Choc chip orange muffins

I've been looking at my blog posts for the last year, checking out which have been most popular. Eddie was watching the one zillion-th episode of Yu-Gi-Oh, while Sash was doing what I call a I'm-feeling-peckish-dance around my table, and pointing at some of the cake photos.
Looks like we need to bake some sweet treats. Muffins are probably the easiest option for an afternoon tea.
I had a quick look around the kitchen, what do I have, what needs to be used? OK, I've got one last orange, and a handful of chocolate buttons, and all the usual cakey-bakey ingredients.

Choc chip orange muffins it is then. I know there are probably one million recipes for choc chip muffins, as it's a classic recipe.

Choc chip orange muffins (makes 12)
Ingredients:
zest of 1 orange
juice of 1/2 orange
90g caster sugar
pinch of salt
2 medium eggs
300g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
150ml milk
70g butter, melted
60g chocolate buttons

In a big mixing bowl zest 1 orange. Add the orange juice, caster sugar, salt, and beat in 2 eggs. Sift in the flour. Mix in the remaining ingredients, including the melted butter.
Divide the mixture between 12 muffin cases, inserted into the muffin baking tray. Cook the muffins for 18+ minutes at 180C, until they are golden and firm. Check they are cooked with a wooden toothpick; if it comes out clean, they are done.

Eat warm or cold, with tea, coffee or milk.

Now that Eddie is a proud owner of the Hedwig mug, he claims that tea tastes better in it. One of our friends gave him a book shop gift card for Christmas, and he has chosen this mug.
Who am I to argue? I am convinced that tea tastes better, when I drink it from my favourite mug as well.

Apple cereal muffins

Apple season is upon us. We have several apple trees in the garden, including two old trees, which Eddie loves to climb on. These two trees have eating apples which are quite tart in taste. They're best picked by the end of September, and keep very well in boxes over winter, getting sweeter and sweeter.
I don't know what the variety is, they are not Gala or Braeburn. And we've got a big crop again this year. A lot of our neighbours have apples of their own, and you often see buckets of apples outside homes, offering them for free.

I also have a young Golden Delicious tree, which my Mum planted a couple of years ago, and this year we had quite a few apples. They were on a small size but pretty good.

Needless to say, there are just too many apples for us to eat. I still have some of the apple preserves left from the last year. And I've been offering apples left and right to anyone who's willing to take them.
Now is the season, when I'm trying to use apples as much as possible. Thankfully, we love them in all kinds of bakes.
Yesterday morning I was baking a batch of apple muffins.

Apple cereal muffins
Ingredients (makes 10-11)
2 medium apples
2 medium eggs
150g dememare sugar
125ml milk (plant-based or dairy)
80g butter, melted
250g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1/2tsp cinnamon
a handful of cereal as a topping, or nuts (pine nuts or flaked almonds)

Start by grating two apples. You don't have to peel the apples, it will only add to the texture of the cupcakes. In a big bowl mix the grated apples, demerara sugar and two eggs. Add the flour, milk, melted butter, baking powder, cinnamon and mix well.

Spoon the cake mix into the paper muffin cases and sprinkle the cereal on top.
Place the muffin tin (I put the muffin cases in the muffin tin so that they keep the shape rather than go flat) in the oven preheated to 180C and bake for about 20+ minutes. The muffins should be golden brown in colour and well-risen.

They are very fluffy in texture, moist and sweet. Good for breakfast or in a lunch box. They will keep well for 2-3 days in a tin.

You can leave them as they are, or drizzle a bit of icing on top. As Sasha is off school this week, until his school transport is sorted out, he helped me decorate the muffins with the glaze and fruit stars.

Sasha scoffed a couple of muffins as soon as they slightly cooled. Eddie ate one after school, and ceded "Not bad!" - Thanks for your kind words, son!

In this recipe I used Dorset Cereals Spectacular Grains Raspberries & Apple with toasted spelt & popped buckwheat which was one of the products in the latest Degustabox food box.
You can use any of the healthier cereal or granola as a topping.
Ingredients include grains (68%) [wholegrain toasted wheat flakes, toasted sweetened malted barley flakes, toasted sweetened malted spelt flakes, wholegrain malted oat flakes, wholegrain barley flakes, popped buckwheat, sultanas, dried apple slices and freeze dried raspberries, pumpkin and sunflower seeds and more.

I also used a Good Hemp Unsweetened Dairy Free Drink (also found in the last Degustabox), as I wanted to find out how it works in baking. I've tried the hemp milk in coffee, and wasn't very enthusiastic about it. It has an acquired taste. However, in pancakes and muffins you hardly notice the difference.
And as we don't follow the vegan diet, I have eggs and butter in my recipe.

And here are a few of the apple recipes that might help you to go through your apple glut:

Apples stewed in apple cider

Apple bread

Apple Sharlotka

Belgian Apple Tart

Apple Turnovers

What do you do with apples - preserves, bakes, salads?

