It’s no secret that I love sweet things. It therefore shouldn’t surprise anyone that one of my favourite Christmas traditions is dessert focussed. Or more specifically, custard focussed. As a kid, I didn’t like plum pudding, so Christmas dessert was just a bowl full of custard. I have fond memories of making an enormous vat of custard with the family on Christmas day and indulging in bowlfuls of custard with my cousins, sans pudding.

These days I happily enjoy pudding and brandy butter, but the dousing in custard is mandatory. This Christmas, I was slated to lunch with the in-laws. When I found out that custard isn’t ordinarily part of their Christmas day spread, I happily volunteered to bring some along.

I tracked down a simple recipe for custard on the Gourmet Traveller Australia site. The recipe said that it serves 6. I planned to make the custard do double time, serving it for Christmas eve dinner with friends and taking it along to Christmas lunch. Total number of guests needing custard was 26, so I initially planned to triple the recipe. Then Mr M came home with enough cream, milk and eggs to quadruple the recipe. Perfect!

Hesitations about the quantity of custard began when I saw the debris from 24 eggs. Yes, 24 eggs:

I realised I had a serious custard problem when I was in the final stages of the recipe and there was enough custard to fill my enormous pasta pot to the brim. I chilled the mixture down, then decanted it into some milk bottles for easy transportation…

4 litres. 4 litres!

I duly served the custard on Christmas eve to friends and at Christmas lunch. Despite my heavy handed pushing of the custard, and leading by example in eating it by the bowlful, after the two events I had close to 2 litres left. I palmed some custard off to W, took some to Christmas dinner and still took about 500ml home after all Christmas activities were finished.

So the lesson to be learnt is – you can have too much custard. And when a recipe suggests 1 litre for 6 people, that does not hold for Christmas day. A rough working guide would be about 1L for 15 or so people, and you may have some left over.

Creme Anglais

From Gourmet Traveller Australia

1 vanilla bean
600ml cream
300ml milk
6 egg yolks
150g caster sugar

• Place milk, cream and seeds from vanilla bean in a heavy based saucepan and heat to just below boiling.

• Separate eggs and place egg yolks and sugar in a bowl.

• Whisk egg yolks and sugar until very thick and pale.

• Slowly pour hot cream mixture over the egg yolk mixture, whisking continuously. Go very slowly, this is the scary part where the mixture may split (hence no photos!)
• Pour the custard into a clean saucepan and cook, stirring continuously until the custard has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon.
• Strain the custard into a bowl over iced water and allow to cool completely. I kept whisking the custard until it was cool (again, fear of splitting!)

• Decant into a container and refrigerate until required.

 

Mince pies. The pinnacle of my Christmas baking this year and also the most controversial (I never realised so many people hated them!).

I have never attempted to make mince pies before, but it was time to try as I was sick of seeing them in the stores and being unable to eat them (due to the wheat-factor). When I was doing some recipe reconnaissance, Kate from Eating Melbourne recommended Nigella’s recipe for star topped mince pies (yet another Nigella recipe!). Kate said that the use of orange juice in the pastry helped give the pies a lovely flakiness.

Nigella extolled the virtues of making your own mincemeat and so I was duly convinced. In her book How to be a domestic goddess, Nigella includes a few recipes for mincemeat, including “Hettie Potter’s suet-free mincemeat”. She had me at suet-free, after Saskia’s horrible suet encounter last year.

I made the mincemeat a couple of weeks ahead of making the pies, to allow the flavours to develop. This also made the eventual pie making a little simpler. If you can’t be bothered to make your mincemeat you can easily buy some, and frankly, I urge you to do that if you are planning to make these in the dwindling days before Christmas.

The pastry was very forgiving and was pretty easy to work with, even though I made it with spelt flour rather than regular flour. These pies are really delicious when they are still warm from the oven and they were absolutely decadent topped with some whipped brandy butter.

