Crunchy almond top mixed berry muffins

Ellebelle's crunchy top mixed berry muffins

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup wholemeal flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup plain yoghurt
• 1/2 cup grapeseed or olive oil
• 1/2 cup heaped with mixed berries (frozen or fresh works fine)

Topping

• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup flaked almonds, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 180° and line a 6 hole muffin tin
Place plain and wholemeal flours, baking powder, cinnamon, oats,1/2 cup of brown sugar into a large bowl and stir together. Make a well in the centre and add the eggs, yoghurt, oil. Whisk the eggs, yoghurt and oil for a couple of seconds in the well that you have created before adding the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold through mixed berries, don’t overmix or else your muffins will end up tough. Spoon into muffin tin.

To make crumble topping: mix flaked almonds with brown sugar and sprinkle over muffins
Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden.

Pirate cake

I had no idea what theme do have for Jaemie's 3rd birthday.

The start of the year it was all about Octonauts, Spiderman, Hulk, Batman, Ironman, Dinosaurs and Dragons. With such a plethora of ideas and Jaemie constantly changing his mind, I was slowly resolved to choose the theme which would be easiest for me.

A month out from September I decided that it was going to be pirate themed. It was very timely that ABC Tv also had a pirate marathon a week out from the party.

I ran around to Reject shops, Hot dollar shops and Spotlight sourcing a pirate boat piñata, chocolate coins, pirate party bags, table covers, pirate ouffit and gold coins. Ordered 18 red and black helium filled balloons to be picked up on the day of the party. Ordered rice paper rolls from our local Vietnamese takeaway and my gal pal's mum was making her amazing curry puffs.

I also wanted do a something homemade so I made up spy glasses with toilet rolls wrapped in blue and black stripes wrapping paper. Pepe was going to help out and make balloon cutlasses for the lads and lasses which I thought would mean less danger for the kids running around.

Printed off a pirate labels to cover the kid's drinks and made pirate boat jelly. Such great ideas and quite effective looking on the table. Stumbled across a great site for printing off the pirate flags. http://www.makeandtakes.com/summer-camp-for-kids-pirate-day-arrrrr

The other dilemma was how I was going to make a pirate ship birthday cake. I love getting ideas from the internet and there were rather elaborate with fondant to birthday cakes decorated with buttercream which were equally effective.

I didn't want to cut up the cake without having a paper mock up of what shapes I needed to cut. Thank goodness I did, as it would have been a disaster. Geometry definitely came in handy to makes sure that all the cut shapes fitted together to make the cake.

I made 2 rectangular cakes, one was flavoured chocolate and other was caramel flavoured. Then this was glued altogether with chocolate ganache. Once the ganache set, I used a fork to scrape the ganache to give it a wooden look.

I decided that I was going to use fondant for the detailing such as the pirate figurine, treasure chest, steering wheel, cannon and 3 cannon balls, railings around the boat.

Thank goodness for Miss N's skull and crossbone cookie cutters that I was able to borrow for this event. It was great fun to make gingerbread biscuits with Jaemie and see his expression change to joy when the cookies turned out perfectly. What a relief to not decorate as they looked perfect.

The gold sparklers looked great as they looked like canons blasting.

 

 

Happy Birthday my darling boy!

 

I wonder what next year's theme will be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best ever blueberry muffins

I had a craving for blueberries but the cost of fresh blueberries is close to $10 for only 250g at the moment, so I opted for the frozen variety. With 1kg of frozen blueberries, I thought I would make blueberry muffins.

The first batch I made, I accidently put the oven on classic convection and only realised this after they had been in the oven for 12mins. Opps! I corrected this but had to put the muffins on for another 15mins as they weren't quite cooked in the middle. But they had the best crunchy tops ever.

Second batch I used 100g white sugar and 100g brown sugar and followed the recipe. Muffins were great but I think I prefer using brown sugar in the muffins, as it had a more caramelised taste.

