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Showing posts from December, 2011

Cranberry crumble muffins

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I'm sure it's everyone's 'using up leftovers' time this week, and I'd bought some cranberries and not used them. We love muffins and just to make them a bit different, I added some crumble mix on the top. I saw a chef doing this on one of the food programmes. They called it 'streusel topping' and I don't know if it's different from the run-of-the-mill crumble topping? I used my usual muffin recipe and added the cranberries and some mixed spice. This is my tried and tested muffin recipe, gathered from a friend in the US. I'm not sure why, but I seem to make a different number of muffins each time I use the recipe! Today I made 11. 225g plain flour 100g caster sugar] 2 tspns baking powder 1 heaped tspn mixed spice 1/2 tspn salt 1 egg 250ml milk 120ml sunflower oil [ I usually use rapeseed, but only had sunflower left ] Preheat oven 200C/400F/gas6 Either grease a muffin tin or put paper cases into the holes. Mix the dry ingre

Christmas biscuits

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I haven't been well, so not posted on here for a while, but I have been baking. My dil is German and gave me the recipes for her Christmas biscuits and I made a selection of them. This is the recipe for the melt-in-the-mouth vanilla crescents which are on the top layer of the cake stand. Preheat oven 175C and grease 2 baking sheets. 200g flour 80g caster sugar 175g butter 2 egg yolks 100g ground almonds 1 tspn vanilla essence 6 tbspn vanilla sugar Mix the flour, sugar, butter and egg yolks together then add the ground almonds and the vanilla esence. Bring the mixture together with your hands and cut in into 4. Roll out each quarter and put in the fridge for 1/2 and hour. Cut the dough into small strips then loop each strip into a crescent. Bake for 10 mins till light brown then roll in the vanilla sugar. Cool on a wire rack. Christmas stars Preheat oven 100C then 75C. Grease a baking tray lined with parchment paper. 3 egg whites 250

Lemony almond mincemeat tartlets

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We are great mince pie fans, so I'm always on the lookout for a different version. Found this recipe in a Christmas pull-out from 'Prima' magagazine [from the 80s I think!] . It uses ground almonds in the pastry and it's made in a similar way to one of my favourite small cakes,Welsh cheese cake; by this I mean that you have the pastry shell, then a layer of mincemeat, then the lemon cake layer. In the Welsh cheese cake you'd have the pastry, then jam,  then cake. This recipe makes 36 pies, but thought this was too many for us,so I halved the recipe, taking the measures to the nearest gram. This is the full recipe. The pastry: 275g plain flour 75g icing sugar 1 tspn cinnamon 175g butter 50g ground almonds 1 egg yolk 45ml milk 450g jar mincemeat For the cake filling: 115g butter or margarine 115g caster sugar 175g sr flour 2 large eggs grated rind of a lemon Icing: 115g icing sugar 15ml lemon juice Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas 5 M

Walnut, raisin and cheese teabread

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I have a friend coming to stay for a few days and have been baking in preparation for her visit. I've made a spice cake, some muffins and wanted something else a bit different to have with a cup of tea. I decided that a savoury teabread would be unusual, and found this recipe in an old cookery book called 'Cakes, breads and gateaux'. 350g sr flour 1/2tspn salt pinch cayenne pepper 1 level tspn dry mustard 75g butter or margarine 90g mature Cheddar, grated finely [keep 15g for the topping] 75g raisins 65g chopped walnuts [keep 15g for the topping] 1 beaten egg 250ml milk Preheat oven 180C/350F.gas4 Grease and line a large loaf tin - 200g. Sieve the flour, salt, cayenne and mustard together into a bowl, then add the fat and rub it in. Stir in 75g of the grated cheese, raisins and 50g of the walnuts. Mix the egg into the milk then add it to the mixture and beat well. Put into the tin and level the top. Mix the rest of the walnuts and cheese together and spr