Bye Bye (for a bit)

Well, I'm off on my Hols - two weeks in Brittany then three in Morocco - so won't be posting for a while. Hope everyone has a great summer and I look forward to catching up with all the yummy blogs out there once I get back.

To Die For Blueberry Muffins

I bought some blueberries last week, and the remains of the box have been sitting in the fridge screaming at me to do something with them. So I did. I made blueberry muffins, which are one of my mum's favourite things, and one of my favourite morning snacks.

The problem I've always had with muffins in general is getting enough flavour into the cakey part of the muffin. I usually find them quite bland and disappointing, so this time I decided to hunt around for an intriguing recipe to try my hand at.

And boy, did I find it. This uses vegetable oil instead of butter, which gives the cakes an amazingly moist finish. The streusel topping is a fantastic finish, bringing out the fruitiness and tang of the blueberries.

I didn't have enough blueberries to make 8 muffins (and I ended up with 15, because mine are always on the small side), so I bought a bar of swiss milk chocolate (caillers - one of the best commercial brands) and mixed that into the others for my brothers to enjoy. Given the number vanished already, I think they worked well too.




The recipe for these is here

Ginger and Chocolate Cupcakes

I bought some ginger essence a while back and have been trying to find a reason to use it for a while. Today, I decided I’d just go for it.

So I through these together. They’re a basic cupcake recipe with ginger essence, ground ginger and chocolate chips mixed in, and the icing is chocolate buttercream. The little koalas are an last minute whim – I think they look cute, and they’re some of my favourite biscuits so…

The cupcakes are a little on the dry side – I really need to start experimenting with cake recipes as well as just flavourings! But the icing is really nice.

Strawberry Cake

It's summer, and it's hot, which means picking desserts for Sunday dinner is a question of finding something cool and light. And with strawberries in season, a simple sponge cake, whipped cream and strawberries was all we felt like last weekend, so that's what I went for. No picture yet, but I'll add it as soon as I've uploaded it.

The week before that was the Euro 2008 final, and we had a party at a friend's which required another cake. This was my experiment cake - I actually made a half football! The base of the cake was a plain vanilla sponge with buttercream, and the football was chocolate sponge, covered in marzipan and baked in - believe it or not - a soup bowl! I had fun with this one, and definitely want to try making some more exciting cakes or cupcakes soon!

The Foodie BlogRoll

I've been a bit lax on posting recently, though I have been baking. But various personal problems mean that anything I have written has been a little too sensitive to post.

Instead, I've been trawling the web and reading other people's blogs (and looking at the pictures, and drooling over the recipes...). And The Left Over Queen has provided the perfect means of doing so - so I need to say a huge thank you to her! The Foodie BlogRoll is brilliant - loads of great blogs to visit and explore.

I'll post again soon - I have pictures waiting after all...