Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

Today I had three helpers with baking, two eleven year olds and one nine year old.  I wanted to make something relatively easy but equally not be too run of the mill, so came across a recipe on-line.  

You can read the recipe here.

The recipe was pretty straight forward.  It does seem to make a lot of batter.  I found that it filled 12 paper cases and I didn't even need to scrape the bowl.

I love the tartness of the raspberries against the sweetness of the white chocolate.

I have to say my helpers were delightful girls and a pleasure to be with.  They were rewarded with an hour in the hot tub and a box of muffins each to take home.

Yum Yum, It's Cake Time

The cake tin was empty so I decided to make what we know in our house as Yum Yum cake.  The recipe is pretty informal, so you can throw in or leave out anything that suits.  

Recipe:

250g Butter (very soft, close to melting)

2 cups of Self Raising Flour

3/4 cup of Sugar

3 eggs (whisked)

1 cup Sultananas

1 cup of Raisins

1 cup of Currents

1 cup of Glace Cherries (halved)

Handful of Pecan/Walnuts or Brazil nuts (chopped into large chunks)

A sprinkle of sugar for the top

Preheat the oven to 130 and grease a baking tin.

Cream the butter and sugar together, add the whisked eggs, fold in the flour and remaining ingredients (if the mixture is very stiff, you can add a splash of milk).  Put the mixture in the baking tin and cook for 35-40 minutes.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

(I individually wrap each portion and pop it in the freezer as it's great when you have an urge for cake and there's nothing about, especially when defrosted in the microwave).

Cornflake Flan

Recently on my Facebook timeline I have seen posts regarding a pudding served at school lunch time. I don't recall this pudding but my Hubby does, so I decided to have a go making it.

This flan is made of a pastry base, jam and a cornflake top which is coated with a syrupy mix. In school it was as served with custard. The verdict on this recipe bus that "it's quite nice". It was too sweet for me.

I used pre-made shortcrust pastry. I lined a quiche/flan dish with the pastry, pricking the surface with a fork. I then covered in foil and placed baking beans onto the foil surface (this allows more even baking and stops the pastry from shrinking from the edge. I then baked in a pre-heated oven at 200 for 15 minutes. I then removed the foil & beans and popped the dish back in the oven for a further five minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan I melted  55g of butter, 25g of dark brown sugar and 115g of golden syrup, adding a pinch of salt too.  Once the sugar has disolved in the mixture, add 85g of cornflakes and mix till coated in the sugary mixture.

Remove the flan base from the oven and spread about 100g of strawberry jam over the base.

Place the cornflake mixture on top of the jam flan, levelling the surface and then pop in the oven for five minutes.

I found it best to let it totally cool before cutting into the pudding ( this ensures that everything is set). 

Sweet Potato, Carrot & Red Lentil Soup

It's another hottie outside so I'm staying in.  I like to batch cook and the last couple of days i've had a craving for home made soup, so I've made a huge batch of Sweet Potato, Carrot and Red Lentil Soup.  (If you're on Slimming World, this is ideal as it's free).

When I make a soup like this, I don't weigh & measure my ingredients, I just throw them in and see what I get.  So the recipe below is quite loose.

Onions, Celery and garlic chopped/crushed and fried using Frylite.
Chop the sweet potato and the carrots and add to a pan of boiling water with a chicken or beef stock cube in it.  Then add the fried onion, celery & garlic mix.  I usually add a squirt of tomato puree and mixed herbs and season.  Then add about half a bag of red lentils.  Bring to the boil then turn down to simmer.  

I make a large batch and then freeze it in portion sizes.

Sam x

Rocky Road Bars

Today I made a batch of Rocky Road chocolate bars. 

I tweaked the recipe, by adding part milk chocolate and I used digestive biscuits instead of Rich Tea biscuits as that was what I had.  In hindsightt, I should have stuck to the recipe as the combination made it a bit greasy.  Here's the link to the recipe I used
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Banana & Chocolate Cake

Today I made a couple of banana & chocolate cakes. They seem to be a hit as by 5pm one of the cakes had nearly all gone.

