Lemon & Ricotta Breakfast Muffins

I called these muffins so you can eat them for breakfast.
I am kind to you like that.


I made these for three reasons.

1. I had a lot of lemons
2. I wanted to test out my new silicone cupcake breakfast muffin cases

3. I like to eat cake for breakfast.

On a serious note, they do have much less sugar than a cupcake, and of course no icing or buttercream -they aren't particularly sweet, so add more if you want a sweet muffin. They are lovely split open and served with some natural yoghurt and honey.


Lemon & Ricotta Muffins
makes 12 muffins

1 cup (200g) of self raising flour
1/4 (50g) cup of sugar
half teaspoon of baking powder
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons of honey
1/2 (100g) cup of ricotta
1/4 (50ml) cup of milk
3 tablespoons of melted and cooled butter (approx 75g solid)
1 egg
zest of 3 lemons, juice of 2
oats or wheatgerm to sprinkle on top - optional

Preheat your oven to gas mark 4 / 180c / 160c fan.
Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Do the same with the wet ingredients and the egg, whisk them together. Slowly fold the wet into the dry, taking care not to over mix.

do you like my silicone cupcake liners? fancy and useful.

Fill the cupcake cases generously with the mixture, about 1 cm from the top - you want them to rise high.
Sprinkle with some oats or wheatgerm if you'd like.

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until they are cooked through.

Rhubarb Custard Cake with Lemon Glaze

Forced rhubarb time is here! It definitely feels like spring time when seasonal fruit comes back into the shops. I love the colour of forced rhubarb too, shocking pink just reminds me of summer time rather than dull old February.

I bake with rhubarb a lot, cakes, cupcakes, pies, simple crumbles and jam. This recipe is super simple to make, the crumb is creamy - to me it actually tastes of custard  - and we all know what rhubarb goes with! This batter has more eggs and less flour, hence the custard taste, and the juices from the rhubarb seep out whilst it makes which makes it extra moist.

I experimented with a lemon glaze too, rhubarb is sour but I think the glaze works surprisingly well.

Rhubarb Custard Cake
makes one cake, I baked mine in a 7 inch square tin.

150gs of softened unsalted butter
150gs of white sugar plus extra for the top
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
100gs self raising flour
1/2 tsp of baking powder
zest of one lemon
2 large sticks of rhubarb

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, mix in your eggs one by one and then the vanilla. Fold in your zest, flour and baking powder til just combined. Pour the batter into a greased and lined cake tin (mine was non stick so I didn't use any baking paper)
Trim your rhubarb and chop into 1 inch pieces, arrange over the top of the cake, sprinkle about a tablespoon of sugar over the top, this will add a bit of extra sweetness to the rhubarb.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 200c / gas mark 6 til cooked through. When a knife is inserted it won't come out absolutely clean because it is quite a moist cake, a few crumbs should stick.

Leave to cool for about 5 minutes and then very carefully transfer to a plate or a board to allow you to glaze the cake.

For the lemon glaze
juice of one lemon
dash of vanilla extract
approx 70g caster sugar

whisk both together until well combined, the sugar doesnt have to dissolve as you want a nice crunchy top. Spoon over the warm cake and leave for as long as you can before grabbing yourself a slice.

This cake is just lovely out of the oven as it is incredibly crispy on top, you can reheat it slightly from cold to crisp up again too.

Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes - Gluten Free

These are properly syrupy, sticky and sweet cupcakes with a lovely lemon tang - I didn't start out intending for them to be gluten free but they are which is a great bonus! I made them by replacing the flour for ground almonds - which makes the cakes light and slightly nutty as well as gluten free.

I sprinkled the cupcakes with sugar before baking for an extra crisp top, and then drizzled them with a generous amount of syrup when the came out of the oven.

Makes 12 muffins / large cupcakes

175g unsalted butter
200g sugar
200g ground almonds
zest of 2 lemons
juice of 2 lemons
1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder
3 eggs

Cream the butter and sugar together til well combined, then whisk in eggs, fold in almonds, zest and baking powder. You can add a dash of vanilla extract here too.  Spoon into cupcake cases, leaving about 1cm from the top of the case. Sprinkle each cake with sugar, be generous!

Bake in the oven for 10 - 15mins til cooked through, they will be squidger than normal cakes but they will be cooked through. They won't rise to a dome like a flour cake either, mainly cos of the sugar topping too, but the baking powder will help them along a little bit.

for the drizzle:
juice of 2 lemons
approx 3-4 tablespoons of sugar

mix the drizzle ingredients together til you have a consistency like double cream, set aside while the cupcakes cook. as soon as the cupcakes come out prick them a few times each with a fork, and then drizzle some of the syrup over the top.

Leave to cool and then eat! These are so soft and syrupy that they make a lovely pudding with some creme fraiche or ice cream.

