Banana, Cherry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

Here is another delicious concoction from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a domestic Goddess’. They are called cupcakes yet I think they are more of a muffin, in my thinking a muffin is a heavier stir everything together job whereas cupcakes are more like mini cakes, light , airy & made with lots of creaming of butter & sugar & so forth. Here is another opinion on the matter which seems to be in line with my thinking, what is your definition?

Banana, Cherry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

125g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas
60ml (4 tablespoons) sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon bicarb of soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
300g plain flour
40g dried cherries, chopped
50g white chocolate, chopped or buttons
12 bun muffin tin with paper cases

Preheat the oven to 180c. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then, off the heat, add the sugar, vanilla and soft bananas, mashing them with a fork in the pan. Stir in the sour cream & the eggs and – still using your fork or a wooden spoon if you prefer – beat to mix. Add the bicarb & the baking powder, & stir in as well, then finally stir in the flour, cherries and chocolate. When the mixtures just blended, divide between the 12 muffin cases & cook for 20 minutes or until golden & springy on top. Remove the cupcakes in their papers to a wire rack & leave till cool. Makes 12.

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins

For Mothers Group this week I took along a treat, as you know I don’t need much of a reason to bake up a storm so as soon as it was suggested we bring something along I was ready for it. Being somewhere that children are always present the rule is nothing with nuts in it is to enter the premises, fine with me, just something to keep in mind for the future. I chose these delicious, packed full of fresh sweet raspberries with a lovely tang of lemon muffins. Muffins are great, they take about 5 minutes to whip up which is good for when you don’t know if you’re going to have a good or screaming baby on your hands when you need to prepare them, I had a pretty good one this morning though I did need to get a feed in while they were in the oven, lucky she is a fast drinker like her mum! The recipe is courtesy of Nigella, from How to be a Domestic Goddess.

Lemon-Raspberry Muffins

60g butter
200g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
150g caster sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
juice & finely chopped zest of 1 lemon
approx 120ml milk
1 large egg
150g raspberries
12 bun muffin tray lined with paper cases

Preheat oven to 200c. Melt the butter & set aside to cool. Stir together in a large bowl, the flour, baking powder, bicarb, sugar, salt & zest. In a measuring jug, pour in the lemon juice, then enough milk to come up to the 200ml mark, then beat in the egg & butter. Pour into the dry ingredients & stir briefly, the batter should scarcely be combined. Fold in the raspberries, spoon the mixture into the muffin cases & bake for about 25 minutes. When cooked, the tops should spring back to your touch. Leave in the pan for 5 minutes to cool slightly, then sit them on a rack to cool for a further 10-15 minutes. Makes 12.

Woodstock, North Fitzroy

The other night the family were off to the movies & we needed a simple & quick bite to eat beforehand. My suggestion was Woodstock which is a family run little Italian place on Nicholson street. The menu consists entirely of pizza’s – Italian style, thin crust with lovely toppings, such as prosciutto & porcini, and it’s all in Italian too which the staff are happy to translae for you. There is always a specials board that has a couple of home made pasta’s of the day plus some fish & maybe some meat dishes. Last night for example there was roast goat, crumbed veal, calamari, garfish, a pesto filled agnoletti & a linguine marinara to name a couple of the specials. There is a limited wine list & byo is $10 corkage a bottle.

The few times I have been there, there are always crumbed, stuffed olives on the specials too & being a huge fan of these delectable morsels I always order some to start with. The rest of the family were a bit dubious but were soon won over & loved them as much as I do. I chose the marinara as I wasn’t in a pizza mood, the serve was huge, lots of pasta with a couple of mussles, a few prawns, some scallops & squid thrown into a tomato based sauce, very tasty though a bit on the salty side so beware if you're not a salt fan. There was also so much that Michael got half of mine, he ordered the agnoletti which was fantastic but in contrast to mine the serving was really quite small & definitely not enough to fill a grown man. We didn’t go for dessert as we were in a hurry so not sure what was on offer though there was a gelati bar at the counter so at the least one could expect a bowl of ice cream to finish off. All in all a great Italian place for a quick & simple feed though the prices are a bit on the highish side for such simple fair, ie pizza’s about $20 each & you do need one per person so if you can live with that give it a go.

