I bet that caught your attention, especially bearing in mind that the focus of this blog is all about the best thing I’ve eaten/cooked last week!

I have to admit, I was a bit stuck for something to talk about up until I made the muffins.

Yes, the Pasta Amatriciana that I made last Thursday really is a superlative recipe that knocks all other Amatriciana recipes into a cocked hat.

The lovely bacon we got from Terry’s the Butcher in the Ashley Road, Parkstone, helped there. Gorgeous and sweetly smoked, not too salty – and it came wrapped in greaseproof paper! It lent itself to the red wine, tomato and paprika flavours just perfectly.

Oh, and let’s not forget the Lancashire Haggis that we managed to track down after an exhaustive Haggis hunt, all ready for Burns Night last Wednesday.

Gently spiced, this Haggis has a subtle and creamy flavour that is just perfect for Haggis beginners through to Haggis fans. Fear not that it isn’t made in Scotland, its recipe has apparently won several Scottish-based awards!

It is by far the nicest Haggis I’ve ever had (and I love the stuff). Hubby – who is something of a Haggis purist – declared it to be the best Haggis he’d ever tasted, outside of Scotland and without the aid of a dram of whisky. Ah well, I’ve got until next year to source some of the hard stuff for him.

However, even those two jewels haven’t upstaged these muffins.

Why, you may ask? Well, because they ARE sugar free (if you discount the natural sugars in the fruit), and they don’t taste of yukky sweetener, they’re totally aspartame free (which is very important) and most of all, they are light, fluffy and fabulous!

To be able to eat an American style muffin with the minimum of guilt is really something new. In the past, we’ve had to close our eyes to the amount of sugar involved – which if you couple it with the oil involved as well, wasn’t good.

However, with diabetes in the house, a teenager who could do without growing sideways instead of upwards and myself (who grew sideways a long time ago), it has become important that I pay attention to whittling down – where possible – the calorific input of our food.

You have to decide to start somewhere, so we opted for the sugar in our drinks. Having had a look for the new Stevia sweetener (without success) we decided to go with Splenda (sucralose-based) as we knew it was the least intrusive for inclusion in tea and coffee. Naturally, I began to consider what else I could use it in – and baking was an instant winner.

Now you must bear in mind what a complete numpty I am where figures are concerned, when I tell you that I had to work out the comparative amounts.

The box said that you could use it like for like, i.e. a teaspoon of sugar equates to a teaspoon of Splenda, but that didn’t help me much when considering the equivalent in Splenda for 100g of light muscovado sugar! 100g of Splenda would probably be a bucketful, it’s that light!

So after a bit (actually, quite a lot) of brain-wracking, I came up with the brilliant solution of weighing a tablespoonful of sugar (20g) then working out how many tablespoons amounted to 100g – and the answer, 5, is how many tablespoons of Splenda I used. I’m quite proud of that equation, especially as it worked perfectly.

The end result is a light, fluffy, sponge-like muffin that has none of the heaviness of a “normal” muffin. Even with the two mashed bananas in the mix (which can often make a muffin batter quite heavy), they rose beautifully. The blueberries did what blueberries in a muffin should do, in that they burst and lent gorgeous blue-purple streaks of lovely fruity flavour to the whole.

I’ve since eaten these muffins with ice cream, with coffee, with a cup of tea and even, in a moment of madness, with a slice of cheese – and they stood up perfectly to the challenge.

So, if you’re busy watching your waistline but are craving something sweet and baked – I can’t recommend these enough.

• Sugar-Free Banana & Blueberry Muffin recipe