Sunshine Citrus Muffins

In an effort to inject some sunshine into a dull Saturday morning I decided to make these from one of my favourite cookery books - Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. I got this book in America and it's so beautifully photographed and the recipes are fantastic taking you from the basics of dough making right through to beautiful cakes, muffins and scones. The measurements are in cups you'll need a set of these if you intend to get this book and I would definitely recommend it.

Himself was still asleep when I made these and the gorgeous smell of orange and lemon wafted up the stairs and manged to wake him so he had to come downstairs, naturally to make sure everything was alright and not for a warm muffin fresh from the oven..................

These smell fantastic and made the house all summery and citrusy smelling, they are also great with cheese as I discovered last night after a few wines too many!!!


So you'll need:

115g sugar
grated zest of 1 orange
300g plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt (I didn't use this as I use salted butter in my baking, scandalous as that may be!)
250ml freshly squeezed orange juice
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp lemon extract (I probably used closer to 1/2 tsp as I wasn't being overly careful pouring)
4 oz butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
Optional: 150g moist raisins/sultanas (I didn't use these)

So, preheat your oven to Gas 5/190c. Spray your muffin tin with spray oil or butter the molds.
Rub the sugar and orange zest together (this is fantastic and makes the sugar smell A.MAZ. ING) in a large bowl. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt if using.
In another bowl or jug whisk the orange and lemon juice, butter, lemon extract, and eggs together. Add to the dry ingredients and mix.
Fold in the raisins/sultanas if you're using them.
Spoon the mixture into the 12 muffin shapes and bake for 20 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

Serve on it's own with a giant latte or with some cheese!!!


Also on a totally non-recipe related note, at the moment TK Maxx have fantastic cast iron pans and skillets for next to nothing from a range called Old Mountin so anyone who is in the market for one this might be a good time to take a look!

I also got a gorgeous book called The Dairy by Leanne Kitchen (cheesetastic name or what) for €7.99 and a complete bargain as the recipes are wonderful and all surround anything dairy related and the photos are so well shot. There's a series of 4 books with 3 more after The Dairy called the Butcher, The Baker and The Greengrocer and they're already on my amazon wishlist!!!

Bread glorious bread............

just dripping with butter................

How do you like my "rendition" of the bread version of Food glorious food? I have to confess I'm a bread fiend! Any type even the nasty white sliced bread from the supermarket, as long as it's fresh or warm or toasted with butter or like this mornings breakfast dripping with lemon curd!

I've made this bread a lot of times and it's the same recipe I use to make my pizza dough. It's from Jamie Oliver's first book The Naked Chef and it's such a versatile recipe with lots of possibilities for flavouring the bread if you want to. Me, I just like it fresh from the oven and don't even need to put anything on it!

In saying that though have been consciously trying not to eat bread for about the last 6 months going from eating a full loaf of my favourite sliced bread Big Toast Brown every week to maybe eating only a couple of slices of the husbags beloved white sliced type and sometimes none at all! This was something I had wanted to make all week, once I got passed my lemon/citrus and pear cravings on Tuesday and Wednesday, curd and pear crumble followed these.


So after all my rambling here's what to need;

1lb of plain white flour, I use Tesco Organic plain flour or you could use 500g plain flour an 500g semolina flour
3x 7g sachets of dried yeast
1oz honey/sugar
1 pint tepid water
1oz salt

Blend the yeast with the honey/sugar and half of the water together.
Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the yeast mixture.
Make a claw shape with your hand and bring the dry ingredients into the flour until all the yeast mixture is incorporated.
Pour in the rest of the water and mix together, don't be afraid to add more a little at a time if it's kinda dry as different flours can vary I think and use more or less water.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 mins until the dough has come together and is springy and smooth.
Oil a large bowl (or use the one you've made the dough in washed out with warm water and the warmth will help the rising begin, tip courtesy of the domestic goddess Nigella) and put the dough in, scoring the top as this will help with the rise aswell.
Cover tightly with clingfilm and leave to double in size, this will take approx an hour. I normally turn my oven on to heat at this stage as it warms underneath the bowl and again helps the gluten to develop and the dough to rise.


Once the dough has doubled in size, knock it back for about a minute or so. Shape into whatever shape you want and allow to rise so it is doubled in size again.
My loaf was made by shaping the dough into 5 equal sized balls and then putting them into a 10 inch springform tin, 1 in the middle and 4 around the sides so it's shaped like a flower.
Once risen, bake the bread at gas 7/225C for 20-25 mins or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom (you'll need to take it out of the tin for this).
Allow to cool and enjoy.

We had this with an amazing chickpea soup below that's a meal in itself from the Jamie's Italy book that I'll blog about again, I've made it for my lunches this week and should get 2 days out of it. It's flavoured with rosemary and so fragrant and the best of all weight watcher friendly!

