Coconut, yeast buns

Soft, sweet swirls with coconut spread. Very tasty. Perfect with cup of coffee/tea. Easy to make. I truly recommend them. 

Ingredients for 12 buns:

•  260 ml coconut milk (regular milk is ok too)
• 1 egg
• 360g flour + about 3 tbsp if dough is too soft
• 30g butter
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 1/4 tsp salt

Heat up the milk to body temperature. Check temperature with your finger, milk should be warm.  

Check the yeast if they have to be dissolved add them to the milk and stir. Otherwise add them to the dry ingredients mixture.

Flour, sugar, salt, diced into small cubes butter put into an electric mixer bowl. Add the egg. Pour in the milk. Knead the dough with dough hook until forms a loose ball. If the dough is too loose add more flour. 

Knead the dough for about 10 minutes then transfer to the bowl cover with cling film and leave in a warm place to rise.  

When doubled in size transfer to dusted with flour worktop. Leave for a few minutes to rest. 

In a meantime slightly grease muffin tin cups. 

Roll the dough into a rectangular shape about half centimetres thin. Spread the coconut spread evenly. If you don't have the ready made spread use butter, sugar and toasted coconut shreds. 

Roll along the short edge. Cut into 12 slices and place them flat into muffin tin cup each.

Set aside to prove for a 15 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 200C. Place the tin inside and bake the buns for 20 - 25 minutes. 

When baked leave them in a tin for a few minutes then transfer to the plate. Enjoy warm or cooled down.   

  Enjoy !

Recipe in Polish

Hot cross buns cupcakes

Moist, aromatic, packed with raisins. Almost as good as original hot cross buns. The recipe comes form BBC GoodFood

Ingredients for 12 -14 cupcakes:

• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 100ml milk
• 175g butter
• 175g self-rising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 175g brown sugar
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 100g ground almonds
• 3 eggs
• orange zest
• 100g raisins
• 1 medium apple

 Combine the lemon juice and milk and sit aside for 5 minutes. Peel and then great the apple. Melt the butter and set aside to cool down.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line muffin with paper cases or slightly grease and dust with flour each muffin cup. 

Put the flour, baking powder, sugar, spice, almond and pinch of salt into a large bowl. Mix all ingredients together. 

Zest orange and add the zest to thickened milk. Then add the eggs and melted butter. Mix well and pour into dry ingredients. Combine all ingredients together until even. Fold in the raisins and grated apple. 

Spoon the batter into muffin tin, filling each cup 3/4 full. Bake in preheated oven for 20 - 25 minutes until well risen and golden. When beaked remove form oven leave the muffins for a few minutes in a tin then remove and transfer to the wire rack to cool down.

While the muffins are cooling down prepare the frosting.

Frosting:

• 1 tbsp apricot jam and splash of hot water
• 50 g full fat cream cheese
• 50g icing sugar
• 25g soft butter
• 1/4 tsp mixed spice

 Put the cream cheese, sugar, butter and spice in a bowl and mix with a spoon until smooth. Transfer to the icing syringe.

Put the jam and hot water in a small bowl and whisk them together. Brush each cold muffin with jam mixture. Then with the syringe pipe the frosting into the crosses. 

Enjoy !

Recipe in Polish

 

Chocolate and Amaretto mini cheesecakes (no bake)

Today I would like to present this divine chocolate cheesecakes. They are made of amaretti cookies, cream cheese, mascarpone and chocolate with a hint of Amaretto. I made them in a circular shape in silicone XL size muffin tin but still it was tricky to take them out.  I would recommend to use paper cases or make this cheesecake in a big spring form tin. Anyway I finally have mine out, decorated them in Easter style and enjoyed them a lot.

My inspiration comes form here.

Ingredients for bottom layer:

• 200g amaretii cookies
• 50 - 70g* melted butter
• 100g lady fingers biscuits

* I was concerned about amount of fat in this recipe. I didn't want to add a lot of butter to the bottom layer. I have added only 50g of butter but then realised that bottom layer was too crumbly. I would recommend to add more butter so the crumbs mixed with butter would be more moist. 

Melt the butter. Place the biscuits in the blender and blend them until resemble sand. Stir in the butter, press with your finger to check if crumbs stick together.

Divide the mixture among muffin tin cups. Press to the bottom with back of the spoon.

Set aside to the fridge to chill. Prepare the cheesecake layer.

Ingredients for cheesecake layer:

• 250g Mascarpone cheese
• 100g Philadelphia cream cheese
• 200g dark chocolate
• 25 ml Amaretto

Place the Mascaropne and Philadelphia cheeses in a blender, add the Amaretto and whisk until smooth. 

Melt down the chocolate either over the pot with simmering water or in microwave. Pour the melted chocolate into the blender. Whisk again until smooth and evenly chocolaty.

Spoon the cheesecake layer on top of the crumb layer. Put the tin into a fridge and chill for at lest 2 hours. Mine were in the fridge overnight. After that time remove form the tin and decorate with some almond sticks and chocolate eggs. 

 

  Enjoy !

Recipe in Polish

Coconut muffins with millet

Have I mentioned before that I love coconut ? If not please have a look you will find a lot of recipes with this particular ingredient. Today I would like to present another one. This one comes form Dessert for two web site. The muffins were soft, spongy, moist, with coconut flavour and fragrance. The addition of raw miller give them an unexpected crunch. I think they are worth to try.

 Ingredients for 7 muffins:

• 40g coconut oil
• 160 ml coconut milk
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1 egg
• 95g flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 45g raw millet
• 20g dessicated coconut + some for sprinkling

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

Heat up the coconut oil until melts. Add the coconut milk, sugar and egg and whisk them together. 

