you’re lucky, your toddler will be on the driveway reversing his ride on car with more precision than you’ve ever managed with your car that’s fitted out with power steering and parking sensors.  Which will then give you a few minutes to ponder the state of your jeans and how you managed to get hand shaped dirt marks down both legs as well as up a bit and over the front of your top.

I love a good ponder.  Another of life’s simple pleasures.

The good thing about pondering is how portable it is.  You can ponder anywhere and at anytime.  Like at 4.45 on a Tuesday morning when breakfast has to be assembled before you’ve even had a chance to make yourself a tea cup of tea.  That’s another of my morning time savers, having tea from a tea cup.  I find tea cools faster that way so you can actually finish a cup with breakfast and still have time to get ready for work.

I can’t remember what I was pondering when I took this photo of Toddler SSG’s breakfast but it was very soothing.  It could have been about creative ways of presenting breakfast fruit.  Actually, it was.  Kiwi fruit buttons are the official name for those slices of fruit you create by teaspooning off the top layer from a sliced crossways kiwi.

I realize now that the mini muffins in the photo are not from the same batch I made using the recipe I’m going to share below.  But we can pretend.

Best Recipe’s Basic Muffin Base is my current go to muffin mix.  I like that it’s an easy one bowl affair and that the resultant muffins are moist and depan without too many tears.  Prior to using this recipe, I’d had a run of bad mini muffin experiences where whole batches failed to loosen from the tray in one piece.  We ended up just eating the muffin tops.  It wasn’t quite as fun as eating those donut ball ‘centres’ from Puffin’ Fresh Donuts.

Back to the muffins.

Here’s what you need to place in a large bowl:
2 cups SR flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup veg oil
1 cup milk

I made buttermilk by adding 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to the milk.  I like that lighter taste and texture buttermilk seems to add to baking.

My flavour add ons were – 3/4 cup choc chips, 1 mashed banana and a generous teaspoon of vanilla.  The recipe yielded 30 mini muffins for me.

I baked at 180C for 20 minutes.

The muffins rose perfectly and also had a lovely crust which is key when you’re not baking with lined muffin trays.

How are you adjusting to spring?