Woodstock
612 Nicholson street
North Fitzroy
Ph: 9481 8122

Blueberry and Bran Muffins

Yesterday day I whipped up this batch of muffins for the weekend, I love muffins because they are so easy to throw together, no beating or electric appliances necessary so when you don’t have much time & energy they are still doable. These also sounded quite healthy felt quite justified in making them. They come from Bill Granger’s Sydney Food book. As you know I am in love with his breakfasts at the moment & aim to attempt most of them sooner rather than later.

Blueberry and Bran Muffins

30g butter
¾ cup honey
½ cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
3 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ cup bran cereal
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 apple, grated
2 bananas, mashed
250g blueberries
6 strawberries, halved

Preheat oven to 180c. Place butter and honey in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes or until slightly caramelized.

Place milk, vegetable oil & eggs in a bowl & whisk.

Place flour, baking powder, bran & cinnamon in a bowl and mix to combine. Stir apple, bananas and blueberries through flour. Add milk mixture & stir until dry ingredients are just moistened. Then fold in butter mixture until just combined being careful not to overmix.

Set out tray(s) with 12 paper liners. Spoon batter into each cup. Top each muffin with half a strawberry. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes or until the tops are golden & a skewer comes out clean. Cool slightly, remove from tray & serve.

Cherry, White Chocolate & Almond Muffins

Today I made these luscious muffins, they are a Bill Granger recipe so how could I go wrong, I believe the recipe is from his new book, Every Day? & they featured in a recent edition of delicious. Cherries are my absolute favourite fruit of all & it is a crying shame that they’re season is so short. So now that they are here I am eating as many as I can, the pitting was great fun, one for the muffins, one for me, & lots of gorgeous cherry red juices to lick off my fingers when it was all done. Add some white chocolate, almond meal & this was definitely a recipe for success to be repeated many times.

Cherry, White Chocolate & Almond Muffins

2 ½ cups (375g) plain flour
1 tbsn baking powder
2/3 cup (150g) caser sugar
½ cup (60g) almond meal
90g unsalted butter, melted
1 egg
1 ¼ cups (200g) pitted fresh or frozen cherries, halved
150g white chocolate, chopped
Demerara sugar to sprinkle

Preheat oven to 180c. Line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases.

Sift flour and baking powder into a large bowl, add caster sugar & almond meal & stir in. Whisk together the melted butter, egg & buttermilk, then add to the dry ingredients & stir until just combined. Stir in the cherries and white chocolate.

Divide the mixture among the muffin holes, sprinkle with sugar & bake for 20-25 minutes until firm, golden & a skewer inserted comes out clean. Turn onto wire racks to cool.

Festive Food Fair - Gingerbread Muffins

Anna at Morsels & Musings in Sydney has decided to host a Festive Food Fair event. I think this is a great idea & hopefully the event will provide inspiration for everyone during the holiday season & leading up to all of those glorious Christmas feasts. I have chosen a simple muffin recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Feast under the Christmas section of course. I managed to whip these up in the time it to me steam some rice for dinner – they are that simple. I made a couple of changes due to lack of the correct ingredients - all light muscovado sugar & no dark and all golden syrup failing the discovery of any black treacle down the shops. They were still absolutely lovely & I don’t think these compromised the flavour at all but who knows, maybe they would make them even better. These would be great for xmas brekky or just to have on hand if people are popping over at this time of year. Light & fluffy & ginger & spice just conjure up festive images don’t they?

Gingerbread Muffins

250g plain flour
½ teaspoon bicarb of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 egg
50g dark muscovado sugar
50g light muscovado sugar
150ml full-fat milk
¼ teaspoon balsamic vinegar
6 tablespoons vegetable or corn oil
4 tablespoons golden syrup
4 tablespoons black treacle.

Preheat oven to 200c. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin papers.

Combine the flour, bicarb, baking powder & spices in a large bowl. Whisk the egg in a large measuring jug then add the sugars, breaking up any large lumps. Add the milk and vinegar then measure in the oil with a tablespoon. Use the same oily spoon to add the syrup & treacle so they don’t stick to it. Whisk the mixture to combine and add to the flour mix. Stir until mixed but still fairly lumpy. Spoon into muffin papers & bake for about 20 minutes until the tops are dry.

