I was looking for a recipe for chocolate muffins as a form of down payment to Florian, who finally, after months of nagging, begging, threats of suicide and slashing veins agreed to complete the thresholds in the kitchen.  The search engine on mojewypieki.com showed only 800 recipes for muffins, but I went with these, as I happened to have some plums and not enough chocolate to make the chocckie ones.

Easy, quick, yummy. For 12 muffins I used 2 tall glasses of plain flour, a tsp each of soda and baking powder, 120 g of sugar, 2 eggs, beaten, half a glass of sunflower oil, 300 g of soured cream and 5 medium plums, chopped in small pieces.Also, a handful of chocolate chips. All dry ingredients combined, all wet ingredients added, into paper muffin cases, baked in 180 degrees for 25 minutes.  Very pleasant indeed. 🙂

I’m pretty confident with macaroon making now. With good recipe (Dorota’s), good pastry thermometer and now excellent food colourants- Wilton’s- I feel I could make them for sale! Cocky!!!

It does take a good few hours in the kitchen, but the batch I’ve made today are perfect. The look excellent, they taste great, tomorrow Ewa and Co will be tasting them and giving their verdict. My stuffing was made with a good splosh of yuzu juice, alongside lemon curd and mascarpone. I’m very happy with the lot.

Yum, yum, yum. We’re half way through it. 🙂 Recipe from the latest GF, plums on offer in Ocado, which helped, as normally they’re a bit too pricey.

Also, the pastry is bordering on awesome. I used half a portion given in the magazine to make a small pie for us 2. So 113 g of cold butter got processed with 175 g of plain flour until looking like breadcrumbs. 25 g of icing sugar, 1 egg yolk and a splash of water to bind it. Chilled.

About 450 g of plums, stoned and chopped in quarters, along with 50 g of sugar and a tbsp of cornflour very quicky simmered, until they started giving away the juice. They they sat in a sieve over a bowl to let the juices go, about 30 mins.  Some marzipan got purchased too, golden marzipan from Sainsbury’s, very decent, unlike Dr Oetker’s bought last time. Not much to do with almonds.

When the pastry was chilled and ready, I lined my small round tin, sprinkled some ground almonds on it, then the plums, which had a small addition of almond extract. I’m not a massive fan myself and might just skip it next time. Chopped marzipan, around 100 g got scattered around the plums and then the top layer of the pastry, brushed with egg white and baked for less than 30 mins in 190 degrees.

I love the pastry. It’s buttery, flaky, not too sweet. I’m thinking it would be fantastic with apples.  It’s great. A keeper. 🙂

And a successful one. After quite a nice dinner I’m just having a cup of tea and munching on my creations. I’ve been wanting to learn to make them for a while, then last week I saw 2 blokes on GBBO making macaroons, which made me think- now, come on, get off your arse, woman.  My lovely Florian ordered a pastry thermometer for me, as the recipe I picked uses Italian meringue. It arrived on Monday and there were no more excuses.

I picked Dorota’s recipe for raspberry macaroons, as this lady has proven many times she knows what she’s doing.  Of course, mine look nowhere near as good as hers, but with the next attempt I’m going to invest in better food colourants. Aska recommends Wiltons, over £10 on Amazon, but she uses them a lot, so I’ll give them a try.

So, it took 2 hours of the cloudy afternoon, plus extra efforts to keep Izzie happy and busy with random kitchen equipment to play with.

I used 150 g of finely ground almonds, same amount of icing sugar, sieved and fine. Mixed with 60 g of egg whites and food colourant. The other 60 g of egg whites were being whipped in Kitchen Aid with 35 g of sugar, while 150 g of sugar and 50 ml of water were heating up on the stove, without stirring, but with the thermometer in. When the syrup reached 118 degrees I started pouring it slowly into the meringue, while beating slowly for about 6 minutes to cool it. Then, in 3 batches the meringue got mixed into the almonds bit, placed into the piping bag and then piped onto 4 trays ready with baking paper. I then left them to rest and dry slowly, nearly an hour. Then they baked for 12 minutes in 160 degrees.

The first one I tasted was still warm, but delightfully crunchy and nutty. For the next time I will know to pipe them and flatten them more than I did today and of course use better colour.

The cream was made with 250 g of mascaropne, 80 g of white chocolate- melted and 100 g of fresh raspberries. Dorota recommended 40 g of raspberries, I used more and I’m happy I did.

I’m very pleased with the results. Quite a lot of work, lots and lots of stuff to clean afterwards, but worth it, plus Florek will find a plate of lovely macaroons in the fridge, when he comes home from Yorkshire tomorrow.

Baletki, maczki, these gorgeous little things have lots of names. I had a craving for them when in Poland last spring. Sometimes they can be bought super nice, sometimes decent.  Thanks to mojewypieki.com I found out they’re super easy and quick to make, they taste great and no need to go to Poland at all.  So this afternoon I have won a title of The Mother of The Year and got busy with my cravings, while Izzie played around in the kitchen with various kitchen utensils. She did vacuum clean 3 of them in the end, so I guess I succeeded.

3 egg whites got whipped in the kitchen aid with slowly added 80 g of sugar, bit by bit. Then in went 75 g of plain flour, incorporated super carefully in order to keep all that air. Into the piping bag, then sprinkled with poppy seeds and then baked in 180 degrees for about 10 minutes. They cool quickly and in no time are ready to sandwich with a good jam or conserve- I used strawberry.  Delightful, I don’t think they’ll last until tomorrow.