The pies will keep for a week in an airtight container. Pop them in a moderate oven for about 4 minutes to warm them through before serving. Mmmm.

Nigella’s star topped mince pies

Original recipes from Nigella’s How to be a domestic goddess. The pastry recipe is available via Lifestyle Food and the mincemeat recipe via A Spoonful of Sugar
Made about 40 mince pies.

The original mincemeat recipe stated that it made about 2kg, so I halved the recipe. I ended up with about 700g of mincemeat. Note that I also swapped dried cranberries for the cherries, as I am not a fan of glace cherries. The cranberries were a delicious addition.

For the mincemeat

125g soft dark brown sugar
125ml medium dry cider
500g cooking apples
1/4 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
125g currants
125g raisins
40g dried cranberries
40g blanched almonds
finely chopped rind and juice of 1/4 lemon
3 tablespoons brandy or rum

For the pastry

240g plain flour (or 290g of spelt flour)
60g vegetable shortening (I used Copha)
60g cold butter
juice of 1 orange
pinch of salt
mincemeat from recipe above, or buy some!
1 egg (for an egg-wash, optional)
icing sugar for dusting 

Mincemeat

• If you are making your own mincemeat it is best to make a couple of weeks before Christmas to allow the flavours to develop. Even a couple of days ahead really enhances the flavour.
• Roughly chop the cranberries, chop the almonds and peel, core and quarter the apples.

•  In a large saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the cider over a gentle heat.
• Add the apples, dried fruits and almonds to the saucepan and simmer until everything has a pulpy consistency. Nigella suggested this should take about 30 minutes but ours took a while longer, probably close to 50 minutes.

• Take the mixture off the heat and when it has cooled slightly stir in the brandy.
• Store in sterilised jars with tightly fitting lids.

Pastry

• Measure the flour into a shallow bowl. Add small diced pieces of shortening and butter, shake to cover and place in the freezer for 20 minutes.
• In a separate, small bowl, mix together the orange juice and salt. Cover and place in the fridge to chill. 

• After the 20 minutes, empty the flour mixture your food processor and blitz until you’ve got a pale pile of crumbs.
• Pour the salted juice down the funnel, pulsing until it looks as if the dough is about to come together. If you need extra liquid (which I did), add some iced water.

• Turn the mixture out of the processor onto the bench and bring the mixture together to make a dough. Form the dough into 3 flat discs, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 20 minutes. 
• Preheat the oven to 220°C/430°F.
• After 20 minutes, roll out the discs one at a time. You want the pastry to be pretty thin but it has to be able to support the mince.

• Use a fluted cookie cutter to cut rounds to put into your tart tins. Nigella suggests that the pastry should be a little wider than the tart tins, but my largest cookie cutter was not quite big enough.  Mine are just a little uneven as a result!
• Place a teaspoon or so of mincemeat in each tart, then top with stars (use a star cutter) and place on top.

• If you want your pies to be shiny, lightly beat an egg and use a pastry brush to coat the pastry in the eggwash. I didn’t do this with mine.
• Put in the oven and bake for 10–15 minutes, until golden brown. I baked mine on the top shelf and due to my idiosyncratic oven, they took about 20 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and quickly use a knife to prise the tarts out of the tin. Place them on a wire rack to cool and allow the tin to cool before you start putting the next batch of pastry in.
• These are best served warm and dusted in a little icing sugar. Enjoy!

 

I love brandy butter. It is a must have on a Christmas pudding and pretty delicious with some mince tarts too.

Last year I clipped a gorgeous looking recipe from Australian Gourmet Traveller for a whipped brandy butter. While I ran out of time to make it last year, I made sure it was on my Christmas to do list this year. I’m glad I did.

