Rhubarb Streusel Muffins

This isn't a new recipe to me, but I wanted something quick to put together and bake, to take to the local Cake Club meeting. Whatever I made also needed to fit in with the theme of 'Summer', and as the recent heavy rain has given my rhubarb patch a late surge in growth, using some of that seemed the most obvious way to go.

I followed this recipe from Smitten Kitchen almost to the letter - the only changes I made were to use all white flour, rather than some wholemeal, and just demerara sugar in the crumble topping, for an extra bit of crunch.

The muffins were light, not too sweet and very subtly spiced. I used 200g of diced rhubarb but I think the recipe could have taken a little more, although you do have to be wary of the amount of fruit juice produced when the rhubarb cooks, which could make the muffins too damp and heavy.

Apple and Raisin Muffins

Although I've lost a lot of weight over the last 5 years, I'm still a few kilograms short of getting into the 'healthy' BMI range, and I know that keeping weight off is going to be a lifelong struggle for me. Acknowledging that I'm always going to have to be careful about how much I eat means I'm still interested in TV programmes about weight loss, especially if cooking and providing recipes is involved. I'm watching Tom Kerridge's  current series (Lose Weight for Good) with interest, as he's also dealing, to some extent, with the psychological barriers to losing weight, as well as claiming to produce tastier low calorie recipes, using his knowledge and experience as a Michelin starred chef.

In view of all that, I really expected to like these Apple and Raisin Muffins, even though, in general, I don't like using low-calorie sweeteners in place of sugar. In his recipe, Tom reduces the sugar and fat content by using just a little honey, low-calorie sweetener and mashed bananas. He briefly cooks the apples in caramelised honey and adds spices and roasted sesame oil to give a boost to the flavour.

As I've used it in the past, and was relatively happy with it, I decided to buy Truvia (a no-calorie sweetener made from Stevia) to use as a sweetener, as it seems more natural to me than the other forms of sweetener available. Guided by the information on the pack, I used two teaspoons of Truvia, equivalent to 6 teaspoons of sugar. Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly. One point to note about the recipe is that you need to cook the apples in the honey ahead of any other preparation, as they take a while to cool down. Apart from this stage, the recipe is fairly standard and simple to follow. The muffins produced rose well and looked really good.

Unfortunately the looks promised much more than the muffins actually delivered! I found the texture quite stodgy, and the muffins stuck really firmly to the paper cases, to the extent that quite a bit of the muffin was lost (unless you want to scrape the case for every last crumb). I could have overlooked this if the flavour had been better, but I found the muffins quite bland; I couldn't taste the spices at all, even though I could still smell them in the baked muffin. In addition to that, the presence of the sesame oil was more of a scent than a flavour - after the first mouthful, I didn't really notice it. The pieces of apple were well flavoured, but didn't make up for the blandness of the crumb.

It's difficult to assess the claim that these are low calorie - 190 calories per muffin - as it's generally only muffins that claim to be healthy (and often found on diet and healthy eating websites) that give a calorie count. The nearest basic apple muffin recipe I could find, with no claims to reduced fat or sugar, contained 250 calories per muffin, but I'm afraid, even with a 20% reduction in calorie content, these disappointing muffins weren't worth the calories. 190 calories is quite a big chunk out of a restricted calorie diet, although I think Tom was suggesting eating them for breakfast, not as an extra treat. If you do want a treat there are a lot of tastier ways of using that number of calories - most involving chocolate, I have to say!

Apricot and Pine Nut Muffins

Things are changing again! FB has got her feet on the bottom of the property ladder, at last, and will be moving out soon. In the meantime Hubs and I are busy helping her get the new house into good condition. She's lucky that there is time to clean properly and redecorate where necessary, before she moves in - whenever we've moved, that sort of thing has had to be left until we've settled in, or be done in a hurry while we are deciding where to store things, and how to arrange the furniture. Although she's lived away from home for many years, and has accumulated lots of books and kitchen equipment, she has always lived in furnished rented accommodation, so has no furniture of her own yet, so that's another task that she needs help with, as she doesn't drive. A trip to IKEA is next on the agenda!

All this is to explain why I've done little baking lately, and why there is likely to be even less in future. With just the two of us here, and both of us with weight problems to varying degrees, there will be less call for cakes and calorific desserts. Even now, when I bake, I often divide the batter to make two small cakes, and freeze one, so I've already cut down to some extent. I'm not sure yet how this will affect my blogging, although I'd like to carry on with the monthly baking challenges, so I don't expect be giving up altogether.

