Blueberry Muffins

IMG_4623I love muffins, who doesn’t?! However, I’m often disappointed by muffins that I’ve made compared to some that I’ve purchased. Maybe it’s because I use a standard muffin tray rather than the giant ones that are served up in cafes and bakeries. The only thing better than a normal muffin is a giant muffin! So I went in search of a good muffin recipe and I’m happy to say that this one doesn’t disappoint. This is adapted from a Donna Hay recipe. I have substituted the milk for buttermilk, increasing the volume slightly. The blueberries could easily be substituted for other fruits. I made these with frozen blueberries today – I’m still waiting for my blueberry tree (which I planted about a year ago) to fruit.
Makes 12

Ingredients
375g self-raising flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
220g caster sugar
100ml vegetable oil
1 egg
190ml buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g blueberries, fresh or frozen
Raw or granulated sugar, for sprinkling

Method
Preheat the oven to 180ºC and line a 12 hole muffin tray with patty pans.
Combine flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl.
In a separate bowl whisk together oil, egg, buttermilk & vanilla extract.
Pour the liquids into the dry ingredients and stir to combine, the mixture will be quite thick. Stir through blueberries.
Spoon into the muffin tray and sprinkle each muffin with a little sugar. Bake for 30 minutes.

Still in a muffin mood? Why not try some apple & rhubarb muffins as well!

Earl Grey Tea Cake

IMG_4300I came across this recipe over a year ago in a delicious. magazine. It sounded interesting and through I would give it a go for a staff morning tea. Although the batter seemed a little interesting as I mixed everything up according to the recipe it all turned out well. It was a hit at a recent open garden we did at Balgowan in Neerim South.  The only tweak that I have made to the original recipe is to cut down the amount of butter – it just seems excessive to me and I haven’t missed it since reducing the quantity.
This recipe will make a square cake tin, but if you want to make 2 loaf tins worth simply increase the quantities by half.

Ingredients
140g fresh dates, chopped
1 tsp bicarb of soda
180ml brewed earl grey tea (the strength is up to you, obviously the stronger the brew the more the flavour will come out in the cake)
2 granny smith apples, peeled and grated
185g self-raising flour, sifted
135g brown sugar
110g butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs

Method
Preheat oven to 160ºC and grease a square cake tin.
Place dates, bicard of soda and tea in a bowl and stand for 10 minutes. Using a blender, blend the date mixture until smooth. Set aside
Combine apple, flour and sugar in a bowl. Add butter, vanilla, eggs and date mixture and mix well to combine.
Pour into the greased cake tin and bake for 45-55 minutes, or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

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Rhubarb & Apple Muffins

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It’s rhubarb season in Warragul. Well, it has been for a while but this is the first chance I’ve had to write about it. I have been cooking with it…and giving it away. We get a lot of traffic past our place. If we ever want to get rid of anything we know it won’t last long on the nature strip. Andy and I had an argument about putting our old dishwasher on the nature strip. Andy thought no one would ever pick it up so why bother dragging it down there. I made a deal with him that if it still there in 3 hours we could bring it back inside. It lasted 2 minutes. Andy was barely back in the door before someone stopped out front with a truck! Rhubarb is no exception. Someone even left me a couple of bucks once…even though my “Free Rhubarb” sign accompanies it.
These rhubarb and apple muffins are delicious. They don’t take long to whip up. The crumble topping doesn’t have to be added if you can’t be bothered, but I can’t help myself, I love the crunch. It’s the same crumble topping I use on my standard apple crumble.
You will need 2½ fruit. I typically use 1 granny smith apple (skin left on) and make the rest up with rhubarb. If buying rhubarb you’ll need a bunch.
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Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients
2 ½ cups fruit, 1cm dice
120g butter, softened
1½ cups sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour, plus 1 tbsp extra flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
Crumble topping
5 tbsp rolled oats
2 tbsp wholemeal flour
2 tbsp slithered almonds
1 tbsp butter, softened
1 tbsp honey

