I hardly ever bake cupcakes, as I find them overrated and not that special. But if there is nothing sweet to have with a cup of tea in the evening I get annoyed, so this morning I searched mojewypieki.com for something simple and yummy to have after dinner. I found these in a posh version, with dried pineapple flowers on top, which I couldn’t be bothered with. So I reduced Dorota’s recipe by half and made 8 small muffins, which is a perfect amount- we enjoy them, nothing’s wasted and there is no time to be bored with the flavour.

I creamed 60 g of soft butter with about 4 tbsps of sugar, added 1 whole egg, 1 mashed ripe banana,  110 g of plain flour, less than half a tsp each of bicarb soda and baking powder, 1tsp of cinnamon and at the end just added 2 chopped, drained, canned pineapple rings. And baked 8 small cupcakes, 160 degrees, about 22-25 minutes.

Yummy and LOW CALORIE buttercream, as in the name consists of 25 g of soft butter, 2 tsps of icing sugar, 90 g of Philly cheese and a splash of vanilla paste.

They’re sweet, not not sickly and there are 3 left. 🙂

By a certain Nigella.  Made specially for Florek, who’s been busy these days making plans and thinking about stuff, but first of deciding to take us  on holidays next Monday. He deserved a chocolate cake.

I made half a portion, as making  a cake of 8 eggs for 2 people did not seem like a good idea. First melted 100 g of dark chocolate, 70 g of milk chocolate in 90 g of butter. Whipped 4 egg yolks with 50 g of caster sugar and 50 g of muscovado, while kitchen aid was busy whipping the whites stiff. Added the chocolate and butter mix into the yolks, a pinch of salt there too. Then egg whites in, bit by bit and gently. What makes this cake different and better from the other ones is the way it baked- in bain marie. 180 degrees, tin secured with aluminium foil, about 50 minutes. It rose like a soufflet, but came down significantly when out of the oven. Still, it did not affect the quality of it, the cake is fantastically light and super moist. And by now, half eaten. 🙂

Best ideas come to my head in bed either right before I fall asleep or early in the morning. This is one of them, a macaroon that’s a bit like Black Forrest Gateaux, a chocolate shell and cherry filling. I baked the shells usual way, but replaced 35 g of icing sugar with cocoa. And that was the colour sorted, as well as a lovely, comforting taste. For the filling I cooked 200 g of frozen cherries with some sugar, but should have skipped the sugar really, because as I blitzed the cherries with half a mascarpone and 50 g of melted white chocolate- I could hardly taste the cherries. The colour was there, lovely and purple, but I had to spike it all with lemon juice and a few fresh strawberries to bring it to life.  And the result is much to my satisfaction. The shells are nearly perfect, like those for Lisa, the filling could have been more cherry than berry, but once Florian is home, the macaroons will be going. Quickly. 🙂

I’ve done my first ever “order”. I haven’t taken a payment for it, as it’s for Lisa, but I’ve made over 60 rather perfect macaroons, that will be served on Bessie’s christening tomorrow. Lemon-yuzu, blackcurrant and raspberry.  Facing an audience tomorrow, rather just family and friends. It does feel good, I have to say. 🙂

Florek bought me a book by Michel  Roux called “Eggs”, a nice little book that changes my idea of what a good crepe should be, how to posh up scrambled eggs, a few good desserts that I’ll surely try etc.  And a recipe for macaroons,  which was about a quarter of the length of the one I normally use. I read it with disbelief, I thought it was far too simple; no Italian meringue, an ordinary one instead. No drying time. No weighing egg whites. But for scientific purposes I had to give it a go, especially having some leftover blackcurrant curd. So I did. It was a refreshing method, but I’ll be sticking with more fancy Italian meringue. It seems to make the mixture a lot more stable and the texture of a ready macaroon thicker, more enjoyable to eat. Not to mention that the absolute majority of them cracked in the oven, while with another method it’s a sad few that do it.  Having said that, we’ve just had 5 between us with Izzie, who now says “more cake please”, so they will certainly not go to waste.

I used 180 g of icing sugar, 100 g of ground almonds, 3 egg whites which I whipped with 40 g of sugar, added food colouring and that was all.  Piped them onto the trays and shoved into the oven warmed up to 160 degrees. Michel recommends baking them for 7 minutes, mine were not baked after 7 minutes, mine took about 11.

Nice little experiment, but next time back to fancy stuff. 🙂