Mint chocolate chip muffins

Soft, moist, sweet with delicate mint aroma, packed with dark chocolate chips. We liked them very much as we love mint and chocolate combination. The recipe comes from 'Easy muffins' 

Ingredients for 12-14 muffins:

•  280g flour ( I used 200g plain flour and 80g wholegrain flour)
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 115g caster sugar
• 150g plain chocolate chips
• 2 eggs
• 250ml milk
• 85g malted butter
• 1 tsp mint essence
• green food colouring (optional)

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Melt the butter either in microwave or over a heat. Set aside to cool down.

Place the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and chocolate chips in a big bowl and whisk them together.

Whisk the eggs in separate jug, add milk, cooled butter, mint essence and food colouring. Stir well all ingredients. 

Pour the wet ingredients into a bowl with dry ones. Mix them until just moist. 

Spoon the batter into baking cases, about 3/4 full.

Bake for 20 minutes until well risen and springy in touch.

Transfer them to the wire rack or plate and enjoy warm or cooled down.

Enjoy !  

Dulce de leche cupcakes

Dulce de leche cupcakes were very tasty. I have bake them for Valentine's Day and we all loved them. They should be called dulce de leche lava cupcakes but my family didn't want them to be runny inside. I had to bake them 2 minutes longer, but if you follow exactly the recipe yours will be very soft in the middle. The recipe comes form this website.

Ingredients for 7 heart shaped cupcakes:

• 2 and 1/2 tbsp flour
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 egg
• 1 and 2/3 cup  canned dulce de leche

Preheat the oven to 210C.

Grease the muffin tin holes and dust them with small amount of flour.

Into an electric mixer bowl put the egg yolks and egg and beat them for 2-3 minutes. Then add the dulce de leche beating continuously until well blended.  At last add the flour and beat again.

Spoon the batter into prepared muffin moulds, 2/3 full. Bake for  10 minutes for runny inside result. I baked mine for 12 minutes, they were soft but not runny in the middle.

Enjoy !

Beetroot and chocolate muffins with chocolate frosting

Those chocolate muffins don't look like anything healthy, though there is vegetable in them. It may be  a way to trick a child or stubborn teenager to get some fiber. There is no strong beetroot flavour in those muffins although you can taste the shreds of it. Additionally I covered the muffins with rich chocolate frosting as additional camouflage to the vegetable. The muffin recipe comes from Carol Pastor '75 best ever muffins' cook book. The frosting recipe comes from this website. 

Ingredients for 11 muffins:

• 115g dark chocolate
• 115g butter
• 250g cooked beetroot
• 3 eggs
• 225g self - rising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 200g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C. line muffin tin with paper cases.

Great the beetroots into small shreds.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water or in microwave. Mix them well. When ready stir in the beetroot and lightly beaten eggs. 

Sift the flour, baking powder and sugar, mix well. Add to the chocolate mixture. Mix until just combined. 

Spoon the batter into paper cases, 3/4 full.

Bake for 25 minutes until risen.

Remove from the oven and transfer to wire rack to cool down. 

baked

While the muffins are cooling down prepare the frosting.

Ingredients for frosting:

• 60g margarine
• 60g cocoa powder
• 90 ml milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 460g icing sugar

Melt the margarine either in a sauce pan over a heat or in a microwave.

Pour it into an electric mixer bowl. Add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth and thick. Add the milk and vanilla and beat until smooth. Gradually beat in the sugar. Beat until smooth.

Ready frosting spread over each muffin top. You can also put it in the bag add decorating tips and decorate your muffins as you desire. 

Enjoy !

 

Brioche muffins with pate stuffing

Brioche muffins with pate stuffing are great alternative for a sandwich. Very tasty, fluffy brioches with surprising inside. The preparation process is a little bit time consuming but it is worth it. The recipe comes from Carol Pastor '75 best - ever muffins' cookbook.  

Ingredients for 10 muffins:

• 15g fresh yeast
• 10 ml warm water
• 4 eggs
• 350g flour
• 35g sugar
• 10g salt
• 175g unsalted butter
• 150g pate
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 egg yolk

To prepare those muffins mix the dough day before as it needs the be kept in the fridge at least overnight, or 24 hours.