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C.
Dice the fruit and toss in 1 tbsp flour. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar until pale. Beat in the egg, followed by vanilla.
Sift together flour, baking soda & salt. Fold half of it through the wet mixture, followed by half of the buttermilk. Repeat with the remaining flour & buttermilk.
Mix through the rhubarb and apple.
Spoon into prepared muffin pan lined with patty pans and bake in the oven for 5 minutes.
Quickly prepare the crumble topping by mixing together by hand all ingredients. After about 5 minutes of the muffins being in the oven, they should have risen slightly, remove the muffins from the oven and quickly spoon the crumble over each muffin. Put the muffins back in the oven to cook for a further 10 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
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Melt & Mix Chocolate Cake

IMG_3183This chocolate cake is amazing. I’ve tweaked this recipe from it’s original form by adding 50g of dark chocolate to the melting mixture. I also prefer to use a good quality dutch cocoa powder, usually found in the supermarket but in a different section to the standard cocoas (it higher cocoa solids content than regular cocoas in the supermarket). The cake takes on a richer, deeper chocolate flavour. If you’ve got any old bananas lying around, mash a couple up and stir through the mix to make an excellent choc-banana cake. A couple of years ago I experimented with making candied orange with oranges from Dad’s tree. Once I made them I didn’t know what to do with them! Chocolate and orange go together though…finely dice the candied orange to add to the mix and you’ll have a choc-orange cake…delicious! This can also be easily achieved by adding finely grated rind from 1 orange to the cake mixture and also infusing the chocolate ganache with orange rind.

I prefer to ice with a chocolate ganache but a basic chocolate icing also tastes very good.

Perfect if you want to whip up a chocolate cake quickly or use it to layer up, just as I did in my black forest cake.

Ingredients
125g butter
1 cup buttermilk
300g caster sugar
25g cocoa powder
50g dark chocolate, chopped
220g self-raising flour, sifted
1/2 tsp bicarb-soda
2 eggs
Ganache icing
75ml cream (35% fat)
150g dark chocolate, chopped

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C and grease your cake tin (20cm square, round, fluted or ring tin all work well).

In a heavy-based saucepan, over a low heat, melt butter, milk, cocoa and sugar. Stir until smooth. Remove from the heat. Add dark chocolate pieces, the residual heat will melt the chocolate.

Off the heat, mix through flour, bicarbonate of soda and eggs.  Stir until smooth. #If adding bananas or candied orange, stir through now.

Pour into prepared tin. Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

For the ganache, bring the cream to the boil in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate. Wait until the chocolate is mostly melted until stirring to combine.

Once the cake has cooled, smother it in ganache.

This cake keeps well for several of days in an airtight container.

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Princess (Lemon & Yoghurt) Cake

princess cakeI was charged with making a birthday cake for a work colleague, Bianca. I wanted to make something a fun. I put on my thinking hat and thought about what she likes. She likes footy, Geelong in particular, she and I share a passion for Gorman clothes – both, I thought, were too tricky to make into a cake. I call Bianca my little princess, mainly due to her dislike of camping, so I began my search for princess cakes.

Here is my attempt at a princess cake. I think I did well – she was so pretty! You can turn practically any cake into a princess cake, as long as you use a fluted ring tin. I wanted to do something other than chocolate, and found this lemon and yoghurt cake (using lemons from our tree). Pretty icing will turn your cake into a BIG beautiful flowing skirt. I found the doll in the supermarket by chance for $2, I was looking for a brunette, like Bianca, but had to settle for this little blondie. She was a little tall for her cake “dress” so she had to lose a little off her legs. Princess legs are not as easy to shorten as you’d think! The pretty decorating pearls can be found in supermarkets or specialty cake shops.

Once the cake is baked, cooled, iced and decorated, gently lower your princess into the centre – adjust the height of your princess as required.

I hope you enjoy your princess cake as much as we did!

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp lemon juice
Grated rind of 2 lemons
1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup natural yoghurt
2 cups self-raising flour
Icing
1 cup icing sugar
1 or more tbsp of lemon juice
1 tbsp butter, softened
1 drop pink food colour

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C.