I made a Red Berry, Chocolate and Marzipan cake recently, much like this cake that I made last year. I used double the amount of dried fruit and dark chocolate instead of white, and it was just as delicious, but I only realised that I hadn't photographed it as the last piece was being eaten!

 

Muffins are also useful when you don't need much cake, as they usually freeze well. Four of these Apricot and Pine Nut Muffins went into the freezer, leaving a manageable amount for us to eat. I really like them, but Hubs didn't like their smell! I'm not sure what he could smell, as I didn't notice anything unpleasant; the only thing I could think of was that the smell of cooked pine nuts was unpleasant to him.

The original recipe, in the Muffin Bible, called these Pine Nut and Yogurt Muffins, but dried apricots are a major ingredient, so it seemed more fitting to call them Apricot and Pine Nut Muffins. I've found this recipe online, which looks identical; the only thing I did differently was not to chop the pine nuts - there didn't seem any point. You'll notice the recipe adds a small amount of honey; I used a wild thyme honey and the combination of thyme, apricots and pine nuts suggested Greek flavours to me. Although I liked these, I'm unlikely to make them again, so as not to offend his lordship's delicate nose!
 

Rhubarb Streusel Muffins - a Tea Time Treat

This month's Tea Time Treat challenge is to make fairy cakes, cupcakes or muffins, all of which are eminently suitable for any type of tea table, from feeding hordes of hungry children to a dainty afternoon tea using the best china. My problem is I don't really like making them! I can't be bothered with the fiddle of decorating fairy cakes, and don't like cupcakes which have more frosting than cake. I'm beginning to conquer my ineptitude with muffins, but for a long time I avoided making them as they got poor reviews from the family in comparison with shop bought ones.

However, if I was going to take part in this challenge, it would have to be muffins, so I started thinking about delicate seasonal flavours suitable for the tea table. I didn't want robust, heavy muffins full of oats, bran and dried fruit, which are more the sort of thing you eat to fill you at breakfast time, but something you could eat as part of a larger meal, and not feel over-stuffed. When I saw that my rhubarb was just about ready for the first stems to be harvested, the decision was made for me!

My favorite sort of muffins are those with steusel toppings - you get the contrast of a different texture and often a different flavour too, without a lot of effort when making them. The recipe I chose, from Smitten Kitchen, also stirred a portion of the streusel crumbs into the muffin batter, which was a really effective idea.

I followed the recipe exactly, except I used all white flour to make the muffins lighter and more delicate, and I used demerara sugar in the streusel topping to give more crunch. I also rounded all the metric weights to the nearest 5g - my scales work that way, and it's more than accurate enough for most baking!

The muffins turned out really well - they were light and moist, despite the batter being quite stiff. My naturally grown, unforced rhubarb didn't stay pink when cooked, but the little cubes of fruit were still noticeable in the muffins and tasted really good. The hint of cinnamon and nutmeg in the topping went well with the rhubarb too.

Tea Time Treats is a monthly challenge co-hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage, and Kate at What Kate Baked, who chose this month's theme. It's name speaks for itself, but more details can be found here.

Courgette and Lime Muffins

with added peach - a variation for AlphaBakes.

We came back from a few days in Normandy to find the garden running riot in the unexpected warmth of a late summer. I don't mind excess runner beans, as they can be frozen, but courgettes which are almost marrow-sized need a bit of lateral thinking to use them up. Time for courgettes in a bake, I thought - something I've been meaning to try for ages.

After searching around, and realising that nearly all the recipes were just variations of carrot cake - with similar additions and flavourings - I settled on this recipe, from goodtoknow.co.uk,  for courgette and lime muffins, which sounded fresh and summery and different to most of the recipes I'd looked at. I decided I wouldn't add the frosting - it seems superfluous for muffins!

At this point I thought of the blogging baking challenges that I usually take part in every month - could these muffins somehow be used for one of them? Fresh, summery flavours spoke to me of fresh fruit, and I just happened to have a bowl of French peaches which were rapidly ripening. I decided to add a slice of peach to some of the muffins, and enter them into the AlphaBakes challenge, which this month is featuring the letter P. I cut a peach into 8 wedges and added a slice to the top of 8 of the 12 muffins, before baking. As my courgettes were so large, I quartered one lengthways and removed the centre seedy area, before grating. Other than this, I followed the recipe exactly.

These were really pretty and tasted good too! The lime zest and green skin from the courgettes flecked the crumb with green, although the courgettes didn't seem to add anything to the flavour. In the muffins with added peach slices, the flavours of peach and lime blended together surprisingly well. The muffins with the peach slices didn't rise as evenly as the plain muffins, but it was good to eat a large chunk of peach in the muffin - and I think adding small chunks of fruit might have made the batter too wet. I was also impressed by how light these muffins were - either I'm getting better at making muffins, or better at choosing recipes!