Honey and matcha muffins

Did you watch the first episode of the GBBO yesterday? In the past I used to watch it on the iplayer, but since earlier this year Channel 4 dropped off the iplayer on our TV (or the other way around), I can only watch it on the laptop or ipad which is not ideal.
Since my dear husband is enjoying himself at the Venice film festival, the TV was available in the evening (otherwise he'd be glued to Netflix or Amazon, watching one thousandth episode of some American series).
A few days ago I was looking at the list of contestants on my ipad, and commented to my men - though more talking to myself - that most likely the first person to leave would be a pensioner, and all the young cuties would be kept until the victorious end, whether they are good bakers or not.
As it happened, I was wrong, the pensioner stayed, saved by a whisker (or should that be a moustache?!) after creating a very arty self-portrait in a brandy snap shaped as a postmortem mask. It was utterly bonkers and brilliant at the same time.
The young ladies were pouting and whingeing, but stayed put. So far I decided to root for Terry, Rahul and Antony.

One of the contestants, a super-confident French girl named Manon, used matcha in one of her creations. Which made me think that I do have a couple of tins of matcha tea in the kitchen.
I bought them with the best of intentions of staying healthy. The problem with matcha tea for me is that I don't like the flavour, it is like drinking powdered green algae off the stagnating water. Well, maybe marginally better.

I have tried in the past to make pancakes with matcha tea, but they were not met enthusiastically by my family.

Shall I try again to bake something with matcha? I wanted something simple and easy, no decorations or frosting, just something sweet for tea.
I also have several jars of honey in different degrees of crystallization. Would mixing honey and matcha work?

And here it is  - a recipe for honey and matcha muffins.

Honey and matcha muffins
Ingredients:
2 medium eggs
100g caster sugar
a pinch of salt
260g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
225ml milk
65g butter, melted
90g honey
2tsp matcha

In a deep mixing bowl beat two eggs with caster sugar. Add a pinch of salt, sift in flour and baking powder. Pour in milk, stir in together. Melt the butter and honey (if crystallised) and mix in the cake batter.
Pour one third of the cake batter in a smaller mixing bowl and add the matcha. Mix together until well combined.

Place cupcake cases into a muffin tin and fill in with the cake batter, in whatever patterns you desire. I made some plain honey ones, plain matcha ones and a mix of both.
Put the muffin tin into an oven preheated to 180C. Bake for about 18-20 minutes until the toothpick comes clean.
Remove from the tin to a wire rack. Eat warm, with tea or without.

The boys looked suspiciously at the muffins, but Sasha, strangely enough, ate two of them. Eddie opted for the plain honey one, as I thought he would.
They might look a tad scary (I'm not a GBBO material, and my bakes would give vapors to Prue and Paul), but actually taste pretty good.

I still have plenty of matcha left. Any suggestions on what to do with it, apart from the obvious drinking as tea?

Since I used some old-ish honey (and cleared one of the jars) and some of the nearly-forgotten matcha (there's still plenty left), I'm adding this recipe to #KitchenClearout linky at Madhouse Family Reviews, hosted by lovely Cheryl.

Chocolate hazelnut muffins for school fayre

I don't cope well with the heat. I'm so glad that the heatwave has ended. Last Tuesday when I accompanied Eddie's class to the swimming pool, I thought I'd have a sunstroke. It was hot and humid, and my face was the colour of the cooked lobster (and I do wear the hat at all times).

My husband has just talked to his parents, and it's +49C in his home town in Italy. Makes me shudder. I don't think I could survive that.

Earlier today Eddie and I went to his school fayre. I was rather reluctant to go, but he begged and begged, and I just tagged along. Thankfully, it wasn't as hot as a few days ago.

Yesterday I baked a batch of chocolate muffins for the fayre. I have adapted the recipe found in Eric Lanlard's Totally Chocolate book.
I got this book a couple of years ago for Easter from Happy Eggs PR, suggesting to try one of the seasonal recipes. I confess I haven't tried the egg cups recipe, nor cooked anything from the book.
I have way too many cook books, and really need to sort through them and take some of them to the charity shop.

If you don't have the book, you can find the original recipe for chocolate and hazelnut muffins online.

Since I needed more than six muffins, I have doubled the amount of all ingredients. I used milk chocolate rather than dark one. My kids prefer milk chocolate. I also used more milk as the cake batter was very thick to spoon into the muffin cases. I couldn't find any chocolate chips, but an Easter chocolate bunny, chopped finely, worked fine instead of chocolate chips.

Eric decorated his muffins with chopped hazelnuts, I used sugar stars and chocolate jazzies (buttons with sprinkles) also known as rainbow drops. I placed them on top of the warm chocolate, spread over the top of each muffin, to "glue" them to the top.

