Tag: egg

Pear and hazelnut muffins

Muffins are a little bit passe these days. Like Friends and Snapple, they’re just a bit nineties. They have been overtaken by their brash, rather disgusting, cupcake cousin.

But I still have a lot of affection for them. I think muffins are nice. And I came across this very straightforward looking recipe in a newspaper, but which utilised American cup measurements.

I was annoyed about this, just as I am always annoyed when a recipe specifies some sort of wildly exotic spice, cut of meat or fruit in an offhand manner, which implies that of course you ought to know where to source it from. I fucking don’t!! And even if I did, I am not going to spend one of my three child-free mornings a week tracking it down. If you can’t get it in Waitrose I am. Not. Interested.

Of course these days I DO, however, have a set of cup measurements, which I bought in Waitrose, so can convert the measurements for you.

On a whim, I decided to make these muffins with some pear and hazelnut because those were some things I had knocking about. I also used soured cream instead of buttermilk, (buttermilk!! we are in ENGLAND, nowhere sells it except big branches of Waitrose and I’m not always near one of those), which worked just fine.

You do not have to use pear and hazelnut in these – pretty much anything works: apple, chocolate, sultanas, banana, whatever. It’s a very flexible vehicle, muffin mix. Having said that, the pear and hazelnut combination was really terrific and I recommend it to you.

Pear and hazelnut muffins – makes 8

2.5 cups plain flour – 340g
1.5 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar – 160g
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup soured cream or buttermilk – 120ml
3 drops vanilla essence
1/cup melted butter – 75g butter, melted
2 ripe pears, diced
2 lady-handfuls of hazelnuts, chopped and toasted in a dry frying pan for about 10 mins

1 In one bowl combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. You do not have to sieve this but you could swizzle it about with a whisk for a bit.

2 In another bowl mix the beaten egg with the soured cream, vanilla extract and melted butter. Someone like Raymond Blanc would separate the eggs first, beat the whites and then add them separately, to make the muffins lighter.

3 Add the flour to the egg mixture and mix just until there is still about 10% flour showing, then tip in your pear and hazelnuts (or whatever you are using) and mix to combine.

4 Spoon immediately into muffin cases. Fill these to just below the brim. This is important, as these will not rise that much on cooking and you want that big luscious, over-spilt look.

5 Bake at 200C for 16-20 mins. Keep an eye on them if you have a light on in your oven. Mine were slightly underdone as I put them in at 180 (because of fan nuke horror panic) but if you have a normal oven I think you’ll be okay at 200C for 16 mins. Bake in the middle shelf.

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Cinnamon buns

The plan for this morning was to write some hilarious thing about something or other as an introduction to these terrific cinammon buns, while the carpet man replaced the scraggy old carpet in what is about to be Kitty’s new bedroom.

It was all going so well. I hadn’t lost the recipe for the cinnamon buns, (a miracle), my laptop was working (double miracle), I’d had a cup of tea and the carpet man was actually early (such a miracle that I ought, then, to have smelled a rat).

But then he brought in the wrong carpet. It was a stripey one, the one we use on the stairs. Not the plain beige one, that we use in bedrooms.

Oh god!! Oh god oh god oh god I’ve ordered the wrong fucking carpet.

I searched my email, shaking, looking, searching frantically for some indication that this wasn’t my fault. But it just completely was. Is. Is my fault. So I now have to re-order the carpet at vast expense and try, for the rest of the day, not to burst into tears about it.

“YOU KNEW I WAS AN IDIOT WHEN YOU MARRIED ME,” I screamed pre-emptively and defensively at my husband, who was standing in the kitchen looking at me sympathetically.

Anyway here’s a recipe for some cinnamon buns. They’re nice.

Cinnamon buns by Edd Kimber
makes 16

For the dough

250ml whole milk
50g butter, plus extra for greasing tin
500g strong white bread flour
30g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
7g fast-action yeast. This is the equivalent of one of those sachets you get in boxes of yeast. I decided instead to use 7g of yeast in a tin, which was past its sell-by date, so the first lot of dough I made didn’t rise and I had to throw it away and start again. It’s all just going so well in my world at the moment.
1 egg, beaten
veg oil for greasing

For the filling

150g light brown soft sugar
3 tbsp ground cinnamon
60g butter, very soft, plus a bit extra to brush over the buns pre-baking
75g currants

… and some icing sugar. Edd mixes 125g icing sugar with 75 cream cheese and 2 tbsp whole milk. I didn’t do this and plain icing is just fine. However, I have tasted this other sort of icing and it is very nice, so if you are so inclined, give it a go.

1 Put the milk and the butter in a small saucepan and heat very gently over the lowest available heat until the butter has melted. Set aside and leave it to cool to a lukewarm temperature.

2 In a bowl, mix together the:

– flour
– sugar
– salt
– yeast

to this add the milk/butter mix and the beaten egg. Mix this round until you have a dough.

3 Flour a surface and knead this for 10 minutes. Ten minutes is a VERY long time, so put a timer on or something because you will want, powerfully, to give up after about 3 minutes.

4 Put the dough in a bowl that is large enough for it to double in size. I do not have a bowl that big so I used a massive saucepan instead. Anyway whatever you use, lightly oil the base and sides.