The AlphaBakes Challenge is a monthly baking challenge to make something  featuring a randomly chosen letter - this can be part of the name of the product or one of the major ingredients. It is hosted jointly by Caroline, from Caroline Makes, and Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, who take turns to generate a random letter and collate the entries. This month Caroline picked the letter P.

Chocolate Brownie Muffins - Baking Mad

I expect most food bloggers receive promotional emails offering free goodies in return for a mention in a blog post. I've only taken advantage of these twice before - once to receive a charity recipe book, and once for free samples of one of the low sugar/stevia products. I don't like feeling obligated to cook or write about something in particular, which stops me taking up a lot of the offers I get - they just don't fit into my style of cooking or the general theme of the blog. However, the ongoing campaign for Baking Mad caught my eye - bake from a selected bunch of recipes from the Baking Mad site and receive a book by Eric Lanlard.

I'm only peripherally aware of Eric Lanlard, as I don't watch many of the food programmes on TV - we only bought a Freeview box just before the digital changeover, and I still try not to watch TV during the day. My impression of him is of a French patissier whose recipes looked amazing, but far too complicated for the average cook to follow. This certainly isn't true of all the recipes on Baking Mad, but then, they are not all Eric Lanlard recipes; he seems to be associated with the site through the name of his TV series, but the site itself is run by a conglomeration of food companies such as Silver Spoon, Billingtons and Allisons - are all these owned by the same parent company? Yes - they are all under the Silver Spoon umbrella!

The Baking Mad site seems to give extensive coverage of all aspects of baking, with several ways of looking for particular types of recipes - from Cakes and Pastry recipes through Jams and Chutneys, to gluten free baking. There's a section on Kid's Cooking as well as baking tips. There's also a community area, where you can join in discussions on baking. As well as Eric Lanlard recipes, there are others contributed by TV cooks, although the vast majority have no noted contributor, other than 'bakingmad'.

One of the choices on the list provided was for something from the range of muffin recipes on the site. I chose these Chocolate Brownie Muffins because they looked quick and simple to make, and were relatively low in both fat and added sugar. I followed the recipe exactly, only substituting hazelnuts for the pecans in the recipe, so that FB could eat them. The recipe was as simple as it looked, although I couldn't find an explanation of the electric oven temperatures - I had to assume the first was for a conventional oven and the second for a fan assisted oven. There was also the puzzle of the additional ingredient - 50g of dark muscovado sugar  - which wasn't used in the recipe. Perhaps it was an option to increase the sweetness, if preferred. The muffins could certainly have done with the extra sweetness, but I would have liked to read something in the recipe which explained this!

Now, you will know by now that muffins aren't my forté, so it's possible that someone else would get a better product, but I found these a little on the dry side, and although they were light in texture, they didn't rise much. They were also nowhere near as chocolatey as a good muffin should be - the addition of some cocoa to the batter, and some chocolate chips stirred through, would have improved this. The cooking temperature also seemed a little on the high side - the muffins looked a little overdone even on the minimum cooking time!

I certainly can't dismiss the whole site on the basis of one recipe which wasn't a complete success. I'll try another recipe - perhaps one by Eric Lanlard himself - and I will add the site to my list of sites to search when I'm looking for new ideas. I've already wasted spent a lot of time there! From what I've seen, the majority of the recipes are quick and easy to make, and don't need unusual or hard to find ingredients.

Hazelnut Praline Muffins

This recipe comes from a little book called the 'Muffin Bible', which I found recently in a charity shop. Some of my best books have been bought second hand in this way, and most of them look as if they have never been opened, let alone any of the recipes used. It's obviously where impulse buys after TV series, and Christmas presents, end up after a year or two!

Up to now, I haven't been that keen on muffin recipes, but I'm growing a little fonder of them now that I'm baking more with oil instead of butter - they are quick to mix and cook when other tasks, away from the kitchen, seem more pressing. The book turned out to be an Australian publication from Penguin, and the recipes, including several for savoury muffins, are written in a quirky mix of weights and volumes in the same recipe - half a cup of sugar, but 50g of chopped chocolate, for instance. This recipe for Hazelnut Praline Muffins is the first I've tried, although several more are bookmarked!

For this recipe I had to make praline, which was a first for me - the recipe called for boiling sugar and chopped nuts together, until the sugar was melted and golden brown. I could smell the nuts getting overheated long before the sugar showed signs of melting, so cautiously added a couple of tablespoons of water to slow the heating and start to dissolve the sugar prior to caramelising it. This seemed to work OK, although the proportion of nuts to sugar was so high it was difficult to see the colour of the liquid sugar. My guess at the endpoint worked for this praline, but I'm not sure it would have been right for making a caramel!

