Avery’s Exam-Week Blue­ber­ry Muffins

(makes six medi­um-sized muffins)

5 oz/150g plain flour
pinch salt
1/2 tsp bak­ing powder
1 large egg

1 1/2 oz/40g white sugar

2/3 cup milk

1/2 vanil­la pod, scraped
zest of 1/2 lemon
2 oz/50g but­ter, melted
1 cup blueberries

Heat oven to 350F/180C. Line the muf­fin tin with paper lin­ers, or but­ter and flour each muf­fin space.

Sift (or sim­ply shake through a sieve, as I do since I don’t own a sifter) the flour, salt and bak­ing pow­der into a bowl just large enough to hold them. In a larg­er bowl, stir togeth­er the egg, sug­ar, milk, vanil­la pod scrap­ings, lemon zest and butter.

Fold the flour mix­ture into the egg mix­ture just gen­tly, mix­ing until all is JUST wet but leav­ing behind plen­ty of lumps. Care­ful­ly stir in blue­ber­ries and divide among muf­fin cups.

Bake for 25–30 min­utes, or until just browned and firm. The blue­ber­ry juice will have bub­bled up and may look a bit messy around the edges, but that’s what keeps them juicy and love­ly. If you used paper cups, remove the muffins (in their paper cups) from the muf­fin tin right away.