Jennifer and I decided to both bake one each at the same time, which I think worked amazingly well!! I baked the Lemon Muffins, and we didn't have/couldn't find the poppy seeds, so they turned out VERY lemony ;) Jennifer baked the chocolate chip, and they turned out more poofy them mine, which means that the oven was on the right temperature ;) haha.
Grating the lemon for the muffins
Jennifer making the chocolate muffin batter
Pushing the chocolate into the muffin batter before putting them in the oven
Glazing the lemon muffins
Do you like my Christmas earrings? They make a small jingle noise wherever I go :) We are getting our Christmas Spirit on :D
The finished product
Sophie helped us clean up:
By eating the lemon glaze out of the mixing bowl ;)
And loving it it seems <3
Pamela also decided to help by putting some lemon glaze into her yogurt ;) We are a very creative flat :D
Jennifer's chocolate muffins!! They look AMAZing!!
We then promptly ate some muffins, and went to sleep ;) This week has been super busy for all of us, so we definitely need some muffins and sleep ;) We were all prepared!!
Our previous experiment with taking out nuts from Friands didn't work that well... Apparently ( ;) ) it wasn't that great. Saying that, though, I didn't t taste it, hehe. So we are going to have to go nut-free this time again, not just because we have Sophie (who has a nut allergy) in our flat, but because we don't have any nuts on us. Let's see how it goes!
Melting the butter
Whisking the egg whites
I look like I am rather enjoying the whisking here ;)
The array of awesome appliances on our kitchen bench ;)
The mixture, without nuts, turned out very liquidly. And then I remembered that last time we added more flour instead of almond flour.
So we added that, and it looked all good.
Fingers crossed!!
Spooning the Friand mixture into the cupcake tray ;) Sorry to all the Friand tray fans out there who are horrified that we are doing this in a cupcake tray!!
Placing the toffee chucks onto the Friands
Looking through the oven to see how they rise. That sounds like a nursery rhyme, doesn't it? :D
The final product after two had been eaten!! Sorry, the picture doesn't look that great, but it sure tasted AMAZING!!
The underside of the Friands actually had a curve going inwards. Would anyone know what this means?
I am very perplexed why there is a curve on the bottom of the Friands. Maybe there wasn't enough denseness in the mixture ;) Whatever that means ...
Till next time when we will be baking Muffins and Yorkshire Pudding (with all the leftover egg yolks),
Neither Jennifer, nor I, had ever had a Friand before. So we were going into the recipe with blind tasting buds. If you can say that... I quickly googled how to make Friands, so I at least knew what the batter was supposed to look like, which helped us to know abit at least on how it was supposed to work ...
I will start by introducing our kitchen. You are going to be seeing a lot of our kitchen, so I thought it deserved a proper introduction just like everyone else received.
So our kitchen has been fortune enough to behold a variety of different appliances. There are two smoothie makers, a juicer, a toastie machine, two rice makes, a soup hand-held blender, a hand-held mixer, a toaster, a microwave and a kettle (which, I am sure, is the most used item. Tea please!!!). There is also occasionally a pumpkin, spray oil, rye flour and a Sour Dough starter on the bench. It is because of this that it is hard to have the kitchen benches cleared.
Our kitchen is dearly loved, because it is so well looked after by the amazing residents who tenderly clean it regularly. Well, usually...
So, onto the bake of this week: Raspberry and Pistachio Friands :)
Yes, we did have a lot of bowls on the bench!! Let me explain ...
Since the Friands had nuts in them, and Sophie is allergic to nuts, we decided to make half without nuts. Hence, the many bowls ;)
Another interesting fact about that photo is that we used 4 egg whites!! For just 8 Friands!! I know, very weird ;)
Oh, do you like the pumpkin? Pamela got it for 20 pence at Lidl!!!
Jennifer measuring out all the icing sugar. Definitely not missing out on all that goodness ;)
The recipe. They always looks so immaculately made in the picture. We will see how ours turn out like...
Blending up the pistachio and icing sugar mixture in our make-blender smoothie maker :D
Jennifer spooning the non-nut batter into the cupcake tins. Shh.. You are supposed to use a Friand tin for Friands, but anyways... we make the most of what we have.
Placing the raspberries onto the Friands
The Friands after bring sprinkled with more pistachios :D It is amazing how different the nut and non-nut Friands look here!!
The lovely Friands rising!!
On a side note, I love chai tea :D So I recently bought a new type of chai tea from Tesco, and so I decided to make the chai latte recipe it has on the side of the packet while I was waiting for the Friands. It seemed pretty straight forward, so I went for it!!
All you have to do is simmer some milk on the stove with the chai tea bag in it for around 5 minutes. I guess you could do this with any type of tea actually!! So yeah. I then added honey to the milk on the stove, and poured it into my mug.
And it was AMAZING!!!!!
The final product!! They look like faces with two eyes and a mouth in an "o" shape ;) haha.
They tasted very interesting! Definitely filling ... I don't usually bake with nuts, and I don't know if I am actually a huge fan of using nuts in general. The just taste a tad too ... nutty ;)
This week has been choc-a-block full of cycles of coughs, attempting to study, and babysitting. Oh, and emergency group meetings. Nevertheless, Jennifer and I made the Neapolitan Madeleines on Monday, along with a Carrot Cake with cream cheese filling. Not bad for students with upcoming exams (and a sick person).
Firstly, we made the Madeleines:
Beginnings of the Madeleines
The spread of bakingness on our kitchen bench
The naked Madeleines!!
Quick, let's cover them with chocolate ganache and sprinkle!!
The ganache.
I was multi-tasking here, so while Jennifer was making the ganache I made the batter for the carrot cake. I didnt have a spare bowl, so I made it in my largest saucepan :D
Carrot cake batter
Sophie came and helped us put the sprinkles on top of the ganache.
The sprinkles looks so perfectly sprinkled!! Awesome job Sophie :D
There was a chain here, teamwork!! Jennifer covered the madeleines with chocolate ganache, and Sophie sprinkled them with hundreds and thousands, and I took photos ;)
Teamwork!!
My carrot cake!! Here I cut it in half to line the cake with the cream cheese filling.
The carrot cake turned out well, and unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the final product. I think it actually got better the longer you left it in the fridge ;)
The Madeleines were great!! And, again. Forgot to take a photo of the final product ;) haha
