Blueberry and White Chocolate Muffins

Sometimes you want a fruit muffin. Sometimes you want a chocolate muffin. Or, you can just have both. Just solving life's little issues one baking session at a time.

I found a recipe for these little beauties on the BBC Good Food website, and adapted it slightly with some more raising agent to give a lighter, fluffier result. They're embarrassingly easy to make, and would make a great addition to your brunch this Easter weekend.  
                                                          

250g plain flour 

50g caster sugar 

2 tsp baking powder 

a pinch of salt

3 eggs, beaten

50g butter, melted and cooled

100ml milk

75g blueberries

100g white chocolate, chopped into chunks

Heat the oven to 180 ° C/gas 6 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases. Mix the egg, melted butter and milk quickly into the dry ingredients with the blueberries and chocolate (don't overmix, it should be a bit lumpy). Divide between the cases and bake for 25 minutes until risen and golden and cooked through.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Banana Bread

There are many things in my life that I'm feeling thankful for right now. I'm thankful for having a beautiful son who brings me joy and wonder every single day. I'm thankful for my loving boyfriend who fills my life with laughter and affection. I'm thankful for my adorable family, and friends who energise and inspire me. 

But let's just take a minute to be thankful for the holy trinity that is chocolate, peanut butter and banana. 

Now there aren't many banana bread recipes out there that take the bold step of combining all three of these glorious ingredients, so I had to do a bit of tweaking and re-tweaking to create my own recipe.

This is the banana bread to end all banana breads.

Except maybe this one, which has bourbon in it. Now that's just silly!

I've used the American cup system of measurement here, as that was mostly what I had to work with. It also makes things really easy if you're feeling in a lazy baking mood, so I recommend getting yourself some measuring cups if you don't have them already.

ANYWAY. Here's the ingredients list:

1/2 cup wholemeal flour (vaguely healthy)

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 heaped tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 bananas

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 tbsp peanut butter (I used crunchy)

100g dark or milk chocolate

(beaten brutally into chunks with a rolling pin)

First, mash your bananas. If you've never mashed a banana, here's a helpful demo from my sous chef.

Now add to your bananas the milk, egg, peanut butter and vanilla. Mix well.

In a larger bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients - that's the flours, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir to combine.

Add the chocolate chunks, and fold gently through with a metal spoon.

Now pour into a lined loaf tin, and bake in an oven pre-heated to 180°C, for 35-40 minutes. 

 Mine took just over 40 minutes, but check on the bread after 35 minutes as ovens do vary.

Insert a skewer into the centre and if it comes out clean, it's ready.

Leave to cool for as long as you can physically bear to. It's delicious warm but tastes almost better when it's been left to cool and firm up.

It tastes great the next day and will keep for around 2 days.

It really won't last that long though!

Easy Chocolate Cake

Now I'm not professing this to be the best chocolate cake recipe. To make a really good, moist cake it is always better to use fresh chocolate. But this is an excellent fallback recipe which uses cocoa powder, so you can whip it up if you don't always keep chocolate in the house (or if it doesn't hang around long..) It also bakes quickly so is great to make with kids, who are not the most patient of cooks!

This will make enough to fill two thin 20cm cake tins, or one deep tin if that's all you have. Then you can ice the two sponges together, or ice the top of one large cake as above.

175g of soft (room temp.) unsalted butter
3 large eggs 150g self-raising flour
175g Castor sugar
30g of cocoa powder
1 teaspn of vanilla essence
2 tablespoons of milk

Pre-heat oven to 180°C/Gas 4.
Put all the butter into a good-sized mixing bowl and, using a wooden spoon or an electric mixer, beat until creamy. Add the sugar, beating all the time until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Break the eggs into another bowl or jug, add the vanilla essence, and beat together with a fork. Pour this mixture a bit at a time into the bowl containing the butter and sugar mixture.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder over the butter, sugar and egg mixture.

Add the milk. Then gently fold the flour and cocoa mixture into the rest of the mixture, until thoroughly combined. You want to do this in as few movements as possible though, to ensure there is lots of air still in the mixture.

Pour the mixture into your tin/s and bake for 15-20 minutes.
The cake is done when the sponge springs back when gently pressed in the centre; or is starting to brown on top and has shrunk away from the edges of the tin.

Turn out onto a wire rack and let the cake cool completely before you filling or icing. I made a simple chocolate butter icing using 125g unsalted butter at room temperature; 400g icing sugar, sifted; 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder, sifted and 3-4 tablespoons of milk. Thoroughly mix together before using.

Try This..

Broaden your mind! Expand your horizons! Throw caution to the wind!

Seriously though you need to try this chocolate/sea salt combination from Lindt, recommended to me by a friend. It's pretty intense and slightly strange at first, but if you leave the chocolate to savour in your mouth then the salty flavour comes through gradually, leaving a bizarrely pleasant savoury taste. You won't be able to resist another piece. Then you'll eat most of it, leave the wrapper torn and messy looking on the coffee table and therefore totally unphotogenic for your blog. Ok well that's just me, but you get the idea..

Chocolate Chunk and Peanut Butter Cookies

Now I'm not the biggest fan of American cooking, but I am quite taken with their love of peanut butter. Especially when it's combined with chocolate, and comes in cookie form.

You can find the full original recipe here. Sorry I'm not writing it out for you guys, but it's Sunday evening and I've had a pretty heavy weekend, so you'll have to forgive me.

(ok since you asked I went to see the Foo Fighters yesterday - and it was quite possibly the best concert I've ever been to - but I know you really just want to hear more about these cookies..)

It is worth mentioning that I left out the whole roasted nuts and the dark chocolate that are listed in the recipe, as I didn't have them. Which is perhaps why sleepy Sunday baking isn't always the best idea...frankly you're just not fussed about minor details such as "ingredients". But, I have to say, I think the dark chocolate would have made these cookies even better as the bitter element would have cut through the richness. Didn't miss the nuts though as I used crunchy peanut butter. So there you go, top tips direct from the front line of baking for you.