Toffee apple and pecan muffins

More recipes from BBC Good Food. I made these with the banana and blueberry muffins as I love the combination of apples and pecans. Similarly, these were relatively quick to throw together and were quite tasty! 

 chopped apples, pecans and toffees

100g butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs, beaten

100ml milk

150ml soured cream

300g plain flour

100g golden caster sugar

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

3 small apples such as Cox's or Worcester Pearmain (about 300g), peeled, cored and diced

50g pecans, roughly chopped

100g soft toffees, chopped

• Preheat oven to 200C. 
• Mix the butter, eggs, milk and soured cream together then stir quickly into the dry ingredients with the apples, pecan and toffee.
• Be careful not to over-mix - the mixture should be lumpy. 
• Divide the mixture between cases and bake for 25 minutes until well risen and golden and cooked through. 

Banana and blueberry muffins

Yet another good recipe from BBC Good Food. I made these muffins along with a few other things for my leaving breakfast a few weeks ago now.  These are low-fat and can be frozen. They're really quick and easy to make and perfect for breakfast or as a snack. 

300g self raising flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100g light muscovado sugar

50g porridge oats, plus 1 tablespoon for topping

2 medium bananas, the riper the better

284ml buttermilk

5 tablespoon light olive oil

2 egg whites

150g blueberries 

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Tip the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl.
• Hold back 1 tablespoon of the sugar, then mix the remainder with the flour and 50g oats. 
• Make a well in the centre.
• In a separate bowl, mash the bananas until nearly smooth. 
• Stir the buttermilk, oil, and egg whites into the mashed banana until evenly combined. 
• Pour the liquid mixture into the well and stir quickly and sparingly with a wooden spoon. 
• The mix will look lumpy and may have the odd fleck of flour still visible, but don't be tempted to over-mix. 
• Tip in the blueberries and give it just one more stir. 
• Divide the mix between the muffin cases.
• Sprinkle the tops with the final tablespoon of oats and the rest of the sugar. 
• Bake for 18-20 minutes until well risen and dark golden. 
• Cool for 5 minutes in the tray before lifting out onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

Pineapple upside down cake

Would you believe this is my first pineapple upside down cake or upside down anything (intentionally!).  I got this recipe from reliable BBC Good Food - I don't think I've tried a bad recipe yet. It was fairly simple to make and tasted good. The sponge was light and moist from the pineapple syrup and I also like the way it looks.  It was quite a flat cake so I'm not sure if I did something wrong or it's not meant to rise very much.  Any ideas? 

 creating the top of the cake from the bottom

 adding sponge batter on top of the fruits

 voila! 

Recipe from BBC Good Food website
For the topping
50g softened butter
50g light brown soft sugar
7 pineapple rings in syrup
glace cherry

For the cake
100g softened butter
100g golden caster sugar
100g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Make the topping by beating the butter and sugar together until creamy.
• Spread over the base and a quarter of the way up the sides of a 20cm round cake tin.
• Arrange the pineapple rings on top, then place cherries in the centre of the rings. 
• Place the cake ingredients in a bowl along with 2 tablespoon of the pineapple syrup and using an electric whisk, beat to a soft consistency.
• Spoon into the tin on top of the pineapple and smooth it out so it's level. 
• Bake for 35 minutes.
• Leave to stand for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a plate. 

Madeleines

Apologies for the brief silence.  I was planning on updating my blog every day as I baked at least a dozen different things in my last week of work but the odds were against me as I had no internet connection!! Thankfully, it's all sorted now and I'm back online.
I made these lovely madeleines for an ex-colleague's leaving do.  She has decided to relocate to Australia (lucky her!) and I wish her the best of luck.
This recipe is another one from Eric Lanlard and it turned out beautifully. I've never made madeleines before and now I'm wondering why ever not! They are quick and easy to make and so light and delicious. They also look very cute!

 my new madeleine pan from Lakeland 

 ready to go in the oven 

 yum!

 addendum : whilst writing this post, I decided to make another batch, this time with the addition of 1 tablespoon of rose water instead of lemon zest. I can't really taste the rose - perhaps I need to add more? Any suggestions? Hope my new colleagues will like them

Recipe from Eric Lanlard's Home Bake

Makes 12 of size shown (his book says 20 but I wonder if his pan was smaller)

90g unsalted butter plus 2 tablespoon melted butter for greasing

90g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

2 teaspoon clear honey

40g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 eggs

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Prepare your madeleine tin by brushing with melted butter and then dust with flour and tap out any excess.
• Melt the butter and honey together in a small saucepan and leave to cool.
• Sift the flour, icing sugar and baking powder together into a large bowl. 
• Stir in the cooled butter and honey mixture. 
• Add the eggs and stir in, taking care not to over-mix. 
• Fold in the lemon zest.
• Spoon the batter into the moulds, filling each mould 2/3 to 3/4 full. 
• Bake for about 10 minutes until risen and golden. 
• Leave to cool for several minutes before turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely. 

