I was inspired to make these after reading Kerry Greenwood’s latest, Forbidden Fruit, in which a baker describes rosewater as bringing out the flavour of the raspberries.

I adapted this recipe from a strawberry muffin recipe, and as a result it was fairly tart – a dense, cakey muffin with bite. The rosewater does go wonderfully with the raspberries, giving a slight floral flavour that complements the tangy berries.

1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup greek/plain yoghurt
1 cup frozen rasperries, partly thawed (so they don’t all fall apart when you stir them in)
grated rind & juice of 1 lemon
1 1/2 tsps rosewater essence
2 cups self raising flour

Preheat the oven to 180C, and put muffin papers in your muffin tin. You can either make 12 huge muffins with this receipe, almost overfilling the tins, or about 16 reasonably sized muffins.

Blend together the butter and the sugar, then beat in the eggs, yoghurt and rosewater. Gently fold in the raspberries, lemon rind and juice to avoid crushing the fruit, and spoon the mixture into the muffin tins. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

These would probably also be nice sprinkled with a mixture of sugar and lemon rind before baking.