White Chocolate & Berry Muffins

When I saw these luscious sounding muffins on Exclusively Food, I knew I just had to make them soon. I used strawberries as they were readily available, next time would like to try with either raspberries or blueberries or combinations of all 3. They were absolutlely delicious straight out of the oven. However I must warn you I spooned the batter straight into a greased muffin tin instead of lining with patty cases & when I tried to tip them out there was a bit of a mess, ie breakage. Luckily not all of them fell apart & I quickly prised the rest out carefully with a knife, so I think I would go the cases next time. Absolutely drool worthy as promised.

White Chocolate & Berry Muffins

Fresh or frozen berries can be used. If using frozen berries, add them to the mixture while they are still frozen.

Makes 12 muffins.

320g (2 cups) self-raising flour
148g (2/3 cup) caster sugar
1 cup chopped white chocolate
2 teaspoons lemon juice
250ml (1 cup) milk
125ml (1/2 cup) mild vegetable oil
1 large egg
200g berries

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (fan forced). Line a muffin tray with 12 muffin cases.Mix self-raising flour, caster sugar and white chocolate together in large bowl.Whisk lemon juice, milk, oil and egg in a medium bowl until combined. Gently stir in berries.Gently stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stop stirring once the ingredients are combined (do not over mix). The batter should be quite wet.Spoon mixture into muffin cases. Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. To check whether muffins are cooked, press lightly on the centre of a muffin; if it springs back, it's ready.

Serve muffins warm or at room temperature, dusted with icing sugar. Muffins can be reheated in the microwave. They are best eaten on the day they are baked.

Iced Cinnamon Snail Rolls

Yesterday I was visiting my family & wanted to take along a tasty treat for all to indulge in. Flicking through my books, the usual cakes, muffins & bickies did not appeal, I felt like making something a bit different. I finally came across this recipe which was in Bill Granger's Sydney Food. I love bread & don’t mind a bit of baking so this seemed perfect, also had not made anything like this before so definitely keen to see how it would compare to shop bought delights of a similar nature. The preparation & assembly were really quite easy & not that far off making bread dough though the ingredients are a little different, the only factor you would need to consider making these is time as you have to let the dough rise twice, I found mine needed about an hour each time too & dont they look delicious even before they're cooked? Straight out of the oven & time for a quick icing & taste test, really good, the dough was quite fluffy & not too heavy or dry. The wicked flavour combination of butter, sugar, cinnamon, sultanas & currants was very evenly balanced, I find sometimes these can be too bready with not enough flavouring, no such problem with these. And the final touch of the icing really finished them off beautifully, rounding off all of the flavours. I think these would also be great with some chopped nuts though with Michael being allergic, I wont be trying that option too soon! Yum!

Iced Cinnamon Snail Rolls

Dough
2 x 7 g sachets dried yeast
¼ cup lukewarm water
1 cup milk
125g unsalted butter, cubed
4 cups plain flour
a pinch of salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup currants
1/3 cup sultanas
80g unsalted butter, melted
¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Icing
1 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon warm water
½ teaspoon vanilla essence

To make the dough, dissolve the yeast in warm water in a small bowl. Place milk & cubed butter in a medium saucepan and heat until butter is melted. Sift flour & salt into a large mixing bowl. Add sugar & stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and add eggs, & milk & yeast mixtures. Stir until a dough forms.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface & knead for 6-8 minutes, working in extra flour if too sticky. Add the currants & sultanas in the last 2 minutes of kneading. Turn the dough into a large, lightly greased bowl & cover with plastic wrap. Keep the bowl in a warm place & let the dough rise for 30 minutes to an hour until the dough has doubles in size.

Punch the dough down & turn onto a lightly floured bench. Roll it into a 23 x 60 cm rectangle. Brush generously with the melted butter, reserving some for later, and sprinkle evenly with the brown sugar & cinnamon.

Roll the dough up from the short end, swiss roll style, to make a log. Cut the roll, seam side down, into 2 cm thick slices & place on baking trays that have been lightly greased, leaving 1.5 cm between each slice. Brush the tops with the remaining butter. Cover loosely & leave to rise until doubled.

Preheat oven to 180c. Bake trolls for 20-30 minutes. Remove from the oven, allow to cool on rack for 10 minutes, drizzle with icing.

To make icing, place sugar, water & vanilla in a mixing bowl & stir until smooth. Add extra water if too thick to drizzle. Makes 12.

