Tea Breads & Muffins

Tea breads, minimally sweet loaves leavened with baking powder, deserve to be more popular again. A mainstay of home baking of the last century, they’re now neglected in favour of richer, sweeter cakes. Perfect with a thin spread of cream cheese or butter, tea breads can pass from the ‘I feel like baking something’ stage to the table in a little more than an hour. And nothing is better than a homemade muffin. As a veteran of more airport breakfasts than I care to remember, I can attest to the fact that commercially and industrially made muffins often taste as though they’ve been made with recycled frying oil. Muffins mix up quickly and are ready for the table before you know it. They also freeze beautifully, so you can get them ready in advance for a breakfast or brunch when you might need to be concentrating on cooking or baking other things.