Raspberry stress meets banana stress - and has a happy ending

I made this cake about a week after the huge all you can pick raspberry trip, and I don't mind admitting that they were beginning to weigh on my mind a bit. I even found myself thinking about what to do with raspberries when I woke up in the night, and over-exposure was even slowing my rate of snacking off them straight from the fridge. To make matters worse, there was a whole bunch of bananas beginning to go over-ripe in the fruit bowl. To avoid a complete head explosion, I searched for some recipes which could use both, and which could then be stashed out of sight in the freezer. This was the only one I photographed but the other one may yet get a feature when I can next face a raspberry muffin.


I found the recipe on, of all places, a mums forum, which isn't somewhere I usually hang out. I made a few tweaks to cut down on the refined sugar - subbing fruit sugar instead, and using coconut oil instead of butter. I also upped the ante with the berries - this was no time to start getting stingy. The original recipe was for muffins, but I made it as a loaf and it worked out really well. The banana flavour was nice and strong, and the berries nice and tart. It also defrosted well when I took it out a few days later for a visit from Kiwi Sis (and a lovely visit it was too :) ). After my double baking session I crammed all of the rest of the berries into the freezer on various cookie trays and then bagged them up (they stay separate rather than form a huge clump that way). I'm glad they won't be wasted, and this way I can get my berry mojo back and appreciate them properly again. In a few months time, maybe.

Banana and raspberry loaf (adapted from askamum)
120g plain white flour
80g plain wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
5 Tbsp fruit sugar
150g raspberries
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
30g melted coconut oil
100ml soya milk
1 ripe banana, mashed

Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Line and grease a loaf tin.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and raspberries.

Beat together the egg, vanilla, coconut oil and milk. Stir into the dry ingredients with the mashed banana, and stir briefly, to combine. THe mixture will be quite lumpy, but there shouldn't be any unmixed flour. Spoon into the tin.

Bake for about 40 minutes, covering after 25 if the top is starting to darken too much. It should be risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Peach and basil muffins; do I sound like a gourmet baker yet?

I'm a bit behind with my blog posts: I made these muffins about three weekends ago when I had some friends round for a sewing and alterations session. We altered precisely nada in the end, deciding that Lauren's coat was a perfect length already, and that Caroline's dress was too weirdly put together to change - but we did do a lot of bantering and muffin-eating. I'd made two types of muffin: some apple and cinnamon ones using slightly sweetened applesauce, and these peach and basil ones. I'll post the apple recipe another time - frankly the recipe is all the way in the kitchen and I'm quite comfy here on the sofa. And full of noodles after a post-work trip to Wagamama in Oxford.


Both types of muffin were nice and light, though the basil taste wasn't terribly pronounced in these ones. Next time I'll add more. The peaches were tinned, but in season I'd use fresh ones. The recipe was from a book called Muffins Galore, which is definitely my sort of book. It's divided into sections on chocolate, fruity, nut and spice, and savoury muffins, and there's even a separate section on special diets - low fat, low sugar. and gluten free. I have a lot of their other recipes bookmarked, which is good news for my commission of Easter muffins from The Scientist's sister. I'm still torn between lemon and poppyseed, apple streusel, or cinnamon swirl.... Oh gosh darn it, I just noticed that there is even one called Easter muffins, with some cute little eggs on the top. Back to the decision-making drawing board. Sigh. (Still, I'm guessing in the wider scheme of things this is not the worst dilemma I could have)


Peach and basil muffins, from Muffins Galore, by Catherine Atkinson
Makes 12 (I halved it and used the other half of the egg in the apple muffins)

2 ripe peaches, peeled, stoned and chopped into small dice - or the equivalent of well drained tinned peaches
2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil (or more)
3 Tbsp soft light brown sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
300g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
50g butter
80g granulated sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
150ml milk

1. Place the peaches in a bowl with the basil, brown sugar and lemon juice, and stir to mix. Set aside to stand for about 30 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line the cups with paper muffin cases.

3. Mix the flour and baking powder in a large bowl, then rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the granulated sugar and lemon zest.

4. In a separate bowl or jug, mix together the egg and milk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry alternately with the peaches and their juices, mixing briefly until just combined.

5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin cups, dividing it equally. Bake for about 20 minutes or until risen and golden. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. Serve warm or cold.

Sometimes you just need a chocolate muffin

Long week. Hard work. Guests for dinner. Needed chocolate-based dessert


That much was clear on Friday night, and the need was enough to make me cut to the chase. For once I didn't look through a million recipes and change my mind six times. Instead I searched for 'chocolate' in my geek-tastic document entitled 'Baking', where I paste all the delicious looking recipes I find on blogs and websites, and stopped when I got to Dan Lepard's Chocolate custard muffins. I don't mind admitting that it was the word 'custard' that got me in particular. Such a comforting word - the stuff of childhood and blissful ignorance of the world of deadlines and grant proposals (don't get me started). No matter that I don't remember eating custard even once as a child (angel delight was our dessert of choice); it has still entered my cultural memory and occupies a hallowed place there.


