White Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins.

Upon reaching this weekend all I really wanted to do was curl up with the latest episode of MasterChef. Seriously, work had been crazy and I was feeling rather under the weather. However I must say, when I do finally reach the weekend after a busy week I often find it hard to turn off and just allow myself to laze around. 

To keep myself entertained and housebound in an attempt to give my body the quiet weekend it obviously needed I decided to bake. It ended up being quite an elaborate affair.  

Amongst the homemade pizza, shortbread and various other culinary adventures I embarked on over this weekend these muffins were the stars. The tart raspberries marry wonderfully with the sweet white chocolate and the buttermilk keeps the muffins fabulously moist. The seal of approval for me was my dad eating 2 in one 4pm sitting.

Adapted from Lorraine Pascale’s ‘Home Cooking Made Easy’,

Makes 12 muffins.

350g self-raising flour

1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

Pinch of Salt

250g Soft brown sugar, plus extra for topping

350ml buttermilk

2 eggs

150g butter, melted and cooled

200g raspberries

150g white chocolate in small-ish chunks.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C and lines your muffin tins with squares of baking parchment.

Put the flour, bicarb, salt and sugar in a big bowl and stir to combine. Add the buttermilk, eggs and butter and stir everything to get a smooth thick batter.

Fold in the raspberries and chocolate and spoon evenly into your tin.

Bake for 15 minutes until lightly golden then give each muffin a sprinkling of the sugar and put back in the oven for 10 minutes more to finish baking until a deep golden color.

Serve hot or cold. 

***For anyone who reads this far down this post - I now have around a dozen muffins for my dad and I to work our way through. If anyone wants to stop by and contribute to the eating effort it would be greatly appreciated. Well done for reading to the end.***

Baked Rhubarb and Ginger Cheesecake.

This is the third and final post from the meal I cooked my Mum for her birthday the other week. This is the dessert element. Mum had a vast amount of rhubarb growing in the jungle that is her veggie patch so we wanted to use that up. 

Coincidentally my mum is also completely obsessed with ginger (seriously, she must spend an absolute fortune on the ginger cordial she is hooked on) therefore I thought a rubarby-gingery dessert would be just the ticket and a perfect marriage of flavors. 

I decided on a cheesecake, having made a few over the last few months for various events, I’m a bit of a baked cheesecake wiz currently and therefore thought considering how much food prep I had to do that day it would be a safe bet.

I used the recipe I found here - http://www.waitrose.com/home/recipes/recipe_directory/b/baked_rhubarb_and_ginger_cheesecake.html

It was really refreshing to use the mascarpone instead of cream cheese as a change. I found it really gave a lightness and fluffyness to the cake.  I also chose to reduce the syrup created through poaching the rhubarb down much further than the recipe suggests to. This created a very intense, sticky syrup that I drizzled over the cake before serving it which really gave a zingy-spicy tang to cut through the creamy rich cake. 

It was all around just awesome if I say so myself, and potentially one of the most grown up deserts I’ve made in a long time. Definitely recommended.

Mother's Day Chocolate Fondants.

I’ll freely confess I am not much of a pudding person but give me a chocolate fondant and there is literally no stopping me.

The outside, with a crunch of sugar, then the soft sponge and the silky oozy middle, so intensely rich but still more-ish at the same time, served with some berries and cool cream, or even better ice-cream, so you get the hot/cold contrast and it all just melts together on your tongue ….. Ok. I’ll stop now. You get the idea. Chocolate fondants are MEGA yum.

I made these for mother’s day, my little sister suggested the menu, a prawn, pea and herb risotto (apparently one of mum’s favorites) followed by chocolate fondants with ice cream (again apparently one of mum’s favorites). I’m still suspicious that she just asked me to cook what she wanted to eat rather than it having anything to do with mother’s day, but mum loved it none the less.

Makes 4

100g 70% cocoa solids, dark chocolate

100g unsalted butter, plus more for lining the ramekins

55g plain flour

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

55g caster sugar

Pre-heat oven to 190 degrees

Firstly, sort out your ramekins, brush their insides liberally with melted butter, stick them in the fridge and after that sets, brush them with another layer of melted butter and dust the inside with sugar, tapping out any extra, refrigerate.

Next melt the butter and sugar over a ban marie.

While that melts, whisk the sugar and eggs with an electric mixture until it reaches ribbon stage (basically until it thickens and holds its shape slightly) then sieve in the flour.

Fold in the chocolate mixture and pour into your moulds:

Bake for 8 - 10minutes until set enough to hold their shape but still runny in the middle.

Turn out onto plates and serve with ice cream and strawberries.

YUMYUM:

Aaand, OHHH HIIYAAA: