Summer Berry Muffins

So it's been a strange few weeks and making and doing ended up bottom of the list. But when someone special brought over some blueberries I decided baking needed to be on the agenda. I consulted my favourite books by Lilly Higgins and Nigella and decided on muffins. These are mostly Lilly's lovely blueberry muffins if I'm honest but with the addition of some strawberries (raspberries would be nice too) and I replaced the milk with semi-skimmed.

Ingredients:
8oz plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2.5 oz light brown sugar
1 large egg
150 ml semi-skimmed milk
40 ml sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 oz blueberries
3 oz strawberries

Set oven to heat at 170 Celsius. (my oven is extra hot though so you might need to turn it up a little).

Instructions:

1. Sieve the flour and baking powder into a bowl and add the sugar.

2. Whisk the wet ingredients together and add to the mixture.

3. Chop strawberries; fold in the fruit.

4. Divide the mixture into twelve cupcake cases (I use silicone ones so I don't need a cupcake tray) and bake for 15-20 mins. It might be nice to sprinkle either a few seeds or a little sugar on the top for a bit of a glaze as well, depending on whether you're going for a "healthy" muffin or not...

5. Leave on a wire rack to cool a little and enjoy with a cuppa! 

Sesame and Lime Macaroons

So I may have become a little obsessed with macaroons in the last wee while... 

These are sesame and lime ones, made for having with The Tea (post-family-dinner) on Easter Sunday.

As with the previous macaroons, these are made from a recipe from a book simply called Macaroons, from the Love Food series, I take no credit for the recipe!

The mix of sesame and lime was unusual and made me think of Asian flavours. Next time I make macaroons I'm going to experiment and come up with a recipe of my own, maybe with wasabi and something... These guys might make an interesting partner to a wasabi and chocolate maybe? Hmmm...

I think I'm going to have to do some make and do that doesn't involve macaroons next though! There seem to be quite a lot of them on my blog these days!

Pistachio Macaroons

They're not quite as glossy as I'd like but mmm pistachio...

I must pack them away now to bring them visiting... otherwise I may continue eating them. 

Green Tea Macaroons

Round 3 of macaroon making...

Green tea with lemon in the middle.

From a lovely book given to me for Christmas by someone lovely...

Macaroons

Tricky little guys.. but here are my first attempts. 

Raspberry Ripple, which turned out pretty nifty. 

Peanut Butter and Jam, which are not quite as pretty but just as tasty. 

Good with a cuppa!

Raspberry Dream

Oooh la la! I had great fun making this yesterday; it survived the night in the fridge and looked quite well this morning I must say! Basically it's a cheesecake recipe, made up of a few ideas from one of those Women's weekly cookbooks (they make me feel like I'm 65 when I buy them, but grannies make the best cakes so it's ok).

You need:

• 225g of delicious biscuits (I used Hob Nobs but I think ginger nut biscuits would be good too)
• 60g melted butter
• 300g raspberries (frozen will do)
• 2 tsps gelatine
• 2 tbsps water
• 375g cream cheese
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 tsps lemon juice
• 300ml cream
• a 22cm springform tin with cling film around the rim (but not the base, pop that back in after you put the cling film on).

Here's what I did:

1. Smash up the biscuits in a sandwich bag with a rolling pin or something like that, and then add them to the melted butter and mix well.
2. Spread this around the base of the tin and leave in the fridge for a half an hour while you make the other bits and pieces
3. Mix the gelatine and water in a heatproof jug and leave to stand in simmering water for a few mins, stirring it until it's totally disolved. Leave to cool for a few mins.
4. Beat the cheese, lemon and sugar in a bowl (yay for electric mixers), then beat in the cream and finally stir in the gelatine mix.
5. Put the raspberries on top of the biscuit base and pour in your filling. It should look like this.

Then you can decorate with a few spare raspberries if you like.

Leave it in the fridge overnight and then you can pop open the tin, gently remove the cling film and be left with something like the picture at the top. A hoard of hungry teachers descended on mine and devoured it in 10 minutes flat. I manage to get a wee crumbly bit for myself... and it was good.