I <3 Red Velvet Mug Cakes

Just so you know...

...those red velvet mug cakes were awesome.

I steamed the beetroots myself and used raw sugar instead of sweetener. The cakes were then baked in the oven at 200°C (392°F) for about 30 mins and they turned out oh so moist. For a final decadent touch, twice the amount of cream cheese icing was made and applied liberally.

The end result was just incredibly good. I'll admit there was a slight hesitation for the first bite or two (beetroot? in my cake?), but each bite just kept getting better and better until both Mr Morrgan and I were completely sold.

Try them! You'll be happy you did!

Happy May 1st!

Hooray, it's the 1st of May! The day of picnics in the spring sun and the first ice cream of the year!

...or not. After a pleasant and sunny +20C/68F last weekend, this morning greeted us with a freaking snowstorm, which in the afternoon turned into delightful slush rain. No picnic or outdoors ice cream for us, methinks.

We had already made nice picnic food plans, though, and it would be a shame to let all those go to waste. We'll just have to make do with an indoors picnic instead!

Our May 1st treat: gluten-free Red Velvet Mug Cakes, just before going into the oven. Once they come out, they'll be slathered with cream cheese icing.

Our special treat this year are the red velvet mug cakes pictured above, of course as a Morrgan-safe i.e. gluten-free version. These are currently in the oven and some pretty delightful scents are beginning to waft over, so I predict a fine May 1st afternoon despite the weather.

Have a good one, all!

The mug cake recipe can be found here, check it out!

Most excellent brownies (wheat & gluten free)

I love baking. However, as I've discovered I can no longer eat grains, I can't use wheat flour or rye flour etc. If I want to eat what I've baked myself, that is.

This has meant quite a few adjustments in the kitchen and much experimenting with other flours, such as coconut and almond flours. They behave quite differently from the usual grain ones and there have been many sad baking failures during the past year or two. However, I've been pleasantly surprised to find that once you get the hang of how to use these other flours, many baked goods turn out even better than the usual wheat versions!

Make thin slices...

My latest triumph was this recipe for brownies. It uses ground almond flour, which not only gives them a delicious nutty flavour and texture, but it's also easier to get the moist texture that is vital for brownies. This recipe can be used for the usual thicker brownies, but you can also make thin slices less than one cm (about 3/8 in) thick and they'll still have that moistness about them.

...or proper brownies!

Most excellent brownies, wheat and gluten free
(makes 12 brownies or 25-50 thin slices depending on cut size)

• 100 g (3 1/2 oz) dark chocolate (I use 60-70%)
• 150 g (5 1/4 oz) butter
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 dl (about 1/4 cup) raw cane sugar (note: I don't like very sweet stuff, so double or triple if you have more of a sweet tooth than I do)
• 2 1/2 dl (1 cup) almond flour
• 2 tsp vanilla sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1-1.5 dl (about 1/4-5/8 cup) crushed hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts or other nuts of your choice. 
• Optional: you can also add about 1 dl (1/4 cup) of peanut butter (unsalted and unsweetened), raspberries or some other suitable flavour variation you might like

Melt dark chocolate and butter together on a low heat. Let cool a bit.

Whisk eggs and sugar until white and fluffy. Combine with somewhat cooled choco mixture.

Mix together the dry ingredients (add a pinch of salt if you're using unsalted butter), then stir into the batter.

Pour onto a baking tray lined with paper. For brownies, use one about 33x27 cm (13x10 1/2 in). For thin slices, use 40x33 cm (16x13 in).

Bake at 180°C (356°F) for 15-20 min. Be careful not to bake them too long!

Let them cool completely, before cutting into slices and devouring.

The Bestest Pie Ever

So it turns out I have a problem with grains. Celiac disease has been ruled out, so the doctor was of the opinion that it is likely wheat allergy based on the many, many symptoms (though ones that develop slowly over weeks and at first glance seem unrelated to diet, which is why it took 30 bloody years to figure this out). I know rye causes trouble too though, so it's more than just wheat.

Anyway, be it an allergy or some kind of other sensitivity, wheat and other grains are out. It has been surprisingly easy to change to a grain-free diet and I don't miss bread, pasta or any of the rest. Also, I didn't even know it was possible for a person to feel so good, ache-free and full of energy as I do now. :P

There is one thing I that I miss though: baking. Not so much the baked goods themselves, but the baking process. Cooking food just isn't the same.

