more healthy muffins

Here's another great low GI muffin recipe from the same cookbook as yesterday's. The original recipe uses blueberries which I don't like much, so I use frozen raspberries instead.

Low GI Lemon Raspberry Muffins (Makes 10)

All ingredients should be at room temperature except the raspberries.

180g wholemeal plain flour

30g wheat bran

80g sugar substitute (eg Splenda)

1 T baking powder

1/2 t salt

240ml buttermilk

1 egg

50g soft margarine, melted, or rapeseed oil (I use Nuttelex)

1 T grated lemon rind

140g frozen raspberries - don't thaw first

Preheat oven to 190C. Line 10 holes of a muffin tin with papers and lightly spray them with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl stir together all the dry ingredients.

In a small bowl whisk together the egg, buttermilk, margarine and lemon rind. Pour over the dry mixture, add the raspberries and stir until just combined.

Spoon into muffin papers and bake for about 20 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a rack. These will freeze well for a few weeks.

lemon lemon cupcakes

With the house auction coming up in less than a month and the first Open for Inspection looming next weekend, I've thrown myself into a cleaning frenzy. It's a necessary evil but oh, how I hate housework, especially tedious jobs like washing down doors and cupboards. So yesterday I took a break from the rubber gloves and bucket and made a batch of cupcakes...

Lemon lemon cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (makes 12)

All ingredients should be at room temperature:

175g plain flour
150g caster sugar
1 1/2 tspns baking powder
pinch salt
125g softened unsalted butter, cut into 1-cm cubes
2 large eggs
120ml ml milk
finely grated rind of a large lemon

Preheat oven to 160 C°. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners. Whisk the milk and eggs lightly together. In the bowl of an electric mixer combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt and mix on low speed until combined. Add butter and half the egg/milk mixture and beat on medium speed for 2 mins. Scrape down sides of bowl and add the remaining egg mix in 2 batches, beating for 20 secs. each. Using an icecream scoop measure mixture evenly into the liners and bake for 20 - 25 mins. or until a toothpick comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cream cheese frosting:

Beat together 125g cream cheese (use straight from fridge) and 35g butter (softened) until smooth.
Gradually add 1 cup sifted pure icing sugar and rind of a large lemon, beating until smooth. Spread over cakes and serve at room temperature.

It's a coincidence

I swear it's a coincidence that I made yet another yellow food thing yesterday! I saw this divine looking tart here the other day and bookmarked it. It's Dorie Greenspan's Most extraordinary French lemon cream tart. I had already noticed the recipe for it a few weeks ago in my new Baking: from my home to yours cookbook - which I hadn't got around to making a single thing from up until then. Last night we went to Nick's for dinner so was the perfect opportunity to try it. The filling is made in a very different way to a normal lemon curd. Usually you cook the butter, eggs, sugar and lemon juice together until they thicken. Here, the butter is added in a food processor after the other ingredients are cooked and slightly cooled. This way, instead of the butter melting it emulsifies, so that the resulting texture is velvety smooth and light. Dorie's recipe is here.

I must admit I had to whisk the mixture over the heat for much longer than the suggested 10 minutes - it was more like 45. And even then I found the temperature wouldn't go above about 165, but I'd already read in the comments on Dorie's blog that that was ok.

I used an adapted version of Dorie's Sweet tart dough recipe for the crust:

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

1/4 tspn salt

1 stick plus 1 Tab butter*, very cold (or frozen) and cut into small pieces

1 large egg yolk

Heat oven to 180C. Pulse flour, icing sugar and salt in a food processor a couple of times to combine. Scatter over the pieces of butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and process in long pulses until the mixture forms a ball around the blade. Turn out and knead sparingly. Press into a fluted loose-bottomed 23 cm. tart tin. Freeze for at least 30 minutes. Bake blind for 25 minutes, remove paper and weights and bake for a further 8 minutes or until golden brown.

* I used 125g of butter. I find it so frustrating that some U.S. recipes use spoon measures for butter. Is it just me? Could someone please explain how you actually measure a tablespoon of icy cold butter?!

The tart was delicious but we didn't finish it. As you're not supposed to fill the tart case until just before serving I imagine the pastry is probably a little soggy today. The filling will keep for about 4 days in the fridge so I think next time I'll make individual tartlets instead.

tv cake 2

Just watched Patrice Newell on morning tv talking about her olive oil book.

What a great close-up of my cake...

and they seemed to like it ok!

tv cake

Penguin Group has just published Tree to Table : cooking with Australian olive oil by Patrice Newell, which features a collection of olive oil recipes by twenty Australian chefs and cooks. Patrice is going to be on morning tv tomorrow to publicise her book, and her brave publicist (who is a friend of Georgie's) asked me to make this cake to take with them. The recipe is by Philip Johnson - owner and chef of e'cco bistro in Brisbane.

There were a couple of worrying moments during the preparation but it all came together in the end. Here's the recipe :

Philip Johnson's Lemon & Olive Oil Cake

3 egg yolks
550g caster sugar
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups milk
grated rind 2 lemons
juice 3 lemons
300g SR flour
1/2 t bicarb soda
pinch salt
5 egg whites
icing sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 170 C. Grease a 26cm springform tin and line with baking paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale. (I was a bit worried here. No amount of beating was ever going to turn this much sugar and 3 yolks into anything that could be described as thick and pale. It was just dry and crumbly. I pushed on regardless.)

Whisk in oil, milk, lemon juice and rind, mixing well to combine.

Sift together the dry ingredients. In a clean bowl, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold flour mixture into egg yolks and sugar mixture, then fold in beaten egg whites. (Now the mixture looked like scrambled egg. I mixed it for a few seconds with the electric mixture and thank heavens it smoothed out.)

Pour mixture into prepared tin. Bake for 1 1/4 hours or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Dust cake with icing sugar if using, and serve with creme fraiche or whipped cream. It's also great served with fruit - for example, oranges poached in caramel.

Serves 10 - 12

I realised I was not going to be able to taste the result so cunningly made 2 small cupcakes to test.

The cake tastes great, very moist - almost like a steamed pudding in texture, and with a lovely flavour. Now I just have to decide whether to dust the top (top photo - nicely browned but a bit cracked) or the bottom (photo below - not as evenly coloured and a bit damp-ish) with the icing sugar.