This really is incredibly easy to make, although I probably wouldn’t be saying that if I didn’t have a stand mixer. Using a stand mixer, all this involves is adding ingredients incrementally until you have this light, airy and frankly delicious brandy butter. You could very easily make this with a hand held mixer, but it may not be quite the same walk in the park…

The recipe below will make about 1 kg of brandy butter, or 3 decent sized jars. I think its the perfect amount – a jar to take to a friend, a jar for Christmas day and a jar for yourself, to slather on your other holiday goodies. Yum!

Whipped brandy butter

From Australian Gourmet Traveller

The original recipe made 2kg of brandy butter, which seemed excessive to me (despite my love of the stuff). We made half the recipe and it gave us three good jars full. Quantities below make about 1kg.
Whipped brandy butter will keep refrigerated for up to 2 weeks. Remember to bring it to room temperature before serving – we forgot this step so our whipped brandy butter was given a quick nuke in the microwave and ended up as brandy butter slurry. All the gorgeous lightness was lost.

375g softened butter
500g pure icing sugar, sieved
1/2 tbs ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or the seeds from1 vanilla bean)
50ml brandy
1/2 an eggwhite

• Beat butter in an electric mixer until light and very fluffy (6-8 minutes).
• Add icing sugar in batches, beating well to combine (10-15 minutes). Add spices and vanilla and continue to beat until the mixture is well combined (4-5 minutes).
• While the electric mixer is running, pour in the brandy in a thin stream and continue beating until incorporated.
• Finally, beat in eggwhite until light and very fluffy (4-5 minutes).
• Transfer to sterilised jars and refrigerate until required.

Hello blogosphere! Apologies for my recent lack of posting – this time of year has been just that little too busy on the socialising and cooking front! But thankfully, some of that cooking has been wonderfully festive, so I thought I better blog some of these delicious little treats before Christmas is over.

For the first time ever, this year I tried my hands at making mince pies (I will post these later in the week). Invited to another Christmas function, I offered to bring said mince pies along but was thoroughly rebuffed. Apparently the host and other attendees didn’t like mince pies. Fine. So I had to come up with something else sweet and Christmassy to take along.

My first stop for all things baking is Nigella’s How to be a domestic goddess. Honestly, it is probably the cookbook I have used the most over the years and I highly recommend it. Nigella didn’t disappoint and included a recipe for Christmas cupcakes which she even described as a good alternative for those who don’t like mince pies! Win.

The original recipe called for the cupcakes to be topped in fondant, but 1) I didn’t have any fondant on hand and 2) I don’t like fondant. I decided to make an airy, egg white frosting and pipe it high to resemble a Christmas tree. A jaffa lolly on the top completed the Christmas cheer.

These were  a real hit with my mince pie hating friends. They were lightly chocolatey and had a nice spiced flavour that invoked some holiday cheer. I’ll definitely be making these again!

Hi-hat Christmas Cupcakes

Makes about 12 cupcakes or 24 mini cupcakes

The cupcake recipe is from Nigella’s How to be a domestic goddess, with a tweak for spelt flour and a little extra chocolate for good measure!
The frosting is a spin on the hi-hat frosting from Martha Stewart, which I used for quantities but with a different technique. Martha’s recipe also called for almond essence, which I did use in the cupcakes pictured, but I think should be omitted. I felt that the almond flavour overpowered the delicate spiced chocolate note of the cupcakes.

For the cupcakes

150g plain flour (or 180g if using spelt flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
half teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon ground mixed spice
pinch of salt
100g soft unsalted butter
160g dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons sour cream
125ml boiling water
1oog dark chocolate, broken into pieces
1 teaspoon instant coffee

For the frosting

390g caster sugar
60ml water
3 large egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Jaffa candies to decorate

• In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, bicarb, mixed spice and salt. Set aside.
• In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add  the eggs one at a time, mix well after each. Beat in one third of the flour mixture, then 1 tablespoon of sour cream, alternating until all the flour and sour cream is incorporated. The mixture will be thick.