But now, finally, I have found a pie that I can bake and eat without fearing for the safety of my poor body. Plus it tastes way better than any regular flour-based pie I used to make. This is a pie of unprecedented deliciousness!

The original recipe I found at Luolalaboratorio (in Finnish) which I modified to suit my own nefarious purposes. Behold, the result!

It may not look like that much, but I'm telling you, this pie is pure <3
It's not just the best, it's the bestest.

The Bestest Pie Ever (12 slices)

4 eggs
3 ripe bananas
100 g (3 1/2 oz) melted and cooled butter
2 dl (a little less than a cup) coconut flour
2 tsp baking powder

Filling
4 dl berries of your choice (my fave is half raspberries and half blackcurrants)
2-2.5 dl (~1 cup) smetana/crème fraîche/sour cream/other similar, suitable substitute
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla sugar
(sugar or other sweet stuff, should you feel the need)

Whisk the eggs until fluffy. Mash up the bananas a bit, then add them and the butter to the eggs and mix some more. Mix the baking powder and coconut flour together, then stir in with the rest. When the batter is smooth, spread onto the bottom and sides of a pie tin. There should be enough room left in the middle to house all the berries, which go in next. Finally, quickly mix together the rest of the filling ingredients, then pour over the berries.

Bake at 200 °C (about 390 °F) for about half an hour. Let it cool for a bit, then serve. (It's deliciously moist on its own, but adding a spoonful of whipped cream can never go wrong, I say.)

Note! I use almost no sugar these days, so I find this pie to be very sweet as it is, thanks to the bananas and berries. Should you have more of a sweet tooth however, you may wish to add some sugar to the smetana/créme fraîche/sour cream/whatever mixture.

Carrot soup with a touch of chili

Let me start by saying this is the best soup I've ever made. Ever. Words cannot describe how pleased I am with this soup. The combination of coconut and sweet chili is just my thing.

(Note: I do mean the best soup I've made, not necessarily the best soup ever. I'm afraid this doesn't beat the absolutely fantastic pumpkin soup I had in New Zealand some years ago. It comes close, though.)

Carrot soup with a touch of chili (2 portions)

3 sliced carrots
1/2 chopped onion
5 dl (2 cups) water
1 1/2 tbsp (or one cube) chicken or vegetable stock
2 dl (1 1/4 cups) coconut milk
2 tbsp sweet chili sauce
about 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil (or other herb of your liking)

Boil carrot slices and chopped onion in water with chicken or vegetable stock until soft (about 20 mins). Puree the vegetables (a stick/hand blender comes in handy). Add coconut milk and sweet chili sauce, bring to a boil. Sprinkle the fresh basil on top just before serving.

Also works well served with a bit of chopped and fried bacon on top. I imagine a dollop of crème fraiche would be lovely too. =) Enjoy!

Zucchini Slices

Yum. Yum yum, yum yum. That should be enough of a description!


Zucchini Slices

4 eggs
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
5 dl (~2 cups) grated zucchini
200 g (7 oz) butter, melted
1/2 dl (~1/4 cup) almond flakes or crunch
4 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Beat eggs and sugar until white and fluffy. Add zucchini, butter and almonds. Mix the dry ingredients together, then add to the batter. Spread the batter onto a baking tray (30x40 cm or about 12x16 inches) covered with baking paper. Bake at 200°C (392°F) for 20-25 mins, until the surface is a lovely golden brown.

Icing
150 g (~5 1/2 oz) cream cheese
5 dl (2 cups) icing sugar

Mix the cream cheese and icing sugar, then spread onto the cooled cake. Decorate with almond flakes.

A recipe tip: Ratatouille Pie

In our household, Mr Morrgan is usually the chef. He enjoys it and is much more imaginative in the kitchen than I am, so having him do most of the cooking was a natural choice. Baking is more my thing.

However, since I've lately spent more time at home than he has, it didn't seem fair that he'd have to work all day plus cook dinner, especially as just walking to work and back takes him 1-1 1/2 hours every day. So I decided to be brave and venture back into the world of cooking.

I've never been very interested in cooking, so I haven't bothered to learn that many recipes. It only took about a week to go through the usual suspects. Alas and alack, it was time to learn a new recipe.

Fortunately for me, I happened to spot something interesting in a magazine: a ratatouille pie. It was a pie (=baking) AND it had goat cheese on it. Perfect!

