Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins

One of my favourite muffin flavours is raspberry and white chocolate muffins but I've only ever bought them from cafes. After eating a particularly nice one whilst on holiday (more on that later!) I declared to Graeme that I would attempt baking my own version. Graeme found me a recipe online which I adapted slightly out of sheer laziness and for quicker mixing times!




Here goes....

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups self raising flour
• 100g butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg (lightly beaten)
• 1 cup raspberries (frozen or fresh)
• 1/2 cup white chocolate bits
• Icing sugar (for dusting)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 190degrees (I have a fan oven so set it at approx. 170degrees)
2. Lightly grease muffin tins (I use silicon trays so spray them lightly with spray oil)
3. Add the flour and sugar to the bowl and mix
4. Melt the butter in the micowave (for approx. 40 seconds if the butter is chopped) and pour into the dry mix
5. Add the milk, the egg, raspberries (straight out the freezer) and white chocolate bits
6. Give it all a stir until mixture is just moistened (don't mix until completely smooth)
7. Spoon into muffin cups
8. Bake for 20 mins (I checked them after 15 and they definitely needed the extra 5)
9. Stand for 5 minutes and then turn onto a wire rack to cool
10. Dust with icing sugar
11. Eat and enjoy :-)

The original recipe suggested rubbing in the butter to the flour but that seemed like too much effort to me and they came out fine with melted butter instead.

They are truly delicious and were particularly tasty warm.

This recipe makes 12 (large-ish) muffins.

Favourite Things

Well I did kinda manage more than one post in a week given my last post was Monday and today is Saturday. I'd hoped to post earlier but it's been a bit of a rough couple of days.

My allergies have free rein because I'm not taking any medication due to being pregnant and they are slowly getting worse and worse.

On Thursday night I think I managed 2 hours sleep and spent quite a few hours worrying about how difficult it was to breath and trying not to wake Graeme with all the sneezing and coughing. We went to the pharmacy on Friday first thing to see if they had any suggestions and I was sent straight to the doctor.

It turns out I have developed asthma - probably as a result of being all blocked up from the allergies.

I found this quite alarming but after speaking with the nurse and a colleague it turns out it can be quite common and normally only lasts the length of the pregnancy. Weird huh?

So now I have an inhaler which I am to take every 4 hours when I'm awake.

And I'm still sneezing and coughing with annoying regularity.

So to stop myself feeling too sorry for myself I want to focus on some happy, cheerful things. The camera has been quite neglected over the last few months but this week I've been taking a few snaps here and there and thought I'd share some of my current favourite things...

1) homemade nachos...tortilla chips with salsa and cheese (melted) and then a big dollop of sour cream on the top. I have a feeling baby will come out with a taste for nachos after the amount of these that I have been eating lately. And it's a very quick and easy to prepare meal too!

2) non-alcoholic Malibu flavoured chocolate (which my wonderful husband spotted in the supermarket)...lovely for a nibble every now and again. I also picked up Baileys flavour but haven't tried that yet.

3) this carrot cake recipe which I printed ages ago and got around to trying last weekend. No yucky sultanas or cream cheese topping in site. It wasn't as carroty as I would have liked but I put this down to me using very small carrots. Will try chunkier ones next time.

4) which leads on nicely to my favourite blog (where the above recipe came from) - lots of colour and inspiration and cheerfulness. It's made me want to have fresh flowers in the house all the time and try my hand at crochet!

5) beach-hut napkins, half price and I used a wedding gift vouchers (we bought other kitchen-ey stuff too but these are my favourites). I love beach huts and beachey scenes and may try my hand at getting this image onto a canvas

So there you have it - a few things to make me smile. I must remember to keep the camera handy and keep snapping as part of my 28 things list is to capture the seasons and document and summer is almost at an end.