• Break the chocolate into pieces and place in a saucepan with the boiling water and coffee. Heat gently until the chocolate is melted.
• Let the chocolate mixture cool slightly and then pour into the cake batter.

• Fold the chocolate mixture gently in, but don’t over mix. The mixture will be very thin. Fill cupcake pans about two thirds full (note I overfilled the ones pictured below):

• Bake for about 20 minutes, until cooked through. Allow to cool completely before icing.
• For the frosting, combine the sugar, water, egg whites and cream of tartar in a heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk until it reaches 160F/70C on a thermometer.

• Pour the eggwhite mixture into a stand mixer and beat on high speed. Add the vanilla. Continue beating until the frosting is cooled, thick and glossy. It should comfortably hold its own weight.

A few months ago I was feeling pretty rough.  After a few doctor visits and several needle jabs, I discovered that my iron levels were severely lacking.

Ever since then, I’ve been trying to incorporate more iron into my diet. A friend of mine makes these fab little tahini balls which are packed full of iron and other necessary nutrients. I’ve been whipping them up with frequency lately.

Emily has christened them ‘vegan power balls’ and the name has stuck, ridiculous though it may be.

I think these are pretty awesome but they don’t please everyone. I took them on a plane trip recently and when I offered them around my friends accused me of being like the dorky mum who gives their kids ‘healthy’ snacks to take to school. Anyway, I care not what they think! In my opinion, these little balls tick all the boxes of being healthy, easy and super-tasty.

Ingredients
1 cup tahini, preferably unhulled for extra nutrients
½ cup LSA mix (ground linseed, sunflower seeds and almonds)*
¼ cup nuts (use any such as almonds or hazelnuts)
¼ cup dried fruit (again, use any such as sultanas or apricots – we used cranberries)
3 tbs honey
½ cup dessicated coconut

These ingredient quantities are pretty malleable. Use more or less of anything to suit your own personal specifications.

Firstly, chop up nuts and dried fruit into smallish pieces.

In a medium bowl, add tahini, LSA, nuts, dried fruit and honey.

Mix well with a fork to incorporate all ingredients. If the mixture is too loose to roll into balls, add more LSA. If the mixture is too solid, add more tahini. Taste the mixture and adjust any of the ingredients further until the flavour and texture is to your liking.

Roll the mixture into balls of about 1 inch in diameter. Pour the dessicated coconut onto a plate. Roll the balls in the coconut.

Place on a platter and enjoy. Power up.

*LSA and tahini are available from health food shops or the health food section in the supermarket.

Happiness. I was back in the kitchen recently after a fairly long hiatus. For the past few months, I’ve spent pretty much all my waking hours furtively tapping away at my laptop trying to wrap up my PhD thesis. Thankfully, it’s all bound and parcelled now; it’s probably sitting in the in-tray on some grey-haired examiner’s desk many miles away.

My copious thanks to Emily for holding the blog fort while I was occupied elsewhere.

So what did I decide to cook on my first day back?

Anzac cookies.

And why? It’s not the most interesting story, but I’ll share it anyway. A few weeks ago, I met an English girl at a conference, who asked me where she could buy a genuine Anzac cookie around ol’ Melbourne town.

I honestly could not think of one good place to buy an Anzac cookie. There must be some little bakery that sells them, but I don’t know where it is.

What I do know is that my grandmother makes a mean Anzac cookie – as I’m sure most grandmothers do. I remember chewing on them as a kid, stuffing one after the other into my mouth.

I dug out my grandmothers’s old recipe to try to recreate her Anzac cookie greatness. In true retro style, the recipe quantities were vague. It called for ‘a large cup of oats’ and ‘a small cup of sugar’. I’m pretty sure they weren’t metric cups either! A few phone calls to relatives have since revealed the standard cup in my grandmother’s recipes is “Auntie Win’s breakfast mug”.

Undeterred, I set out to recreate her cookies. I made four batches. Fail after fail, after fail.