The muffins weren't much to look at, but they made up for this with the little pockets of praline, which gave bursts of nutty flavour and crunchy texture when eaten. The caramelised sugar really intensified the flavour of the hazelnuts. They didn't rise a lot, either, so I think it would have been better to make 10 larger muffins than try to squeeze 12 out of the batter.

Ingredients
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts - I used ready toasted nuts
1/2 cup sugar
80mls sunflower oil
150g caster sugar
1 egg
150mls milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
225g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
demerara sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Method
Make a praline from the chopped nuts and first quantity of sugar - boil them gently together until golden brown, and allow to cool on greased foil. Break into pieces then crush into smaller pieces with a rolling pin.
Whisk the oil, second quantity of sugar, milk, egg and vanilla in a large bowl then add the flour, baking powder and praline and mix lightly until just combined.
Divide between 12 muffin cases, sprinkle with demerara sugar, if using, and bake at 190C for about 20 minutes.

Dan Lepard's Chocolate Macaroon Cakes

This was another case of seeing a recipe and wanting to make it immediately! It was a little naughty of me, as the cakes contain butter, but I thought it was quite a small proportion compared to the amount usually in cakes of this type. Of course, there was the double cream too.......

Anyway,  the recipe is published in the March issue of the Waitrose Kitchen magazine as a Mother's Day treat - see here. There's no chance of me getting a Mother's Day treat unless I bake it myself, so why wait? The method is very similar to Dan's much loved Chocolate Custard Muffins, in that a cocoa based custard is made first, to which the other ingredients are added. The topping of crushed Amaretti biscuits was inspired - I love crunchy streusel toppings on cakes and this was an instant way of achieving one. I used 60g of the tiny ratafia biscuit to top twelve buns.

Of course, things rarely go smoothly, and I found I was short of a few muffin cases. I used squares of baking parchment instead, and although I liked the visual effect, working with pieces of paper which don't want to hold their folded shape and keep trying to spring flat again was quite frustrating. Fortunately there were only four of them, or the cake batter might have ended up on the kitchen walls.

The finshed cakes were richly chocolatey, dense and moist. They were unlike either spongey cupcakes or muffins - more like a cakey brownie, or the best sort of rich chocolate cake. The ground almonds in the cake mixture add nicely to the almondy flavour of the topping. This recipe is one to try for those not keen on muffins or over-frosted cupcakes, I think. I'll definitely be making them again for special occasions.

Chocolate Chip, Marzipan and Cranberry Muffins

As you probably know, muffins aren't my favourite type of baked treat. There are times, though, when they are really useful - good portion control, quick to mix and quick to bake too. They are even good if you need to eat them while still warm - most cakes are not happy if you try to cut them while they are warm!

This recipe, from allrecipes.co.uk, proved to be a good basic recipe, although I didn't get 12 muffins from it. It was incredibly easy to mix - whisk the wet ingredients together, mix the dry ingredients in another bowl and stir the dry into the wet. The muffins were also light enough to pass muster with CT, who usually prefers shop bought muffins(!!).

I left off the sugar topping, and instead of 125g of chocolate chips I used 85g chopped plain chocolate, 85g marzipan cut into small cubes and 50g of dried cranberries. I also added a teaspoon of vanilla extract. The mixture made 10 muffins, with the cases filled about 3/4 with the muffin batter.

The basic muffin batter was not over-sweet, and I used 70% chocolate, so the sweetness of the marzipan and dried sweetened cranberries stood out well.

Unfortunately, they were eaten before I could get a picture of the inside of one of them! The only complaint, from FB, was not enough marzipan.

Orange, Cranberry and Chocolate Muffins

What could be more seasonal than the smells and flavours of oranges, cranberries, chocolate and cinnamon? All are present in abundance in these muffins, which would make a tasty light breakfast on Christmas Day morning. These muffins may be my entry to December's We Should Cocoa Challenge, but for the moment I want to hold them in reserve; I have other plans using orange and chocolate together, but at this time of year, my plans are often greater than my achievements! If I run out of time or energy, these will be a worthy entrant to the challenge.

I've used this recipe for Orange and Blueberry Muffins, from Dom at Belleau Kitchen, as the base recipe as it's one of the most successful muffin recipes I've tried. It isn't oversweet and the use of oats and oil give more than a passing illusion of healthiness! Instead of fresh blueberries I used dried cranberries presoaked in orange juice, and plain chocolate.