I've made these muffins for many morning teas, afternoon teas and they have been light, moist and tasty every time. The first time my sister tasted them, she couldn't stop raving on about these muffins being the best she's ever tasted and requested another dozen to be baked for her.

Makes 12 muffins
150g frozen blueberries
240g plain flour
110g butter, softened
200g brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
½tsp salt (optional)
240ml buttermilk (or 220mL sour cream with a dash of milk or 220mL milk with 20mL of vinegar )

Preheat the oven to 190C and line a muffin tin with twelve papers. Toss the frozen blueberries with a little flour mixture and put back in the freezer.

Beat the butter in a food mixer until it is very soft – about the consistency of mayonnaise. Beat in the sugar, then the beaten egg, and mix until well combined.

In a separate bowl, place together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and ½tsp salt if using, and mix well. Fold half these ingredients into the mix, then half the buttermilk, then the remaining flour and buttermilk.

Fold in the frozen blueberries and mix until just combined, but do not overwork (or else your muffins will turn out quite dense). Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for about 25-30 minutes until risen and golden.  Allow to cool slightly before serving, but these don't keep well, so don't wait too long!

Cherries cherries cherries

Young, NSW is the cherry capital and we usually make our yearly pilgrimage in November to go picking with friends. But with Aussie cherries currently out of season, I made do with cherries from USA.

Cherry tart by Bill Granger

Pastry

125g unsalted butter

90g caster sugar
175g plain flour
A pinch of salt
2 tablespoons almond meal

Filling

170mL cream

2 eggs lightly beaten

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 tablespoons caster sugar

2 tablespoons plain flour

550g cherries, halved and pitted (fresh is best)

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease a 24cm round tart tin. To make the pastry stir together the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the flour and salt to stir to make a soft dough. Transfer the dough to the tin and press evenly into the base and side of the tin with your fingertips. Put the tin on a baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes or until pastry is slightly puffy. Remove from oven and sprinkle the almond meal over the base

To make the filling, whisk together the cream eggs, vanilla and sugar. Add the flour and whist until well mixed. Arrange the cherries, slightly overlapping over the pastry base and pour the cream filling evenly over the cherries.

Return the tart to the oven for a further 40-50mins until the filling is firm. Leave to cool and serve with cream or ice cream.

 

This didn't last very long in my household, yummy!

I love cake - Hazelnut and fig cake

I will make up any excuse for cake.

I love cake, I love sweet desserts, I love cream.

The month of December and January has been the peak of trialling and making different cakes.

I love that figs are in season. I’ve been in fig heaven lately having had my favourite salad - fresh figs with prosciutto, shavings of parmesan drizzled with balsamic and olive oil. I’m drooling even thinking about it.

It was time to celebrate figs so I made Bill Granger’s Hazelnut and Fig cake.

I’ve made cakes with almond meal, pistachio meal but recipe called for hazelnut meal so I was curious to taste the difference.

Ingredients list

125g unsalted butter, softened

150g caster sugar
75g plain flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs lightly beaten
100g ground hazelnuts
50g hazelnuts chopped into small pieces
8 fresh figs (not too ripe) halved
2 tablespoons honey

Preheat oven to 180C. Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until pale and fluffy.

This is when a kitchen aid comes in handy. In another bowl place the flour and baking powder and stir through. Pour in the flour and egg alternatively into the creamed mixture. Fold in the ground hazelnuts and then the chopped hazelnuts.

Grease a 20cm cake tin and line with baking paper, leaving paper hanging over the side to help lift out the cake. Spoon the mixture into the tin and smooth down. Arrange the figs, cut side up in a neat layer on top of the cake. No need to embed into mixture. Bake for 55mins to 1 hour or until skewer poked into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Leave to rest in the tin for 10mins before turning out. Drizzle honey over the top of cake before serving. Bill Granger states that this is lovely both as a cake and as a dessert with lightly whipped cream.

 

I've made this cake 4 times already as the hazelnut meal just makes this cake amazing!!