It was time-consuming, but I'm happy to say it was a success! Delicious both when warm and fresh, and when cold the next day. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to use homegrown veggies, but we only had our own lemon basil to put on top. It did make a very nice addition to the flavour, though.

The recipe can be found here, though it seems to only be available in Finnish. Basically the filling is a ratatouille made of eggplant, zucchini, capsicum (bell pepper), onion or leek and crushed tomato. The crust is rolled out thinly into a large circle, the filling placed on it and the crust edges are folded over the filling. After 20-ish minutes in the oven, goat cheese and olives are placed on top and the pie goes back into the oven until the cheese has melted.

As usual, I changed the recipe a little bit. I didn't have the graham flour the recipe asked for, so I made my own version of the crust:

Pie crust

1 1/2 dl (2/3 cup) wheat flour
1 dl (~1/2 cup) rolled oats
3 tbsp wheat germ
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp oregano
a pinch of salt
75 g (~2 1/2 oz) butter
about 3/4 dl (1/3 cup) water

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add cubed butter and work into a dough. Add water and stir/mix until you have a smooth mixture. Wrap in plastic wrap and keep in fridge while you make the filling.

Smoothies, perfect for summer time

It's my birthday! And Mr Morrgan the sweetie woke me up with coffee in bed and made French toast with lemon curd for breakfast. Yay and yum! =)

In other news, it's warm and lovely here again, after a week or so of colder weather, and we have been trying out old and new summery drinks. My current favourites for lunch are smoothies, especially nice when made with berries from my parents' garden and enjoyed on the sunny balcony. I thought I'd share a couple of recipes.


I use frozen berries to get a nice cool drink, but fresh ones could be used too. Making them is very easy, just mix everything together with a blender. Simple, fast and yummy! For some fun and equally easy experimenting with flavours, try using different berries and juices.

Blackcurrant-Banana Smoothie (pictured)
2 bananas
1-2 dl (~1/2-4/5 cup) blackcurrants
1 tbsp honey
2,5 dl (1 cup) water

Berry Mix Smoothie
1 banana
1 dl (~1/2 cup) raspberries
1/2 dl (~1/4 cup) blackcurrants
2 dl fruit juice of your choice

The only thing better than carrot muffins is carrot muffins smothered in cream cheese icing

So, I've been baking again. We got some neat silicone muffin moulds recently and I wanted to test them out. Then when grocery shopping I spotted a picture of a carrot cake with cream cheese icing on the cover of a magazine and thus it was decided what kind of muffin to bake.

This test taught me two things.

1. Silicone moulds are all kinds of cool. The muffins didn't stick and they were easy to kind of fold out of the moulds. Plus to an easily amused person, a floppy mould is way funnier than a metal tin.

2. I really dislike grating carrots. Like, seriously dislike. Broken nails, scratched fingers... Ugh. (Yeah, so it kinda sounds like I'm doing it wrong. Next time I'll delegate that task to Mr Morrgan in any case.)


Carrot Muffins Smothered in Cream Cheese Icing (makes 12)

The more carrots you put in, the juicier they are. The less you mix the batter, the better they'll be.

3 1/2 dl (~1 1/3 cup) flour
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
5 dl (~2 cups) grated carrots (or 2 1/2 HUGE carrots - more than I intended to put in at first, but the muffins came out oh so juicy!)
1 dl (~1/2 cup) vegetable cooking oil (like Canola, I believe it's called?) or melted butter

Cream Cheese Icing
100 g (3 1/2 oz) cream cheese
50 g (1 3/4 oz) butter
1-2 dl icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add grated carrots and oil or melted and somewhat cooled butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Divide the batter into 12 muffin cups and bake for about 25 minutes at 175°C (~350°F).

Let them cool down completely before attempting to apply icing. Whip together all the icing ingredients, then spread liberally onto the muffins. Enjoy!

A Happy Birthday Cake

My brother turned one year older and it was only right and just that he have a cake. As we now live in the same city, I decided that the job of making him a cake was mine.

A cake was indeed created and happily, dear brother approved of it:


Want to know how you too can make a brother-approved cake? Read on!


First, a basic cake was made:

1. About 75 g (about 2 1/2 oz) butter was melted and left to cool.

2. Then 3 eggs and 3 dl (1 1/4 cup) sugar were beaten together until white and fluffy-ish.

3. The dry ingredients (4 1/2 (a little under 2 cups) dl flour, 3 tsp baking powder and 2 tsp vanilla sugar) were mixed together, then added to the beaten eggs & sugar.