Ingredients
125g dried cranberries
roughly 300ml orange juice (I used juice from a carton; see method for explanation of amount)
100g rolled oats
375g plain flour
200g caster sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (reduced from original recipe)
250ml sunflower oil
3 beaten eggs
1 egg white*
225g blueberries
finely grated zest and juice of 1 large orange, separated
100g plain chocolate, finely chopped

Topping, mix together - 70g turbinado (or demerara) sugar
50g toasted hazelnuts, finely chopped
1 teaspoon cinnamon

* the extra egg white was just to use up one that was lurking in my eye-line in the fridge!

Method
Put the cranberries into a small bowl and cover with orange  juice. Soak for at least 4 hours.
Drain the berries, reserving any juice not absorbed. Measure the juice into a jug or cup and make up to 250ml with the fresh orange juice and more juice from the carton if necessary. (I found I needed only about another 30ml of carton juice)
Pre-heat the oven to 200C, 180C fan
Mix the rolled oats into the orange juice and set aside while you mix the batter.

In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Make a well in the centre and add the oat mixture, eggs + extra white and oil, and mix until the flour is just incorporated. Stir in the orange zest, cranberries and chocolate.
Fill muffin cases 3/4 full and sprinkle the top of each with just under a teaspoon of the topping mixture.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a test probe is clean (mine took 22 minutes this time, perhaps due to the extra egg white).

I made 22 muffins from this mixture.

These muffins don't appear to rise a lot, but they still have a good light, but moist, texture. All the separate flavour elements in these muffins could be tasted, and the turbinado sugar and hazelnuts gave a lovely crunchy contrast to the soft crumb and chewy cranberries. The only improvement I could see was perhaps a little more cinnamon in the topping - perhaps another 1/2 teaspoon.

Note Added 18th Dec - I'm pretty sure now that I'm going to run out of time. The next Chocolate/Orange combination I bake will be my Christmas Cake, which will be made on Christmas Eve. Even after it's finished, I probably won't have time to post about it by the We Should Cocoa deadline. So this is now officially my entry to the December Challenge, which was to use orange in combination with chocolate. This month's challenge is hosted by Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog, and you can also find the rules on her Blog if you want to join in with future challenges.

Orange and Blueberry Muffins

You know that me and muffins don't get along, so I surprised even myself when I decided to make these muffins, from Dom at Belleau Kitchen, as soon as I saw the recipe. This is a recipe that Dom's mum picked up from the chef when she was at the Peregrine Inn in Yosemite, California - she's a determined lady when she wants a recipe, apparently!

Surprise number two was that the recipe worked really well, although I didn't do it full justice, as I couldn't find any nuts to make the topping. That was surprise number three - that I'd let the baking store cupboard run down - not like me at all!

Unlike Dom, I did have some rolled oats that I could use, so apart from the topping and reducing the salt a little, I followed the recipe exactly, although the muffins took 20 minutes to bake with my oven set to 180C fan. This was a big recipe - I made 22 muffins, although the last two didn't have their fair share of blueberries - the fruit I bought was quite large (especially compared to frozen blueberries) so I wished I'd added a few extra. I sprinkled demerara sugar on the top of the muffins before baking, to give a textural contrast, but I really think they needed the topping given in the recipe, as the flavour was pleasant, but a little bland, without it.

As I said, the recipe worked very well to give light muffins with a close crumb. The oats really weren't evident in the texture, which was another surprise! The flavour was quite delicate, but would have been improved by the walnuts and cinnamon in the intended topping. I think this is a muffin recipe which could easily be varied by using different fruit juices, spices and added fruit - apple and blackberry springs to mind. As it's one of the most successful muffin recipes I've tried, and it fits into my 'low saturated fat' baking scheme, I'm sure I'll be using it again, so thanks to Dom and his intrepid mother for sharing the recipe!

I'm not going to copy out the recipe - you can visit Belleau Kitchen for that, from the link above - but as an aide memoire I'm going to list the metric weights/volumes of ingredients I used (or should have) after converting from cups:

• 100g rolled oats
• 250ml orange juice
• 375g plain flour
• 200g caster sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (reduced from original recipe)
• 250ml sunflower oil
• 3 beaten eggs
• 225g blueberries
• finely grated zest of medium orange
• 70g sugar for topping
• 50g finely chopped nuts for topping
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon for topping

Sue Lawrence's Bulging Chocolate Muffins

I'm letting the author of this recipe take the blame for the misnomer; there's quite a lot of chocolate in this recipe but it hardly makes the muffins bulge with it! They might have looked more bulging if they had risen better, but I think this was another case of me and muffin recipes not getting on. I'm trying to find a reliable muffin recipe using oil, and chose this Sue Lawrence recipe because it was the first I came across, in my cook books, from a cook who is considered reliable. I haven't baked a lot of her recipes but those I've used have been OK, and she usually gets good reviews on other blogs. I guess it's my curse not to be able to make muffins.

