Jamboree Muffins

This is the most recent recipe I've made from Joanne Fluke's murder-mystery series about Hannah Swensen that also focuses a lot on baking.  This recipe is from The Red Velvet Cupcake Murder.  I was lying in bed Saturday night and had decided to make muffins, but didn't have a particular recipe in mind.  10 minutes later, I was reading the book and came upon the recipe for Jamboree Muffins.  I had all the ingredients and they sounded good, so why not?
  

These muffins are GREAT.  Definitely among the best I've ever had.  They're very interesting, too.  The finished muffin is like a cross between a muffin and a biscuit, both in texture and flavor.  When I looked the recipe over the first time, I had my suspicions they'd be rather biscuit-like because the ingredients look more like a biscuit dough than muffin batter, and I was right!  They aren't very sweet and have a texture reminiscent of a buttermilk biscuit, but are rather airy, like a muffin.  The jam in the middle is an awesome addition.  I used strawberry, but pretty much any flavor would be really good.  I've tried making jam filled muffins in the past and they haven't been particularly good to start with, but the leftovers were awful because the jam made them very soggy.  The texture of these muffins is dense enough that they don't get soggy and were still tasty the next day.
  

In the future, I'd like to experiment with making these muffins with other ingredients added instead of jam.  They'd make great dinner biscuit/muffins with green chiles and cheddar added, or any number of other ingredients.  I'll bet they'd even be great left completely plain.  It's such an easy, one bowl recipe, that I'm sure I'll try several variations.

   

   
Jamboree Muffins
    

1 egg

3/4 C milk

1/2 C vegetable oil

1/3 C sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 C flour

about 1/3 C jam
   

Preheat oven to 400 and grease a 12 cup muffin pan with oil, or use muffin papers.
   

In a large bowl, beat egg with a fork.  Mix in milk, vegetable oil, and sugar with a spoon until smooth, then stir in baking powder and salt.  Stir in flour and mix thoroughly, but don't worry about lumps.  This is basically a wet biscuit dough, so you don't want to over mix it!

Fill each muffin cup 1/3 full with batter, then top each with a small spoonful of jam.  Divide the remaining batter among the muffin cups.
  

Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 15-20 minutes (mine took 17).
  

Yield: 12 muffins