White Chocolate Muffins for a Sweet Treat

Posted on June 8, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

Oh blogger’s block! We’ve all been there. This week, with us getting ready to go across the pond and the school year coming to a close, my mind was blank. Crickets! I try to plan a week ahead but nothing came to me. The other night we were watching the Great British Bake Off. Sadly not the one with Mary Berry. Sorry to say but Pru is not Mary Berry! But it finally sparked inspiration.

I have one of Mary Berry’s baking books, “Baking with Mary Berry”. She has a recipe for white chocolate and strawberry muffins which calls for strawberry jam. I had my strawberry rhubarb jam in the fridge so I thought this would be fun to make for the kids.

This is a very easy recipe to make, in fact most of it’s done by the time the oven is preheated at 400F/200C.

The recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of self rising flour. If you don’t have that it is easy to make it. Add 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of salt per cup of flour. Sift all together and you are off and running. I had to prep this and also melted 7 tablespoons of butter.

In the mixer bowl add 2 large eggs, beat them. Then add the butter, a cup/8 oz of milk. I used full fat milk here. Next add 2 tsp of vanilla and 2/3 cup of sugar. Tip in the flour mixture then blend everything until it’s smooth and incorporated. Once it’s mixed add 100g of white chocolate chips. Mix well.

Line a 12 well muffin tin with paper cups. Spoon in half the batter divided equally between the 12 cups. Spoon in a bit of jam in each cup.

With the remaining batter cover each muffin evenly.

Bake 25-30 minutes until they are golden and pass the toothpick test. Allow to cool then dust with confectioners’ sugar.

I found this in the breakfast chapter but I think this would be a bit sweet to start the day with. After school snack? Perfect. 🙂 This would also work with a variety of fruit jams so the sky is the limit.

Custard Biscuits with Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

Posted on May 11, 2018 by Our Growing Paynes

With the spring properly here now we are enjoying the fresh flavours that come with the warmer weather. Our garden is coming along with the busy bees arriving to enjoy the blooms. Our gooseberry and black currant bushes are a hive of activity which is wonderful. The garden makes a happy place for the bees and butterflies. Need to work on plants to invite along the hummingbirds.

One of my favourite flavours growing up was strawberry and rhubarb. My mum would make a divine strawberry and rhubarb pie that I loved. I wanted to bake something that would include that delicious combination. I was flipping through the “Sweet” book by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh and found a recipe for Custard Yo-Yos that had a rhubarb icing. I thought I would do a strawberry and rhubarb jam instead for the filling.

Make the jam first to give it time to cool. Use a ratio of 1:1 for the strawberry and rhubarb.

In a small saucepan add the fruit and a bit of water so the fruit doesn’t catch as you bring it to a simmer. Add brown sugar a bit at a time until you get the flavour and thickness desired. You do want this on the thick side so it doesn’t drip too much out of the biscuit sandwich.

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C

In a mixer bowl sift together 175g/1 1/3 cups of all purpose flour, 65g/1/2 cup custard powder, 65g/1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt. If you don’t have custard powder ( 🙁 ) you can use cornstarch (cornflour) but it won’t be much of a custard biscuit without the custard! I like using Bird’s custard powder. One because it’s good and two it’s what we can easily find. Cube 170g/3/4 cup of unsalted butter that is at room temperature. Add it to the mixer bowl.

Blend on low until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Next add 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract. If you had to use corn starch then make it 1/2 a teaspoon. At this point you will probably be wondering, as I was, how on earth was this dry mixture going to come together. Have no fear! The butter starts it’s job with the vanilla. Start on low then speed up to medium to bring the dough together. It will take 30-60 seconds to happen.

Line your baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll balls of dough of about an 1 inch/2.5-3cm. Place the balls about 1 1/2in/4cm apart.

Dust a fork with flour and press into the tops of the balls. Don’t go all the way through! Just go about halfway.

Bake for 25 minutes. If you use more than one baking sheet, rotate them halfway through. You want the biscuits dry on the bottom and slightly golden. Leave them on the sheet for a couple of minutes then transfer them to a cooling rack.

When the biscuits and jam are cool make sandwiches.

There is nothing like custard with strawberry and rhubarb. Definitely flavours of the beautiful warmer weather.

