Apple and Honey Muffins

Healthy Eating Recipes

Ingredients:

• 2 egg whites 
• 240g (8 oz) Wholemeal flour 
• 1 tablespoon baking powder 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 170ml (6 fl oz) skimmed milk 
• 4 tablespoons vegetable oil 
• 4 tablespoons honey 
• 110g (4 oz) chopped cooking apple

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 190 C / Gas mark 5. Lightly grease one 12-cup muffin tin, or line with paper muffin cups.
2. Lightly beat egg whites.
3. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients thoroughly.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together milk, oil, honey and apples. Gently fold in egg whites to the wet mixture. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients. Fold together until just moistened. Batter will be lumpy.
5. Fill greased muffin tins two-thirds full. Bake about 20 minutes until lightly browned.
6. Leave in the tins to cool then turn the muffins out onto a wire cooling tray.

Banana Cinammon Muffins

Quick and delicious muffins

These are soft and crumbly and packed with healthy fruit!



Ingredients:

• 4oz caster sugar
  
• 1tbsp baking powder
  
• 9oz plain flour
  
• 3oz cold butter
  
• 1 egg
  
• 3fl 0z milk
  
• 6oz bananas
  
• 1 tsp cinnamon powder
  

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200c.  Sieve the flour into a large bowl and add the remaining dry ingredients and mix.  Grate in the butter and then with your finger tips rub the butter in until you have breadcrumb like texture.

In a separate bowl mash the banana with the egg and the milk.  It doesn't have to be smooth, in fact lumpy makes better textured muffins!

Add to the flour and mix together.  Spoon into paper cases and bake for 25 minutes until muffins are golden brown.  Cool before serving.

One minute Meringue Cake

Eton Mess stacks

From the hallowed halls of Eton (a prestigious private school in England) comes Eton Mess - a scrumy dessert but this one is ready in a jiffy.

Ingredients:
For the Meringue

• 1 Egg white
• 12oz Icing Sugar
• 1 tsp crushed cardamon seeds

For the toppings

• 142ml Double cream
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 10oz Raspberries

Directions:
Whisk the egg white and add the sugar and seeds. You should have a firm icing. Roll the icing into 8 golf ball size balls. Place two balls on a piece of greased baking paper at opposite ends of your microwave. Cook on full power for 30-40 seconds until quadrupled in size. Lift off the paper and allow to cool.

Whip the cream with the lemon juice. Crush half the raspberries and fold through the whipped cream.

To serve, place a little cream in the centre of the plate and settle one meringue on top (the cream on the plate stops the stack from sliding around too much). Add more raspberry cream on top and then another meringue. Finish with more cream and some whole raspberries. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

Note: Traditional Eton Mess has the above just all bunged together in a "mess".

Lemon Semi-Fredo

Not ice cream nor sorbet... it's Semi-Fredo

Ideally served in slices so you'll need a loaf tin for this one... ice cream from a baking tin!



Ingredients:
6 Egg yolks
150g Castor sugar
150ml Lemon juice
Zest of one lemon
375ml Cream, lightly whipped

Directions:
Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice and zest in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water. Keep whisking and as the mixture heats up it swell in volume. Keep going until it is approximately double in size and light and fluffy. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool giving the odd whisk every now and again.

When the mixture is fully cold, fold in the whipped cream.

Line the loaf tin with cling film (saran wrap for you Americans out there) so that you can lift the semi-fredo out when set. Freeze until solid, a few hours or so should do it.

Slice and serve.

PS. I use the "spare" egg whites from this recipe to make meringues... they go great together.

Strawbery Glaze

How to save a sunken cake...

This will turn an ordinary failed sunken cake into a divine dessert! Sometimes the best laid plans and all that... cakes collapse and you're left with something which know tastes pretty good but doesn't look at that great. Here's rescue remedy; fill the hole with this easy to make glaze.

Of course, you could just make the glaze for an ordinary cake too!

• 2 cups fresh strawberries, washed, hulled and halved, divided
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 cup Grand Marnier (or other orange-flavored liqueur) optional
  

Mash 1 cup of the strawberries. Combine mashed and unmashed strawberries, sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and stir in Grand Marnier. Cover and chill. Makes about 1-1/2 cups.

Easy Choclate Cake

Decadent & fool-proof - a rare combination

Chocolate cake is always a real crowd pleaser but may cooks are put off by the complicated steps, masses of ingredients and time it takes. Now, a really easy cake to make but with fantastic results. A rich dark fudgy taste.

It took me less than 1/2 an hour to make; it will probably take even less to polish it off!