The first batch resembled oats lodged in hard toffee. (We established that *someone* forgot to add the flour. I blame Emily, but she says it was my fault. I maintain she was in charge of the dry ingredients!)

Batch number two, which included the missing flour, looked and tasted like chalkey oatey rocks.

The next batch was too syrupy. The final batch was ok, but I burnt them. After that, I did the honourable thing and gave up.

I’m going to tackle these little babies again one day, hopefully in time for Anzac day in April – the traditional time of eating.

What about you out there in blog world? Any tips for next time I tackle the Anzac cookie?

Here is the recipe that I used. Any suggestions welcome…

Ingredients
2 large cups John Bull oats
1 small cup plain flour
4 oz butter
2 large tablespoons golden syrup
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons boiling water

Melt the butter and syrup. Add the soda disolved in the boiling water. Then, add all to the dry ingredients. Place in single teaspoon sized piles on a buttered tray. Cook in a moderate oven for 10-15 minutes.

My lovely friend S was hosting a picnic for her 30th birthday. I offered to bring some cupcakes along and decided to do some experimenting to make a flourless lime cupcake. I reasoned that I could simply tweak my classic flourless orange cupcake recipe and top with a zesty coconut frosting to make a little slice of tropical goodness.

Thankfully I had the foresight to start my tweaking the day before the party, because the first batch were an unmitigated disaster. I did some research online and found the method I usually use could also be used for lemons. I naturally assumed this would work for limes too, so I started by boiling up the limes for a couple of hours, then blitzed them in the food processor with the sugar, almond meal, eggs and baking powder.

Unfortunately, the lime rind didn’t breakdown the way that I had hoped. In fact, it took on a leathery consistency and refused completely to break down. After some time blitzing it in the food processor to no avail, I decided to pass the mixture through a sieve to remove the rind.

Looks appetising doesn’t it?

With the rind removed, I tasted the mixture. There was a great limey flavour, which was mellowed and almost sweet from the fact that the lime had been cooked. Unfortunately, there was a really bitter, horrible finish, which I think was from the pith. I baked up a couple of test cupcakes and hoped the bitterness would be removed miraculously in the cooking process. It wasn’t and these went straight into the bin.

So I stated all over again, this time working with lemon zest and juice. I tasted and tweaked until I ended up with a not-too-sweet but sufficiently limey cupcake base. With the frosting, I started with a recipe I found online but completely reworked it, using less than half the sugar and correspondingly less coconut essence.

The end result? Totally worth all the work. The cupcake was moist with a great lime flavour and none of the bitterness of the previous batch. The frosting was creamy, coconutty and perfectly matched to the cupcake.

I also baked a batch of Thomas Keller’s vanilla vanilla cupcakes and while these are pretty awesome in their own right, the lime coconut cupcakes were hands down the favourite of the day. I’ll definitely be making these again. Yum!

Flourless lime cupcakes with coconut cream cheese frosting

75g butter, room temperature
165g cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp coconut essence
1.5 cups icing sugar

• Pre-heat the oven to 160C.
• Zest then juice the limes.

• Place the zest, juice, almond meal, salt, sugar and baking powder in a food processor and blitz to combine.

• Add in the eggs one at a time, blitzing between each addition.

• Spoon the mixture into the cupcake pans and bake for about 30 minutes, until cooked through.

• Cool completely before frosting.
• To make the frosting, combine the butter , cream cheese, coconut essence and sifted icing sugar in an electric mixer and beat until smooth and thick. If the mixture is not thick enough to pipe, beat for an extra couple of minutes.
• Pipe on to the cooled cupcakes and top with a candy flower.

• Enjoy!

I have a confession to make (which is no surprise to those who know me personally), I am quite uncoordinated. I am the person that inexplicably trips, or drops things, or accidentally walks into the door frame. With this in mind, you can understand why the prospect of using a blowtorch in the kitchen sends me into waves of panic. I had visions of somehow setting the kitchen alight, or worse still, setting someone in the kitchen alight.