It’s very important with a fluted tin to grease it exceptionally well. I have had several cakes end up in several pieces after sticking to the tin. It’s not so easy to get a knife in and around a fluted tin! My tip is to butter the tin well, very well, and dust it with flour, make sure to tip out any excess flour.

In a bowl whisk together sugar, eggs, salt, juice, rind & oil. Stir through yoghurt until combined and then fold through the flour…as easy as that!

Bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool the cake for 10 minutes before turning out of the tin.

When the cake is almost cool, make the icing. Combine the icing sugar, lemon juice, butter and food colour. The mixture should be quite thick so it doesn’t run straight off as it’s poured over the cake. Decorate with pearls before the icing has set.

If you’re after a little more adult version of this cake, omit the pink food colour and pearls.
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Little Chocolate Cakes

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These little chocolate cakes are amazing! They are substantial and light all at the same time. Sometimes when you have a mini-cupcake it feels like you haven’t eaten anything, but with these little beauties you’ll know that you’ve had one…but doesn’t mean you won’t be going back for seconds! They keep exceptionally well and I can promise you they’ll all be gone before there even a hint of them drying out.

This recipe yields about 30 mini-cupcakes or 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients
200g dark chocolate, chopped
100g caster sugar
120g unsalted butter
110g ground almonds
4 eggs, separated
Ganache
50ml cream
100g dark chocolate, chopped
sprinkles

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line muffin or mini-muffin tray with patty pans.

Roughly chop the chocolate and melt in a double boiler with the sugar and butter. Once melted, set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Add the ground nuts and stir well. Beat in egg yolks, one yolk at a time, until well combined.

Whisk egg whites to stiff peaks. Stir a large spoonful through the chocolate mixture to lighten it up. Gently fold the remaining egg whites through.

Spoon the mixture into lined mini-cupcake moulds and bake for about 15 minutes. Be brave and remove them from the oven while they are still slightly squidgy in the middle. If making cupcakes bake for 25-30 minutes.

Once cooled, top with chocolate ganache and sprinkles! These little delights don’t necessarily need the ganache, it’s your choice!

This recipe was adapted from Jill Dupleix.

Want something else chocolatey? Try these pain au chocolat!

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Red Velvet Cupcakes

Velvet cupcakesRed Velvet…so hot right now! First time I saw it I asked my friend Katie “What is it?” She tried so hard to explain it to me at the hipster café in Brunswick where we were lunching. I just couldn’t get it. It’s red…if it’s not raspberry then what flavour could it be? I don’t care about the details anymore. After trying it, I found out for myself that the flavour is DELICIOUS!

This recipe will make 12 cupcakes. Or it will make a 20 cm cake…or if you double the recipe it will a make 2 layer cake. Makes a pretty special celebration cake, just like I made for Karen’s 60th!

Preheat oven to 180°C

Ingredients
60g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
10g cocoa powder
20ml red food colouring
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
120ml buttermilk
150g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1.5 tsp white vinegar
Cream Cheese Icing
150g cream cheese
50g cream, lightly whipped
2 tbsp pure icing sugar, sifted

Method
In a mixer cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in egg until well combined. In a small bowl, mix cocoa, food colouring and vanilla to a paste. Add to the butter mixture and incorporate fully.

On a slow speed add half of the buttermilk until just combined followed by half of the flour until just mixed. Repeat with remaining buttermilk and flour. Combine the bicarb of soda and vinegar. Add this with the salt to the mixture and beat only until they fully incorporated.

Spoon into cupcake patty pans until 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes. If making a cake cooking times will need to be adjusted.

While the cupcakes are baking make the cream cheese icing. I prefer to whip the cream until just shy of soft peaks, then beat through cream cheese and icing sugar until well combined.

Once the cupcakes have cooled either pipe or spread icing on to the cupcakes. If you’ve got something red, pretty and edible on hand feel free to sprinkle over your beautiful little cupcakes!

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