Apricot compote with cardamom

So my first post of 2009 is a very simple one, a lovely compote that can be used to top anything you wish, porridge (as I've done here), ice cream, yogurt, made into a fool or eaten on it's own.

We've been thinking about trying to be more frugal about things this year, it being recessionary times and all and I also need something more exciting to put on top of my porridge in the mornings at work. I eat porridge every day, 1 because it's cheap and a bag of organic oats lasts me ages and 2 cos I don't get hungry til lunchtime which is a bonus when people are nipping out to the cafe around the corner and bringing back lovely toast and bagels and coffee.

I got the Ballymaloe Cookery Course book from my favouritest cousin C a few months ago and while flicking through it at bedtime (and only having made 2 things from it so far) the other night I saw the recipe for this apricot and cardamom compote and thought it might be nice. In advance the apricots I got were semi-dried and lovely and moist, if you get fully dried ones you'll need to soak them in plenty of water overnight before you make this.


So here's what you need:

500g dried apricots (the original recipe calls for 225g but this looked like a tiny amount in the syrup so I threw in a second bag of apricots)
16 cardamom pods (again I couldn't resist tinkering with the original recipe which called for 12)
2 pints water
200g sugar (the original recipe says 200-400g but I didn't want my compote to be too sweet so used less)
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Put the water, sugar, cardamom and lemon juice into a pot and bring to the boil. Add the apricots and simmer for approximately 30 minutes. Allow to cool and serve with whatever you want or else do what I did and put the apricots into jars and refrigerate. Enjoy!!


Oh and p.s I got a 50mm lens for my camera and a tripod for christmas and they're the business!! Not blowing my own horn or anything but am loving the first picture, it was a long exposure from above and it came out fantastically as my hands always shook before and I rarely could shoot any pics if the light wasn't perfect!! One of the best presents I got this year methinks!!!

Oh cardamom how do I love thee..............

let me count the ways. It's much much more than a thousand ways I can assure you!! You may or may not know my love of all things cardamom spiced and todays recipe from Rachel Allen's book Bake is no exception!!! As I type my hands smell of cardamom and yeast and I am feeling satisfied and home-makery as I'm making bread. I always feel like this when I work with yeast....like a real baker and I love watching my dough double in size and feel very proud indeed when it comes out of the oven all golden and beautiful.

I must admit of late that I've been feeling rather underconfident about my baking, I went back to weight watchers a while ago and I think I must have subconsciously decided that baking is bad and that it's too much trouble to point everything. I've lost a good bit of weight, mostly for holidays, but I intend loosing more but am not being as rigid and strict with myself since we can back and am enjoying my food more as a result. So when my bread came out so well I think I got a little of my baking mojo back, the smell and the texture were divine, it's breakfast bread at it's best!!

So anyway, this bread smells amazing, there's yeast as mentioned, freshly ground cardamom which smells amazing to me, I added some orange zest and am sure thart some freshly grated nutmeg or cinnamon could be added this to dough too to make it more festive and christmassy, it's very easy to work with and comes together very quickly. I've never made a plaited loaf before either so this is an achievement for me and I one I will definitely return to again! This is the perfect breakfast bread, reminiscent of brioche with it's lovely eggyness and texture but much less work!


Here's what you need, courtesy of Bake;

125 ml/4 fl oz water
75g/3 oz butter
50g/2 oz plus 1 tsp of caster sugar
175ml/6 fl oz warm water
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast/15g or 1/2 oz fresh yeast or 1 7g sachet of fast acting yeast
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp freshly ground cardamom, I used about 40 pods as mine were kinda small but the recipe advises 28 pods
grated zest of 1 unwaxed orange
600g/1 lb 6oz plain flour, sifted

Place 125ml water and the butter in a saucepan, bring to boil and then set aside in a bowl and allow to cool.
Mix together the teaspoon caster sugar, 60ml of the warm water and yeast together and let stand for 5 mins until frothy.
In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, the 50g caster sugar and salt together then add the remaining 115ml warm water. Mix together until combined.
When the butter and water mixture is warm add the yeast mixture and the egg mixture and stir until well blended.
Transfer the flour to a large bowl and make a well in the centre, pour in the yeast, egg and water mixture and mix*.
*I used Rachel's technique of making a claw shape out of your hand and mixing the ingredients to a dough, it worked very well and was less messy than I find dough sometimes is. Just keep your hand stiff and go in circles in the bowl, I'm hoping this makes sense!
Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead for 1o mins adding more flour if needed, I add 3 generous sprinklings of flour to my dough, it was smooth and pliable and felt loose after these and the 10 mins kneading.
Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover and allow to double in size, this could take up to 2 hours.


Preheat the oven to 180/Gas 4.
Knock back the dough and shape into a normal rounded loaf plait by dividing the dough into 3 and rolling each piece into a long sausage shape approx. 1 1/4 inches wide and 12 inches long. Pinch the ends together and tuck under neatly and plait the normal way. Tuck the ends in and place on an oiled baking sheet to allow double in size again.
Bake for 30-35 mins until golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped on the underside.
Serve with lashing of butter and a cup o tea!!!