The potential for serious injury did not actually enter my mind when I planned this dessert. Rather, I was trying to come up with something interesting that could be prepared ahead of time, would be suitable for a girls dinner and acceptable for one guest who is diabetic and therefore appreciates a not too sugary dessert.

I came across this recipe for crème brûlée with a twist in David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert and it ticked all the boxes. The recipe is very simple, although you need to allow a little time to let the ginger and lemon infuse into the cream and you also need to chill the custards completely. I made these the day before and it all worked well.

Knowing Saskia’s difficulties with Crema Catalana I was somewhat concerned that the mixture would curdle in the oven, but thankfully all was fine. My custards actually took significantly longer than the recipe indicated, about 45 minutes rather than 30 minutes (though my oven is a bit temperamental). I pulled them out when the edges were firm and the centre was still a bit jiggly, by the time they had cooled, the custards were perfectly cooked. 

When it came time to get the blowtorch out, the panic started to rise, however, there really was no need. I found the best way to caramelise the custards was to use small strokes, manoeuvre the custards by spinning the tray and add a little extra sugar about half way through.

I left the crème brûlées for a minute or two before serving in order to cool slightly and allow the caramel to harden.

The verdict? The custards were silky and had the all important crunchy caramel layer. The lemon and ginger flavour was quite subtle but definitely came through. It was a nice twist on a classic dessert, and I’ll definitely be making them again – blowtorch fears be damned!

Lemon and ginger crème brûlée

Adapted from David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert 

85g fresh ginger, thinly sliced
750ml cream
100g caster sugar plus extra for caramelising
grated zest of 2 lemons
6 large egg yolks
pinch of salt

• Place ginger in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 2 minutes. Pour the water off.

• Add the cream, the 100g of sugar and the lemon zest to the ginger.

• Heat the saucepan until warm (a couple of minutes) then remove from the heat, cover and allow to infuse for an hour.

• Pre-heat the oven to 175C and place 6 ramekins in a roasting dish.
• Remove the ginger slices from the mixture (don’t worry if you remove some zest as well), add the salt and reheat until the cream is quite warm.
• Separately, in a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks, then gradually add the warm cream mixture in a thin stream, whisking constantly. Pour the mixture through a strainer into a jug.
• Fill the ramekins with the mixture and pour boiling water half way up the sides of the ramekins.

• Cover very tightly with aluminium foil.
• Bake until the outsides of the custards are just set and the centre is still jiggly. Be careful not to overcook and curdle the mixture. It should take about 30 minutes, although my oven is a bit temperamental and it took about 45 minutes for me.
• Remove the ramekins from the baking tray and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. Refrigerate until they are chilled.
• When you are ready to serve, sprinkle a generous amount of sugar on top and caramelise with a blow torch, or under a very hot grill. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes before serving.

• Enjoy!

It’s fair to say that I am easily led. Particularly when it comes to sweet treats. After reading about chocolate and peanut delights on wheres the beef? and cake mistress, it was inevitable I would make a batch for myself.

I decided to make these for my friend M and her little boy, J who were coming over to visit. I found a recipe from Nigella’s How to be a domestic goddessand within 15 minutes, they were done and chilling in the fridge. These no-bake squares couldn’t be easier to make, the biggest issue is actually eating them after you know what is in them (ie. fat, in the form of butter, chocolate and peanut butter and sugar – lots of it!).

While the recipe called for smooth peanut butter, I used crunchy because that’s what I had on hand. I actually liked the chunks of peanut that peppered the base. My only qualm with the recipe is that the base did not set perfectly, so the squares were a little squishy to handle. I think perhaps using smooth peanut butter would assist to hold things together, and some diced peanuts would provide that textural interest. You will also note that I added some sea salt to the top of these – while this was not part of the recipe, I make no secret of my love of salty and sweet. I tried the squares with and without the salt and strongly believe you should add it. The salt cuts through the sweetness and the richness of these squares, and it takes them from small child to adult.