In separate bowl whisk he flour, baking powder, salt, coconut and millet. Pour in the wet ingredients. The batter is rather runny.

Pour the batter into paper cases, 3/4 full. Sprinkle with dessicated coconut. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Leave the muffins in a tin to cool down for a few minutes. then transfer to the wire rack to cool down completely.

Enjoy !

Recipe in Polish

Apple crumble

 This is the easiest home made dessert. Just bake together the stewed apples with some crumble on top, serve with cream, creme fraiche and you have beautiful treat. I made mine in individual ramekins as I think it looks pretty but you can easily bake it in big heat proof dish. 

Preheat the oven to 200C. Prepare 4 ramekins.

Ingredients for 4 portions of apple crumble. 

Fruits:

• 25g butter
• 450g cooking apples
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 50g frozen blueberries ( optional)

Peel off, core and chop apples. Heat up the butter on frying pan. When is melted and hot add the apples, cinnamon and sugar. Stir well while cooking. Stop when apples become soft. Remove pan from the heat. If you would like to add blueberries stir them in now. 

Crumble:

• 50g porridge oats
• 40g butter
• 50g flour
• 30g brown sugar + some to sprinkle

Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix them with your fingers until resemble bread crumbs. Set aside.

 

Divide the fruits among all ramekins, then cover with crumble, sprinkle with small amount of sugar on top this will give crumble the extra crunch. If you want to serve the crumble immediately put the ramekins into an oven for 25 - 30 minutes. For later just keep in the fridge.

Serve warm apple crumble with some ice cream, cream or creme fraiche.

 Enjoy!

Recipe in Polish

Too - easy blueberry muffins

I was craving for some fruit muffins and didn't want to whisk, beat, blend or anything like that. Just mix some ingredients together, preferably in one bowl with wooden spoon to save up on washing dishes. Then I came across Donna Hay recipe . That was it ! I wanted to bake them in beautiful blue XL size muffin cases and... the recipe failed. I don't really know what happened  but my muffins had lovely crunchy crust, big hole in the middle and soggy, wet bottom :( I didn't stop us from eating the edible parts but it wasn't really what I was looking for.

Because I don't give up so easily I tried again. This time had chosen regular size muffin cases and it worked. Muffins were really delicious, moist, packed with bursting in flavor blueberries with crunch crust. I think they are my favorite blueberry muffins for now. 

  Ingredients for 20 muffins: 

• 400g* self- rising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 200g* caster sugar
• 125 ml oil
• 1 egg
• 125 ml milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 300g frozen or fresh blueberries ( I used frozen)
• granulated sugar for sprinkle

* when the original recipe is in cups I always weigh the ingredients and that is the result

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

Sift the flour and baking powder into a big bowl, add the caster sugar and mix all ingredients. Make a well in the middle and pour in the oil, milk, vanilla and break the egg. Stir all wet ingredients together, when well mixed stir all the ingredients. Mix them until just combined. The batter is very thick. Then fold in the blueberries.

Spoon the batter into paper cases up to top, sprinkle with granulated sugar. bake in preheated oven 30 -  35 minutes.

When ready transfer to the wire rack to let them cool down and enjoy !

Recipe in Polish

Banana muffins with banana liqueur

Recently I have found a full bottle of banana liqueur in my cupboard. I have decided to try to add this liqueur into  muffin's batter. I was quite happy with the result. Muffins were spongy, fluffy and chewy at the same time, with a hint of banana. I also added some liqueur into frosting and was delicious too. Rich, sweet actually could be eaten without the muffins. 

Ingredients for  7 muffins:

• 1 banana
• 60 ml banana liqueur
• 1 egg
• 50 ml natural yogurt
• pinch of salt
• 80 ml sugar
• 250g self - rising flour

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

Mash the banana with fork. Add the liqueur, egg and yogurt and stir well. Then add the flour, sugar and salt mix again until all ingredients are just combined.

Spoon the batter into paper cases, 3/4 full. bake in preheated oven for 20 -25 minutes until skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Transfer baked muffins into a wire rack to cool them down. 

Ingredients for frosting:

• 65 ml double cream
• 100 g Mascarpone cheese
• 50g icing sugar
• 2 tbsp banana liqueur
• 1 banana
• lemon juice

 The cream, Mascarpone, and sugar place in an electric mixer bowl and whisk until creamy. Then add banana liqueur and whisk again. Put into a fridge for an half an hour to chill before decorating the muffins. 

If you wish to put slice of banana on top of each muffin, slice the banana and cover the slices in lemon juice this will prevent the banana from turning brown.

Put the chilled frosting into icing bag with nozzle and decorate the muffins. On top of each place a slice of banana. 

 Enjoy !

Recipe in Polish

Date and bran muffins

Moist, dense, packed with fibre, sweet muffins. The batter has to be prepared day ahead. So in the morning you can easily bake them, without preparation mess. Easy to make, healthy ... what else to say.. juts give them a try.

Recipe comes form "The Australian Women's Weekly. Muffins"

Ingredients for 12 muffins:

• 185g flour
• 1 tsp soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon  
• 110g caster sugar
• 105g wheat bran
• 120g chopped dates
• 125 ml oil
• 375 ml buttermilk
• 1 egg

Put all ingredients into a bowl, stir them until all combined. Cover the bowl with cling film and refrigerate overnight.

Next morning. Preheat the oven to 200C.

Line with paper cases or slightly grease the muffin.

Spoon the batter into prepared pan. Bake for 20 minutes. When ready remove form the oven set aside for a few minutes to cool the muffins down and enjoy !

Recipe in Polish