Once again from mojewypieki. com. Dorota called it “the best strawberry cake” and she wasn’t entirely wrong. It was quick to make, turned out light, fluffy and delicious.

As usual, I made half a portion and I ended up with a nice size Sunday afternoon cake for us and something will be left for tomorrow easily.

For the cake I used 100 g of plain flour, a packet of budyn waniliowy, half a tsp of baking powder all weighed and waiting its turn while 100 g of soft butter got creamed with 80 g of sugar. To that went 2 whole eggs, then all the dry ingredients.

All this was placed in a round buttered tin and baking paper. Then lots of strawberries, halved, quartered, depending on the size, a few blueberries for the colour. Then on top kruszonka, this time made with 75 g of plain flour, 50 of butter and 25 g of icing sugar. I find kruszonka made with hot melted butter much nicer, kitchen aid makes it within seconds.

The cake baked in 180 degrees for about 40 minutes. It really is lovely! 🙂

Found it a few days ago while browsing mojewypieki.com. It looked out of this world, plus I often have blueberries at home these days, as Izzie is a big fan. Dorota from mojewypieki was right though, the blueberries in the UK are a joke, if I could get hold of some of the great wild ones, that we pick in the woods in Poland, that would be quite another story, not only in terms of the colour of the cake, but the flavour.

One does what one can I suppose, so I blitzed about 190 g of bb’s, then strained them through fine sieve to get nice, smooth puree.  I made the base out of 75 g of digestive biscuits and 25 g of melted butter, all blitzed and pressed into the small round tin. That cooled in the fridge while in the kitchen aid I threw 375 g of soft cream cheese, 2 eggs, 110 g of sugar, a tsp of vanilla paste, 2 tbsps of plain flour, some lemon juice and the said bb’s puree. I also played around with the food colourants, as the colour of the cake was not too appealing, a bit of purple and a touch of pink did help. I followed Dorota’s tip not to overwhip the cheesecake mix, as too much air would cause it to rise in the oven and then collapse, so only mixed until all the ingredients were nicely mixed, then onto the base and into the oven.

It baked for an hour in 150 degrees.

125 g of creme fraiche, a tbps of icing sugar and some vanilla paste all mixed made a nice topping, which went onto the cake for the last 10 minutes of baking.

It chilled in the fridge overnight. Tastes refreshing and fruity. 🙂

I’ve been feeling like sticky toffee for a while, but decided to make a batch rather than 2 small puds, found a recipe and got cracking. I decided to reduce the sugar a bit, as the toffee sauce on top has some too, plus Izzie tasted the cake as well. No need to pack her full of sugar at the tender age of 14 months.

For the cake I first soaked 225 g of chopped and pitted dates in boiling water, just enough to cover the dates, plus 5 g of baking soda.

75 g of soft butter and 100 g of sugar creamed together in kitchen aid, 2 beaten eggs added, followed by 150 g of self raising flour and 2 tsps of cinnamon- cause I like it. Then the dates with all the water they soaked in, maybe a bit too much as I found the batter too runny and added a bit of flour.

The cake baked for 30 minutes in 180 degrees.

I decided to use Greg Wallace’s toffee sauce recipe instead of the original recipe’s one. I had no evaporated milk, so made the sauce of 150 g of double cream, 75 g of brown sugar and 25 g of butter.

It is sweet, but not sickly, indulgent and mooreish. 🙂

From the latest GF. Zatrybki are sitting on the plane from Wroclaw on their way over to spend a week with us, there had to be something sweet waiting for them. I already concocted an Oreo cheesecake for Kacper, a big Oreo fan I’m told, but I liked the idea and the maple glaze a lot, so I made these too.

For 12 muffins I used 250 g of plain flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp bicarb of soda, 140 g sugar, 100 g of melted butter, 50 ml of buttermilk, 2 eggs, 50 g of maple syrup and some vanilla paste. All the dry ingredients mixed together, the wet ones followed, took care not to overmix, as per the instructions. 200 g of bluberries went in at the end.

They baked in 160 degrees for about 25 minutes. While still warm I deglazed them with a thick mixture of love- 2 tbsps of maple syrup, 3 tbsps of icing sugar and a pinch of salt.

We now have 5 left. Robert came to pick up his car from our drive way, so I gave him one and he said- “Oh, I didn’t have my pudding yet”. Neither did I, said Florek, having had 2 before dinner. 🙂

Robert, former landlord and neighbour has kindly brought me a few pieces of lovely, home grown rhubarb from his garden. I searched GF website for another nice way to use it, I wanted something different than the usual tart with kruszonka. I found this one, with lemon curd frosting, very nice indeed, best eaten on the same day though.

For my small round 6″ tin I used 110 g of softened butter, creamed with same amount of sugar, a zest of 1 lemon, 2 whole eggs, 35 g of almonds and 100 g of self raising flour.

The rhubarb just cleaned and chopped in small pieces, tossed in sugar, half of it folded through the cake , the remainder went on top, plus some brown sugar. It baked in 180 degrees for about 45 minutes.

Moist, light, pleasant. Simple icing made of whipped cream and some lemon curd, that easy.  🙂