Tomato Jam with Thyme

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Our Growing Paynes

I did this post last week, though I thought I did. But no one saw it, so I knew something was up. In the meantime I upgraded to the premium plan so my site is now ourgrowingpaynes.blog. As I was doing that I asked about this post. Turns out I created a site page instead of a blog post! Doh. Hopefully now I can get this back on track. 🙂

I am really regretting removing our air conditioners. Granted, it’s nice to have a longer growing season this year, but man, the humidity needs to go! While we don’t like it the tomatoes seem to love this. Which means we have to be creative is preserving all that goodness!

One of our favourite restaurants has a really good charcuterie plate and they very often have tomato jam as part of it. It’s something my husband regularly orders there and he asked if I could make some tomato jam at home. No idea how they make theirs but here is my version.

I have to say, prepping the tomatoes is a messy endeavor. But it needs to be done. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and then cut a cross into the bottom. Prep 2 1/2lbs/40ozs of tomatoes for this jam.

Blanch each tomato for about 30 seconds in boiling water.

Remove and set aside to cool. Or you can dip in cold water. I just let them cool. Doesn’t take too long. Remove the skins.

Then it gets really messy! Remove the seeds and coarsely chop up the tomatoes and add to a saucepan. Add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice and a big handful of fresh thyme. I chopped up the thyme finely as I didn’t want large bits of herb in the jam. Bring the mixture to a simmer. Because I didn’t want a high sugar jam I just added 1 cup/8oz of sugar to start.

Mix well and keep simmering. I also use low sugar pectin to help thicken the jam. I didn’t want to mask the flavour of the tomato with too much sugar. I add a bit of the pectin at the time. Hard to remove it if you go too far!

This is really good with cheese and would be good with bread and butter. It’s a nice alternative to the usual berry jam. A reminder of summer when the cooler decides to finally arrive.

Rhubarb Ginger Jam

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Our Growing Paynes

As anyone with a garden knows, you have some great successes and some disappointing failures. Up until this year we have done really well with rhubarb. This year they are very anemic. We were able to freeze a few stalks but to do this jam I had to make a trip to the co-op to get more rhubarb.

When I made the Victorian Sponge in England this year I used my MIL’s rhubarb ginger jam. It was absolutely delicious. I couldn’t wait for rhubarb season. Didn’t realise it wasn’t worth the wait. So we will have to figure that out for next year.

I had about 6 stalks. Slice the rhubarb and add it to a saucepan. Add about a 1/4 cup of water and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Bring it to a simmer. I wasn’t sure how much ginger I should use so I started with a piece about 1 1/2in/4cm by 1in/2.5cm. Grate into the sauce pan.

As the rhubarb starts breaking down start adding brown sugar. To get the right balance with the heat of the ginger, the tartness of rhubarb, and the sweetness of the sugar, you need a lot of sugar. I used about a cup and a half for this. But add the sugar a bit at a time until the balance is right. The heat and tartness of the ingredients will be different each time. Simmer until the jam begins to thicken.

This isn’t lasting long. By the time the weekend was over there was just enough left to process one jar. Guess I’ll be going back to the co-op!

Victorian Sponge and a Fabulous Trip

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Our Growing Paynes

There is something really surreal about being in London in the morning and the Hannafords grocery store in NH at night on the same day. It messes with your head. But we had an amazing trip. The weather was just gorgeous, we even got a bit of a tan! I didn’t blog as much I as planned because I forgot the cord for my camera. Like most people I always forget something. At least it wasn’t something major like a passport.

A few years ago I had tried to make a Victorian Sponge and it failed. The middle wouldn’t cook and it was heavy, basically the opposite of what it should be. I wasn’t sure if my technique was off or the flour was just different enough. So it was on my list to make it while visiting my in-laws. My MIL makes a fabulous Victorian Sponge. My son is a fan so I wanted to get this figured out.

My MIL is a great teacher as it came out perfect! Enough that I will be trying this here at home with our flour.

The cookery book she had is called The Dairy Book of Home Cookery. No idea who wrote it as it didn’t indicate. Which is weird.

If at all possible use a hand mixer rather than the big mixers as you need to be delicate with the batter. Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Prepare two 7in/18cm tins by greasing with butter. Cut out circles of parchment paper to line the bottom of the tins.

In a mixing bowl add 4oz of caster sugar and 4 oz of softened butter. Cream the two ingredients together with the hand mixer.

