Gingerbread man muffins

This recipe comes from 'Cake days. Recipes to make every day special. The hummingbird bakery.'

Ingredients for 18 muffins:

• 140g unsalted butter
• 200g caster sugar
• 60g black treacle
• 60g golden syrup
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 310g flour
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 240 ml hot milk

Preheat the oven to 190C. Line muffin tin with paper cases. This time I had silicone muffin cases so there was no need for muffin tin and greasing.

Sift the flour, spices, baking powder into a big bowl and whisk them together. Put the  butter and sugar into electric mixer bowl and beat them until white and fluffy. Then add the golden syrup, black treacle, eggs and egg yolks. Beat them until all ingredients well incorporated. In a meantime heat up the milk. 

To the mixture in the electric mixer bowl add alternately the hot milk and dry ingredients mixture. Pour the batter into muffin cases 2/3 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Leave them in muffin cases fro a while after baking then transfer to the wire rack. Muffins have to be cooled down before decorating them.

Ingredients for frosting:

•  600g icing sugar
• 100g soft butter
• 200g Philadelphia cream cheese
• sugar, chocolate sprinkles

Put butter and icing sugar into electric mixer bowl and beat on low speed until sandy.  Add cheese and beat until soft and fluffy.

With a spoon, knife spread the frosting over muffins' tops and sprinkle with sprinkles. Enjoy !

Cupcakes as gifts/parcels

Making those cupcakes is a great fun for long, dark, winter evenings. As baking the cakes is not so complicated and time consuming decorating them takes a lot of time. Recipe for cake comes from here, although I skipped the cocoa. The fondant and frosting were ready to use.

Ingredients for cake baked in 33 x 23 cm baking tin:

• 380g margarine
• 530g sugar
• 6 tbsp milk
• 6 eggs (yolks and whites separately)
• 380g flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar

Put the margarine, sugar and milk into a big pot and cook the on low heat stirring occasionally until it bubbles. Set aside to cool down.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Grease and sprinkle with semolina or dry breadcrumbs the baking tin.

When the cake mixture is cooled down add the egg yolks, flour, baking powder and with wooden spoon combine them together. In separate bowl whisk the egg whites with pinch of salt until stiff. Gently fold in the egg whites into the cake mixture. Pour the batter into baking tin and bake for 45 minutes.

When the cake is ready, cool it down completely on wire rack. Then cut into approximately  5 by 5 cm squares. Each square slice into half, spread with cream, I used Betty Crocer chocolate fudge frosting, then cover with top like sandwich. Then crumcoated the small cakes with butter cream, I used Bety Crocer vanilla frosting, and covered with fondant. I used Dr. Oetket's ready to roll fondant and Sugarflair gel colourings.    

Coconut cupcakes with chocolate and rum

Those cupcakes are definitely for adults only. Not only because they contain alcohol but there taste is very chocolaty almost bitter and children might not like that. Those cupcakes are spongy but not fluffy, moisture and rich in chocolate. Coated with chocolate and rum mixture give beautiful scent which make one eat and enjoy. This recipe comes from 'New Italian cuisine. Cupcakes'.

Ingredients for 12 cupcakes:

• 75g dessicated coconut (I used dessicated coconut flakes)
• 125 ml rum
• 150g flour
• 50g baking cocoa
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 125g melted butter
• 250 ml milk
• 2 eggs
• 150g sugar

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

Sift the desiccated coconut into a bowl and pour over the rum. Set aside.

Sift the the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt into a bowl, whisk them together and set aside. Melt the butter, pour it into a jug with  milk and set aside.

Into electric mixer bowl put the eggs and sugar and beat on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Reduce the speed and add alternately the dry ingredients mixture, the milk and butter mixture and the coconut and rum  mixture. The batter is going to be very runny.

Pour the batter evenly among prepared earlier muffin cases. Bake for 20-22 minutes until well risen and spongy. Transfer them to a wire rack and leave to cool down. 

Ingredients for icing:

• 180g chocolate - I had dark one, in original recipe there is milk one,
• 25 ml rum
• dessicated coconut to sprinkle
  

Melt down the chocolate, stir in the rum. Chocolate will harden a little when a cold rum will be added. With a knife spread the chocolate mixture over each muffin top and sprinkle with coconut. 

Breakfast bran muffins

Delicious breakfast muffins. Packed with brans, fruits, seeds give the energy for all day. The recipe comes from 'Cake days. Recipes to make every day special. The hummingbird bakery'.