Ginger Molasses Cupcakes - Happy National Cupcake Week!

Happy National Cupcake Week everyone!

I believe this week is just promotional for a baking magazine but it is a good enough excuse for me to bake cupcakes, so yay!


As the weather is getting colder and Autumn is approaching I thought I'd make something comforting and spicy. I had some muscovado molasses sugar in the cupboard and ginger seemed like a good match, a bit like sticky toffee pudding without the dates. I have iced the cupcakes with a light lemon cream frosting which goes really well against the rich sponge.

Ginger Molasses Cupcakes

 Makes 12 large cupcakes

100g butter, softened
175g dark muscovado or muscovado molasses sugar
2 eggs
dash of vanilla extract
zest of half a lemon - optional
175g self raising flour
175ml buttermilk or whole milk
1 heaped teaspoon of ground ginger - I opted for ground as I didn't want stringy bits of fresh ginger in my cakes.

Mix together your butter and sugar until fully combined, you may need to blend it slightly to combine as the sugar is thicker and denser. Whisk in your eggs one by one using a hand whisk or an electric one. Then add in the vanilla, ginger and lemon if using.
Alternately add a small amount of your flour (sifted in) and buttermilk/milk til all of it is used up.

Fill cupcake cases up 1cm from the top, you want nice full cupcakes, and bake in a preheated medium oven for 15-20minutes until cooked through.

Light Lemon Cream Icing

Ices 12 cupcakes

100ml of double cream
juice of one lemon
3 tabelspoons of icing sugar

Whisk your cream with an electric whisk until it forms soft peaks, then slowly with a hand whisk combine in your icing sugar and lemon juice. Taste for sweetness/lemonness, add more to your taste.
Chill in the fridge until the cupcakes are ready to ice. These cupcakes are best iced just before you eat them so the cakes don't get soggy. The icing will keep in a bowl in the fridge for a couple of days so you can ice as you go!
I topped mine with some cute little blackberries that I picked in my garden, they worked really well with the creamy gingery cupcake.

Yum! I hope you bake something yummy for national cupcake week.

Deepa
x

ps - apologies for the quality of the pics, it is getting dark in the evenings! :(

Cooking - Lemon & Poppyseed Cake

One of my birthday gifts this year was a copy of the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, its been on my wishlist for a while along with the Magnolia Bakery book. There are so many brilliant recipes in it, it was so hard to pin one down to make first of all!

I picked this lemon poppyseed cake to make first, I've a soft spot for lemon cakes, lemon drizzle is my favourite kind of cake.

This one is a more complex version of a lemon drizzle cake, with a lemon syrup and a tangy lemon icing.I was suprised this cake didn't contain any egg yolks, just whites, I was a little worried it would fall apart - but it was fine.

Lemon & Poppyseed Cake - from the Hummingbird Bakery Book

Ingredients (tweaked a little by me)

for the cake:
85g butter
245g brown sugar
zest of 2 lemons
2 tbsp poppyseeds
160mls of whole milk (I didn't have whole so I used half cream half semi skimmed)
200g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder2 egg whites1/2 teaspoon salt

for the lemon syrup:
juice and zest of 2 lemons
50g caster sugar
50ml water

for the lemon glaze/icing:
juice of 1 1/2 lemons
125g icing sugar


Preheat your oven to gas mark 4 / 180c / 350fCream together butter, sugar, lemon zest and poppyseeds until light and fluffy. The recipe suggests using a mixer but I don't have one (sob) so I used elbow grease and then when the mixture was well combined I pulsed it with an electric whisk (slowly) until it was fluffier.

Add the milk slowly incorporating well with the butter mixture.Sieve flour, baking powder and salt together and fold into milk and butter mixture in 3 stages.
Whisk your egg whites in a bowl until they form stiff peaks.
Carefully fold these into your cake mixture, try not to overmix.

Pour into a greased and lined cake tin. Bake for 30-40 minutes in your preheated oven til it is done (a knife should come out clean when you skewer it).Whilst your cake bakes make the lemon syrup. Add the lemon, sugar and water into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Allow to simmer on a medium to high heat, stirring occassionally until you have a thick syrup. Remove from the heat. Pour over the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven.


The recipe suggests pouring it straight into the tin, I've had a lot of trouble with these kinds of syrups sticking to the greaseproof paper. So I turn the cake out into a plate and pour syrup over.
Next you need to make your glaze/icing. Add lemon juice to icing sugar in a bowl, beat until it is very smooth, it needs to be thick but pourable too. Add more sugar or juice to get the right consistency.

Wait until the cake is completely cool (torture!!) before you pour the icing over. Sprinkle with poppyseeds to decorate.

Once the icing is set cut yourself a large and well deserved piece.