Now this is where I went a bit wrong the first time I made this. I was about to move on to the next step when my MIL said I wasn’t close! Keep mixing. And be patient. It needs to be pale in colour and fluffy.

Weigh out 4 oz of self raising flour. Take a tablespoon of flour to the mixture and add an egg.

Mix well and repeat this step with another egg.

Sift the remaining flour in and gently fold it into the egg and butter mixture.

You want to keep it airy as you do this step, don’t crush the fluffiness! Divide the batter between the two tins.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until it is golden brown and is springy to the touch.

Cool for a few minutes then turn out on cooling racks. Once it is cool spread jam of your choice onto one of the cakes and top with the other cake. We used my Mil’s amazing rhubarb and ginger jam. I’ll have to try to recreate it. Delicious! Sift powdered sugar on top.

Serve when ready. Add a cup of tea and enjoy!

So glad my MIL helped me with this because this is definitely a treat we love. 🙂

Tips: If the batter comes out a little dry because of the flour add a little milk. For different flavours add a teaspoon of vanilla or almond extract.

Black Currant Blueberry Jam and Up Against the House

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

House 1 me 0. Actually the score is probably more skewed than that if we look at the entire time I’ve lived here. But this week I am definitely on the losing end! And it’s all my fault. Which is really annoying.

It’s time to redo the front porch so we began the project this past Sunday. Parts of the old boards were being very stubborn in coming loose. I tried pounding them up with a crow bar. Really not the thing to do. I reinjured my injury from the fall in January. Each day I’ve brought the computer in bed with me in hopes I could sit up long enough to do a blog post. Finally I can do it today. Cooking this week has been pretty basic as well. But I’m properly on the mend so I can blog! Plus we need to do more on the porch this weekend. I have a cunning plan as they say to not screw my back up again. I feel optimistic.

I made this jam a couple of weeks ago and talked about it on the radio show. I was inspired by a jam I had in France. And we had a bumper crop of black currants so I had to do something with them all! We froze quite a bit for later crumbles. I wanted a jam that wasn’t overly sweet so I could easily use it for savory dishes as well.

I like to keep my jams on the rustic side, it’s less fussy that way. In a saucepan put in equal amounts of black currants and blueberries.

On medium low heat bring the berries to a simmer. Once enough liquid has been released from the berries turn up the heat a bit to continue a high simmer. To start I added 1/2 cup of white sugar and incorporated it into the berries. Then I added 1/2 a cup of brown sugar. The tricky bit with black currants is that they are very tart. But you don’t want to add so much sugar that the jam becomes stiff. To offset this I added maple syrup. Add a bit of a time until the jam has thickened.

Sorry about the quality of that pic! Couldn’t use a tripod at this step! Remove from the heat and can the jam. I served this with homemade crusty bread and stinky French cheese. The creaminess of the cheese balanced well with the tart jam.

Fingers crossed the porch doesn’t defeat me tomorrow!

Rhubarb Ginger Tart

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

As I suspected I was spoilt for Mother’s Day. Saturday night they made me a wonderful meal of tapas from around the world. My husband was thinking light and Spanish but the kids had other ideas! My husband made a potato and swiss chard souffle and it was accompanied by mushrooms cooked in butter, chicken satay, and spring rolls. Delicious all of it! To finish off the meal they made me a pavlova which was decorated by mangoes spelling out MUM. That was my daughter’s idea. 🙂

For the gift I was presented with the largest gift bag. So either it was going to be a large gift or a small gift with lots of packaging. After removing about a year’s supply of tissue paper I found a new tripod. A much more sturdy tripod. The other one, while a major help, would wobble and it made us nervous my good camera would tip over. The lovely weekend was finished off by playing games with the kids. My favourite way to hang out with them. 🙂

I did manage to fit in some baking. Our rhubarb isn’t quite ready but the co-op had some so I thought I’d do a treat for our kids. My son really loves rhubarb so I couldn’t resist. For the pastry I used the same recipe as my apple pie. Only make one batch as you would for a pie without a cover.

I love fresh ginger in jams and I thought it would be great with the rhubarb. I had three stalks of rhubarb for this recipe. Slice the rhubarb in small slices so it cooks down faster.

Add a tablespoon or so of fresh lemon juice and begin to simmer. If the rhubarb is on the dry side just add a bit of water while it simmers. Grate a piece of ginger about an inch/2.5cm square. This needs to be finely grated so it incorporates fully.