Ingredients for 7 muffins:

• 90g wholewheat spelt flour
• 25g porridge oats
• 25g All-Bran Kellogg's cereals (or different bran cereals)
• 10g raisins
• 10g sunflower seeds
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 60g brown sugar
• 125 ml milk
• 1 egg
• 40g melted butter

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Melt the butter and set aside to cool down.

Sift the flour, oates, cereals, raisins, sunflower seeds, baking powder, soda and salt into a  big bowl and whisk them together. In a jug whisk egg and milk together. Pour this mixture and prepared earlier butter into bowl with dry ingredients. Combine all ingredients together. Do not over -stir them. Spoon the batter into paper cases 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes.Serve warm all cooled down.

Chocolate guinness cupcakes

Rich, dark and chocolaty this would be the simplest description of those cupcakes. They were beautiful. Very delicate, spongy and moist with very tasty frosting. The recipe comes from 'Cake days. Recipes to make every day special. The hummingbird bakery' cookbook. 

Ingredients for 12 cupcakes:

• 125ml Guinness
• 125 g unsalted butter
• 40g cocoa powder
• 200g caste sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 70 ml buttermilk
• 140g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Pour the Guinness into a saucepan, add the butter and gently heat until butter is melted. Remove the pan from the heat and gently stir in the cocoa powder and sugar. 

In a jug mix together the egg, vanilla and buttermilk and add this to the mixture in a pan. 

Sift the flour, baking powder and soda into an electric mixer bowl. On a low speed pour in the contents of a pan. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue to mix until all ingredients all incorporated. The batter is very runny.

Pour the batter into baking cases about 2/3 full. If you pout too much into baking case it will spread on a  sides. Because I overloaded few of my cupcakes I cut the cake and crumble it on the top of the frosting. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool them down on wire rack. In a meantime prepare the frosting. 

Ingredients for frosting:

• 25g unsalted soft butter
• 150g icing sugar
• 65g soft cheese (i used Philadelphia)

Using the electric whisk or  the free-standing mixer, mix the butter and icing sugar together until it is fully combine with sugar in a sandy mixture. Add the cream cheese and mix in a low speed , then increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. 

Spread the frosting on top of each completely cooled down cupcakes. Sprinkle with cake crumbs.

Cinnamon roll muffins

If you like cinnamon rolls this recipe is for you. This is no knead, mess free yeast dough with beautiful cinnamon taste and vet sweet icing. The recipe comes from this website.

Ingredneits for 12 muffins:

• 210g flour
• 60g sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 12g fresh yeast
• 175 ml warm milk
• 3 tbsp canola oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
• 1 egg

Prepare baking tin, grease muffin tin holes. Set aside.

Sift the flour, sugar, salt into big bowl and whisk them together. Warm up the milk, dissolve the yeast in it. Pour this mixture into dry ingredients. Add the oil, vanilla and egg. Combine all ingredients together. Pour the liquid mixture into prepared earlier muffin tin. Set aside, let the batter rest for 15 minutes.

In a meantime prepare cinnamon filling.

Ingredienst for filling:

• 2 tbsp soft butter
• 100g brown sugar
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• pinch ground cardamon

Mix together the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and cardamom in a small bowl using fork until all the butter has been incorporated into the sugar and mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle this mixture evenly between top of each 12 muffin tin holes filled with batter and swirl in with  toothpick. 

Place into a cold oven, then set temperature for 180C. Bake for 20 minutes, until muffins are browned on the top and springy in touch. Some of the sugar on top may still be bubbling.

Cool for at least 30 minutes. In a meantime prepare icing.

Ingredienst for icing:

• 60g powdered/icing sugar
• 1-2 tbsp milk

Sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add 1 tbsp of milk and with a fork combine them. If the mixture is too thick you may add additional tbsp of milk, be careful it can not be too runny. Drizzle the icing over each muffin top. Serve warm. Enjoy !

 

Ham, cheese and leek muffins

Those savoury muffins dissapeared almost immediately after being baked. In my family opinion they were very tasty, although children did not like them. They were fluffy, salty. I would recommend them for a quick brunch. 

Ingredients for 6 muffins:

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 leek
• 140g flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda
• 1 egg
• 150 ml Greek - style natural yogurt
• 25g melted butter
• 15g grated Cheddar cheese + some to sprinkle
• 75g chopped, cooked ham or susage or frankfurters.