Crumble the yeast into a food processor bowl, add  warm water and mix with a dough hook until smooth.

Add the eggs, flour, sugar and salt. Beat together 6-7 minutes on low speed. Then gradually add the butter. Continue to knead for about 15 minutes. Place the dough into a plastic bag and leave in the refrigerator for 24 hour, or overnight. My dough was a little bit sticky so I wrapped it into a cling film and left in the fridge overnight.

The next day prepare the pate. Cut it into 10 pieces and with lightly floured hands form each piece into a ball. Set aside. 

Preheat the oven to 220C. Grease slightly the muffin tin holes.

Remove the dough form the fridge. Place it on a floured work surface. Form into a sausage and cut into 10 equal slices.

Place the pate in the centre of each slice of dough. Then press the dough around the pate to form a smooth ball. Put the dough into muffin hole. The author recommends to put it with a seal below, but then there is a risk that pate might stick out of the dough during baking. I would recommend to put it with a seal on top, this will keep the pate in the middle of each muffin. 

Repeat with remaining dough.

When all the muffins are ready, prepare egg wash. Put the egg yolk and milk into a bowl and whisk with fork until smooth. Brush each muffin top with egg wash.

With a sharp knife slash the top of each muffin twice.

Leave in a warm place to prove for 15 minutes.

Bake for 13-15 minutes, until well risen and gold.

Turn out the muffins, place them on plate to cool down. Enjoy !

 

Fruit Cocktail muffins

Fruit cocktail muffins were very nice. Whit cinnamon flavour, moist, packed with fruits and walnuts sprinkle with sugar. The recipe comes from 'Muffin sampler' by Jan Siegrist.

Ingredients for 12-16 muffins:

• 285g flour
• 120g sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1tsp grated lemon peel
• 1 can fruit cocktail
• 1 egg
• 75ml vegetable oil
• 75g chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 190C. Line muffin tin with paper cases.

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and lemon peel.

Drain the fruit cocktail reserving the syrup. 

Top up the syrup with some water to get 190ml of liquid. Add the eggs and oil to the syrup and whisk well.

Pour into a dry ingredients mixture. Stir until just moist. Then gently fold in the fruits and chopped walnuts. 

Spoon the batter into a paper cases, 3/4 full and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Ingredients for cinnamon sugar:

• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Put both ingredients into a small bowl and stir well. 

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool down on wire rack.

Chocolate raspberry cheesecake brownies

The classic brownie muffins appeared on my blog some time ago. But this time I wanted to test combination of cream cheese, rich chocolate cake and sour raspberries. It was lovely. Muffins were moist, very chocolaty, sweet with beautiful raspberry aroma. The recipe comes form 'Avoca Teat Time' cookbook. 

Ingredients for 12 muffins*:

• 100g chocolate
• 100g butter
• 125gsugar
• 2 eggs
• 55g flour

When double the ingredients you can bake the cake in 22x22x8 cm tin.

Preheat the oven to 180c. Line muffin tin with paper cases. Make sure that your muffin cases are greaseproof and thick as those muffins are slightly greasy.

Melt the chocolate in microwave or on a bowl placed over hot water pot. Set aside to cool down.

Put the butter and sugar into an electric mixer bowl and whisk until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs. When the eggs are well incorporated add the melted chocolate and flour. Beat until smooth.

Spoon the batter into prepared muffin cases. Divide evenly among all muffin cases. Set the muffin tin aside.

Cream cheese layer*:

• 200g cream cheese
• 75g sugar
• 1 egg (I used 1 egg white)
• vanilla
• 60g raspberries (I used 100g of frozen ones)

 *if baking in 22x22x8 cm tin double the ingredients

Put the cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla in an electric mixer bowl and whisk until smooth.

Spoon the cream cheese into each muffin case on top of chocolate cake. Sprinkle with the raspberries.