As the fruit softens and becomes jam like add 1/4 cup of maple syrup. The real kind. Do you know there was a poll done and a large percent prefers the fake stuff? Shows how sad the state of our food has become. Allow it to cook some more and add more maple syrup if needed. While this is cooking preheat the oven to 350F/175C. Spoon the mixture into the pastry.

Bake for about 25 minutes until the pastry is flaky. Let them cool completely so you don’t risk burning yourself.

The kids loved these. Our son says he could eat rhubarb all the time so it was a fun treat. And on a hot day a quick thing to bake without bringing the kitchen to tropical temps!

Blackcurrant Bars – On The Tart Side Of Life

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

We are looking at a blow for freedom as my mum likes to say. What is it you ask? Why getting rid of cable! The bane of many of us. I’m sure many of you have heard loads of horror stories lately about what happens when customers try to cancel the cable. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we won’t have issues. But it’s time to cut the cord as they say. We only watch a handful of channels so it isn’t economical to have it. Today we’ve been testing a digital antenna all round the house to find the best spot. Where we live, we only get PBS but that is fine because with Hulu Plus and Netflix, we are pretty much covered. The dogs spent the day looking at us funny while we stood in different rooms seeing if there was any improvement!

This weekend we also had a fun date night and went to see the movie Chef. I really liked that movie. Aside from a display of fabulous food the music was outstanding! It was hard not to get up and dance.

All the blackcurrants have been picked now. I froze a bunch for later in the year but I saw a link to blackcurrant bars. When I went to pin it it said it was a spam link but it sparked an idea. I used my mother’s date bar recipe for the bar portion of it and then made up an apple blackcurrant jam.

I did the jam ahead of time because the week got a little nutty. Okay, a lot nutty. Thank goodness for weekends! But you can make the jam just before you bake the bars. Either way is fine.

In a small saucepan add a cup to a cup and a half of blackcurrants and a diced apple. Add about a 1/4 cup of water and a few splashes of lemon juice.

Bring to a simmer and allow to simmer until the fruit breaks down while stirring frequently. Add 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of brown sugar depending on your taste. Some like it to be really tart.

When you are ready to bake preheat the oven to 375F/190C. Melt 6 tablespoons in a small bowl. In another bowl mix 1 cup quick oats, 1/2 cup sugar, 3/4 cup flour, and 1/2 tsp of baking soda. This is half the recipe of the date bars as the jam amount for the black currant is about half of what the date bar has. Add the melted butter and mix well. Press half into the baking tin.

Spread the jam over the oat mixture.

Put the rest of the oat mixture over the jam and bake for about 25 minutes until golden.

This was definitely tart! But my husband loved it. 🙂

Wish me luck with the cable company!

Apple Jam

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

When I did my daughter’s birthday cake I used apple jam for the filling. My son immediately requested this for his cake. Of course I used the last of it back in February. Luckily this is really easy to make. All you need is a half hour or so and presto! You have jam. 🙂

I like to make my apple jam like apple pie. The best part of apple pie are the spices.

You can also use up apples that might be nearing the “past it” stage, this way they don’t go to waste. I chopped up 5 apples for this as it was only for a cake. If I want to can I use a ton of apples.

In a medium sauce pan I simmered the apples with about a cup of apple cider.

As it starts to reduce I add my spices. This time I added some cinnamon and nutmeg with a bit of ground clove. Add the spices you want as this if very much subject to taste.

It needs to simmer long enough to break down the apples and to soften. I do use a potato masher to help things along a bit. Who said patience was a virtue? 🙂

It’s done when it has the rustic jam look and it has darkened a bit. Remove from the heat and cool. This is also great in homemade tarts. 🙂

Peach Popovers

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Our Growing Paynes

I was in the mood to bake but I didn’t have a lot of time so I needed a quick recipe. I had some homemade peach jam to use so all I had to do was make some pastry. I used the pastry from this quiche recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Roll out the pastry so it is less than 1/8″ thick.

Ahem, yes there is a shortage of cookie cutters in our house! But the glass works. Take the round bit of pastry then roll it out further so it is elongated.

Place a dollop of the jam of your choice on one end and fold over. Pinch the edges closed then do a couple of quick slices on the top for vents.

Bake for 30-40 minutes until the pastry is done. Serve and enjoy!

Our Growing Paynes

A journey about cooking, traveling, gardening, and crafting.

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