The recipe was unlike any other muffin I've made. I had imagined that it would be a chocolate cake with custard in the middle, but in fact the whole batter is a custard - starting with a cornflour/water/cocoa/sugar combo in a saucepan, and adding butter, flour, oil, eggs, etc, once it's melted and thick. I used arrowroot powder instead of cornflour, because I hadn't been able to find cornflour last time I was in the supermarket, and it was fine. Cornflour is, of course, NOT cornmeal, but a thickener. I did all the stirring and melting as I prepared dinner, and had the mixture waiting in its pan so that I could add the final ingredients, put it in the cupcake liners and in the oven as The Scientist came back from picking up our weekend guests (Eco Sis and Eco Bro, here to attend the Warwick Folk Festival with us and Munchkin Gramps et al). Dinner was a somewhat eclectic - one could even say random - stir fry with tofu on rice noodles, with shop-bought spring rolls - and potato croquettes, which had apparently leaped into The Scientist's basket with no sense of decorum or grace. They are part of his set of childhood foodie memories; to me they represent Rag Week at croquette-eating competitions at college, which does still show how popular they are amongst children and students alike. Luckily the Ecos are very open to the mix-and-match approach to cookery. We initially deferred the dessert but then got seduced by the baking smell, and tried them straight away. They were very chocolatey, so the main aim was achieved, and while we got distracted by artfully arranging them for their photo and so didn't discuss their custardyness, we did agree that they were nice and moist. I would definitely make them again, and would perhaps save some of the chocolate chips to stir in at the end so that they stayed whole. In fact I had meant to stir in some raspberries, but forgot (naturally). They could probably take all sorts of additions - banana would be very nice, I should think.

Eco Bro's elegant styling in rather poor light - I won't even mention how my efforts came out!

PS to Grandma S or Junior S if you're reading this: sorry I forgot to offer you any the next morning when you came round! I will make them again next time :)


Chocolate custard muffins, from Dan Lepard's Guardian column

50g cornflour [or arrowroot powder]
3 level Tbsp cocoa powder
100g dark soft brown sugar
225ml cold water
75g unsalted butter, broken small [I used vegan margarine]
75ml sunflower oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
125g caster sugar
125g plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder

First make the custard: put the cornflour, brown sugar and water into a saucepan and whisk together over a medium heat until boiling, very thick and smooth [this takes several minutes but you'll know when it happens - it suddenly goes *very* thick]. Remove from the heat, beat in the butter and chocolate until melted and absorbed, then add the oil, vanilla and one of the eggs and beat again until combined. Add the remaining egg and caster sugar, and beat again until smooth and thick.

Measure the flour and baking powder into a bowl, stir together, then sift directly on to the custard and beat through until combined. Spoon into a dozen paper muffin cases sitting in the pockets of a muffin tray [I got 14], and bake in a preheated oven to 180C [that's 250F if you're making these, Norse Goddess!]/Gas 4, and bake for 25 minutes. Briefly try to resist chocolatey baking smell, and then eat, happily.

More sproing and some tasty tortilla concoctions

I finished the last post dithering about what to do with my leftover quinoa: muffins or croquettes? And what do you know? Muffins can sproing too! We decided we wanted the black beans for dinner, so out came Veganomicon again. I really don't remember running out of linseeds, but apparently I did. I must do a stock-take some time. Ground linseeds take the place of egg in vegan baking, so I used some plain yogurt instead. I also used spelt flour instead of plain, added only a tiny bit of oil, and halved the recipe to save milk for tomorrow's breakfast. The recipe also said to add bicarbonate of soda which wasn't in the list of ingredients, so I added about 1/2 teaspoon (in the halved batch). They did rise a little and even smelt like sweet muffins because of the cinnamon. The little quinoa squiggles were pleasingly evident even on the top, and even more so when the muffin was cut. I really liked the taste, too - flavourful without being sweet, which is what I was aiming for. I've put them in the freezer for when we get back from Ireland, to eat with soups and salads.


Dinner's challenge, meanwhile, was to use up all the ingredients we had in the fridge which wouldn't last over our week's holiday. I got them all out and looked at them: one potato, some spring onions, a few asparagus spears, some goats cheese, the black beans, some carrot and about three quarters of a red pepper. I'd got some tortillas out of the freezer and some spinach, with the idea that we'd make some fillings and fry them in nice big tortilla sandwiches. We divvied up the ingredients and made one filling each. I got defrosted spinach, asparagus, and spring onion. The Scientist took the potato, beans, pepper and carrot. I steamed my asparagus, mixed it with the spinach, added some home-grown basil, and seasoned it with salt, pepper and nutmeg. I made a second batch with just spinach, some goats cheese and seasonings. The Scientist cooked and mashed his potato, added the beans, some lightly sauteed pepper and the grated carrot. In his second batch he added some cheddar. We just filled half of each tortilla, folded them over and fried them on each side in a dry frying pan until they were crisp.


