Jalapeno and cheese muffins

You know you want to try these from the their name right? the jalapenos and cheese combo is a bit like the peanut butter and chocolate combo...you can't really go wrong. These are like cheese rolls punctuated with a tangy chilly hit. I definitely needed more Jalapenos than the recipe specified- I would double up next time. You could do any number of things with these-put some tomato chutney in the middle, put some cream cheese with jalapenos/mustard stirred through it in the middle...you get the idea...They are from the lovely blog of Joy the Baker. She has much better pics on her post so check it out.

THE best carrot and pecan cake

I have tried many a carrot cake in my time and this really is my favourite so far. It is from Jo Wheatlys' "A Passion for Baking". It is my favourite baking book- a real home bakers book. I have already made lots of things from it already and have so many things earmarked! I found the recipe already typed up here. The cake is super moist with just the right amount of pecans. I loved the icing-I thought had the right amount of tang and I thought the amount of icing was right too, but I like a fair bit off icing on my cakes! It might be a lot for some people so if you don't like as much icing you could probably get away with 2/3 rds the amount I would say. The tang is from orange juice,so go easy when squeezing the juice-add gradually and check consistency and taste as you go. I made this traybake for the cake table at our summer street party this summer which was amazing. We had it on a beautiful sunny day in June (not always a given in London) and it was my sons first street party so very special indeed. I also made some pistachio and raspberry meringues which you can see in the cake table shot (post on those coming soon). And that is my son in the last shot driving happily down the street :) 

Butterscotch pecan cheesecake

Well you can tell from the title and the picture in the book that this is going to be good. I came to cheesecake relatively late in life, well late teens and it was a self-introduction at Marks & Spencer’s and there’s been no looking back - I have been eating and making them ever-since.  The Hummingbird bakery’s cake days book has many a fabulous version. Sorry again for the not-so-great pictures. Seriously give this a go, it tasted really great, though the topping wasn’t as smooth as picture in the book, maybe I stirred it too long-it thickens quickly. See here and here and here for other cheesecakes! I found the recipe written up online here.

Yoghurt pot cake

This gorgeous cake is from Nigellas latest book (and TV program) Nigellissima  . It is, thus far, not my favourite of her books -I have only made the Meatzza ( not too impressed with it)  and this cake from it so far. Normally her books are so inspiring I tend to make a lot of things from them when I first buy the book.  Anyway this  cake is both comforting to make, look at and eat. It is a beautiful pale yellow and damp and soft-crumbed to eat. It is a plain vanilla cake with a slight lemony flavour and tang from the yoghurt.  It is also very easy to make.  It is called yoghurt pot cake as the yoghurt pot is the unit of measurement, but she does thankfully give the metric measures as well. I have had a mishap with my camera so there are not many pictures but hopefully you get the idea….

Ingredients:

150g plain yoghurt

150ml flavourless vegetable oil

3 eggs

250g castor sugar

2 capfuls vanilla extract (1.5 teaspoons)

Zest  ½ unwaxed lemon

175g Plain flour

75g cornflour

1 teaspoon icing sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 180◦C and grease a springform ring mould or tin

Separate eggs and whisk the whites until you get firm peaks. Add the yoghurt to the eggs and use the yoghurt pot to measure out other ingrediants.

Fill yoghurt pot with oil and to egg yolks mixture slowly while beating

Add the vanilla extract

Still beating add 1 yoghurt pot of cornflour, scrape down sides of bowl then gently fold in the egg whites

Fill the tin with the batter a bake for 30-35 minutes-sides should be coming away from the tin. Remove from tin and let cool for 10 minutes before turning it out. Once cooled dust with icing sugar.

Victoria sponge

This one is Mary Berries' recipe from last year’s Great British Bake Off book. You can’t beat a good Victoria sponge as a tea time treat and this one is excellent.  I had some strawberries that needed using up so I made some conserve and used that with a few tablespoons of jam.  The sponge is golden and moist as it should be and holds a good amount of filling when sandwiched together. You can find the recipe here. Mary Berry uses just jam for her filling but I always add some whipped cream….

 

Fruit tart

This is Nigellas’ “no-fuss fruit tart”, well I don’t think it really is a tart, it’s actually one of those no-cook cheesecakes masquerading as a tart. I kind of never really think of no-bake cheesecakes as real cheesecakes anyway and think they should just be called desserts so I am kind of glad that Nigella has called it a tart. Not that I think the no-bake stuff isn’t delicious (but I do prefer the proper baked cheesecake). In fact I cannot wait to try the chocolate hazelnut cheesecake from Nigellissima which I  bought last week. It is fabulous of course and I have already earmarked lots of recipes that I want to try! (I also loved the TV programmed which aired last Monday). 