The recipe I used is a standard sponge recipe, but instead of adding the all the 3 tablespoon of milk to make the mixture more moist, I added mashed banana  & choc chips also about 1 tablespoon of milk. Cooked at 180 for about 30 minutes. 

The icing is butter, icing sugar &  cocoa powder mixed together with a touch of milk, then added cooled melted dark chocolate & mixed.

Mary's Bakewell Tart

Today I fancied challenging myself to something that I've not made before, so opted to make a Bakewell Tart.  The recipe I opted for is a Mary Berry one which I found on-line.  If it's good enough for Mary then it is good enough for me.  You can find the recipe here.

As it is so hot here today, I couldn't be bothered to make the pastry so opted for the short cut of buying in a pack of pre-made.  There was one section of the recipe I had to re-read a couple of times to be sure that I had understood it correctly and that was the lining of the pastry case with foil.  But I guess that is to accelerate the heat distribution of the baking beans.  Other than that the recipe was fine.

I had a little pastry left over so made some very ropey looking jam & lemon curd tarts - I'm sure they'll taste wonderful even though they don't look the best!

Banana & Chocolate Muffins

Today I made a batch of Banana & Chocolate Muffins - an ideal way of using up the ripe banana that nobody will eat.

The basic muffin recipe I use is really simple, I just throw in the flavours I fancy/have to hand.

250g (9 oz) Plain Flour
150g (5oz) Caster Sugar
3 Teaspoons of Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon of Salt

225ml (8 fl oz) Semi-skimmed Milk
4 Tablespoons of Vegetable Oil
1 Egg

Additional flavour ingredients as required

Preheat the oven to 200 C/Gas 4
Place all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.  Stir, then make a well in the middle.
In another bowl beat the egg and add the remaining wet ingredients.
Add the wet ingredients to the well in the dry bowl and quickly mix the two together with a fork (but don't beat).  Then add the flavours (in my case it was one ripe mashed banana and approx 100g of dark chocolate broken into small chunks) and stir.  Divide into muffin paper cases/tin.  Bake for 20-25 minutes till golden brown. 

Other possible flavours I've used are:

Coffee & Chocolate
Date
Blueberry
Apple & Cinnamon

This recipe can also be made into a savoury muffin by putting half the sugar in and adding grated cheese & chives or perhaps cooked bacon & onions.

Rainy Day Baking

It's still raining. The builders arrived but were not able to progress with the build of the craft room because of the weather, so they have gone home for the day.

The cake tin was empty, so I made a Victoria Sponge Cake and a slab of Very Chocolatey Brownies. The brownie recipe is one that I found on line, you can view the recipe here. It's an amazing recipe. The brownie has both a crisp and moistness and is absolutely yummy.

Funny how smells trigger memories. I love the smell of the house when I'm baking as it reminds me of my childhood.

Flapjacks and Cards

Today I thought I'd better think about making a card for my Hubby, who has his  birthday next week. It started off well, but it evolved into a less personal card than I want to give him, so it's back to the drawing board for me. This is the card that I decided wasn't right.

The builders were here before 8:30 this morning, so as the cake tin is empty, thought I'd better make something quick. After checking the ingredients in the pantry, I went for flapjacks. This recipe rarely disappoints...

115g Butter

70g Brown Sugar

5 tablespoons Syrup

180g Porridge Oats

Grease a 20.5 cm square tin & Preheat oven to 150 C / 300 F

Place butter sugar and syrup in a medium-large saucepan and heat till the ingredients have melted. Stir in the oats.  Once the oats are coated, tip the mix into the prepared tin, flatening down the surface with the back of a spoon.

Bake for approx 20 minutes till the edges are brown and slightly crunchy.  At this stage I score the flapjack into portions then leave to cool.  Once fully cooled remove from the tin. These should keep for several days in an airtight container.  I can't actually tell you how long as they don't hang around for very long in our house!

Enjoy the rest of your Monday xxx