Back to the small child that I made these for, I made J a little plate of them (sans salt).  While chocolate and peanut butter seemed like it would be a winner for an almost three year old, these were far more popular with the adults. J also (inevitably) decided to eat one of the salted squares and loudly proclaimed them to be ‘yucky’.

Personally, I found them very sweet and certainly something to enjoy in very small pieces. I am not particularly good at self discipline, but they really are much nicer in small doses. I took little pieces of them in to work the following day and they were universally popular. Just don’t forget the salt!

Salted choc-peanut squares

Adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson

For the base

50g dark brown sugar
300g caster sugar
60g butter
220g creamy peanut butter
50g roughly chopped peanuts 

For the topping

200g milk chocolate
115 dark chocolate
1 tbs unsalted butter
Sea salt

• Combine the sugars, butter and peanut butter until smooth. The easiest way to do this is to use a paddle attachment on your mixer, or you can use a bowl and wooden spoon. There will still be some small lumps. Stir through the chopped peanuts.

• Press the mixture into your greased pan – I used a 9 inch, square pan. Chill the base.

• Melt the chocolate and the butter together and spread over the base. You can melt it in the microwave, but I find it easier to put it on the stove. Spread the melted chocolate mixture over the base and refrigerate to set.
• Once the chocolate has hardened, cut into small pieces – I find dipping the knife in boiling water an easy way to cut even squares.

•  For the adults, dust with a little sea salt and serve. Enjoy!

Recently, I have been doing some study. I honestly don’t understand how Saskia has been studying for so many years and manages to get anything done. As soon as I spend any length of time in the house, all I want to do is bake.

My first study distraction was to bake these delicious choc-chip cookies. The following weekend, while sitting amongst a pile of paper, I had an intense craving for a muffin.

I mentioned my muffin craving on twitter and Adski sent me a link to his post on making the Bourke Street Bakery muffins.

Dark chocolate and raspberry studded muffins sounded like the perfect antidote and while fresh raspberries are not in season, I had a bag of frozen beauties in the freezer.

These are very quick and easy to make. Next time I bake them, I will fill the liners a little higher so that there is more of a ‘muffin top’ on them (I tend to err on the side of less filling ever since I had a cupcake explosion in my oven). I think these will become a new standby given I usually have most of the ingredients on hand, and note that if you don’t have any buttermilk, you can make your own with regular milk and an acid (vinegar or lemon).

These were very light and moist. I upped the chocolate quotient because I think you almostcan’t have too much chocolate. These were equally delicious straight out of the oven, while still warm and melty and the next day with a cup of tea.

Mr M took the leftovers in to work with him and they were gone in an instant! I urge you to bake a batch immediately! Yum!

Dark chocolate and raspberry muffins

Adapted from the Bourke Street Bakery Cookbook via Totally Addicted to Taste .

400g plain flour (or 480 if you are using spelt flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
300g caster sugar
310g unsalted butter
480ml buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs (at room temperature)
300g dark chocolate
225g raspberries, fresh or frozen
Icing sugar, for dusting

• Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Line a muffin tin with paper cases.
• Sift together the flour and baking powder, then add in the caster sugar and stir to combine.
• Chop the chocolate into pieces and set aside.
• Melt the butter, allow it to cool slightly then stir in the buttermilk and vanilla. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs together, then whisk the egg mixture into the buttermilk mixture.
• Pour the liquid over the flour mixture and whisk to combine (don’t over mix!). Fold in the chocolate and raspberries with a spoon:

• Spoon the mixture into the muffin pans. I filled mine about two thirds full, but I think you should fill them a little more.
• Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for 20-25 minutes, until they spring back in the centre, and the tops are lightly browned.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before eating. Dust with icing sugar and enjoy!