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Category Archives: Cupcakes

Banana Muffins

Posted on July 30, 2012 by thesweetestbrunch

 

I always thought this receipe would be one of the first ones I put up on this blog and I’m surprised it’s taken me this long.

That’s because these banana muffins are so quick to make and you can’t really go wrong with this easy receipe and even vary it slightly if you like by adding some chopped nuts or chocolate chips or  - if you can find them in the shops – peanut butter chips!

Making these muffins is also the best way of using up old bananas that may have gotten left at the bottom of the fruit bowl, you know those forgotten bananas that that no one wants to eat as they’ve gone all bruised and brown or even black.

Well, they are perfect for this receipe.
And don’t attempt to use bananas that haven’t gone dark yet – for this receipe, the browner the bananas the better! If you remember this you can’t really go wrong with these crowd pleasers…

For 12 cupcake sized muffins you’ll need:

  • 3 big, over ripe bananas
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup of sunflower oil
  • 1 egg, lightly whisked
  • 1 ½ cup plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • optional: 1/2  cup chocolate or peanut butter chips or walnut pieces

Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a muffin tin with paper cases.

Mash the bananas with a fork.

In a large bowl mix the flour with the bicarbonate of soda and baking powder.

Now add all other ingredients and mix them together.

It really is as easy as that!
As long as you mix up the flour with the raising ingredients first the order of the rest doesn’t matter and you can even mix everything together with a wooden spoon or fork (as with all muffins this is preferable to using an electric whisk to get the right muffin texture).

Fill the muffin cases evenly and bake for about 20 – 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffins comes out clean. Leave to cool down in the tin for a few minutes then lt the muffins cool on a wire rack.

They will keep in a cake tin for a few days!

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Duffins

Posted on July 8, 2012 by thesweetestbrunch

 

What is a Duffin, I hear you ask?
The answer is: a donut-like muffin!

I hadn’t heard of them either until the other week when I was reviewing a café near Holborn , who had a tray of freshly baked ‘Duffins’ on their counter. I was instantly intrigued by the sweet smelling muffins rolled in cinnamon sugar and couldn’t resist buying and trying one. And, oh boy, was I glad I did, as the buttery muffin, full of vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg flavours was very yummy indeed.

As soon as I was back in front of a computer I started looking for Duffins on the web and found that they originated in North America (no surprise there then) and they seem to be this year’s big new thing.
I’d even go as far as saying that they may become this year’s ‘whoopee pie’ if you know what I mean…

Anyhow, I found a good Duffin receipe which I tweaked a tiny bit to make them taste like the Duffin I had tried. So I added the nutmeg for example. The original receipe also asked for using extra light olive oil, for example, but I think baking with virgin olive oil is a bit of a waste, when sunflower or groundnut oil work just as well. My colleagues certainly didn’t seem to mind, when they were wolfing them down to appreciating sounds of “mmmm” and “ahhhmmm”.

Have a go at making the Duffins, which are best eaten with a fresh cup of hot coffee!

Receipe based on this one.

For the Duffins you will need:

  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1½ cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • ¼ cup sunflower oil (or other neutral tasting oil suitable for baking, such as groundnut oil)
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • ½ tsp ground nutmeg

And for the topping:

  • 1 tbsp butter, melted
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • ½ cup caster sugar

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4.

Grease a 12-muffin tin, ideally with an oil spray, if you have it (other sites suggest pouring a tiny bit of oil in the forms).

In a large jug or bowl, beat together the sugar and egg until light and fluffy. Now, pour in the oil, milk, and vanilla and almond extracts and mix to combine.

In another large bowl mix the flour with the baking powder and salt. Now pour the fluid mix into the flour mix and stir well.

Divide the batter evenly into the muffin cups, filling them about half full and bake for 15-20 minutes (toothpick test!).

While muffins are baking, melt the butter for he topping in a small bowl. I found blitzing it for 20 seconds in the microwave did the trick nicely.

For the topping, pour the caster sugar and all the cinnamon on to a soup plate and mix until all is combined.

Once the Duffins are done and only slightly cooled down for 5-10 minutes, lightly brush the top with the melted butter.  Remove each duffin from the pan and dip the top in the cinnamon sugar straight away and follow this rolling it around the whole plate, covering the whole Duffin.