And NOW stretch some cling film across the top of the pan/bowl in order to form an airtight seal over the dough. I think I am possibly the only person in the world who doesn’t know that you are supposed to do this with dough, but I didn’t. Maybe you don’t know either. Maybe you think, like I used to, that you could just sling a tea-towel over it. No. If you do that air will get to it and form a very thin crust, which will both stop the dough from rising properly and also make it very difficult to shape later.

You’re all laughing at me now, I can tell. Go ahead! I don’t care! Kick me while I’m down why don’t you.

5 Leave the dough to rise in a warm place for 1 hr. While this is happening grease with butter a 23cm x 33cm high sided baking tin. If you, like me, don’t have one of these, you can use whatever combination of high-sided baking tins you’ve got to fit the buns in.

6 Tip your dough out onto a floured surface and roll out to 40x50cm. I ended up using a tape measure for this. The funny thing about rolling out dough like this is that at first you think – how am I going to roll this out to any sort of rectangle shape? If you try the dough sort springs back on itself and will only go into a round shape. But if you keep on rolling it out thinner and thinner it suddenly complies and relaxes into a rounded sort of rectangle. It has to be seen to be believed.

7 Mix the brown sugar and the cinnamon together in a bowl. Now take your 60g of very soft butter and spread the dough with it. Now sprinkle over the sugar mixture and then the currants. Don’t be afraid to press all this into the dough reasonably firmly.

8 Now roll all this up into a tight log shape. I’m sure the Bake-Off Masterclasses showed a terribly clever way of doing this, but I missed that episode, so just do this the best way you can see how.

9 Trim the ends off the roll and then cut into 16 pieces. I used a tape measure again for this. All you do is mark out the middle of the roll, and then mark out the middles of those two halves and then again until you’ve got 16 bits. Cut these up and then arrange in your collection (or not) of baking tins then leave THESE to rise for 45 mins, again with the tins covered with an airtight seal of clingfilm. Before baking brush these with some melted butter.

10 Now – to bake. My oven is a fan oven and therefore nukes anything I bake, which is why I don’t do much baking. If you have one of these wretched bloody ovens then bake your buns at 165 for 30 mins, laying a sheet of foil over the buns for the last 15 mins of baking time. If you don’t have a fan oven, bake these at 180 for 30 mins, but also cover for the last 15 mins of baking time.

I lost my nerve halfway through baking these and turned the temp up to 180 and although the buns were a triumph, if anything they were a tiny bit over-cooked. So next time I will just stick to 165 the whole way.

11 Mix up whatever icing you are using and drizzle or spread once the buns have cooled a bit.

Eat and then hang yourself with a length of carpet gripper.

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Skinny Chocolate Parfaits

A rich, creamy chocolate treat made from semi-sweet chocolate, fat-free milk, vanilla and cornstarch. Layered with a little whipped topped, it’s a perfect ending to a special dinner.

I don’t have dessert every night, but once in a while, on special occasions, I like to enjoy a sweet treat. Valentine’s Day is certainly one of those nights. What’s great about this dessert is that you actually make the pudding the day before, so it’s easy to assemble just before you are ready to eat.

I love these little glass dessert cups, they are actually from the salvation army but a champagne glass would also work great too.

My light whipped topping of choice is Truwhip^[1] – I love that it
contains all natural ingredients, no HFCS, hydrogenated oils, transfats
or GMOs. They also have a light version, but I can’t always find it. There’s a store finder^[2] on their website if you want to find a store near you that sells it. I also heard Trader Joe’s sells their own brand with the same ingredients.

Skinny Chocolate Parfaits
gordon-ramsay-recipe.com
Servings: 6 • Size: 1/3 cup pudding, 3 tbsp Truwhip • Old Pts: 5 pts • Points+: 6 pts
Calories: 217 • Fat: 10 g • Protein: 5 g • Carb: 30.5 g • Fiber: 1.5 g • Sugar: 22.5 g
Sodium: 73 mg

Ingredients

3 cups fat free milk
2 1/2 tbsp sugar
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 large egg yolk
4 oz (4 squares) Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate Squares
18 tbsp Tru Whip

Directions:

In a medium non-stick saucepan, combine milk, sugar, and cornstarch and simmer on medium-low heat, whisking constantly until mixture has thickened.

In a medium bowl whisk egg yolk. Slowly add about a cup of the hot milk mixture to the yolk, whisking in about a tablespoon at a time to temper the egg so the egg doesn’t cook. Once the egg is tempered, whisk into the saucepan with the milk mixture.

Melt the chocolate squares in the microwave 20 seconds at a time, up to a minute, stirring in between until the chocolate is melted. Pour melted chocolate into the sauce pan, whisk well. Add vanilla; simmer on low for 12-15 minutes, whisking constantly.

Transfer the chocolate pudding into a large bowl, cover with wax paper, touching the pudding so that it doesn’t allow a film to settle on top. Refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight. Makes about 2-1/4 cups.

When cold, place 3 tbsp pudding into each glass, then add 2 tbsp of truwhip in each, then 2 tbsp more pudding and top with a dollop of Truwhip.

References

^{^} Truwhip (www.truwhip.com)
^{^} store finder (www.truwhip.com)