I love it when a plan comes together

I've thought through all the possibilities and I'm fairly sure that I have made the right choice. The worst thing about this has been that the one person I really wanted to talk to, who would have given me the best advice, is the only person that I can't discuss it with.  However, I've been an adult (for once) and made the decision on my own.  I've decided to be grown-up about a couple of other things as well, I'm not convinced they'll pan out quite as well.


I've got a couple of weeks to see how things settle down before I can go shoe shopping.  I'm tentatively hopeful that a shiny new pair of Louboutins will be mine.

While I'm waiting I thought I would try some more baking, to see if I have managed to get my act back together in this arena as well.  Because it was the icing that let me down last time, I figured that I should take that element out of the equation and try some un-iced muffins.   

The first set is a bastardised version of Abi's goats cheese mini muffins. 

goats cheese and rosemary muffins (makes 12)
100g goats cheese

100g red onion, finely chopped
3 teaspoons rosemary leaves, finely chopped
25g butter, cut into small pieces
275g plain flour
1 heaped tablespoon baking powder
1 egg, beaten
225ml milk
a large pinch of salt
sprigs of rosemary for garnish
preheat the oven to 200c.

Place the goats cheese, onion (I like to fry off the onion first, so it's soft rather than cooked), chopped rosemary and butter in a bowl so it is ready when it needs to be added to the muffin mixture.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. add the egg and milk and lightly mix using as few folding movements as possible. the flour shouldn’t all be mixed in with the liquid. add the flavourings and mix lightly again – you should still have small amounts of flour not integrated – this rough and ready half-mixing approach ensures your muffins will be light and rise.  This is really important, not over mixing the ingredients is what makes this recipe work.

Place the mix into your muffin tray and top each with a sprig of rosemary then bake for 20 minutes, when they will be well-risen and golden.

Now these were meant to be blueberry muffins, but the supermarket had no frozen blueberries, so I opted for mixed Summer Fruits instead.  Unfortunately they turned the batter a rather alarming pink colour.

Summer fruit Muffins (makes 12)
85 g butter

280g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder 
pinch of salt
115g light brown sugar
150g mixed summer fruit (I use frozen)
2 eggs
250ml milk
1tspn vanilla extract
lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 200C

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.  Cream together the butter and sugar.  Beat the eggs, milk and vanilla in a separate bowl.  Add the lemon zest to this mixture.  Add the eggs/milk to the butter and sugar. Fold in the flour, but do not over mix.  Stir through the mixed fruit.

Spoon into cases and bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

Fortunately the unsettling pink/purple colour seems to have baked right out.  Almost.


Anyway - enough of this pissing around, I'm going to the pub.

Baking hiatus

There has been a noticeable lack of making things recently.  Partly because Christmas is over and I really needed a break after the extensive amounts of stuff that I made for Christmas presents, and partly because I have been busy; but mainly because I have been unhappy and nothing that I make when I am unhappy ever turns out well.  I tried baking lemonade cupcakes last weekend.  They ended up in the bin.  They didn't rise properly, I burnt half of them, I under cooked three (somehow), then I put too much milk in the frosting and it was far too liquidy.

I suspect that this is all psychosomatic and that I just need to man up and try harder.  So I am making Red Velvet Cupcakes for work on Monday.  When these work properly, they're amazing cakes.  Light, moist and a stunning deep colour.  They're also fairly easy to get wrong, so I'm actually going to have to concentrate not to cock them up.

FOR THE SPONGE
120g butter
300g caster sugar
2 large eggs
40ml red food colouring
1tsp vanilla essence
240ml buttermilk
1 tsp salt
1tblsp white wine vinegar (yes really)
1tsp bicarb of soda

FOR THE FROSTING
100g butter
600g icing sugar
250g full fat cream cheese

This recipe makes 12 cupcakes and I usually only make half quantities of the frosting.

• Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas mark five
• Cream together the butter and flour until pale and fluffy.  Then add one egg at a time.
• Separately mix together the colouring, coco and vanilla essence, into a paste.
• add the paste to the rest of the batter and mix thoroughly
• sift together the flour and salt, then add to the cake mix in two batches alternating with the buttermilk.  Mix well after each addition.
• Finally, in another bowl mix together the vinegar and bicarb and add to the cake mix.
• Spoon into cases and bake for 18-20 minutes. 

The actual cakes came out fine, but the frosting refused to thicken as it was meant to.  In the end I just stuck it on and slunk off to sulk, paint my nails and drool over Antonio Banderas in tight trousers with my housemate.

They taste fine, they just look a bit weird.

From this I concluded two things.  Firstly I need a new electric hand mixer.  Mine is definitely dead; and I'm ridiculous upset about this, for absolutely no good reason at all.  It was a cheap piece of rubbish when I bought it five years ago.  Secondly, it's not all psychosomatic, my baking mojo has definitely taken a holiday.