You can use Nutella or a supermarket own chocolate hazelnut spread to cut the costs.

These are lovely rich muffins, which you can decorate in a variety of toppings.

Dairy-free pear multiseed muffins

Just yesterday I baked two trays of choc chip cookies. Today they were all gone. I decided I'd bake some muffins for my guys, with a grated pear and chopped dried mango added for flavour and lots of seeds for texture. I buy a breakfast mix at Holland & Barrett which contains pumpkin & sunflower seeds and pine nuts. My guys are happy to munch them lightly toasted with a tiny bit of salt, or added to bakes. They certainly add more texture and interest to plain muffins.

Pear Multiseed Muffins (makes 14 muffins)
Ingredients:
1 pear, grated
1tsp lemon juice
120g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
200g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
50g cornflour
1/2tsp cinnamon
150ml coconut milk
2tbsp coconut oil
1 bag of sweet & sour mango, finely chopped
multiseed mix for topping (pumpkin and sunflower seeds + pine nuts)

Grate a pear, don't peel it, as the skin cooks perfectly well, and adds an extra fibre to the muffins. Add a bit of lemon juice and caster sugar and mix well. Beat in 2 medium eggs, add the flour, cornflour and baking powder, as well as cinnamon, coconut milk and chopped dried mango. Mix well.
Spoon the cake batter into 14paper muffin cases inserted into muffin trays. Place the trays into the oven preheated to 180C. Cook for 18-20 minutes. Check with a wooden toothpick if they're ready.
They are lovely warm, with a cup of tea. They'll keep well in an airtight container for a couple of days.

I used a small pack of Acti-Snack Sweet & Sour Mango in this recipe which is an exotic dried mango with tender green mango slices. These delicious sweet snacks are gluten free, additive free, fat free and are a good source of vitamin C & fibre.

Adding this simple and easy recipe to #KitchenClearout linky run by lovely Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews. as I used a bag of breakfast seeds which needed to be finished.

Chocolate banana muffins

Sunday calls for a baking session. I opted to cook a batch of chocolate banana muffins, so that Sasha can take them to school in his lunch box for a few days. Bananas were going overripe in a fruit tray, and nobody fancied eating them. I used Nigella's recipe for chocolate banana muffins as a starting point, and adapted it.

Chocolate banana muffins with granola

Chocolate banana muffins
Ingredients:
2 bananas, ripe
120g caster sugar
zest of 1 orange
3tbsp cocoa
1tsp baking powder with a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice over it
2 eggs, medium
125ml oil (I used macadamia oil from Mokhado)
230g self-raising flour
2tbsp Greek style yogurt
different toppings: Jordans lighter granola, pine nuts, lemon-flavoured sugar

Mash the bananas with a fork, add the sugar, orange zest, cocoa and baking powder and mix well. Beat the eggs in, add the oil and keep mixing. Add the flour and Greek yogurt. The cake batter is quite thick. Spoon it into muffin paper cases inserted in a muffin baking tray. Add different toppings. I wanted to try muffins with a new Jordans lighter granola, but as my guys love pine nuts and sugar crumbs, I did a mixed batch, four of each flavour.
Put the tray in the oven preheated to 180C and bake for 20+ minutes. Check the readiness with a wooden skewer.

I used macadamia oil from Mokhado in this recipe, but you can use mild olive oil instead, or another nutty oil. It gave a hint of nuttiness to the flavour, but was mild enough to work well with the other ingredients. These are lovely muffins, moist, fluffy and not too dense (I recently baked some chocolate muffins, using Delia's recipe, and though my guys have eaten them, I found the texture way too dense). This recipe is a keeper, though I might try adding some spices to it as well, or chocolate chips.

Lemon polenta gluten free muffins

As we were still celebrating Eddie's birthday today (every morning for the last week Eddie asks if it is his birthday, bless him), for our mini-tea party we had a shop-bought Peppa Pig cake and lemon polenta muffins.

Lemon polenta gluten free muffins
Ingredients:
2 medium eggs
100g caster sugar
100g butter, melted
75g ground almonds
75g polenta (I use Polenta Valsugana for all my baking, cannot recommend highly enough)
100g gluten free flour
1tsp vanilla essence
2tsp essence of orange blossom water (The English Provender: optional but so very moreish)
juice of 1 lemon
zest of 2 lemons
1tsp baking powder, gluten free
flaked almonds (about 3tsp)

Cream the eggs with the caster sugar. Add the grated zest of 2 lemons and juice of 1 lemon. Add the ground almonds, polenta, gluten free flour, vanilla essence, essence of orange blossom water, baking powder and melted butter and mix well.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Spoon the mix into 6+ muffin cases (we got 6 muffins and 2 mini cupcakes). Sprinkle the flaked almonds on top. Bake for about 18 minutes until golden brown (check with the wooden skewer, if it comes clean, the muffins are ready).
Very easy, quick and lovely.