Pumpkin & Feta Muffins

Pumpkin Feta Muffins

It’s that time of year where I put squash, or pumpkin, in pretty much everything. For some people pumpkins are only relevant for Halloween, or as the word in front of ‘spiced latte’, but for me it’s an ingredient I look forward to all year. It’s a great change from sweet potato, offering so much colour, a level of nuttiness and an incredible versatility. Last year I put up recipes for Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns (I’ll be putting up a new glaze recipe for this soon), a pumpkin & nutella pie & pumpkin jam and the year before that it was a pumpkin cinnamon loaf cake. This year, thanks in part to Maddie buying the Ruby Tandoh cookbook it was into savoury muffins. The original recipe actually called for sweet potato, but as just that morning I’d raided our local shop for as many squashes as I could carry it only felt appropriate to make them Pumpkin & Feta Muffins.
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Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts

Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts

Here comes that chant again; Doughnuts, Doughnuts, Doughnuts. I realised it had been too long since the last time I cracked out my doughnut baking tray and I wanted to give a strawberry glaze a go for that classic pink glazed ring doughnut. When my friend Char (across at Dino Princess Char) was posting about some problems and not being too happy I took the chance to send her a Cake Care Package to try and cheer her up. It was the perfect opportunity for me to crack out the dinosaur sprinkles my friend Naomi gave me for my birthday, and it gave me a chance to channel my inner Jurassic Park fan (I’ve still not seen the new one, so no spoilers please).

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Easter Nest Cupcakes

Easter Nest Cupcakes

As I type this it’s the morning of Good Friday and I’m sat on a train passing through mountains and past lakes. I’m on my way up to my parent’s on the Isle of Mull once again to spend the Easter weekend eating food, baking cakes and going on hikes. Speaking of Easter and cake, it brings me on to this week’s recipe. I actually made this last Sunday. Just before payday I was excruciatingly poor and couldn’t actually afford to bake. My workmates very kindly clubbed together and organised a collection at work to raise money for me to get ingredients to do something worthy of Easter.

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Lemon Glazed Oven Baked Doughnuts

*Chanting* DOUGHNUTS. DOUGHNUTS. DOUGHNUTS.

Doughnuts are great. I am however scared of deep frying. I just can’t get over the worry that I’ll burn my house down. And then disposing of all that oil? Urrgh. Just before Christmas I bought a Doughnut Oven Bake Baking Tray (this one), and you know what? It’s f****** brilliant. In the run up to Christmas I made a few different types. From standard cinnamon sugar, through to maple glaze with crispy bacon. I didn’t however, get around to blogging any of them. So here we go!

Oven Baked Doughmuts (13 of 36)

Oven Baked Doughmuts (9 of 36)

I passed my probation the day before the Christmas holidays started for me. When you pass your probation, it’s tradition to bring in a selection of Krispy Kreme Donuts for the office. Everyone runs late on it, and I wanted to bake my own. So I’ve decided to bake a selection of different doughnut types. Lemon Glazed, Maple Glazed, and Chocolate Glazed. To keep things tidy I’ll do 2 separate posts with the recipes. Starting with the Lemon Glazed lemon Doughnuts. This recipe is based on this one here.

Oven Baked Doughmuts (17 of 36)

The great thing about oven baked doughnuts, is that they are good for you slightly less bad than normal ones. They don’t take too long and you can satisfy a craving pretty easily.

Oven Baked Doughmuts (28 of 36)

Now, one more time DOUGHNUTS. DOUGHNUTS. DOUGHNUTS.

Oven Baked Donuts
 
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Author:
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • **For the Doughnuts**
  • 250g all purpose flour
  • 300g white sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • 290ml buttermilk (or can use whole milk)
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • Rind of 1 Lemon, grated
  • ** For the Glaze**
  • Juice of one large lemon
  • 200g (plus) of icing sugar (I won't lie, I just spooned it in until I got it to the thickness I wanted)
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 175°C (155°C fan assisted) and grease your doughnut tin.
  2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
  3. Beat the egg with the buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla.
  4. Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients, add the lemon rind and mix until just combined.
  5. Divide the mixture in the tin. I did this using an icing bag for neatness, you could easily do it with a spoon too. Fill each ring to about ¾ full. You don't want them rising up and filling the whole in.
  6. Bake for 14-17 minutes, the edges should have started browning and a tooth pick inserted will come out clean.
  7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.
  8. While they cool, make the glaze. Beat the lemon juice into the icing sugar until smooth and thick. Once the doughnuts are cool enough, dip them in (I double dip) so the top is coated with the glaze. Allowing to set before serving.
 

Camomile & Honey Cupcakes

I have some problems with my stomach. I’ve had them for years. The last time I went to the doctors they tried to find out what was wrong with it to no avail (or at least what was triggering it). Due to these problems I spend a lot of time drinking herbal teas that are designed for soothing the stomach or aiding digestion. These include ginger, peppermint (although peppermint is far from my first choice) and Camomile (usually camomile & honey or camomile & maple). Camomile is an anti-spasmodic, which happens to be one of my favourite words especially when you say it to someone that hasn’t heard it before. As a result of this I’ve been wanting to bake camomile & honey cupcakes for a while, and just not gotten around to it. The recipe I used was based on this one here.

 
Camomile & Honey Cupcakes
 
Camomile & Honey Cupcakes

January has, as usual, hit the wallet pretty hard and I’ve been having to greatly cut back on spending for the last couple of weeks. The great thing with these, is that outside of the cream, I already had everything already in stock.  It wasn’t until I got home and took a look at Timehop that it reminded me it was a year ago, to the day, that I last baked tea themed cupcakes. Last year it was Green Tea Cupcakes & Matcha Frosting (I’ve since improved on this by doing the cakes as purely chocolate and making the frosting Matcha & White Chocolate).

 
Camomile & Honey Cupcakes

 
Camomile & Honey Cupcakes

I am going to be kicking off my “Baking Basics” posts at the start of February. As I detailed in my previous “2015 Goals” post, I want to properly teach myself how to bake (i.e. how it works, why you use certain ratios of ingredients and how to do certain techniques etc.) this year. Does anyone have any suggestions for basics I could include?

Camomile & Honey Cupcakes

Camomile & Honey Cupcakes
 
Prep time
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Author:
Serves: 12 cupcakes
Ingredients
  • **For the cakes**
  • 60g Unsalted Butter (At room temperature)
  • 125g All-Purpose Flour
  • 150g Granulated White Sugar
  • 1tsp Baking Powder
  • ½tsp Bicarb of Soda
  • 3tbsp Dried Camomile (I used camomile tea bags)
  • 120ml Milk
  • 1 Large Egg
  • **For the glaze**
  • 190g Powdered Icing Sugar
  • 5tbsp Double Cream
  • 2tbsp Honey
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 160°C and line a cupcake tray with cases.
  2. Cream together the butter and the sugar before mixing in the flour, baking powder and bicarb of soda.
  3. Whisk the milk and the egg seperately and pour into the dry mixture, mixing constantly while adding.
  4. Add in the camomile (and I sometimes add a squeeze of honey here too) and mix until well combined.
  5. DIvide the mixture evenly between the 12 cases. There should be exactly enough to fill them to about half way each, you'll need to scrape the sides of the bowl.
  6. Place in the middle of the preheated oven and bake for 15-17 minutes (until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean).
  7. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
  8. While the cool, make the glaze. Cream together the sugar, cream and honey until smooth and thick.
  9. With a kitchen knife or small palette knife spread the glaze on top of the cakes.