Enjoy!

 

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Guilt Free Strawberry Muffins

Posted on June 23, 2012 by thesweetestbrunch

It’s time for another healthy breakfast, some low-cal, low- fat, low-(or even no) sugar strawberry muffins. The strawberry season in England is well and truly upon us, with Wimbledon just around the corner, and the strawberries are at their best right now.

This simple that receipe I found on the Dashing Dish blog doesn’t include any butter/margarine or oil and it is wheat-free. Plus it can be made with Stevia instead of sugar to lower the calories even further. I opted for Stevia and can therefore truly call these muffins guilt free. Apparently they only have about 90 calories per muffin!

It has to be said though that the muffins are so healthy tasting that I didn’t quite have the guts to offer them around the office. I’m not saying they tasted bad but they are not really sweet and I feared my colleagues would think I’d have lost my touch, as they are usually treated to extra sweet and creamy goodies from my oven to get us through a hectic day I the office. I should probably have added a bit more Stevia or used vanilla flavoured yoghurt rather than plain, which may have made the muffins sweeter. As it was, they did taste a bit like oatmeal porridge in muffin form but as a healthy breakfast option, this works for me.

It is very important to cut the strawberries in small pieces so that they can mix into the dough and muffins evenly as it is these juicy red pieces that give the muffins their flavour. And one more note, as pointed out by the original author, please use silicon cases for the muffins – they would stick to paper ones!

Receipe from: http://dashingdish.com/recipe/strawberry-shortcake-muffins/

For 12 muffins (that are of the smaller size rather than the gigantic American ones) you’ll need:

  • 2 ½ cups of oats
  • 400g (about 2 cups when cut into small pieces) strawberries
  • 1 cup plain low fat Greek yoghurt (or you could try a vanilla or honey flavoured one)
  • 2 eggs
  • ¼ cup Stevia (though you may want to increase this up by about 3 extra tbsp)
  • 1 ½ tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp baking soda

Start by prepping the strawberries: cut them in small pieces and put them on some kitchen paper to dry, so they are not too juicy. Set about ½ a cup aside!

Preheat the oven on to gas mark 6.

In a bowl mix the yoghurt, the eggs, the Stevia, baking powder and baking soda with a whisk.

Tip the oats in a blender and top with the yoghurt mix to blend. The best way is to start this is using the pulse setting – the oats needs to get grind down to a rough powder whilst being mixed in with the yoghurt.

Pour the mix back in to a bowl and fold the strawberry pieces under, except the ½ cup you set aside earlier! Spread the dough evenly between 12 silicone muffin cups and use these strawberry pieces you set aside earlier to top about a teaspoon worth of them in the middle of each muffin.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or do the toothpick test (ready whem the toothpick comes out clean!).

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Peanut Butter Brownie Bites

Posted on May 10, 2012 by thesweetestbrunch

This is all a bit of a cheat…

To start with, these mini cakes are not even really brownie bites but rather little brownie based mini cupcakes. Furthermore, even I wouldn’t really eat these kind of sweet treats for breakfast or brunch – they are just too small! No, of course not. In fact, they are this small for a reason – if they were any bigger, their sweet, rich and gooey taste would just be too much.

So, to be honest, I made them as little afternoon treats for my office but they turned out so well that I wanted to share the recipe on my brunch blog with you.

The recipe is also a bit of a cheat’s recipe, as it requires you to use a packet brownie mix. I know it’s not the proper way, using a packet mix, but it was quicker and cheaper to grab a ready mixed brownie box from the supermarket shelf rather than picking up the separate ingredients.

If you really can’t bring yourself to get a little help from Betty Crocker, I’d suggest using the brownie recipe from Mary Berry, which is my trusty go-to for brownies and which I will feature here in due time (in the meantime you may have to do a Google search).

For the topping I used a smooth peanut butter with a hint of chocolate, suitably called ‘YUM YUM’, which I brought over from South Africa. I’m sure any smooth peanut butter will work but it may be best to stick with plain ones as any more than a hint of chocolate will be too sweet – you want the salty peanut taste to balance the sweet brownie mix.