White chocolate chilli brownies

We should cocoa just celebrated it's first year and there was a fantastic virtual party to celebrate - do check it out if you want to indulge in all sorts of chocolatey goodness! To kick-start the new year, the challenge for this month is chilli! I've made chocolate and chilli cupcakes previously with mixed response - I think it was not to everyone's taste so I was quite nervous about this month's challenge. As mentioned before, I've just changed jobs (yes started already in lovely new job) and I made this together with a giant red velvet cupcake for my last day.
I got this recipe from BBC food and I have to say I was honestly surprised at how well it turned out. I was really worried that nobody would like it or that it would taste horrible. In fact I actually cut a small piece to try before bringing it to work! I had to stop myself from eating more as it was really, really good :)
This is one of the best things about these challenges - discovering new recipes or techniques and/or trying something new or different. I don't generally like white chocolate but I'm ok with chillies. However the combination was fantastic. It was really light and delicious and you could really taste the chilli but it wasn't overpowering. I could honestly have eaten the whole tray myself. Someone told me it was the best thing I've baked so far!
If you are skeptical (like I was) honestly, give this a go and I promise you won't regret it.

 I found an orange chilli instead of a red one but figured that it wouldn't make much of a difference 

 I chopped the chilli quite finely (probably more than required) as I was worried it would be too spicy 

 cooking the chillies with sugar and water 

 adding to the brownie mix - I love the colours 

 fresh from the oven 

 dust with icing sugar 

 delicious!

Recipe from BBC food (from Saturday Kitchen)

200g butter

300g white chocolate, chopped

3 medium eggs

150g caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

200g plain flour

pinch of salt

icing sugar for serving

For the chillies

1 large fresh red chilli, de-seeded

1 large fresh green chilli, de-seeded

100g caster sugar

150ml water

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Lightly butter a 20cm x 30cm straight sided baking tin and line with greaseproof paper. 
• Finely slice the chillies on the diagonal. 
• Combine the sugar, water and chillies and bring to the boil, stirring.  Simmer for 5 minutes. 
• In a heatproof bowl set over a pot of barely simmering water, melt the butter and 150g of white chocolate, whisking well until smooth.
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly. 
• In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla together until pale.
• Beat in the melted white chocolate mixture. 
• Fold in the sifted flour and salt, then the remaining chopped white chocolate (150g). 
• Drain the chillies and add most of them to the batter. 
• Pour into the baking pan, strew the remaining chillies on top and bake for 25 minutes or until the top is firm and lightly golden. 
• Remove and cool in the pan.
• Cut into small or large squares, dust with icing sugar and serve. 

Giant Red Velvet Cupcake

Today was my last day at my current job (sob sob).  It's really sad to be leaving as I've had such a fantastic year.  The team have been absolutely brilliant and I've learnt so much from everyone. Don't worry, no long blubbery oscar worthy speech but cake and goodies :)

So I had to finish with a 'bang' well a cake of course and what better than a giant red velvet cupcake! I seem to make them for leaving do's and birthdays (giant chocolate caramel cupcake, giant strawberries and cream cupcake, giant chocolate cupcake) but you have to agree that they do have a certain 'wow' factor.
I've used my standard red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting recipe from the hummingbird bakery.
I also made my entry for this month's we should cocoa challenge which was a surprise hit. It disappeared even quicker than the cake!! Check back later to find out what I made.
It has been a busy baking week for me as it was my last week at work so I thought I'd push the boat out and managed to bake a total of 12 items, some of which are repeat bakes. I will try to update my blog every day/alternate day this week to keep up.
On a final note, I got the loveliest leaving present - a V&A fine china 2 tier cake stand!!! I'm soooooooo excited and happy as I've always wanted one of these and now I have one!! Thank you everyone.

Root Beer Bundt Cake

Root beer is one of my favourite soft drinks. In fact, it's probably the only soft drink I like so when I saw this on cupcake crazy's blog, I immediately bookmarked it. It reminds me of my childhood as I used to drink root beer floats (which were probably bad for my health!).  I'm so glad I finally got round to making it. It really tastes of rootbeer with a lovely moist texture and it kept well for days afterwards. Did you know that root beer is made using the root of a sassafras plant?

113g butter

220g flour

2.5 cups root beer (I used A&W root beer)

125g cocoa powder

57g chocolate, chopped

225g caster sugar

100g dark brown sugar

1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon salt

3 eggs, beaten

280g icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Preheat the oven to 160C. 
• Butter and flour a Bundt pan.
• Heat 2 cups of root beer, chocolate and butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until the butter is melted. 
• Add the caster sugar and brown sugar and whisk until dissolved.
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool. 
• Combine flour, baking powder, all spice powder and salt in a bowl. 
• Whisk the eggs into the root beer mixture.
• Gently fold in the dry ingredients.
• Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 1 hour. 
• Gently poke the cake all over with a skewer and pour 1/4 cup root beer over the cake.
• Leave to cool in the pan for 20 minutes and then invert the cake and allow to cool completely. 
• To make the glaze: 
• Whisk remaining 1/4 cup root beer with a pinch of salt, icing sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl until smooth. 
• Drizzle over the cake when cooled.