Anyway let’s concentrate - the fruit tart-well it doesn’t need much concentration actually-it’s just a construction job (albeit a bit of an expensive one). You have a standard cheesecake biscuit bottom topped with luscious lemony cream and fruit. You do need to buy good quality lemon curd here as it has a pretty starring role, I have bought the cheap stuff once and regretted it!  And use whatever fruit you like ofcourse I used strawberries, blackberries,blueberries and a last minute addition of some mango also tasted great. The perfect pud on a very hot summers day (which is when I made this). Admittedly we are unlikely to get one of those now for a while now here in the UK :( …I will post more weather-suited things hopefully once I have cleared my summer backlog of baking….you can find the recipe here and enjoy the pics below…  

Strawberries and cream cheesecake

I’ll start off by saying sorry for the unannounced hiatus on the blog. It has been crazy-busy at my end and although I did a fair bit of baking last month there just has not been time to upload. But I am hoping for a lull really soon so posts should pick up! This cheesecake is from The Hummingbirdbakery’s cake days book. They have put in to the  summer afternoon tea section…I’m not sure though that you can have anything more than a slice of this at one sitting as it’s a very rich cheesecake. I don’t think you can go wrong though-nubbly biscuit base, fruity creamy cheesecake topped with a velvety layer of mascarpone cream….you really do have to try it before the summer is up…(and sorry for the not-so-great hastily taken pictures!better ones next time I promise!)

Recipe:

(Cake Days by The Hummingbird Bakery)

Serves 8-12

You need one 20cm springform cake tin

(mine is 23 cm-it was fine)

For the base:

220 g digestive biscuits

100g butter, melted

For the filling:

200g fresh strawberries (chopped)

180g castor sugar

600g cream cheese

2 eggs

Line the tin with baking parchment. Process biscuits and butter until fine crumbs and line tin with them. Place in fridge for 20-30 mins.

Place the strawberries in a saucepan with 80g of the sugar and 30ml of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook until the strawberries are soft and the liquid has reduced by half (takes about 10 mins on medium heat-do not cook for too long on strawberries will burn-there should be some liquid left and its fine too have too much rather than too little)   Set aside until completely cold.

Preheat the oven to 160℃. Prepare the filling by beating together the cream cheese and the remaining sugar on a medium speed until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time. Pour in the cooked strawberries and stir in by hand.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 30 mins or until firm with a slight wobble in the middle. Allow the cheesecake to cool to room temperature still in the tin, then place in the fridge to chill and set for 1-2 hours.

For the topping:

100g mascarpone

20g icing sugar

100ml double cream

Beat the mascarpone and icing sugar on a medium speed until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the double cream until soft peaks form. Then fold the double cream into the mascarpone mixture.

Spread on top of the cheesecake and chill again for 1 hour. Decorate cheesecake with fresh strawberries.

Apple and cinnamon muffins

These muffins are again from Nigella Kitchen. They really are the best tasting healthy muffins I have ever had, even my not-particularly- health- conscious husband really liked them. They are moist and fruity from the apples, wholesome tasting from the spelt flour and have a lovely crunch on top from the almonds (spelt flour is a wholegrain flour which is high in nutrients). I made them the week when my baby was ill and it was one of those weeks when even making your porridge in the morning feels like a chore and it was great to have these to grab and go. I will definitely make them again when I have a couple of old apples that need using up. Recipe is below pics:

Apple and Cinnamon Muffins, taken from Kitchen, by Nigella Lawson

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

2 eating apples or 1 large cooking apple, peeled and cut into small dice

250g plain flour or spelt flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

125g light brown sugar, plus 4 tsp for topping

125ml honey

60ml runny natural yoghurt

125ml flavourless vegetable oil

2 eggs

75g whole almonds, skin on

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius and line a 12-hold muffin tin with papers.

2. Measure the flour, baking powder and 1 tsp cinnamon into a bowl.

3. Whisk together the 125g brown sugar, honey, oil and eggs in a bowl or a jug

4. Chop the almonds roughly and add half of them to the flour. Keep the other half aside, and to them add the second teaspoon of ground cinnamon and 4 tsp of brown sugar. This will make the topping for your muffins.

5. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry. Add the chopped apple and stir to combine. As with all muffin batters, don’t overmix – the lumpier and heavier the batter, the lighter the finished muffin will be.

6. Spoon the batter into the muffin papers and sprinkle with the topping.

7. Put into the oven and bake for 20 minutes, by which time the muffins should have risen, and become beautifully golden.

8. Remove from oven and allow to stand for 5 minutes, before taking them out of the pan 

Blueberry cornmeal muffins

These muffins are slightly different from your usual blueberry muffin because of the addition of cornmeal. This makes the top golden and crunchy.  The cornmeal also means that the tops are flat rather than domed. They are from Nigella Kitchen. The recipe makes 12 but the muffins are quite small so they do get finishes very very quickly…if you wanted a slightly healthier muffin you could I suppose experiment with reducing  the sugar and upping the blueberries….Also I found the stipulated 200◦C too high-the tops got browned too quickly so maybe 180◦C would be better.  They are very yummy eaten warm.

Recipe :

Makes 12

150g plain flour

100g cornmeal-it doesn’t specify which kind in the book but I used course cornmeal

2tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarb

150g caster  sugar

125ml veg oil

125ml buttermilk or plain runny yoghurt

1 egg

100g bluberries

 Preheat oven to 180◦C and line muffin tin with cases

Mix flour, cornmeal, bicarb, baking powder and sugar

In a measuring jug pour in the oil and buttermilk and whisk in egg

Stir wet ingrediants into dry, fold in half the blueberries

Divide this batter between each case, dot the remaining blueberries on top-about three per muffin.

Cook for 15-25 mins until a cake tester comes out clean