Pear & Toffee Muffins

We had a team night out last night to watch two of our colleagues in a production of 'Acorn Antiques'. We decided to arrive early to allow us to indulge in some tea and cake. Myself and another of my colleagues offered to bake. I had seen this recipe a few weeks ago when I had some pears to use up and decided they would be pretty easy to whip up yesterday when I was short of time.

This is a recipe I found on the BBC Good Food website that you can find here. The recipe makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients:

300g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
85g golden caster sugar
250ml milk
2 eggs (beaten)
100g butter (melted)
2 ripe pears (peeled and cut into small chunks)
100g soft toffees (chopped into pieces - I didn't have enough so used some fudge pieces as well)
25g flaked almonds

Method: 
1. Heat your oven to 200C/Fan 180C/Gas 6. Line a 12-hole deep muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Tip the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and pinch of salt into a large bowl, then stir in the sugar.

3. Mix together the milk, eggs and melted butter in a large jug and pour into the dry mix all at once, along with the pears and a third of the toffee pieces. Stir until just combined (your batter should still be lumpy and have some streaks of flour.)

4. Divide the mixture between the cases, then sprinkle with the remaining toffee and flaked almonds.

5. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the muffins are risen, golden and feel firm when pressed (the toffee will be hot so be careful!)

6. Remove from the tin and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Dulce & banana cake

I received Lorraine Pascale's 'Fast, Fresh and Easy Food' as a Christmas present from Mr Birdie. One of the recipes that caught my eye was this 'Dulce & banana cake' which is an upside down banana cake with a sticky toffee topping. I am a big fan of banana cake and had been keen to try making it. This weekend gave me the opportunity to try it out as we had a training day at work today and I thought it would make a good break time snack. It was definitely well received and kept our brains going. It works well cold as a cake or warm as a dessert with cream or ice cream. You can find the recipe here on the BBC website. You will need a 20cm square tin.

Ingredients:

Sticky topping
50g butter
50g soft light brown sugar

Sponge
50g pecan nuts (optional)
150g butter (softened)
175g soft brown sugar
4 medium eggs (at room temperature)
1/2 vanilla pod (I used a couple of drops of vanilla extract)
100g self-raising flour
75g wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon treacle
Pinch of salt

2 small bananas (firm)
1 tablespoon Calvados (optional - I didn't have any so didn't use this)

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment and grease again.
2) Start by making the sticky topping. Place the butter and soft light brown sugar in a small pan over a medium heat. Once the butter has melted, turn up the heat and let the mixture bubble away for a few minutes until it starts to thicken. Make sure you stir it frequently so it doesn't catch.

Pour the mixture into the bottom of your lined tin and tip it back and forth so that the mixture spreads out. (You need to do this now as the mixture will solidify.)

3) If using the pecan nuts, tip them onto a baking tray and toast them in the oven. After 5 minutes remove them from the oven and set aside to cool.

4) To make the sponge mixture, cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl using a hand-held whisk or freestanding mixer until the mixture becomes lighter in colour.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.

If using the vanilla pod, split it open, scrape the seeds out and add (or alternatively add the vanilla extract).Then fold in both flours, the baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, treacle and salt and set aside.

5) Slice the bananas into 5mm thick pieces. Arrange them in a single layer in the bottom of the tin (I lined mine up but you can arrange them however you want.) Pack them in tightly and drizzle over the Calvados if using.

6) Roughly chop the pecans and stir them through the cake mix.

7) Carefully dollop the cake mix over the bananas and gently spread it out with the back of a spoon or a palette knife, levelling the top. Then place in the oven and cook for 35-45 minutes.

8) After the cake has been cooking for 35 minutes, remove it from the oven and insert a metal skewer into the centre. It should come out clean, if not put back in for another 5 minutes until cooked.
9) Once the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and leave it to cool for 10 minutes.

Then put a large flat plate over the top of the tin, and holding the tin and the plate, flip the whole lot over so that the tin is now upside down. Gently remove the tin and peel off the baking parchment to reveal the cake.

10) Cut into squares and serve warm or cold. Enjoy with your choice of accompaniment (crème anglaise, softly whipped cream or ice cream.)

Toffee Pecan Roulade

Christmas is a time for catching up with your favourite people which is just what we did yesterday afternoon. We went for a pre-Christmas lunch at our friends Simon and Louisa's yesterday and I offered to make dessert. After much trawling the Internet I decided upon a toffee pecan roulade. It's a popular dessert at this time of year - if you Google it you will find all the major supermarkets offer their own version.This is a recipe by Ruth Clemens that you can find on her Pink Whisk website here.

