I think it’s fair to say that I now enjoy baking more than I enjoy eating what I bake.  But time comes during the day, when I’m craving something sweet and then I head straingt to mojewypieki.com, have a look through the page and I always find something I want and something I have all the ingredients for. This one was with  hazelnuts, still one of my top ingredients and although I had no dark chocolate, I decided to chop up an Easter bunny from Ewa, made of milk chocolate.  It all worked, I made half a portion and we’re half way through it and Masterchef hasn’t even started yet. 🙂

50 g of butter, melted and cooled. 2 eggs, separated, whites whipped with a pinch of salt and 50 g of sugar.  Yolks added.  In a separate bowl 50 g of ground hazelnuts, 0,5 tsp of baking powder, 4 tbsps of plain flour and 50 g of grated( or, in my case, taken care of by food processor) chocolate, 0,5 tsp of cocoa- all this mixed and added into the egg mixture, folded gently with spatula. Baked in 180 degrees for about 30 minutes. Finished with a simple glaze, double cream and milk chocolate. Very moreish. 🙂

I liked the look of it on Dorota’s blog (where else), chocolate and matcha is always a winning combo, what do people pay for chocolate bento box in Nobu? That reminds me I haven’t made matcha ice cream in a long time, time to do something about it.

My cake this afternoon is made of half a portion, so that it was enjoyed and not wasted, good decision, there is now half left. Florian seems to be starved of chocolate cake, as he destroyed a large chunk of that half. 🙂 But that’s what makes baking so rewarding, we’ll see if Iz likes it tomorrow.

I used 110 g of butter, creamed with half of my tall glass of sugar, 2 egg added one at a time. A glass of plain flour with 1 tbsp of potato flour, less than 1 tsp of baking powder, a touch of vanilla paste- needn’t have bothered, can’t taste it-and about 1/4 a glass of milk. This mix I then divided in two, added 2 tbsps of cocoa to one and 3 tsps of matcha to the other.

Baked in 150 degrees for about 45 minutes, till the skewer came out clean.

Glazed with a simple chocolate ganache, 50 of dark chocolate melted in 20 g of butter. My own personal touch were a few chopped hazelnuts on top. It is going. Quickly.

Nigella’s.

I came across the recipe when looking for muffins that would be similar to those from M&S I used to buy, the lemon and white chocolate ones.  This recipe appealed to me a lot, the addition of raspberries unplanned, but I had some frozen, so why not indeed.

60 g of melted butter, 200 g of plain flour, 2 tsps of baking powder, 0,5 tsp of baking soda, 130 g of sugar, a pinch of salt.  Nigella’s recipe called for a zest and juice of 1 lemon, I used the zest as asked, but instead of the juice I used 3 tbps of yuzu.  Then about 120 ml of milk, 1 beaten egg. A good handful of chopped white chocolate chips.Dry ingredients mixed with all wet ingredients, only just mixed till combined, I actually used a KA bowl and a spatula.  150 g of frozen raspberries thrown at the end.

Filled the muffin cases, 11 of them, baked in 200 degrees for about 20-22 minutes.  Finished with a little smear of melted white chocolate and yuzu juice. Florian just had 4 and that’s having had pizza for dinner. Therefore good! 🙂

We were supposed to have guests this weekend, but the guests cancelled, so I changed my Ocado shopping list, got rid of some items, added some other and decided to make these, recent from Dorota’s mojewypieki.com.  When it comes to macaroons I do prefer the fruity ones, the lemon, blackcurrant flavours of the filling against sweet meringue, but one has to try things.

I had a little help with preparing the nuts-

The macaroons are made the same way as always, only not with ground almonds, but with finely ground peanuts.  They smelled great in the oven and I was also extra careful not to overmix the Italian meringue with the nuts. Experience now shows that makes them spill and crack in the oven- very frustrating to watch.

There are 2 fillings; chocolate ganache, made of 150 ml of double cream, hot, 150 g of dark chocolate melted in it, excellent, I must say. Not too bitter and once cooled, nice and easy to pipe onto the macaroons.

Then the caramel one. I used the Bonne Maman Caramel spread, 130g  of it mixed with 250 g packet of mascarpone. This one didn’t make me sing. It took quite some time to cool it, but it still spilled out. And when tasting the ready macaroons I decided I’m not getting much of the caramel, so I nuked a bit of the caramel spread in the microwave and drizzled some over the top.

They are lovely. Decadent. Nutty. Sweet, but not sickly. Happy me. 🙂

There’s got to be something sweet baked for the weekend, so I dug deep into mojewypieki.com again and picked this little gem. Good apple pie is never bad, as written before, provided it’s a real deal. The apples here are covered under a sweet duvet of budyn, only made with a bit less milk than the packet suggests.

Shortcrust pastry; 225 g of plain flour, 125 g of butter, 1 egg, 1 yolk, 4 tbsps of icing sugar, 0,5 tsp of baking powder and 1 tbsp of cream, all mixed into a dough, which divided into 2 went to the fridge and freezer respectively.  In the meantime I got my apples ready, not the most awesome apples on earth, just cheapish Co-Op stuff. Lots of sugar, lots of cinnamon, some raisins.

Budyn cooked with 375 ml of milk, not 0.5 litre, as the packet suggests, 2 tbsps of sugar and a touch of vanilla paste added.

The pastry from the fridge went on the bottom of my small, square tray, prebaked for a few minutes, a little sprinkle of breadcrumbs to get the moisture from the apples on the bottom. Apples in, budyn on top. The dough from the freezer onto the budyn, grated on the rough end of the grater. Also added a sprinkle of chopped hazelnuts and baked in 200 degrees for about 35 minutes.

If I were a posh Brit I’d say I rather liked it. 🙂