4. Finally, about 1 dl (a little under 1/2 cup) water and the melted & cooled butter were mixed into the batter.

5. The batter was poured into a greased and floured cake tin (24 cm or 9 1/2 inches in diameter) and baked in 175°C (347°F) for about 45 mins.

Once the cake had cooled down, the fun part started! I cut it in half and moistened the bottom layer by spreading a bit of fruit juice (including orange, pineapple, apple and passionfruit) evenly over it with a tablespoon. Then I spread on a layer of apricot marmelade and finally covered it with vanilla custard. The top layer went on and was moistened in the same way.

The cake went into the fridge for about 8 hours to set and let the juice spread evenly throughout the layers. It probably would have been better to have it in there overnight, but oh well. Will do that another time.

Just before serving, it was time for the final touches. Vanilla-flavoured whipped cream was liberally applied to the whole cake and decorated with mandarin orange slices. Voilà!

Ridiculously Easy Blackcurrant Pie (but oh so delicious)

Blueberry pie, you have a competitor! We got a big pile of blackcurrants from my parents' garden and I decided to make a pie. At around 9 in the evening I had little energy left, so I threw one together like so:

1. Defrosted a storebought sweet pie crust and flattened it into a pie dish.

2. Poured in as many blackcurrants as would fit (something like 2-3 dl or 1 cup).

3. Mixed together 1 dl (a little under 1/2 cup) sugar, 2 tbsp potato starch flour and 1 tsp vanilla sugar, then sprinkled that on top of the berries.

4. Put it into the oven at 200°C (392°F) for about 30 mins.

5. Let it cool a bit, then served with vanilla icecream.

6. Entered a state of joyful bliss.

What a pie! A Pie with a capital P, even after I put only the bare minimum of effort into it. I will hoard all the leftover berries from my parents' garden into the freezer so that I can make this again. And again. And again!

Spicy Banana Cake

It seems whenever old bananas gather at our place, great things happen. There's something about them that makes them a magical über-ingredient in any baking. Honest.

The recipe for this spicy banana cake is one I've adapted from the banana cake in the Swedish version of this book. (I picked this book up on a whim at a sale and it's become my most used baking book. It receives the Morrgan seal of approval. =) The secret ingredient is the buttermilk, which makes the cake oh-so-moist.

Spicy Banana Cake

100 g (3 1/2 oz) butter
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 eggs
5 dl (a little over 2 cups) flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
2 bananas
~3/4 dl (~1/3 cup) buttermilk

Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add one egg at a time. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger and cinnamon together, then add slowly to the butter-sugar mix. Slice the bananas and add them. Finally mix in the buttermilk.

Pour the mixture into a greased and floured tin (about 2 l - 8-9 cups). Bake for about 1 hour at 175°C (~350°F) in the lower half of the oven. Let it cool before serving (it is yummy when still slightly warm, though).

Belated Christmassy Banana Muffins

Here comes that muffin recipe I mentioned in an earlier post, the one that I intended to post before the holidays. And oh look, it's another banana muffin recipe! There may be two already in this blog, but one can always use another one, right? Right...?

Yes, once again we had overly ripe bananas in the house, no matter how many I keep eating. I swear, it's as if these bananas sneak away to breed somewhere out of sight and then the young stay hidden long enough to make them overly ripe and thus safe for eating. Kind of like how crabs stay hidden after moulting, until their new shell hardens. I guess the threat of banana muffins came fairly late in the banana's evolutionary process, as they don't seem to have any defense mechanisms for that.

Um.

So! For these muffins I tried a gingerbread-like blend of spices, to fit the season. Worked quite well, I'm pleased to say, and they're even better the next day. Enjoy!


Christmassy Banana Muffins (makes 12)

4 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
about a thumbtip's worth of fresh ginger or 1 tsp dried ginger
100 g (~1/2 cup) melted butter
3 eggs
2 ripe, sliced or mashed bananas

Mix the dry ingredients together. Mash or slice the bananas, depending on your preference. Whisk the eggs, then add melted and somewhat cooled butter and bananas (and chopped ginger, if you use the fresh stuff). Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Divide into 12 muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes at 175°C (347°F).

As usual, the less you mix the batter, the better they'll be.

