Indecisive Muffins

With five productive hours left to my Sunday evening (productive hours meaning those before I have to get ready for bed and work...) I decided to whip up a batch of blueberry muffins for breakfast, and also to bring a few with me to the office for my workmates. However, my mum was craving banana bread too... and so I thought I would just make a carrot banana bread first, then blueberry muffins later.

Though having spent the majority of my weekend in the kitchen, I kind of wanted an extra hour to watch some telly before sleep... so halfway through making the banana bread batter, I decided to add in blueberries, bit more flour, and just make a hybrid of the two wishes. I don't entirely know what I was thinking when I added some of the stuff, but none of the ingredients seemed that bad as standalone ingredients so they couldn't be too bad put together, right?

Absolutely.

So this Monday morning, I popped one of the cooled muffins back in the oven for about 5 minutes while I blow-dried my hair and had myself a nice warm muffin on the way to work. Yummy!

Banana-Blueberry-Carrot Muffins (That's 3 of your 5-a-day!) 
Yield: 12 medium sized muffins

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup soft packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup buttermilk 
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup ripe mashed bananas 
• 1 cup grated carrots
• 1 cup blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line the muffin pan
2. Beat the vegetable oil and sugar in a large bowl, then beat in the eggs, vanilla and buttermilk
3. Add the bananas and beat until incorporated
4. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon then gradually add into the wet mixture
5. Stir in the carrots and blueberries
6. Pour the batter into the muffin cups about 3/4 of the way up, then sprinkle with the topping and bake for 20 minutes. Leave them to cool in the pan for 5 minutes then cool completely on a wire rack

Topping

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

1. In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix with your fingertips until they resemble course crumbs. Or use a food processor if you have one to minimize the mess and time taken

Wilton's baked doughnuts with cinnamon sugar glaze

I had my aunt round for tea a few days ago and was messing about in the kitchen with all my baking utensils and decorative plates when I realized (quite belatedly) that there was a recipe on the packaging of the doughnut pan! Well, duh, Nabiya, it was right next to the pricetag... Which, I'm sure I looked at when I bought the damned thing.

I won't even pretend to have a reason for baking these days, as I seem to take selfish pleasure in doing it. It is oddly relaxing, my solitary place, and seems to make people around me happy (discounting the handful who whinge about their calorie-intake, yet still continue to eat the goodies). In this past year, I've found so much comfort in baking, and I suddenly feel like I have something to be passionate about. It feels damned great to find one's calling.

I digress, nobody cares about my strange love affair with desserts, let's get on with the recipe:

Wilton's baked doughnuts recipe
Yield: approximately 12

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp butter, melted

1. Preheat the oven to 180C, grease your doughnut pan and set aside
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and salt
3. Add the eggs, vanilla, buttermilk and melted butter and beat until just incorporated (I did the whole thing by hand, you may choose to use an electric mixer if you wish)
4. Pour all the batter into a piping bag for ease of filling the pan, cut a hole around the circumference of your pinky fingertip, and fill the doughnut pan 2/3 of the way up
5. Bake for 7-9 minutes or until the top of the doughnuts spring back up when lightly pressed with a finger
6. Cool for 3 minutes in the pan then pop them out to cool on a wire rack

Cinnamon sugar glaze

• 2 tbsp fine granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon powder
• 2 tbsp butter, melted

1. Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl
2. In a separate, flat bottomed bowl, melt the butter
3. Dip the doughnuts in the butter, then roll around in the cinnamon sugar
4. Serve immediately if possible as baked doughnuts are SO good when warm and fresh from the oven

My family quite enjoyed these, and I'm getting a craving for one from just typing up this post! If you get yourself a doughnut pan, I insist that you give these a shot. I made minor tweaks, as I have no cake flour and I added vanilla as I dislike the eggy taste you sometimes get.

Happy Friday, friends, and enjoy your baking weekend!

Much love, Nabs

Upside-down Blackberry Buttermilk Cake

It's amazing what our society has become; when I told a friend that I was making a blackberry cake, he asked: "Which model?"

*facepalm*

I've never played with blackberries before, but when I saw this amazing cake by Bria over at her beautiful blog, These Peas Are Hollow, I kind of felt a twinge in my long dormant heart strings. Isn't it lovely? Isn't it wonderful? Yes, I'm singing at cake, people do that. Don't judge me. I love Bria's blog, everything in it looks so appetizing, and her photography! Oh Merlin's spotted underpants! I can only hope to one day have as beautiful a blog.

My mum's off in the States this week for a seminar, and my dad's going to be busy for the next six months settling into his new job, which leaves me babysitting my siblings every night. It's fine, not something I mind doing as I'm a bit of kid myself, so it's nice to be around my peeps. Last night, for example, my brother and sister helped me measure out ingredients while I helped them with their grammar homework. Reading my blog you're probably wondering "they let her teach kids grammar?"

Yes. It is a bit alarming.

After homework time, they were rewarded with a slice of cake fresh from the oven, a dollop of ice-cream and an extra hour of television! Okay, that last bit was completely unnecessary, but with the sugar in their system, I could hardly expect them to fall asleep! I'm not their mother, for Merlin's sake.

Upside-down Blackberry Buttermilk Cake
originally from Bon Apetit Magazine


I used two different types of pans for this, a regular round 9-inch pan, and a 9-inch removable bottom round pan. Just to see if a removable bottom would be easier. It was, but there wasn't much difference. Also, I had to make some minor changes in the recipe due to unavailability of resources (vanilla beans and cake flour).

• 3 cups fresh blackberries
• 1/4 cup confectioners sugar (for dusting the blackberries)
• 2 1/3 cups all purpose flour, sifted
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/3 cups caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• zest of 1 large orange

1. Preheat the oven to 180C, line your pans with parchment paper (bottom and sides), then butter and flour
2. Toss the blackberries with confectioners sugar in a container (don't get to vigorous with it), then arrange them evenly at the bottom of your pans
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium sized bowl and set it aside
4. Pour the vanilla essence into the buttermilk and set aside
5. With your stand mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
6. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula to ensure everything gets mixed
7. Beat in the orange zest
8. Pour in 1/3 of the flour mixture, beat until incorporated, then pour in half of the buttermilk, beat again until combines. Then repeat, ending with the flour mixture
9. Pour the batter evenly into the two pans (or you know, if you wanna use a deep springform pan and just make one tall cake, that's fine too), then bake for 45 minutes, or until it turns a golden brown and/or a skewer inserted at an angle comes out clean
10. Allow the cake to cool in the pans for 15 minutes before turning them over onto a wire cooling rack. Cool completely then either sift confectioners sugar over the top (I was smitten with Bria's version, so did this), or drizzle melted white chocolate over the top. Mmmm... 

Divine. This cake was simply divine! I loved how the cake itself wasn't sweet, and yet the blackberries provided this lovely tangy, sweetness, which just balanced the whole thing out. The texture is soft, fluffy and melts in the mouth, then there's the contrasting burst of juice from the plumped up blackberries. If refrigerating, be sure to allow the cake to thaw before serving.

My brother likes it with plain vanilla ice-cream, I like Cherry Garcia

Mmmm... I hope you try this happiness, cos everyone deserves to taste this at least once. 

Much love,

Nabs