The idea was a great success though both of us felt that our fillings could have been a bit better seasoned. I particularly liked the crunch of my spinachy asparagus one, while The Scientist's potato filling had a good thick texture and crunch from the carrot. I was too full to try more than a bite of the cheesey ones as we had the leftover quinoa salad from yesterday as well. I was also rather proud of myself for managing to get yet more leftovers into a nice healthy dessert - a vegan banana mousse I found on recipezaar. It was just two bananas, the juice from one lemon, 1 tbsp agave nectar and as much desiccated coconut as you fancy, blitzed up together. It was quite runny but light and sweet, and full of pretty wholesome ingredients. We even came up with the idea of using the last tortilla to make a dessert pancake, with some chocolate grated over the top. I ate mine unadorned; The Scientist took care of the pancake version and declared it a success.


After all that I sill had to face packing, but at least the fridge is pretty much clear. I hope there are a good few service stations on the way to Holyhead given the amount of OJ we need to drink before I'll let us leave the house, though.

Almond quinoa muffins (from Veganomicon) - full batch
My half batch made 9 small muffins

1 cup vanilla soy milk [I used plain]
1 tbsp ground flaxseeds [I used 2 tbsps plain yogurt in my half batch instead]
1/4 cup canola oil [I used much less - maybe 1/2-3/4 tsp]
1/4 cup agave nectar or pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups plain or whole wheat pastry flour [I used almost all spelt flour with a bit of wholemeal plain]
1/4 cup ground almonds
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
[I think there's some bicarb of soda missing here - try 1 tsp for the full batch]
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 1/4 cups cooked quinoa
1/2 cup finely chopped dried apricot or currants

Preheat the oven to 350F and lightly grease a muffin tin.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the milk and ground flaxseeds. Allow to sit for 1 minute, then whisk in oil, agave nextar and vanilla

In a separate large bowl, sift together flour. ground almonds, bicarb of soda, baking powder, salt and spices. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mixing until just incorporated. Gently fold in the cooked quinoa and the apricots and mix until only the large lumps are gone.

Pour into the prepared muffin tin adn bake for 20-22 mins until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

Cottage cheese muffins

I’m tired today, so I’m just going to post the recipe for the nice savoury muffins I made last week. We were woken up in the night by yowling from downstairs, and were both out of bed and on the landing before we were even properly conscious. Whatever evil cat had somehow managed to get in through the magnet-locking catflap had shot out again, leaving a very unnerved-looking pooky cat, and the unmistakable signs of a cat tussle in the living room. We were pleased to note that the bits of fur on the floor were not white, suggesting that despite his cuddle-loving soppy exterior, pooky had kicked some evil cat bottom. I used to like all cats; now I dislike all cats who live near our cats. They both seemed ok today, but the upshot was that it took me quite a while to get back to sleep and I’ve been a bit fuzzy round the edges all day in consequence.

So, to the muffins. They were inspired by some cottage cheese and sundried tomato muffins on 101 cookbooks, taken from Rose Elliot’s Vegetarian Supercook. I liked the idea and fancied a savoury muffin to have with soup. I don’t often make savoury muffins, partly because The Scientist doesn’t like them, but I loved the idea of the moistness of cottage cheese paired with sundried tomatoes. I get through gallon loads of cottage cheese anyway, so incorporating it into another foodstuff just seemed like a bonus way to get my fix. Heidi of 101 cookbooks described the muffins as being something like a quiche which didn’t appeal quite so much, so I turned to good old Moosewood Low Fat Favourites, and adapted a herb and cheese muffin recipe. I used cottage cheese instead of the cheddar and extra egg white since I thought it would bring its own moistness, and the muffins were certainly nicely moist. I also did the milk and vinegar trick instead of buttermilk as it’s not something I tend to have on hand. I also added chopped sundried tomatoes and basil to the mix, and I halved the whole batch as it would only be me eating them. They were delicious – quite cornmealy, but with a really nice flavour from the tomatoes and basil and, they went really well with my soup at lunchtime. I’ve since defrosted one from the freezer and warmed it in the microwave and it had no ill effects at all. I’ll definitely be making these again!

Cottage cheese, basil and sundried tomato muffins (adapted from Moosewood Low Fat Favourites)

Makes 12 muffins (I halved it)

1 cup white flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 cup cornmeal

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 whole egg

1 egg white [I omitted this]

1 cup buttermilk

3 tbsp minced scallions/spring onions

½ tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp dried dill

½ tsp dried thyme

¼ tsp ground black pepper

1 tbsp canola or other vegetable oil (optional)

1 cup grated low fat Cheddar [I used the same amount of low fat cottage cheese]

Preheat the oven to 400F/200C

Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray or a very coating of oil

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Thoroughly mix in the cornmeal and brown sugar. In a separate bowl beat the egg and egg white until frothy. Add the buttermilk, scallions, mustard, dill, thyme, pepper, and optional oil to the beaten eggs. Reserve 2 tbsps of the grated cheese and stir the rest into the egg mixture. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring just enough to make a uniformly moist batter.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tins and sprinkle the muffin tops with the reserved cheese. Bake about 20 mins until a knife inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the tins for 5 mins, loosen each muffin by running a knife around the edge, and then tip out onto a rack to cool completely