Recipe for Malteaser Tiffin (Fridge) Cake

A brief break in Holiday in Review posts. I haven't got my Dublin photos organised yet but wanted to post something :-)


While we were in Scotland I got this recipe from Graeme's Gran. I tried making it recently and it's amazing!


It is very sweet and even I (Queen of Sweet!) can't eat more than one piece at once. I took some to work and they loved it so much they all wanted the recipe.



Here's what it looked like in my baking tin....

And here's the recipe....

Ingredients:

• 100g margarine (I used butter and it worked fine)
• 3 tbsp syrup
• 150g milk cooking chocolate
• 225g digestive biscuits, roughly crushed
• 225g malteasers, halved or crushed
• 400g white or milk cooking chocolate

Instructions:

• Melt the first 3 ingredients, then add the biscuits and malteasers.
• Mix well and spread over a swiss roll tin.
• Cover either with melted white or milk chocolate.
• When chocolate is set cut into squares.

My notes:

• We couldn't find milk cooking chocolate at supermarket so it was standard plain cooking chocolate and it was yummy but the milk might go better with malteasers.
• I put the tin in the fridge to set but kept checking on it and before the chocolate set hard I made cut lines which I think made it easier to cut up. It was a bit tricky getting the first bit out of the pan though!
• 550g chocolate is a huge amount - we only got about 500g or just under and that was still plenty to give it a thick chocolate top.

Enjoy and do let me know what you think if you try it :-)

I blinked and when I opened my eyes again 9 days had passed...

....and other excuses about why it's been longer than a week since I last posted include:

* a 15 hour work day in Auckland + an afternoon arrival back home the next day
* two days + 1 night in Wellington for work
* walking by the river with my boys and taking photos of windmills
* fun new squeaky cow toys to play with
* taking Rhett-ster to the vets for his annual check-up and jabs and getting a clean bill of health
* deciding to decorate the lounge and dining room when the pair of us have more days away from home than we have at home between now and Easter
* making copious amounts of chocolate cornflake cakes...just because they taste good
* trying to plan a wedding
* hand making envelopes because it's really quite fun
* framing the coolest art ever - personalised especially for G from me
* baking bread
* drinking wine for the first time in ages and miraculously not getting a hangover
* spending 2 hours on the phone to an old (that's a reference to the length of our friendship and nothing whatsover to do with the fact she is older than me!) friend

It's not just Graeme that's awesome at the moment. Life is pretty damn good too. Busy as a beehive but good with it :-)

Happy Pancake Day

My belly is full of pancakes and sugar and lemon juice (fresh from the lemon tree in our garden).
I am content.
And I can totally recommend THIS recipe.
BEST. PANCAKES. EVER.

Happy Pancake Day!

Baking - part deux (sort of!)

I went back to basics with the baking this weekend...chocolate cornflake cakes - yum! A throwback to my childhood. I remember making these with my Mum when I was wee...except I was too much of a weakling to break up the chocolate (same goes today - G did it for me). And for those of you who think that is Smarties on top - you would be wrong...they are pebbles - how totally wrong is that name?! Even so, they are very yummy and such a comfort food! The chocolate is Belgian style and delish. G refuses to take any to work to eat for morning tea but will happily eat them at home. I have no shame and will be taking one to work with my packed lunch tomorrow!

And here's another photo for you - from a walk along the river last weekend:

The dog actually run straight into the water for like the first time ever!It was nice and sunny and we had a good walk. Didn't get out this weekend for a walk though because it's been so cold. We put the electric blanket on the bed today - that's how cold it's been. Freezing....it seemed to change so suddenly and it's not been a great week weather wise (unless you like heavy rain and chilliness). It did give me the perfect excuse to curl up on the couch and watch a DVD yesterday afternoon though while Graeme was out getting muddy at the soccer.

Hoping for a good week coming up - it's all change for me at work with a new Manager starting tomorrow and also it's a 4 day week due to ANZAC day on Friday. Fantastic - I'm ready for a long weekend!