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.

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!

Duck a la Rhubarb and the Roller Coaster of a Garden

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Our Growing Paynes

It’s a bit of a struggle this year. Our garden is giving us a run for our money with it being inconsistent in deciding what it wants to grow. Every year there is usually one or two things that are stubborn. But with the lack of rain in May and the reappearance of rabbits this year we’re not having much luck with the eggplant, tomatillos, parsnips, onions, leeks, and beets!

I have to say though our potatoes are going gangbusters. So far they are the best we’ve ever had. We’re struggling to keep up with adding dirt and straw to the towers as the plants grow. Fingers crossed we’ll get a harvest bigger than what we put in!

A while back when Johnny had the Feed the Piglet blog he sent me a link for a Rhubarb Duck recipe. Unfortunately the link is now private, though you can see latest posts on Kitschnflavours site. So I had to come up with my own recipe. Gasp!

Rhubarb is a perfect pairing with duck with the tartness of the rhubarb and the richness of the duck. Slice 2-3 stalks of rhubarb. Finely chop a handful of fresh thyme and half a sweet onion.

Score the duck skin and season with sea salt and pepper. Heat a bit of olive oil in a skillet and place the duck skin down. You don’t want a high heat for this because you want to render the fat without burning the duck. Once the duck has rendered turn it over to sear the other side.

Because this was a big piece of duck I finished it off in the oven. While the duck cooks add the rhubarb, onion, and thyme to the skillet. Saute to soften the rhubarb and onion. Grate an inch square (2.5 cm sq) of fresh ginger into the skillet.

As the rhubarb cooks down add a cup of chicken stock and bring to a simmer. It was interesting because I didn’t add any citrus to this dish but there was a definite citrus taste to it. Must have come from the rhubarb.

Once the duck is cooked to medium let it rest before slicing. Unfortunately we had a tough piece of bird! I cooked up some mashed potatoes and pan roasted Brussels Sprouts. The kids enjoyed this what with their love of duck and rhubarb. It was mine to screw up! 🙂

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!

Strawberry Rhubarb Ginger Crumble, Now That’s a Mouthful!

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

The past couple of days our strawberries have been coming in and they are so delicious. The netting over them has worked very well and the birds just have to do without! Unfortunately they weren’t ready for the crumble we made for Father’s Day so I had to buy the strawberries.

Conor Bofin recently posted a recipe for rhubarb crumble with ginger. As soon as our rhubarb was ready I was planning on doing a strawbery rhubarb crumble as crumble is a favourite in our house and our son loves to make the topping. Conor’s idea of adding ginger was a light bulb moment. Ginger goes so well with fruit so I had to add it to our recipe.

Even though our strawberries weren’t ready the co-op had some lovely organic ones.

Quarter a pound of strawberries and place them in a small pan on medium heat. As it starts to warm up add 1/3 cup of brown sugar. Stir well as this starts to simmer.

Grate fresh ginger over the strawberries. I used a chunk that was about 1 1/2″ all the way round. If you really like the bite of the ginger use more.

Simmer until it becomes a chunky jam. You don’t want the strawberries to disappear completely. Set aside and slice the rhubarb into half inch bits. I used 3 stalks for this.

Mix in with the strawberries and add to the baking dish. Preheat the oven to 375F/190C. Our son made the topping from the recipe in the Pillsbury The Complete Book of Baking. 1 cup of rolled oats, 3/4 cup all purpose flour, 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar, and 1/2 cup of softened butter.

Bake for 25-35 minutes.

I was curious as to why the topping didn’t come out as golden as it usually did. We found out the sugar was left out! Oops. But hey he’s 9 and I figure it doesn’t hurt for him to see why all the ingredients are important. And I love the fact he wants to bake so I’m not stopping him! Plus we were serving it with ice cream. So we were fine.

Adding ginger was a hit and it really worked well with the ice cream.

Our Growing Paynes

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

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