I've only ever made a roulade once before (this chocolate and cranberry one) so I'm not really an expert. I was in a bit of a rush yesterday and didn't have a big enough tin so it ended up as more of a flat rather than circular roulade. The meringue was also quite chewy - I don't think I cooked it for long enough. It did taste good though - you can't really go wrong with toffee and cream can you? I would definitely make this again and would highly recommend it for your Christmas festivities. A bonus is that it is also suitable for freezing.

Ingredients:

Meringue:
5 egg whites (large)
2 teaspoons cornflour
225g light muscavado sugar
40g pecans (chopped)

Filling:
250ml double cream
2 tablespoons icing sugar (plus extra for dusting)
1/2 tin Carnation Caramel

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 150C/130C (Fan)/Gas 2 and line a baking tray with shallow sides (approx. 25 x 36cm) with baking paper.
2) Put the egg whites in a clean bowl and add the cornflour.

3) Place the light muscovado sugar in a bowl and using a fork check there aren't any lumps. Chop the pecans ready to add to the meringue later. 

4) Begin to whisk the egg whites until they start to look foamy. Once they reach this stage keep whisking whilst adding the sugar one spoonful at a time until it is fully incorporated.

5) Keep whisking until the meringue is firm (you will need to be patient!) and you could hold it over your head without it falling out!

6) Gently fold the pecans into the meringue, until they are just worked through.

7) Spoon the meringue onto the lined tray and gently spread it out using a palette knife or spatula. Make sure it reached to all of the corners and is fairly flat (this is where I went wrong).

8) Bake it in the oven for 1 hour - 1 1/2 hours. You will need to keep checking it. It should not be sticky to the touch but should feel slightly squidgy. Once cooked take it out of the oven and leave it in its tin to cool completely. 

9) Whilst the meringue is cooling prepare your filling. Whip the double cream with two tablespoons of icing sugar until it reaches soft peaks. Put the caramel in a bowl and beat it with a spoon to loosen it.

10) Set out a large piece of  baking paper on your work surface and liberally dust it with icing sugar. 

11) Flip the cooled meringue onto the paper and carefully release the paper around the edges before peeling it away completely.

12) Spread the surface with the caramel followed be the whipped cream.

13) With a sharp knife cut through the meringue 2cm in from one end, all the way along. Fold this directly over the rest of the meringue. Take the edge of your baking paper and lift it to start rolling your roulade. Keep rolling it until you get to the end. 

14) Turn the roulade so that the seam is underneath and dust with icing sugar ready to serve. 

Toffee Apple Pudding

We are big Aldi fans in the Little Birdie household. Their fruit and vegetables are cheap and good quality. So when Mr Birdie spotted some bargainous Bramley apples over the weekend (4 for 99p) I decided it was time to make an apple-based pudding. After some investigation work I found this BBC Good Food recipe for toffee apple pudding which looked easy enough and I had all the ingredients for. I did consider making this treacle apple pudding, especially as I have pudding basin that I have used yet but opted for ease instead! Although this dessert isn't a 'looker' it was tasty and went down well after dinner on Sunday.

Ingredients:

For the pudding:
85g butter (melted)
140g self-raising flour
100g golden caster sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
200ml milk
1 egg (beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Bramley apples

For the topping:
140g dark brown sugar
50g pecans (roughly chopped)

Method:
1) Heat oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease a 2-litre (3 1/2 pint) ovenproof dish lightly with butter.
2) Tip the flour, sugar and baking powder, along with a pinch of salt, into a large bowl.

3) Mix together the milk, butter, egg and vanilla extract.

4) Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until you get a smooth batter.

5) Peel, core and slice the apples and arrange into the bottom of your ovenproof dish. Spoon the batter on top and smooth with a knife until the apples are covered.

6) For the topping, pour 250ml of boiling water over the sugar and stir together until smooth.

7) Pour the liquid over the pudding mixture (it will look pretty bad at this point but don't worry the liquid starts to sink to the bottom) and then scatter over the pecans.

8) Bake for about 40 minutes until the pudding has risen and is golden. 

9) Use a large spoon to serve the pudding (to make sure you get the caramel sauce at the bottom) and serve with cream, custard or ice cream.

10) Enjoy!

Happy baking :-)