Caramel Surprise!

...although the name kind of gives it away.

Every Easter, I stock up on mini caramel chocolate eggs especially for a beaut little recipe for Caramel Easter Egg Muffins. I have made these for many different people who have all equally adored them over the years. One of my bosses called a particularly over the top batch (with pink icing and hundreds&thousands on top) "solid ADHD" in a very approving way!

The reason I had been adding cupcake icing to the mix was because I had actually found that the afore-linked recipe sometimes turned out a little dry. This year I decided to sniff around for a new batter and lo and behold, past-me had snipped and clipped a few good cupcake and muffin mixes for my "I'm moving out of home I'd better collect lots of recipes in a folder" folder. Lucky we can all benefit from my OCD tendencies:



I didn't have any specifically-branded butter, but I had easy-spread butter in the fridge (which is butter with a vegie oil blend) which worked just as well I must say. I also had received a lovely gift from my sister - these adorable new little ladies to try out:



They do so love to get covered in flour! Sadly I did not have a sieve as half my stuff is still on the East Coast, and in fact baking more often has made me bite the bullet and get all my "personal belongings" removalisted to the West Coast to prevent me getting any more Kitchen Rage. A minor detail.

So basically, using the mix in the recipe above, or really any nice cupcake/sweet muffin mix, pour the batter into the muffin pans (patty case lined or oiled) until you have reached the half way level, then plonk your caramel chocolate on/in, then fill up the rest of the way with the batter, making sure the chocolate is covered.

I also went to the supermarket WAAAAY too late (hey, I was on nights, I can't be expected to keep track of all you normal people and your "public holiday" thingies every year!) - so instead of caramel eggs I used a snap block of Cadbury Caramello chocolate instead. Dangerous, as I may be able to make these ADHD-sugar-rush-bad-boys all year round! Watch out!



I was running late for work by this stage so no cool down for icing time was allowed. I went to visit my sister and drop off my doggles for dogglesitting; she had a block of dark chocolate that she kindly let me use, so I just grated some dark chocolate sprinkles on top. The latent warmth helped it half-melt and stick on, and it looked very pretty. On both the muffins and all over her kitchen bench! Oops.

The night staff crew and my sis & bro-in-lo approved! Another Happy Easter to all (please excuse my belated posting)!

Apple and Pear Pudding or "Fruity toad in the hole"

This evening I invited a few friends (who, like me, do not have their Mums in the same city as us to celebrate Mothers' Day) around for Sunday dinner. Did my standard lamb roast with honey & mustard (if I haven't blogged this recipe I will soon) which is often the orphan's Sunday dinner of choice at my place. Whilst I was waiting for everyone to arrive, I noticed my fruit bowl had a couple of huge red delicious apples and beurre bosc pears rattling around from last week's grocery shop and I decided dessert could be fun. After a quick squizzer on taste.com.au, searching apple+pudding, I found a lovely "Apple Sponge Pudding" recipe as a starting point. Basically I followed the recipe except I used two large red delicious apples and two large beurre bosc pears in lieu of the 6 apples the recipe calls for. I also could not for the life of me find my jar of "mixed spice", so I added cloves to the fruit stew mixture and cinnamon to the pudding batter. I had also run out of icing sugar (I have been interstate for 3 of the last 5 weeks) - brown sugar sprinkled on top was just fine. There was some chocolate icecream in the freezer but no vanilla, which was a tad weird but still delicious. Will definitely try this recipe again, possibly with more fruit, and a different baking dish. Plus icing sugar and vanilla icecream. For a quick and easy pudding it was pretty good!

Choc chip cookies

Many years ago (we're talking back when we were teens and baking was a terrible mystery to me involving numbers, burning things & general fear) my mate Tina made amazing choc chip cookies and very kindly convinced me it was very simple and gave me her awesome recipe... which turned out to be a clipping from a magazine ad for choc chips!

The recipe I have written in my precious recipe folder goes something like this:

Ingredients:
125g butter at room temperature
1/3 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup Baking Cocoa
1/2 cup plain flour
3/4 cup self raising flour
250g (one pack) choc chips

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C.

2. Cream butter, peanut butter and sugar. Beat in egg, mix well. Stir in sifted cocoa and flours. Add choc chips. Mix well.

3. Roll heaped teaspoonfuls (or dessert spoons for bigger cookies) of mixture into balls. Place on baking trays lined with baking paper. Press with a fork or fingers into cookie shapes.

4. Bake 12 minutes or until golden. Cool on tray.

By the power of the internets, I also found this more precise version for those dear readers who prefer to be new & improved!

After many years of various cookie recipes, I still go back to this one as it is seriously delicious. 9 out of 10 workmates agree! 1 in 10 workmates are trying to lose weight but still can't resist the deliciousness that is homemade choc chip cookies mwahahahaha. Also, you do need to warn nut allergy sufferers that it is forboden on account of the peanut butter!

Here is one of the most recent batches, made for nightshift and eaten prematurely whilst watching the rugby with the boy (yes, he was allowed to eat some too).