This recipe was slightly unusual in using some semolina with the flour - about 1/3 - but other than that it was an ordinary looking recipe - put dry ingredients into a bowl and lightly mix in the wet ingredients without beating. But these muffins rose strangely while cooking and looked neither like muffins nor cupcakes; this could have been an effect of the fan oven, which I don't usually use for baking.

The ingredients were - 170ml milk, 2 eggs, 85ml sunflower oil, beaten together, then mixed into 145g plain flour, 2 tablespoons cocoa, a pinch salt, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 55g caster sugar, 85g semolina, 145g chopped chocolate (I used a mixture of roughly equal quantities of plain, milk and white). This makes 12 muffins which are baked for 20 minutes at 200C.

To taste, the muffins were richly chocolately, but a little stodgy and not sweet enough, even with the milk and white chocolate. Not a recipe to use again, I'm afraid

Chocolate Almond Muffins with Marzipan Streusel Topping

I intended this to be my entry for this month's 'We Should Cocoa' challenge, but I'm not entirely happy with the results, so I'll hold it as a reserve for the moment. I was quite happy with the general idea, but the muffin wasn't chocolatey enough - it needed either some plain chocolate chips or some melted chocolate added to the muffin batter. A chopped up dark Toblerone bar might have added an extra nuance to the flavour, without overpowering the almond flavour. The streusel topping, containing grated marzipan, worked very well and gave a really crisp crumble topping to the muffins.

I used Nigella Lawson's recipe for chocolate chip muffins as a guideline, as it uses vegetable oil rather than butter. Here's one online version of the recipe. Foolishly, I left out the chocolate chips, and lived to regret it. I also used SR flour instead of plain flour + baking powder, and used 200g flour and 50g ground almonds. The only other change was to add a few drops of almond extract to the liquid ingredients.

For the streusel topping, I mixed 70g plain flour, 50g demerara sugar and 75g grated white marzipan, then stirred in 55g melted butter.

When cool this was crumbled evenly over the muffin batter before baking.

The recipe worked quite well, considering muffins aren't one of my strong points, although my efforts not to overmix left a few floury patches in the muffins. I just can't get it completely right!

Because of the butter in the streusel topping, I can't really claim these are low in saturated fat, but they're not as bad as if I'd used butter in the muffin batter too! The mildness of the chocolate flavour allowed the almond flavour to come through too.

Black Bottom Cupcakes

I'm more excited about my new plate than I am about these cupcakes. Do you like it? I'm always on the look-out for pretty plates for my photographs but I don't very often see individual plates - even the charity shops usually sell sets, or part sets, which they don't want to split. So I was quite excited to find this Doulton tea plate from the 1930s, looking forlorn on a shelf, surrounded by unrelated bric-a-brac - not a matching cup in sight! I just couldn't leave it there, could I?

The cupcakes are a different matter. One look at the online recipe and photograph will pinpoint the main problem - the recipe says scoop out the cheesecake mixture; mine was pourable! In consequence, instead of the chocolate sponge rising round the cheesecake blob, the cheesecake spread over the top, and looked like a frosting when baked. The recipe is from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, and it's the second recipe I've tried which has been disappointing.

The second potential problem, for me, was that the chocolate sponge base was one of those eggless mixtures, raised by the action of bicarbonate of soda on vinegar. I didn't realise this until I'd reached a point of no turning back, and I was quite worried, as the last time I made one of this type of cake it was so awful we had to throw it away! Happily, this batter rose nicely and didn't taste too bad - just a few random air-pockets to spoil a photograph!

Like Choclette, I had a problem with the consistency of the chocolate batter and had to add more water - about 30mls, which is quite a lot extra on 125mls. I also didn't bother with the frosting - it doesn't  really fit in with lowering the fat content of things!

Although CT was happy to eat these, Hubs didn't like them, and I don't think I'll be making them again - or not from this recipe at least. I still like the idea of these, but would like to find a recipe which works better, and a reason why my cheesecake mixture turned liquid.

Pear and Blueberry Cupcakes with Hazelnut Crumb Topping

These are big cupcakes, bursting out of muffin cases! This recipe came about as a result of having only 80g of blueberries left over from another recipe. Not enough for blueberry muffins, or any other sort of cake where blueberries were the main feature, but with added flavours there should be enough to taste.