Wash the leek and finely chop it. Heat the oil on frying pan over a low heat. Add the leek and cook until leek is soft. Remove form the heat and set aside to cool.

Chop the ham, and grate the cheese, set aside. Melt the butter and set aside.

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

Sift the flour, baking powder, soda into a big bowl and whisk together. 

In a measuring jug whisk together the yogurt and egg. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients. Pour melted and cooled down butter. Add the leek, cheese and ham. Leave some  ham to add on the top of each muffin.

Spoon this batter into paper cases, sprinkle with cheese and ham. Bake for 20 min until well risen. Cool them down on wire rack. Enjoy !!

Orange muffins with dates and walnuts

This recipe comes from joy of baking website. They were very easy to make and their taste was delicious. Those muffins were soft, spongy, with beautiful orange scent, sweet with dates and crunchy with walnuts. I think they are worth trying.

Ingredients for 12 muffins:

• 130g flour
• 130g whole wheat flour
• 140g brown sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bircarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp orange zest
• 80 ml orange juice ( I used freshly squized orange juice from 2 oranges)
• 160 ml buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 57 g melted butter
• 90g chopped dates
• 60g chopped walnuts

Wash the orange and grate the zest. Set aside. Squizze orange juice, set aside. Melt the butter and set aside.
Chopp the walnuts and dates and set aside.

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

In a big bowl sift the flours, sugar, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, salt, orange zest and whisk them together. Set aside.

In a measuring jug whisk together the buttermilk, orange juice, egg, vanilla and melted butter.

Pour this mixture into dry ingredients, add the walnuts and dates. Mix all ingredients together just to combine them all. Do not over stir the batter.
Spoon the batter into baking cases. Bake for 20 min. Transfer to the wire rack to cool them down. Enjoy !

Orange and almond cupcakes

This time gluten free cupcakes. It is another cake recipe I used to make lovely cupcakes. The recipe comes from this website. Those cupcakes were very nice, a little bit chewy with strong orange flavour. I found them very tasty. I decorated them with small amount of buttercream, which I used to stick piece of Terry's orange chocolate. 

Ingredients for 24 cupcakes:

• 2 big oranges
• 5 eggs
• 250g sugar
• 200g ground almonds
• 1 tsp gluten free baking powder

Place the oranges in a saucepan and cover them with water. Bring to the boil and simmer, covered for 1 hour. The oranges have to be covered with water all the time. Drain the oranges and cool. THEY ARE VERY HOT. Cut them into smaller pieces, remove stones. Put the oranges into a blender and puree until smooth.  

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line muffin tin with paper cases. 

Put the eggs and sugar into electric mixer bowl and beat them until pale and thick. Add the almonds, baking powder and orange pure and mix well. 

Spoon the batter into paper cases 2/3 full. Bake for 30 minutes, check after 20 minutes. They are ready when toothpick stick in the centre comes out clean. 

Leave them for 20 min in a baking tin to cool down then transfer them to a wire rack. 

While they cooling down you may prepare buttercream.

Ingredients for butter cream:

• 135g unsalted butter
• 100g icing sugar

In an electric mixer bowl put butter and beat until place and fluffy. Then gradually add icing sugar. 

When cupcakes are cooled down place small amount of butter cream on the top of each and stick piece of Terry's orange chocolate.

Enjoy !

 

Strong lemon cupcakes

I was inspired by Simmon Rimmer lemon drizzle cake recipe and decided to change it into cupcakes. I was only partly happy with my decision, as I had plenty leftovers. No... not cupcakes them self, they were lovely, although very sour, but the amounts of cream and lemon juice were too big, calculated to big cake not small cupcakes. Coming back to cupcakes they were really nice, cake was spongy and delicate, cream lemony. They were very tasty.

Ingredients for lemon drizzle:

• 4 lemons, juice only*
• 75g caster sugar

* next time I will squeeze only two lemons, first of all I got too much liquid, second of all the mixture was to sour

 

Squeeze lemons over a sieve. Get rid of stones. Pour the juice into a jug add sugar and stir together. Set aside.   

Ingredients for sponge (12 cupcakes):

• 200g caster sugar
• 200g butter
• 2 lemons, zest only
• 3 eggs
• 200g flour
• 1 tsp baking powder

Grease muffin tin holes and sprinkle with some flour, set aside. Preheat the oven to 180C.