Pineapple Adventures, including muffins

I decided to bake again. This time I went for a new muffin combo: pineapple & lemon. For this recipe, I used half of a fresh pineapple and I've got a pro tip for you: don't. It's just much more hassle than it's worth, when you can get decent stuff in a tin.

The reason why we just happened to have a fresh pineapple at home was that I'd read you can plant the leafy part and get your own pineapple... tree? Bush? Well, whatever they're called. (Biologist typing here, can you tell?)

I cut off the top part and broke off the remaining pieces of fruit. I'll leave the thing alone for a few days to let the cut dry up and then I will stick into some soil. Then, it will hopefully take root and grow. Oh, the excitement.

Anyways, on with the recipe! As usual, the less you mix the batter, the better they'll be.

Pineapple & Lemon Muffins (makes 16)

1/2 a fresh pineapple, chopped into small cubes (or just go for a tin)
3 eggs
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
1 dl (~1/2 cup) milk
100 g (~1/2 cup) melted butter
4 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
2 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add pineapple, milk, lemon juice and melted and somewhat cooled butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Divide the batter into 16 muffin cups and bake for 18-20 minutes at 200°C (392°F).

For perfection, I recommend some type of lemony icing.

Enjoy!

Choco Swiss Roll with Strawberries, yum yum

A group of people came to visit the other day and I had the hardest time figuring out what to bake for them. It's summer, which means our tiny place gets HOT, especially when there's more than two of us here, so I wanted something I could make the day before. Preferably something that is at its best when served the next day.

Suddenly, it hit me. A swiss roll! Perfect! Plus it gave me an excuse to get some fresh strawberries. Even better!

For the filling I used something that Wikipedia claims is quark in English. I remember trying to explain it to my New Zealander husband in our early days and he had no idea what I was talking about ("What? You put elementary particles in your food??"), so I don't know how familiar people outside of Europe are with it. It's a type of soft, sour cheese that hasn't been aged, if that helps. Wikipedia also gives the name "Fromage frais".

It's been aaages since I made one of these and I had forgotten how easy they are to make. I think I have a new love in baking. Sorry, muffins!


Choco Swiss Roll with Strawberries (about 18-20 slices)

3 eggs
1 1/2 dl (3/5 cup) sugar
3/4 dl (~1/3 cup) potato flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

Filling
2 dl (4/5 cup) whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 tbsp sugar
250 g (~9 ounces) quark
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) fresh strawberries

Beat eggs and sugar until thick and creamy. Mix the dry ingredients together, then fold into the egg-sugar mix. Pour into 30x40 cm (12x16 in) pan covered in baking paper. Bake for 5 minutes at 225 °C (437 °F). Turn out onto baking paper sprinkled with a thin layer of sugar. Peel off the baking paper the cake was baked on and let the cake cool.

For the filling, whip cream with the sugars until stiff. Fold the quark into the mixture and spread onto cooled cake. Chop the strawberries into suitable chunks and sprinkle on top of the cream mixture. Roll up the cake with the aid of the sugared baking paper. Cover the roll with the baking paper and plastic wrap, then place in fridge overnight. Cut the roll into slices right before serving and enjoy!

Mmmm, chocolate-banana muffins

Behold! I bring you moist and yummy muffins!

I had overly ripe bananas at home and figured choco-banana muffins would be the perfect thing to do with them. However, it turned out I had no chocolate at home and too little cocoa for the whole batter. I then had the fantastic idea of making marbled muffins.

The problem, it turned out, was that it was also a very messy idea. Especially as I enlisted the aid of Mr Morrgan, in order to divide the batters into the muffin cups quicker. Too many chefs spoil the, uh, neatness of the kitchen? Fortunately not the muffins, in this case.

Eventually we did get most of the batter into the cups, but at that point the mess made me wary of trying out the marbling. Hence, they ended up as layered muffins. Feel free to marble them yourself to your heart's content, however.

Banana-Chocolate Layered Muffins (makes 12)

4 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
100 g (~1/2 cup) melted butter
3 eggs
3 tbsp cocoa
2 tsp vanilla sugar
2 ripe, mashed bananas

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add melted and somewhat cooled butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Divide the batter in two even halves. Mix in the mashed bananas and the vanilla sugar into one half and the cocoa into the other (if needed, add a bit of water to the cocoa half). Layer the batters into 12 muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes at 175°C (347°F).

