Chocolate muffins

Adapted from this Nigella Lawson recipe here

Ingredients: (makes 12)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt (optional)
• 1/4 cup (at least) best quality cocoa powder - EDITED  - the next time I made these I used 1/2 cup of cocoa but same amount of flour - success!
• 3/4 cup superfine sugar
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling - I left these out, this was ill-advised, the muffins had a nice texture but not enough chocolatiness without these. - EDITED - with these included, as I did the next time, these were pretty tasty.
• 1 cup milk (or a little more)
• 1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 400F
2. Prepare your muffin tray by putting the paper cases into it (this is a good activity for small children while you get the ingredients together)
3. Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, chocolate chips) in a bowl- use a sieve for the cocoa and flour to make it nice and fine and even*
4. Mix the wet ingredients in a jug or other receptacle- beat well with a fork*
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until all incorporated but not much more. According to the original recipe, a lumpy muffin mix makes the best muffins so we (my daughter and me) just used a fork to mix it in.
6. Divide the mixture between the muffin cases
7. Bake for 20 minutes (although you know your own oven best).

The original recipe only suggested 2 tablespoons of cocoa. I used 4 and it still wasn't chocolatey enough for me, though I was very pleased with the texture. My daughter ate it up with glee and she is not alway a cake fiend so maybe I usually make things too chocolatey for her...hmm. I have suggested a half cup here and reduced the amount of flour by a quarter cup - it seems to work.

* I did these two things on my third attempt (the ones in the photo) and they were the best looking muffins I have made so far. Sadly, I didn't get to taste them but they sold out at the school cake sale so I am hoping they were good!

Citrus Cheesecake

I found this recipe by googling. It fulfilled my cheesecake recipe requirements of the day:
1. to involve lemon
2. not to involve mascarpone

I didn't use the breadcrumb base it suggested, opting instead for a tried and tested crushed digestive biscuit and melted butter combination.
I am recording it here as the recipe only listed 250g of cream cheese for the 7 inch tin. Now, maybe my tin was bigger than 7 inches but I don't think it was (I shall measure, perhaps) and this level of cheesecake topping is simpy stingy so next time, I will need to use more. And yes, I am inconsistent in my use of cups/ounces/grammes.

Ingredients:
for the base:
150g of crushed digestives
2.5 oz of butter

1. Melt the butter, mix it into the crushed digestives, press it into the bottom of your removable-base cake tin so that it forms a base.

for the cheesecake topping:
500g of cream cheese (yes, I am fully doubling it, this thickness was pathetic)
1 lemon - juice and zest
1 orange - juice and zest
100g icing sugar

1. Let the cream cheese soften a bit to make things easier
2. Mix up all the ingredients in a bowl - I used a whisk attachment on my hand held electric mixer
3. Spoon and pour mixture on top of the biscuit base you made
4. Put in the fridge for a few hours to set. I put it in the freezer for a bit too as it seemed to be taking too long in the fridge. Or maybe I am just greedy.
5. Decorate as you fancy or don't bother decorating at all. I used raspberries as I also made raspberry coulis.

Raspberry coulis
6oz raspberries (this was a half pint container, a bit more than a cup)
1/4 cup of sugar
approx 1/4 cup of water

1. Put the water, sugar and raspberries into a saucepan
2. Heat until boiling on medium high and then reduce to medium low
3. Keep it on the heat, stirring occasionally until you're happy with the consistency - it will set a bit when cooled.
4. Blend it with a hand blender.
5. Lots of recipes called for sieving at this stage - I started sieving but couldn't be bothered. My coulis was perhaps more of a runny jam but it was very tasty. This made about a small cream/milk jug of coulis.