Muffin cupcakes (Muffcakes?)

This weekend has been dreamy because of the lovely weather. I went over to my friends house in North London for a day filled with gloriously crap chick flicks and baking. We procrastinated on the baking for a good hour, haphazardly flipping through her cook books while soaking in the sun on her roof terrace with a few glasses of Proessco. It's amazing how indulgent a little sun and bubbles feels.

Ultimately, we decided on a baked Camembert studded with garlic, covered in olive oil, rosemary and thyme and wrapped and baked in short crust pastry. The real star of the show was the blueberry muffins that we turned into cupcakes. There are no strict rules regarding the toppings of muffins, so why can't they have a little frosting? I don't have the recipe for theses muffins, as it was out of one of my friend's books. I'll see if I can get her to send it to me. It was really interesting, as it included regular flower, chickpea flower, and buttermilk (which I haven't used in muffins before).

Weren't they beautiful? Thanks Nigella. Hopefully I don't get in trouble for posting the recipe here. 

Cormeal Blueberry Muffins Recipe

• 1 cup (250 mL) flour
• ½ cup + 1 tbsp (140 mL) cornmeal
• 2 tsp (10 mL) baking powder
• ½ tsp (2 mL) baking soda
• 2/3 cup (150 mL) sugar
• pinch salt
• ½ cup (125 mL) vegetable oil
• ½ cup (125 mL) buttermilk
• 1 egg
• ¾ cup (175 mL) blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 F (200 C) and line a muffin tin with papers.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and sugar and salt. In a measuring jug or bowl, pour the oil and buttermilk and whisk or fork in the egg.

Stir the oil mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients – remembering that lumpiness is a good thing when making muffins – and fold half the blueberries into your thick golden batter.

Divide this batter between each muffin case (they will be about two-thirds full) and drop the remaining blueberries on top; you should have about 3 for the top of each muffin.

Cook in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, till a cake tester comes out cleanish (obviously it will be stained if it hits a berry). Leave the muffins in the tin on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins, in their cases, to the wire rack to cool a little (not too much) before you serve or eat them.

Frosting:

100 g soft unsalted butter
100 g icing sugar
3 teaspoons (or to preference) blue food colouring

Whisk until combined.