Cherry Bakewell Muffins

If you're looking for a tasty muffin recipe then you can call off the search here. I was rather taken with these little muffins...when they came out of the oven they looked alright and I thought they'd be ok but actually they were really quite tasty! The taste testers concurred...so if you're a fan of the Mr Kipling cherry bakewells, I'm sure you'd love these.

The texture of the muffins is spot on and they're lovely and moist too as the recipe includes 175ml Greek yogurt. The flavour comes from 100g of ground almonds and also from the almond extract. I used Neilsen-Massey's Pure Almond Extract which is very good, they also manufacture lemon, chocolate, orange and coffee extracts.

 

 

The distinctive cherry flavour of the Bakewell comes from a teaspoon of cherry jam that is baked into the centre of each muffin.

When it came to the cases, these red and white spotty cases from Culpitt were the perfect addition to the theme. I would definitely recommend Culpitt cases as they come in vibrant colours but most importantly they're greaseproof and therefore retain their colour after they have been in the oven.

On the whole, I don't tend to bake the same thing twice but I may have to give these another whirl next weekend for a charity bake sale as they were so tasty!

Ingredients

150g golden caster sugar
1 egg
125g melted butter
175ml Greek yogurt
1 tsp almond extract (Nielsen-Massey recommended)
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g ground almonds
10 tsp cherry jam
150g icing sugar
Flaked almonds
5 glace cherries

Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4 and prepare your muffin tin with 10 muffin cases. These muffins are easy to make, have two bowls at the ready, one for the wet ingredients and one for the dry ingredients.

Mix the sugar, butter, egg, almond extract and yogurt in a bowl using an electric whisk. Sift the flour and baking powder into a separate bowl and then add the ground almonds. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix quickly, it doesn't matter if there are some lumps as apparently this helps to give muffins their texture. Spoon half the mixture into the bottom of the muffin cases, then add a teaspoon of cherry jam to each one. Finally, finish by dividing the remaining mixture between the cases to cover the jam.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, they should be golden and risen. Once the muffins are cool, make up the icing to a smooth but thick consistency and then spoon over the top of the muffins. Finish with half a glace cherry and sprinkle over some flaked almonds.

* Original recipe from BBC GoodFood

White Chocolate and Cherry Loaf

The tea time treats theme this month is 'Cake Stall Cakes and Bakes'. So here's my contribution to the cause...a White Chocolate and Cherry Loaf cake.

This was an interesting cake...I'm not sure whether I used the wrong size loaf tin but there was an awful lot of cake mixture and when I put it in the tin it was full to the brim before I'd even started baking. The recipe called for a 1kg tin...I thought I used a 2lb tin which roughly equates but when I put the cake in the oven it overflowed!

In the end the cake still worked out...although some oven cleaning was required afterwards. It was edible but it was a little claggy and not perfect! I did however enjoy the fresh cherries in the cake. The frosting is melted white chocolate and mascarpone, finished with white chocolate curls on top.

It seems that fruit is destined to sink in cakes, I did the whole dust in flour thing before mixing the cherries in but still most of them ended up at the bottom. Fortunately as some of the cherries were sprinkled on top just as the cake went in the oven, they actually stayed fairly near the surface. Does anyone have any ingenius ways of preventing fruit sinking?

Tea Time Treats is hosted by Karen over and Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked. Karen is hosting this month and there are always loads of fabulous entries, so check out the round up at the end of July...or better still join in!

I'm also entering this cake into Simple and in Season as cherries are the perfect summer fruit. This month it is hosted by Fleur from Homemade by Fleur with the regular host being Fabulicious Food.
Ingredients

225g butter
225 golden caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
225g self-raising flour
375g fresh cherries, pitted
175g white chocolate chopped

White Chocolate Frosting

100g white chocolate
140g half-fat mascarpone
White chocolate curls

Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4. Line a 1kg (2.2lb) loaf tin with baking parchment. The paper should come up higher than the sides.

Cream together the butter and sugar until it's pale and fluffy. Then add the eggs a little at a time so they don't curdle. Next add the vanilla extract before sifting in the flour, folding it in until the mixutre is smooth.

Ensure all cherries are pitted and then dust them in flour, this should help them not to sink in the cake! Add half of the cherries and half of the chocolate and gently stir into the mix. Spoon into the prepared tin before scattering the remaining chocolate and cherries on the top. Bake fro 1hr 10 - 1hr 15 mins until a skewer comes out clean. Upon removing it from the oven, leave to cool for a few minutes and then turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool completel

To make the frosting, bring the mascarpone to room temperature. In the meantime melt the white chocolate over a pan of water. When melted stir in 1 tbsp of the mascarpone, then beat the remainder in. Don't overbeat otherwise the frosting will go grainy. Spread over the top of the cake and finish with curls of white chocolate.