I usually follow the same process when I am developing a new recipe, but adding children into the mix tends to complicate things a tad. I am thrilled that I am able to share my love for home cooking with them, but there are times when my inner control freak wants to have a kitchen meltdown! For one thing, it is impossible to set out all of my ingredients without little fingers wanting to examine the eggs or open each and every packet. Then there is the chatter which includes lots of unsolicited advice (usually something along the lines of the recipe needing chocolate chips, food colouring or generous lashings of sprinkles), relentless requests to measure, add and stir in the ingredients and so.many.questions. Let us not even talk about the resulting mess!

What I will say is that despite wanting to pull my hair out at times these little guys are my best and most honest critics. And as I keep reminding myself, mess can be cleaned and recipes are always retested. The children absolutely loved these lemon muffins and I hope you will too!

These muffins have a lovely delicate lemon flavour that is not too overpowering but if you enjoy a real lemon burst then you can always add an extra teaspoon of zest to the batter. They also freeze beautifully.

For more muffin recipes why not try these apple crumble muffins, bran and fruit muffins (our favourite!) or these date, carrot and apple muffins with cream cheese topping.