Spiced Apple & Prune Muffins

For brekky today I whipped up these surprisingly tasty & healthy muffins. I have never made any type of cakey thing with prunes before so was surprised at how sweet they tasted in these little gems. The recipe was a reader’s that I snipped out of a mag a while back

Spiced Apple & Prune Muffins

¾ cup wholemeal self raising flour
¾ cup plain flour
1 teaspoon ground allspice
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup chopped pitted prunes
140g tub apple puree
120g butter, melted
1 egg, beaten

Preheat oven to 180c. Spray a 12 x ¾ cup muffin pan with cooking spray.

Sift flours & allspice together in a bowl. Stir in the sugar & prunes. Make a well in the centre.

Combine remaining ingredients in a jug. Gradually fold into the dry ingredients, until just combined.

Spoon into the prepared pan & bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked when tested with a skewer. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Chocolate & cherry brownies

It’s Michaels birthday tomorrow & Cherry ripes are his fave chocolate so when I saw this recipe on Niki at Esurientes blog I knew I just had to make them for Michael. Niki used morello cherries which apparently could have caused them not too cook properly in the required time so I used dried cherries, looking back I would have used more than 100g to give a more intense cherry hit. Mine were really yummy but very, very moist in the centre – not liquid though. I like them this way & having never made brownies before I’m not sure just what texture they should be in the end. Will have to wait & see what the boy thinks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL!

Chocolate & Cherry Brownies

From Green and Black’s Chocolate Recipes: Unwrapped - From the Cacao Pod to Muffins, Mousses and Moles
300 g unsalted butter
300 g dark chocolate (minimum 60%, broken into pieces)
5 large eggs
400 g granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
200g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
100 g of dried cherries

Grease a roasting or baking tray.In a bowl (placed on top of a pot of boiling water) melt the butter and chocolate together until thick and creamyMeanwhile beat together sugar, eggs and vanilla extract until thick and creamy. The mixture should easily coat the back of a spoon.Once the butter-chocolate mixture has melted, remove from stove and beat into the egg mixtureSift the flour and salt together, and add to the wet ingredients. Mix until mixture is well combined.Drain morello cherries and fold into the brownie mixture.Pour mixture into the tray and bake for 20 - 30 minutes at 180COnce finished baking, allow to cool and cut into pieces.

Banana Maple Syrup muffins

This morning I whipped up this batch of muffins from Marie Claire ‘Cooking’ for brekky, will take the leftovers in to work tomorrow for a morning treat for everyone. They were incredibly simple to make, really it was pretty much just measure & stir & the taste was really delicious, and as the bananas were chopped rather than mashed you could really taste their flavour when you bit into them.

Banana Maple Syrup Muffins

2 cups self raising flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup sugar
300g (10 oz) sour cream
1 egg
3 tablespoons maple syrup
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 bananas, chopped

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk together balance of ingredients in another bowl. Add the banana/wet mixture to the dry mix & mix until just combined. Spoon mixture into a greased ½ cup capacity muffin tins and bake in preheated 200c oven for 25-30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Serve with extra maple syrup. Serves 12.

News Years Resoltion - Liver Cleansing Diet!

Well after a week & a bit of complete excess which followed from a month of Christmas lunches, dinners, parties & you name its, the pants were feeling a bit tight so I thought it was absolutely neccessary to start the New year off with the Liver Cleansing diet.

I started on 2nd Jan as I first had begin the new year well so went to my mums for dinner & had some lovely peirogi to start with followed by a Roast beef, can you get more comfort food than that, was delicious & nice way to start off 2006, good food, wine & with the family.

Anyway the diet is suppsoed to go for 8 weeks & we will see how I go. There will def be a break on the weekend of 20th Jan as I'm flying up to Brisbane for a girls weekend. On day 4 now & feeling much lighter already & the food is not too bad apart from the fact that I have to cut out all dairy, red meat & of course anything that contains sugar, white flour, etc! Oh well sure it will all taste even better than I remember after depriving myself for a few weeks. The diet has one saving grace, I am still allowed 4 glasses of wine a week, yippee, am really looking forward to Friday night now.

The photo is of some Banana & walnut muffins which I made from the book, they really arent too bad though not good enough to share the recipe thats for sure. Will not bother to share all the gory food I have to eat unless one of the recipes takes me by surpirse so see you back when I am in the real world again all cleansed & ready to destroy all my hard work

Bye for now