As for following recipes, per se... I use whichever (dark or milk) chocolate chips or just broken up bits of chocolate to be honest. Also I never have worked out how one is supposed to "measure out" peanut butter without making an almighty mess so I usually just scoop out "some" from the jar - no two batches have ever been the same, but that's the fun part!

Coffee and Hazelnut Yorkshire Puddings

I had every intention of baking some mini-muffins the night before the picnic, both to inaugurate the long-forgotten brand new mini-muffin tray bought on a panic eyed grocery store late nighter, and to have, you know, mini-muffins to bring to the picnic.

Time got away from me during the (first) day (off I've had in ages), although I did get a chance to spot a nice recipe on page 26 of The Australian Women's Weekly mini-book aptly named "muffins" (reprinted by popular demand) for coffee hazelnut muffins - which had too many ingredients, including TWO types of flour AND hazelnut meal (pfft, guffaw). The hazelnut frosting - more ingredients! how?! - looked divine but I was struck with a case of the afternoon catnaps. I have way too many of those TAWW mini-books from aforementioned late night grocery store antics. They made a good nesty pillow. Groggy but determined, I managed to narrow down an internet search later that evening to a few recipe ideas, particularly liking the four-ingredient recipe at this very cool baking blog. I then fell asleep and didn't wake up until picnic o'clock the next day.

Blast!

So in true style, half breakfasting/espresso machining and half baking/inventing I set about destroying a perfectly good egg by mixing it with (a large) half of a jar of nutella & an innocently tepid shot of espresso and creating cold fusion, erm, "caffeinated mixing bowl scrambled egg". With that revelation and an internal monologue deal to forfeit coiffing and making upping, I set about inventing and baking:

Coffee and Hazelnut Yorkshire Puddings
(or, Coffee and Hazelnut Mini-Muffin attempt #2)

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.

Beat an egg until light and fluffy.

Mix in an unmeasured (blast!) amount of nutella - say, two generous dessertspoonfuls with additional teaspoon/dessertspoon scrapings from the small nutella jar insides - until well combined and glossy.

In said residualated nutella jar, mix a teaspoon of instant coffee with a splish splosh (please, say it in a Flight of the Conchords voice) of tap water - re-lid and shake it, shake it (like a polaroid picture, ooh ooh) to dissolve all the jar-wall nutella into the liquid. Add this to the above mix and stir in well.

Ponder about the difference between imperial vs metric teaspoons (?) and then add one (metric) level teaspoonful after another of plain flour to the mix, mixing until you have added roughly 6 and a half metric teaspoons of flour or until you have what you think could possibly be muffin mix.

Add a handful of chocolate chips to taste.

Spray your mini-muffin tin with olive oil spray.

Put a generous tablespoon of the mix into each mini-muffin port, then top with whole coffee beans (I left some without in an attempt to be kid-friendly).

Bake in a moderate oven (180 degrees for most, 185-190 for mine) for ten to fifteen minutes, or until you are dressed, have found your picnic rug and assembled some cheese, crackers and plastic plates in a bag.

Remove from oven and marvel at how you have unintentionally created coffee and hazelnut miniature yorkshire puddings, turn them out onto some kitchen paper on a rack and taste-test them, with validation from your significant other (who is employing some fine duck-and-cover in the other room, away from the "baking"). Find your sunnies, grab a water bottle then put the c-a-h yp's into a box, bring them to the park and enjoy sharing them with your friends in the impossible sunshine. Remark at how adorably bouncy your friend's 2-year-old angel becomes upon discovering her previously unrequited love of roasted whole coffee beans! Seriously cute!



Perhaps in future I will take the time to add another egg, tinker with self-raising flour, bother to chill a real espresso shot and consider adding milk to the mix. Experimental cooking is bliss! Bring on attempt #3...after I try some other new things out first...

ADDIT: Here's batch #3... getting better...

Self saucing sausage rolls

So simple to make, yet so much loved by my workmates!

Buy 500g of good quality sausages - any kind will do - I always get mine from the markets, they're so much yummier. The best so far have been beef & red wine, but honey & rosemary lamb sausages were good too. Cut off the "skins" and place each sausage on a sheet of puff pastry (I use the square instant frozen stuff, but you could make your own) - if they don't quite fit just squish off a bit and reshape or add on extra bits. Then roll the pastry over the sausage circumference, then along the corner of where you're going to roll pastry on to pastry, use a teaspoon to dab a small line of tomato chutney (I use the Outback Spirit Bush Tomato Chutney) then continue the roll. Eggy wash the final join and then the entire roll. Place the cylindrical roll-up back in the freezer or fridge as you make each roll. Then take them back out and using a sharp knife cut each long roll into 1-2cm wide sausage rolls. Place them onto baking tray or sheet lined with baking paper and bake. I can't remember how long I bake mine for, usually I do them at 200 (210 in my oven) degrees for 15-20 minutes (or the time it takes to get ready for work) or until the pastry is golden and the meat is cooked through. Then when you nom them, biting into them unleashes a delicious self-saucing burst of tomatoey goodness. Bonus!

Give them a try, literally takes no time at all and is sure to cheer up everyone at work, or a party for those of you who have social lives!