Put the sugar, lemon zest and butter into electric mixer bowl and beat until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs one at a time, let the egg to be completely incorporated into the mixture before adding the next one. With a metal spoon carefully fold in the flour and the baking powder.
Spoon the batter evenly between muffin tin holes. Bake for 20-25 min until toothpick stick in the middle comes out clean.
Let them cool for a 5 min in baking thin, then transfer to a plate. Prick the top of each cupcake with toothpick and pour over the lemon drizzle mixture to soak the sponge. Set aside. I haven't used all of the lemon juice as the cupcakes became to sour for me. I kept this mixture in the fridge as I think is great to add to the tea.

Ingredients for lemon cream:

• 2 egg yolks
• 75g caster sugar
• 50g butter
• 2 lemons juice and zest
• 300g mascarpone

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a pan over a low heat until the sugar is melted. Add the butter, lemon and lemon zest and continue to cook, whisking continuously until the mixture has thickened and is smooth and well combined.  Set aside to cool down completely. 

With a spoon stir in mascarpone. I added more than recommended 100g as lemon cream was to sour for me that's way I received too much of a cream.

When the cream is ready. Slice each cupcake into half and place some cream in the middle, cover with remaining cake. You can add some cream on the top as a decoration and dust with icing sugar. Enjoy !
 

Chocolate and hazelnut muffins

Recipe for these muffins comes from 'New Italian cuisine. Chocolate' cookbook. To bake them, and make them look slightly different than traditional muffins, I used my new square muffin tin. Those muffins were very chocolaty, chewy with ground hazelnuts and a little bit dry but good with coffee or tea. I think I do not have to remind that they were very easy to make.

Ingredients for 20 mini-muffins:

• 100g flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100g ground hazelnuts
• 175g dark chocolate
• 1 egg
• 150 ml milk
• 75g sugar
• 45 ml canola oil

Preheat the oven to 180C.  Grease muffin tin, mine was silicone so there was no need for geasing.

Sift the flour, baking powder, hazelnuts into a big bowl and whisk them together. Melt the chocolate in microwave. Whisk the chocolate with the sugar, oil, milk and egg as they turn into smooth mixture. Sift into the dry ingredients and combine them with the wet mixture. Spoon the batter into muffin tin. Bake for 15-20 minutes until toothpick inserted in the middle of muffin come out clean. Leave them for a 5 min in baking tin then cool them down on a plate. Enjoy !

Easy sticky buns

When I saw them for a first time in Ina Garten "Barefoot Contessa" show I immediately put them on my things  to bake list. I was not sure if I should present them on my blog, as they are not real muffins or cupcakes. But, you see,  they are baked in muffin tin and they are so good .. :) They were very easy to make and tasty to eat, too tasty to eat actually.  The recipe comes from this website.

Ingredients for 12 buns:

• 170g soft unstalted butter
• 60g light brown sugar
• 75g chopped pecans
• 1 package frozen puff pastry

For the filling:

• 2 tbsp  unsalted butter melted
• 100g light brown sugar
• 3 tsp cinnamon
• 90g raisins

Preheat the oven to 200C. Place the muffin tin on a cupboard.

Melt the butter in microwave or in a sauce pan and leave to cool down. Combine 100g sugar and cinnamon set aside.  Chop the pecans.

In an electric mixer bowl combine 170g butter and 60g sugar. Divide this mixture evenly among muffin tin cups. Sprinkle sugar and butter tops with chopped pecans. Set aside.

Lightly flour wooden board. Unfold 1 sheet of pastry. Brush the whole sheet with half of melted butter. Sprinkle with half of the sugar and cinnamon mixture and raisins.

Roll the pastry like a jelly roll. Slice the roll in six equal pieces. Mine were a little bit to tall, so cut them no more then 2 inches wide. 

Place each piece, spiral side up, in 6 of the muffin cups. Repeat with remaining pastry to make 12 buns.

before baking

after baking

Bake for 30 minutes until brown. Remove from oven. Be careful - they are very hot.

Let them cool down for a while in a tin. In a meantime prepare parchment and invert the buns to the paper. Scrub remaining pecans whit a spoon and place on the top of buns. Let them cool down completly.

Do not worry about baking tin. It looks messy but caramel - the butter and sugar changed into, easily comes off.