Oh and p.s I'd like to mention www.askaboutfood.ie a wonderful forum set up by John Maguire where us foodies can go to ask questions, there's also a new section where bloggers are asked to submit their posts too. Check it out at the link above!

I'm back with blueberries

Hey all, am back from 2 weeks of being lazy and not doing very much cooking. Thanks so much for your concern in wondering had I fallen off the face of the earth, unfortunately not, but I was away last weekend in the lovely county of Clare hence the no posting but I didn't make am amazing fennel, parsnip and potato gratin that I will post about when I make it again but suffice to say it was divine and of my own creation aswell (go me).

There was a wonderful trip to the Milk Market in Limerick where I met the wonderful Maz from Style Treaty along with her boyfriend and parents and had a flying visit from Laura from EatDrinkLive and her gorgeous little girl. A foray into Cafe Noir which was lovely, fantastic coffee and fantastic cakes, what more could a girl and her wonderful cousin Cait want (Hi Cait and thanks to you for putting us up - Again!).

There were some lovely individual sponge cakes made with duck eggs I got in the market but these didn't get photographed either, very lazy of me I know but himself was eating them in 2 bites so I didn't have much chance!

So this is my return post, it's a kick back to a few months ago and the wholemeal pikelets which were lovely if I do say so myself. I bought some fresh blueberries in Tesco on Friday night reduced to a mere 93 cents a punnet so of course I couldn't help myself and bought 2 even though I should have gotten more and frozen them but my head wasn't working as efficently as it should have been after a week at work and I'll have to make so with what I got, both are now gone as I can't get enough of fresh blueberries at the moment - I think I'm addicted but am hoping over eating doesn't make any parts of my purple!!!


So picture this if you will it's Sunday morning, the sun is shining again but for how long so I decided a summery breakfast was in order and not having any buttermilk for buttermilk pancakes and not being in the mood to seperate eggs and whip egg whites I decided to make these as they are a very easy to make and the batter is quite thick but they're lovely and light when they're cooked.

I made a couple of changes and used a duck egg instead of my normal organic egg as I had 2 to use up, the last egg went into something else I'll post about soon, when I had the batter in the frying pan I popped a couple of blueberries on the top so when the pikelet was turned over they cooked into the batter and were divine, also I served these with a pomelo and lime curd (I finally made a curd that set up properly) I made on Saturday morning as pomelo's were reduced to an even more bargaintastic 35 cents in Tesco and the recipe for this will follow later on today as part of my entry for the Sugar High Friday blogging event.

So sit back, enjoy the sunshine, and have a leisurely breakfast, can't be wasting this sun now can we........................

Easy Sunday Breakfast - Wholemeal Pikelets

So another Bill Granger recipe from me (Yawn I hear you say ;-)), I always make something nice for breakfast at least once at the weekend and seeing as I was severly hungover yesterday I decided I better get myself out of bed and make something nice for himself this morning.

I did want to make pancakes but I had no buttermilk (and it was raining so I decided I didn't want those pancakes that badly anyway) so pikelets it was. These are very easy to make and very light despite the use of wholemeal flour which I normally find can be quite heavy in pancakes, the addition of so much baking powder lightens these really nicely, hope you like them!

So here's what you need

125g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
2tbsp raw cane sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
170ml milk
butter for greasing the pan
whatever toppings you like, I used lemon, butter and sugar but the husbag like maple syrup

So, sieve the flour and baking powder together, add the sugar and mix well.
Add the egg and milk and whisk until smooth
Heat the pan and brush with butter, and spoon tablespoons of the mixture on. Allow to cook for a couple of minutes until you see air bubbles on top and then turn over for another 30 seconds or so.

Enjoy

French toast with maple syrup

I wasn't going to do a post this weekend cos I am feeling lazy and haven't made anthing nice in AGES and also I have a new camera and new laptop to play with so my time has been consumed by technology but ever since the husbag took me to Lemon for breakfast on my first day in my new job he's been talking about the french toast we had and I promised him I'd make it this morning.

French toast is a pretty easy meal in my mind, you beat the egg, dip the bread in it and then you fry the bread. Only butter will do for the frying, no oil as the butter adds to the lovliness of the fluffy bread which must be sliced bread, no lovely artisan loaves can be used for this.

So here's what you need for 2 people:

4 slices of bread (I used 2 brown for him and 2 white for me)
2 eggs beaten and poured into a flat enough dish, I use a pyrex dish lid
butter
and whatever toppings you want

Beat the egg, dip each slice of bread into the egg so each side is fully coated and then fry. turn over when the first side is brown and crispy (about 3-4 mins).
Serve sprinkled with icing sugar and maple syrup.

This is lovely with strawberries aswell or raspberries in the summer or even nutella.