As usual, the less you mix the batter(s), the better they'll be.

Enjoy!

Cream cheese-filled muffins and wicked robots

Oh look, I'm recycling a muffin photo again! Well, in my defense I'm about to talk about carrot muffins. As the photo does indeed show carrot muffins, I have an excuse this time.

So, carrot muffins. I felt like baking again and suggested muffins. Hubby thought this was a splendid idea and in turn suggested that instead of icing, I'd put some cream cheese inside each muffin. Seriously, this man is a genius. It must be why I married him.

I used my usual recipe as a base, but exchanged half a dl (or about 3-4 tbsp) of flour with germ mix (wheat, oat and rye germ), so that I could pretend it was healthy and good for me and could eat them with a clear conscience. When spooning out the batter into the muffin cups, I just added a little less than a tsp of cream cheese in the middle of each muffin. Mmmmmmmmm.

Now, onward to something completely different, namely wicked robots. If you're fond of Bender from Futurama, have a look at this article. Interesting!

More muffins! Joy!

At times my husband really surprises me. I've had a very, very busy week - at worst getting up at 6 am in the morning and getting to bed at 1 am at night. Not only has hubby taken over most of my part of cooking and washing dishes and such, but when I got back from a late meeting at about 8 pm one evening, he was baking muffins. Muffins! Delicious ones too! With peanuts!

Ladies, if you find a man like this, don't let him go. Ever. Keep him chained up in the basement if you have to.

So, if you want to surprise your own partner, here's hubby's muffin recipe. I would have taken a photo of them, but they disappeared too fast. Instead I recycled a photo from before, which, uh, looks nothing like the crumble topping muffins. But it's a nice photo!


Banana Muffins with Crumble Topping

Muffins:
2 medium-sized bananas, mashed
1 dl chopped nuts (optional)
1 dl (~½ cup) milk
4 dl (~1½ cups) flour
2 dl (~ ¾ cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla sugar
100 g (~½ cup) melted butter
3 eggs

Topping:
1 dl brown sugar
1 dl oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1-2 tbsp butter

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add mashed bananas, milk, nuts and melted butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture.

For the topping, mix sugar and oats together, and cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

Divide the batter into 12 muffin cups, and sprinkle each with the topping. Bake for 18-20 minutes at 200°C (392°F).

Anyone in the mood for muffins?

Rejoice, for I bring you yet another one of my muffin recipes! Or something.

These are yummy apple muffins with a bit of gingerbread flavour. I was surprised by how well the combo works. Perhaps everyone else knows all about apples and gingerbread together, but I didn't. (And if everyone does, why didn't anyone tell me!)

As usual, the less you mix the batter, the better they'll be.


Apple Muffins (makes 16)

2 apples, chopped into small cubes
1 dl (~1/2 cup) apple juice
4 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp vanilla sugar
100 g (~1/2 cup) melted butter
3 eggs

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add cubed apples, apple juice and melted and somewhat cooled butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Divide the batter into 16 muffin cups and bake for 18-20 minutes at 200°C (392°F).

Enjoy!

Of sharks and muffins

My sweet little Horace got a mention in Lime & Violet's Daily Chum, along with some other sea creatures. This is the second time he's been mentioned in a blog, he's become a popular little shark! And good thing he is, for I am of the firm belief that the world needs more friendly, snuggly sharks.

I'll have the listing for a finished Horace up in a little bit, but in the mean time his pattern is already available in my Etsy shop.

In other news, I've been busy in the "kitchen" again. This time I experimented with bananas and raspberries in muffin form, making up a recipe based on the one for carrot muffins. The carrot one used to be my favourite muffin recipe, but this new one is an awfully strong challenger. They're just oh so moist, a quality I appreciate in muffins. Plus they've got raspberries! And bananas! And make a whole 18!

As usual, the less you mix the batter, the better they'll be.

Banana-Raspberry Muffins (makes 18)

4 dl (~1 1/2 cups) flour
3 dl (~1 1/4 cups) sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla sugar
100 g (~1/2 cup) melted butter
3 eggs
2 ripe bananas
100 g raspberries (that's about 1 1/2-2 dl or 2/3 cup)

Mix the dry ingredients together. Whisk the eggs, then add sliced bananas, raspberries and melted and somewhat cooled butter. Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture. Divide the batter into 18 muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes at 200°C (392°F).

Enjoy!