 

Rasberry mufffins with amaretto cookies

This time I have baked raspberry muffins with amaretto cookies. Although they were very easy to make their baking time was extremely long, it took me 45 minutes to bake those small muffins. The recipe comes form this blog it is cake recipe but I turn it into batch of muffins. Those muffins were very tasty, moisture, soft with lovely raspberry and almond scent.

Ingredients for 12 muffins:

• 175g butter
• 175g icing/ powder sugar + some for dusting
• 3 eggs
• 140g flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 85g grated almonds
• 24 amaretto cookies (2 for each muffin)
• 200g raspberries (I had frozen)

Preheat the oven to 160C. Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and almond in electric mixer bowl and beat them together until they create smooth, thick batter. 

Spoon the batter into earlier prepared paper cases. First put about 1 tbsp batter, then add cookies and raspberries.

batter with cookies

and raspberries

Cover them with additional layer of batter, add more raspberries and sprinkle with crushed cookies. Be careful not to overload the paper cases, leave small gap from the edge. On the other hand don't be worry those muffins do not rise much, the only risk is that they might leak on sides a little bit. 

Bake them for 45 minutes. Check with toothpick if baked inside. If you like you may dust them with icing sugar.

before baking

Cocoa muffins with cream cheese

I found this muffins by a chance. I was searching Internet to find recipe for a meal with Philidelphia cheese, which was sitting in my fridge. When I came across this recipe I simply had to make it. Firstly because those muffins are very easy to make, secondly I was curious to taste their flavour as they baked without eggs. There is no need for special kitchen equipment. They are very tasty, moisture and chocolaty. White cheese does not give a lot of flavour to them but it looks beautiful.  

Ingredients for cream cheese filling:

• 80g cream cheese I used Philadelphia
• 1 egg white
• 1and 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp flour

Put all mentioned above ingredients in a small dish and with a spoon combine them all. Place this mixture into freezer for 30 min or overnight.

Ingredients for 6-8 muffins:

• 120g flour
• 90g sugar
• 25g cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 100 ml water
• 100 ml buttermilk
• 100 ml canola oil
• 1 tbsp alcohol (I added Bizon vodka)
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Preheat oven to 175C. Line muffin tin with paper cases. Remove the cream cheese mixture form freezer.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, soda and salt into big bowl and whisk them together.

In separate jug pour the water, buttermilk, oil and stir them together. Add the alcohol and vanilla. Pour this mixture into dry ingredients mixture. Combine them together.   

Spoon the batter into paper cases 1/3 high, then add one heaped teaspoon of the cream cheese mixture and cover with batter no more than 2/3 high. Bake for 25 min. Remove form oven, let the muffins cool down in the tin for 5 min then place them on wire rack to cool down completely. Those muffin taste the best when cooled down.

 

English muffins II

This is second time I baked English muffins. I used to make English muffins before but this time I had slightly different recipe. This recipe comes form 'Home baking' cookbook. Even though I liked the other ones very much I was not disappointed with this ones ether. They were vary tasty, especially served with strawberry jam.

Ingredients for 10-12 muffins:

• 450g strong white bread flour
• 14g fresh yeast or 7g dried ones
• 250 ml warm water
• 125 ml natural yogurt
• 1/2 tsp salt
• some semolina for dusting
• vegetable oil for brushing

Mix the yeast with water until it has dissolved. Add the yogurt and mix well. Sift the flour and salt together into electric mixer bowl. Add the yeast mixture and mix until it forms soft dough. Knead with hands or electric mixer with dough hook for 5-10 min until smooth and elastic. Place the dough into a bowl cover with clingfilm and leave to rise in warm place for 30-40 min or until doubled in size.
In a meantime prepare a baking sheet, dust with the semolina and set aside. 
Sprinkle the surface with some flour and turn out the dough again and knead lightly. Roll it out to a thickness of 2 cm. 

dough after being rolled out

With a round cutter cut into 10-12 rounds. Place them on prepared earlier baking sheet and scatter the semolina over each muffin. As you can see I did not have round cutter so I used glass instead.

cutting rounds

Cover the muffins with tea towel and leave to rise in warm place  for 30-40 min.

 

 

 

muffins while rising

Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat. Lightly brush with oil. Add the muffins and cook for each side until sound hollow when tapped on the base, taking care not to burn them. Repeat with the remaining muffins.  

Serve freshly cooked with lots of butter and some jam.