PEANUT BUTTER AND CHOC CHIP BUNS

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!

I only had one egg left when I went to make buns today, so I had to find a recipe that needed just one egg. I flicked through my books and found a Snickers and Peanut Butter Mufffins recipe in Nigella's Domestic Goddess. I don't keep Snickers bars about my person, but I always have dark choc chips to hand for baking, hence the change. I also halved Nigella's recipe, to make buns rather than muffins, but it only yielded nine buns. Anyway! Here we go:

I used my Orla Kiely bowl for the day that's in it

Peanut butter & choc chip buns

INGREDIENTS

125g plain flour

3 tablespoons caster sugar

3/4 tablespoon baking powder

pinch of salt

3 tablespoons peanut butter

30g butter, melted

1 egg, beaten

90ml milk

50g dark choc chips

METHOD

·         Preheat oven to 200˚C

·         Line a 12-space bun tin (my mix made 9 buns)

·         Throw all the dry ingredients into a bowl, mix

·         Add the peanut butter and mix until you have a breadcrumby texture

·         Add the melted butter and egg to the milk and stir gently into the bowl

·         Mix in the chocolate chips

·         Plop the mixture into the bun cases using two spoons

·         Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until golden on top and firm to the (light) touch

·         Cool on a wire rack

DARK CHOCOLATE ORANGE MUFFINS

Dark chocolate orange muffin

I bought a muffin tin. You know, American-sized muffins, as opposed to normal Irish bun-sized ones. And then it took me ten shops to find the proper cases to go in them and, even then, I could only find boring plain ones. (Though I did find some snazzy yellow cardboard ones in Tiger that won't fit in the tin...)

The Dublin airport chocolate orange muffin

Anyway, I am addicted to the giant-sized choc-orange muffins that you get in Harvest Market in T2 in Dublin Airport. I would almost (almost) take a flight just to have one of those muffins. They make the whole airport shenanigan worthwhile.

But I'm not flying anywhere until May, so I have had to resort to making my own. The ones in the airport have a gooey, sweet, orange jammy curd in the centre (drool!) but I couldn't find a satisfactory recipe to match that. So I have adapted a few different recipes to make these delicious choc-chippy-orangey ones instead. These are a trial run for Easter Sunday, when I will probably (hopefully) take the time to ice and decorate them.

My helpers

238 kcal per muffin

Makes 6 large sized muffins, 10 bun/cupcake sized muffins or 12 minis

INGREDIENTS

2/3 cup self raising flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (I used a 100g bag)
zest of an orange
1/4 cup milk
1/8 cup orange juice
1/8 cup veg oil (I used rapeseed)
1 medium egg, beaten

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180 deg C

Zest and juice the orange

Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar and choc chips

In a jug, mix together the orange juice, orange zest, milk, veg oil and beaten egg
Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in wet ingredients
Mix and pour into muffin cases

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes

CHOCOLATE BISCUIT CAKE

Juno with the Chocolate Biscuit Cake - it's a real slab

I have become a chocolate cake fiend. I used to HATE chocolate cake but clearly I was eating the wrong ones. Lately, I can't get enough of good choccie cake and I had a craving for Chocolate Biscuit Cake this week (why!?). I haven't eaten it since my mother used to make it when I was a kid.

I've never used condensed milk in a recipe before - it is amazing, gloopy sweet stuff, I have discovered. Anyway, I adapted this recipe and came up with this cake: a rich, no-bake delight.

 INGREDIENTS

300g dark chocolate, broken up

100g butter/marg, diced

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

397g tin condensed milk

250g digestive biscuits, broken into quarters

METHOD

- Line a 2 lb loaf tin with cling film

- Melt the choc and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pot of gently simmering water. Stir until smooth.

- Remove the bowl from the heat and mix in the cocoa powder and salt, then pour in the condensed milk, stirring well to combine.

- Add the broken biscuits and stir

- Pour the chocolate biscuit mixture into the lined loaf tin, pressing it down with a spatula.

- Put in the fridge for about 3 hours, or overnight, until set.

Juno made these Monsters Inc buns for her and her cousin Lyra (special pack from Aldi):

ORANGE DRIZZLE CAKE for EASTER

Orange Chocolate Drizzle Cake

 
Happy Easter!

I was going to do the predictable thing and make a lemon cake for after dinner today but decided, at the last minute, that an orange cake would be nice. So I just made my Lemon Drizzle cake with orange instead.

Ingredients

75g caster sugar
50g light brown sugar
100g self-raising flour

75g spelt flour
125g butter or marg

pinch of salt
zest of 1 orange

2 eggs

4 tblsps cow's or soya milk

Drizzle

50g icing sugar
juice of 1 orange (4 tblsps)

Chocolate topping
A few pieces of dark chocolate
1 tsp icing sugar

Orange drizzle

Method

·        Preheat oven to 180˚C

·        Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin
·        Zest and juice the orange

·        Cream the butter and caster sugar

·        Add the eggs and zest and beat well

·        Add flour and salt and fold in completely

·        Mix through the milk

·        Pour into the cake tin

·        Bake for 45 minutes or so, until golden on top, make sure it is cooked through with a cake tester/skewer
·        Make the syrup while the cake is cooking by gently heating the orange and icing sugar until the sugar is melted

·        Using your skewer, puncture the top of the cake and pour the syrup evenly over the cake

·        Cool completely in the tin
·        Melt the chocolate in a bowl over boiling water, stir in the icing sugar, mix thoroughly, drip over the cake

Yes, I sacrificed a chunk of my egg for the choccie topping. Saint!

Dessert :)