Bake 25 - 30 minuets. Then remove form the oven, leave them in muffin tin for a few minutes then transfer to the plate. Enjoy warm or wait until cooled down. 

 

Custard filled shortcrust pastry cupcakes

The recipe for those cupcakes comes form story book for children. It wasn't very precise so I had some difficulties with sticky batter but final result was amazing. Buttery, sweet, crunch cake filled with vanilla custard ...we loved them. 

Ingredients for 12 cupcakes:

• 250g flour
• 250g butter
• 90g icing sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• custard

Prepare the custard from 500 ml of milk, follow the recipe on the box. Set aside to cool down. To prevent from forming a thick skin cover with cling film.

Put the ingredients for cupcakes into a blender and mix them until form smooth pastry. Then wrap the sticky pastry with cling film and put into freezer for half and hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Remove the chilled pastry form the freezer and 3/4 of the pastry divide evenly among all muffin tin holes. Stick the pastry around each muffin tin hole so there are no places for custard to leak. Put the baking tray again into the fridge for another half and hour.

Fill each pastry shell with cooled custard and cover with remaining pastry.

Put into preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes. 

Remove form the oven and leave in muffin tin for a few minutes.

Then release the edges using sharp knife. Place a tray on top of muffin tin and turn over so all cupcake will land on tray.

Decorate with  royal icing.

Royal icing ingredients:

• 2 egg whites
• 1-2 cups icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• chocolate hearts

Put egg whites and sugar into a bowl and stir with a spoon until thick paste. Add the vanilla extract and mix well. When achieve thick but runny icing pour it over each cupcake top. When finish place a chocolate heart on each top. 

 

Enjoy ! 

 

Vanilla cupcakes

Vanilla cupcakes coated with royal icing are perfect with tea or coffee. This time in heart shape version - maybe Valentine's day dessert ? Very easy to make and loved by everybody. The recipe comes form this website.

Ingredients for 12 standard size or 6 heart shaped cupcakes:

• 125g self - rising flour
• 125g caster sugar
• 125g butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 200C. Slightly grease muffin tin holes.

Put all ingredients into an electric mixer bowl and beat until smooth.

Spoon the batter into muffin tin. Bake for 20 minutes until well risen and spongy.

Leave in a baking tin for a few minutes then transfer to the wire rack to cool down.

 Prepare the icing.

Ingredients:

• 2 egg whites
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Put all ingredients into a small bowl and whisk the with a spoon until smooth and thick.

Ready icing spread evenly over each cupcake and set aside to set. You may need to trim a little the cupcakes before decorating.

 Enjoy !

Lemon cupcakes with icing

This lemon cupcakes are really delicious. Moist and  lemony cake covered with royal icing. This is an idea for Valentine's Day. I know they don't look perfect but the made with love.  I think they may be a pretty candle light supper table decoration and lovely dessert at the same time. The recipe for cupcakes comes from here.

Ingredients for 6-8 heat shaped cupcakes:

• 175g flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 160g sugar
• 75g butter
• 2 eggs
• 6 tbsp yogurt
• 40 ml lemon juice
• 2 tbsp lemon zest

 Preheat the oven to 180C. Slightly grease the baking moulds.

Put the butter and sugar int an electric mixer bowl and beat until fluffy. Then add the eggs one at a time. When evenly incorporated add lemon juice and zest.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt.

Add half of the flour into a batter mixture, add 3 tbsp of yogurt and mix well. Add the remaining flour and yogurt and mix again.

Spoon the batter into prepared earlier moulds, 3/4 full. Bake for 25-30 minutes. When ready leave them in the baking moulds for a few minutes then transfer to the wire rack to cool down.

Icing:

• 2 egg whites
• 2 cups  icing sugar
• few drops of lemon juice
• red food colouring
• sugar sprinkles

Pour the egg whites into an electric mixer bowl and whisk them until slightly stiff.  Add sugar and whisk on low until all incorporated. Add the lemon juice and food colouring. 

Spread this icing over each heart shaped cupcake. Decorate with sprinkles. Leave on a plate to harden. 

Enjoy !