Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

Picture the scene. The Queen walks into her drawing room early tomorrow morning (does she have a drawing room? Don't spoil the magic with particulars) and sits down, picking up her china teapot to pour herself a nice cup of earl grey. She pulls her favourite teacup towards her (she definitely has a favourite teacup. The Queen and I, we're like this), glances down - and instead of a cup of tea, she sees .... a muffin of tea?

Don't panic, Ma'am! This isn't any old commoner muffin - this is an earl grey and white chocolate muffin, especially for your birthday!

In fact, the Queen should probably panic anyway, because for me to do this I'd have to break into Buckingham Palace some time tonight, probably hotly pursued by the Royal guards, all shooting to kill - but for the Queen's (unofficial) birthday, I think it's worth it. And I think she'd appreciate it (like this, remember?), if her love for tea/cake/royalty is anything approaching mine.

So rather than a birthday cake, a muffin that could just fit in a teacup seemed perfectly fitting.

I'm taking this into school tomorrow, as my friends love the Queen almost as much as I do (almost. I think I'm a very infectious sort of person?), so we'll probably eat them with our cups of (liquid) tea in our free periods tomorrow, while cheerfully discussing how great the Queen is. Man, she is so great. I wish I was the Queen. All it needs is a birthday candle stuck in the middle of one, and things would be perfect.

Actually, I might do the candle thing. Worst case scenario is that the fire alarms go off and I miss History. Sorry, did I say worst?

I found the recipe for these on Eat Me, Delicious - my muffins look pretty different, but I think that's cause I didn't really have enough Earl Grey - I only drink proper, manly tea, so I had to flutter my eyelashes at my previously mentioned friend Alex a bit to scrounge an Earl Grey teabag off her. It seemed a bit cheeky to ask for two - not that that usually stops me - particularly as I spend a large proportion of my time mocking her for drinking flowery, girly tea. You see; the Queen's influence has me being all polite, and civilised! The woman deserves more than a muffin.

Earl Grey White Chocolate Chunk Muffins
American measurements here on Eat Me, Delicious.
Metric conversion by me.
Adapted from Baking From My Home To Yours

Makes 12 (so enough for all the corgis)

120g sugar
280g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp ground Earl Grey tea (or more)
360ml sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
115g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
100g white chocolate chunks (I used 150g, because you can't have too much chocolate when it comes to royalty)

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 190C. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ground Earl Grey tea. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and melted butter together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don't worry about being thorough - a few lumps are better than over mixing the batter. Stir in the white chocolate chunks. Divide the batter evenly among the muffins cups.

3. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

Happy Unofficial Birthday to the Queen for tomorrow!