I quite liked the pairing of pears with blueberries, in a cake I made a while ago, so decided to repeat that combination, adding some hazelnuts to a crumble topping for added crunch and flavour.

Ingredients

100g salted butter, at room temperature

100g caster sugar
2 large eggs

150g SR flour

50g full-fat Greek style yogurt

1 pear, peeled cored and chopped into small pieces

80g blueberries

for the topping:

55g salted butter

70g plain flour

50g demerara sugar

25g finely chopped toasted hazelnuts

Method

First make the topping by melting the butter in a small bowl(microwave) or pan(hob), then stirring in the other ingredients. This gives a soft dough, which you will be able to crumble, once it is cool.

Preheat the oven to 180C and put muffin cases into a 12-hole muffin pan

To make the cupcake batter, put all the ingredients, except the pears and blueberries, into a bowl and beat until well mixed and smooth. Fold in the chopped pears.

Distribute the batter evenly between the muffin cases, filling each one to just over halfway. I got 9 cakes out of this amount of batter. Divide the blueberries between the cupcakes, sprinkling them on the surface and pressing down lightly with the back of a spoon to flatten the mixture and embed the blueberries.

Use your fingers to crumble the topping dough over the cupcakes, as equally and evenly as possible.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until firm and golden brown. A probe will come out clean. Cool in the pan for a few minutes then move the cupcakes to a wire rack to finish cooling.

This recipe worked very well - the pear stayed evenly distributed throughout the batter, and putting the blueberries between the batter and the topping meant they didn't sink, and also gave some colour to the cupcakes. The crumble topping worked well, as it always does, adding a contrast in texture and some extra flavour to the cake. I've previously only used this recipe with added chocolate, and without it the cupcakes weren't quite sweet enough. In future I'll add an extra 25g sugar to the batter.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

They say a picture paints a thousand words, and it's certainly true that you only need to look at this picture for an explanation of why I don't often bother with making cupcakes - what a mess! That's also the reason why I was going to ignore National Cupcake Week, but I had this flavour idea going around in my head which I thought would only work well as a cupcake. So, in the sprit of cupcake cameraderie, here are my

Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

Cupcakes - makes 12
130g SR flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

90g unsalted butter - softened

110g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

 90g smooth peanut butter

2 tablespoons natural Greek yogurt

25g each plain chocolate and butterscotch chips

Frosting
70g unsalted butter - softened
140g icing sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa
1 tablespoon hot water
50g plain 70% chocolate - melted

Method
Preheat oven to 180C, place 12 muffin cases into the holes in a muffin tin.
Sift flour together with salt and bicarbonate of soda.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, with a teaspoon of flour to prevent curdling.
Next, beat in the peanut butter, yogurt and vanilla extract.
Fold in the rest of the flour, followed by the chocolate and butterscotch chips.
Divide the mixture equally between the paper cases, then bake for about 20-25 minutes until risen and firm.
Cool on a wire rack.
Make the frosting by beating the butter with the sifted icing sugar and cocoa, and the water until light and fluffy. Then beat in the melted chcolate. Spread or pipe the frosting over the cooled cupcakes. (If you want to pipe a thick swirl you will need more frosting than this - probably double the amount!)

The caramel flavour of the butterscotch chips really enhances the peanut butter flavour, while the chocolate frosting adds a creamy richness that you don't get from the light sponge of the cupcakes.

This recipe was inspired, in part, by Martha Stewart's recipe for Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting and Jelly

ps -  the winning cupcakes on the National Cupcake Day link look fabulous! Shows how much difference a piping bag makes!

Chocolate Orange Crumble Cupcakes

These should really be called 'leftovers' cupcakes, as the idea was conceived when I couldn't initially find a pan big enough to bake the Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake in. "Don't worry" I said to myself, "CT doesn't like rhubarb anyway, so you'll have to bake him something - cook the excess batter as cupcakes".

Then I found a skillet type pan which was big enough to take all the rhubarb cake batter. But the need to bake for CT didn't go away and there were still leftovers from the cake - a small quantity of sour cream and the zest of half an orange, plus I really liked the idea of a crumble topping on cupcakes. So I made these:

Ingredients

100g softened butter

100g caster sugar

2 large eggs

150g SR flour

50mls sour cream

finely grated zest of half a large orange

100g bar Honeycomb Crisp Toblerone - chopped fairly small

Topping - 55g butter, 70g plain flour, 50g demerara sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 190C. Place paper cases into a supporting muffin or cupcake tin.(I used muffin cases and made 9 cakes.)

Make the topping by melting the butter in a small bowl in the microwave and mixing in the flour and sugar - set aside to cool.