Ingredients:
240g Butter
270g Dark chocolate
6 eggs, separated
250 g sugar
120g flour (sieved)

Directions:
Preheat he over to 180c. Prepare a spring-bake cake tin by buttering and dusting with flour - this stops the cake sticking to the tin.

Melt the butter and chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water; allow the chocolate to melt slowly without the glass bowl touching the water. Meanwhile, whisk the 6 eggs yolks with the sugar until thick. Also, whisk the 6 egg whites until frothy with soft white peaks.

When the butter and chocolate and fully melted, add to the egg yolks and sugar and mix well. Fold in the sieved flour and when fully mixed fold in the egg whites.

If you're feeling extra decadent, add some broken chocolate pieces to the mixture before pouring into the prepared tin.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the sides are set. Allow to cool before removing from the tin; dust with icing sugar. It will hold for a few days and in fact will taste better the day after it's made - if you wan wait that long!

Serve with Baileys whipped cream and a few raspberries... or just eat it!

Originally from Domini Kemp's tweaked recipe from Alice Waters.

Currant Cake

Railway Cake / Currnie Cake / Sweet Soda Bread

A variation on the standard White Soda Bread is a sweeter bread with a variety of names - depends what part of the country you're in! The addition of sugar, an egg and Currants/Raisins/Sultanas to the bread results in ... a Cake!

So, by following the same basic recipe a bread can quickly become a Cake; in reality it is more of a sweet bread which is great with butter, jam and cup of tea.


Ingredients:

• 1 lb (450g/3¼ cups) white flour, preferably unbleached
• 1 level teaspoon/½ American teaspoon salt
• 1 level teaspoon/½ American teaspoon breadsoda
• Sour milk or buttermilk to mix - 12-14 fl ozs (350-412 ml) approx.
• 1 cup Currants or Raisons or Sultanas (I prefer plump juicy Sultanas)
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 egg

Directions:
First fully preheat your oven to 230ºC/450ºF/regulo 8.

Sieve all the dry ingredients and mix in the fruit. Make a well in the centre. Beat the egg and mix it with the buttermilk. Pour most of the milk mixture in at once. Using one hand, mix in the flour from the sides of the bowl, adding more milk if necessary. The dough should be softish, not too wet and sticky. When it all comes together, turn it out onto a well floured worked surface. WASH AND DRY YOUR HANDS. Knead lightly for a second, just enough to tidy it up, flip over. Pat the dough into a round about 1½ inches (2.5cm) deep and cut a cross. Let the cuts go over the sides of the bread to make sure of this. Bake in a hot oven, 230ºC/450ºF/regulo 8 for 15 minutes, then turn down the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/regulo 6 for 30 minutes or until cooked. If you are in doubt, tap the bottom of the bread: if it is cooked it will sound hollow.

Wrap in a clean tea-towel and leave on a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy with butter, jam and a cup of tea!


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Tea Brack

See Brack.

Brack

This is a basic recipe for Brack or Tea Brack. If you are making Barmbrack for halloween, check out this post on all the extra ingredients you'll need!

Ingredients:

• 250 g of white flour
• 15g of dried baker's yeast
• 50 g of fine white sugar
• 1 fl of warm milk
• half a teaspoon of allspice or mixed cinnamon and nutmeg
• half a teaspoon of salt
• 1 small egg
• 50g of unsalted butter
• 50g of mixed peel
• 60g of mixed raisins and sultanas.

Directions:

Soak the dried fruit overnight in weak tea, for an authentic taste - hence the name "Tea Brack"

Warm the milk a little, then stir the yeast and one teaspoon of the sugar into two tablespoonfuls of the milk, and let rise for ten minutes.

Melt the butter and let it cool.

Sift the flour, the allspice and the salt into a bowl, and add the rest of the sugar. Pour in the rest of the milk, and the yeast mixture as before.

Beat the egg with a fork, mix with the butter, add to the bowl, stir a little, and knead the mixture for 5 minutes until the dough is elastic and no longer sticks to the bowl. Cover with a wet cloth and let rise in a warm place for one hour.

Dry the mixed peel and fruit, chop the mixed peel up into small sections, roll in a little flour, add the mixed peel and the fruit and knead the mixture vigorously.

Butter a baking tin and spread the mixture evenly into it. Leave to rise for 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 220°C, put the mixture in to bake for 25 minutes, then reduce the heat to 190 °C and bake a little longer.

Let the barmbrack repose for 15 minutes after taking it out of the oven before extracting it from the tin, and allow to cool thoroughly before cutting. Serve with tea and butter.