If you like peanut butter, you have to try these…

This recipe is adapted from Baked Perfection http://www.bakedperfection.com/2009/07/peanut-butter-cup-brownies.html

For 24 mini brownie bites/ cupcakes you need:

  • 1 box of store bought brownie mix, such as Betty Crocker’s and the ingredients required on the box (usually an egg, some oil and some water)
  • 1/3 cup peanut butter chips
  • 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
  • 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a mini muffin tray with mini muffin cases (I tried just oiling a supposedly non-stick tray and would highly recommend using muffin liners instead for these are sticky little things!).

Prepare the boxed brownie mix as directed and spoon the batter evenly into the muffin cups, each will take about 1½ teaspoons.

Bake the cakes for 13-15 minutes or until they have risen and the top is set but the inside is still ever so slightly moist.

Get the tray out of the oven and wait 3-5 minutes before pushing a little dent into the centre of the muffin tops – either with back of a teaspoon – or if you’re not too heat sensitive, with your fingers. You want a little, shallow dent for the peanut butter to go in to.

Place the peanut butter in a small microwave-safe dish and warm it up in the microwave for circa 30 seconds, so it becomes more spreadable. Then, while the cakes are still warm, add about half a teaspoon of peanut butter on each cake and sprinkle on a mix of the peanut butter and the dark chocolate chips. They will start to melt but only ever so slightly,  just enough to keep everything together when they are fully cooled down.

Leave to cool completely and enjoy!

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Rhubarb Marzipan Muffins

Posted on April 30, 2012 by thesweetestbrunch

Have you noticed that it’s rhubarb time?

My sister did and requested that I upload a receipe featuring the tangy vegetable that gets used rather like a fruit in most dishes (think crumble, compote, pie…).

The obvious choice for me would have been to use rhubarb in a cake with a meringue pie topping, which is probably the most common way of using rhubarb in a cake, in Germany. But I went through my cookbooks in search for something different…

The sister who asked for a rhubarb suggestion is also a big marzipan fan so I thought it could be good to combine the two in a sweet and sour way. And as I browsed through my Ottolenghi cookbook, I found my inspiration – a recipe for marzipan and plum muffins, which after a few changes became this recipe for my marzipan rhubarb muffins.

I particularly like the look of the muffins with the fruit compote on top, as if a little muffin volcano is erupting with juicy fruits. I’d recommend getting the pink rhubarb stalks, rather than the ones that are mainly green, as the pink colour will  look much nicer on top of the muffins. I also choose thin stalks, as again they will look better, more delicate, on the muffins.

The muffins were much liked but a little dry at first, so to perfect the receipe I decided to add more rhubarb to the dough and it did the trick.

 Start with the rhubarb compote, for which you will need:

  • 800g rhubarb
  • 300ml water
  • 160g sugar

Trim the rhubarb and cut it into 1,5 cm lengths.

Mix the water and sugar and heat, stirring from time to time, until the sugar has melted. Then add the rhubarb to the sugar syrup and poach gently until just soft – the rhubarb must not collapse but keep its shape.

There will probably be a lot of juice left at this stage, if so remove the fruit but keep the juices on the boil to reduce them down to a thicker syrup.


While the rhubarb cools down get on with the muffins.

For 12 muffins you will need:

  • 480g flour
  • 1tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp bicarb of soda
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 200g sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 110g margarine or butter, melted but slightly cooled down
  • 280ml milk
  • grated zest of 1 lemon
  • 120g marzipan
  • a muffin tin and paper cases

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees/Gas Mark 3 and line your muffin tin with paper cases.

Mix the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda and salt in one bowl. In another, larger bowl whisk the sugar and eggs, then add the milk and butter and whisk again to combine.

Grate the marzipan on the coarse side of a grater and add it to the batter, together with the lemon zest.

Now add 2/3 of the rhubarb compote and stir together. The rest of the compote is for the topping of the muffins, so set it aside for later.

Gently fold the flour mix into the wet mix until just combined – there may still be a few lumps of flour, which is actually wanted (if muffin batter gets over mixed the muffins become hard and dense).

Spoon the mixture in the prepared muffin tin, filling each case all the way to the top to ensure you will get that muffin top platform.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffin comes out clean.

Let the muffins cool down a few minutes until you can handle them at which point they need to be taken out of the tins, to fully cool down on a wire rack.

When the muffins are cold, dust the tops with icing sugar and top with the reserved compote.
Enjoy!

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