Put all the remaining ingredients except the chocolate into a bowl and beat until the mixture is smooth. Stir in the chopped chocolate.

Divide the mixture between cupcake cases, filling them 2/3 full. Crumble a little of the topping mixture over each cake, trying to make the crumbs quite small.

Bake until well risen, golden and springy to the touch - about 25 minutes depending on size.

Cool on a wire rack.

These were not fairy-light cupcakes, in fact they were quite like muffins in texture. The little pieces in the chopped Toblerone (honey and almond nougat and crisped rice) and the crisp crumble on top gave a varied texture to the cake. The flavoured milk chocolate and the orange zest added up to an interesting but subtle flavour! I don't usually use milk chocolate in cakes, but here the extra sweetness balanced the lower amount of sugar and the sour cream in the batter. 

Chocolate Custard Muffins

I've written about these before, as they are the only home-made muffins which my son really prefers to shop bought ones. I don't think that's anything to do with my baking skills - I think it's just that shop bought muffins are lighter and softer than those produced by any of the recipes I've tried. This is the first time I've made these since I started writing this blog, so it's a good opportunity to add a photo.

These are called chocolate custard muffins, not because they conceal a custard centre, but because they are made in a saucepan, with a base of cooked cocoa flavoured custard. The recipe, here, is another of Dan Lepard's marvellous creations, and it's very quick to make, once you have all the ingredients weighed and laid out ready to add to the pan.

There's not much else to say about them really, except they are light, but intensely rich and chocolatey in flavour!

Hummingbird Bakery - Ginger Cupcakes

I received The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook as a surprise present recently, and promised to bake something from it as soon as possible.

A discussion on the BBC food message board about problems with the vanilla cupcake recipe from the book prompted me to try the recipe for ginger cupcakes. The recipe itself is about as far as you can get from the traditional British 'fairy cake' recipe of equal quantities by weight of eggs, SR flour, caster sugar and butter (counting an egg as 50g) - there is a very small proportion of butter, more sugar than flour and about half the amount of egg, the rest of the wet ingredients being made up with milk. The recipe also uses plain flour and baking powder - giving a little more raising agent than if using SR flour. The method is different too - the soft butter is worked into the flour, sugar and baking powder until evenly distributed, then the wet ingredients are beaten in.

The recipe for ginger cupcakes is similar to the vanilla recipe - adding 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice and some finely chopped stem ginger (I used 7 large nuggets). After baking the cupcakes are drizzled with a little of the stem ginger syrup.

I found the recipe easy to follow but ended up with quite a liquid batter. This made me concerned that the pieces of stem ginger added would sink to the bottom. The recipe was supposed to make 12 cupcakes in 'large American sized cases'. I used muffin cases and only made 8 cupcakes, although I may have overfilled the cases slightly. The cakes rose fairly well in the oven and didn't sink on cooling, which was the problem the BBC poster had had. I don't think the rise was as great as if the same amount of Victoria Sandwich batter had been in the cases, and it was definitely a more gentle rise, with the cupcakes staying quite flat on top.

The flavour and texture of the cupcakes was very good, but, as I expected, the pieces of stem ginger sank, and stuck to the paper case as the cupcakes cooled. This made it almost impossible to get the cupcakes out of the paper cases without the cake splitting in half, especially with the soft frosting making them difficult to handle.

The frosting was the best part of the recipe - using less butter than a traditional buttercream and beating in some milk for lightness. The result was both less sweet and less cloying than buttercream, which isn't one of my favourite frostings. The frosting for the ginger cupcakes has added lemon zest and the milk was infused with fresh ginger overnight (although I couldn't taste this).

Musing on Muffins

I DON'T do muffins. I CAN do muffins, but almost every recipe I try is greeted with the cry "They're OK, but I prefer the muffins you buy". Is it any wonder I don't bother with them?*

I don't know what makes the difference. Are shop-bought muffins really just large cupcakes, and technically not a muffin at all? Is it the emulsifiers and humectants and so on which make commercial muffins light and airy but claggy in the mouth, or a different type of recipe? Do I put in too many chocolate chips, or too much fruit, and make them too rich? Is my son addicted to artificial chemicals and flavourings?

However, muffins are useful. There are inevitably days when even a dedicated cake maker can't find the time or energy to cook, even when there's no cake in the house; that's when I buy muffins. 'Cake' is still available, and in a form not to be sneered at as inferior to what is usually provided.




* the one noble, and definitely notable, exception to this pattern are Dan Lepard's Chocolate Custard Muffins which must be declared the best chocolate muffins in the world, as my son thinks they are better than shop-bought muffins.