Apple and Raspberry Crumble

With the weather being positively Autumnal recently I've been dipping into my winter recipes for dessert and baking ideas when I feel the baking itch and the housemates fancy something sweet. I love winter recipes, they're always so warming and comforting and really make the kitchen and the whole house smell inviting and homely. 

Crumbles and crisps are wonderful because they are so versatile, you can have so many fruit and spice combinations, keep it simple and nostalgic or mix and match for new and interesting fillings. One of my favourites is plain rhubarb because it's very nostalgic, beautifully simple and really yummy! I must confess, plain apple crumble, even when it's spiced and well flavoured has always seemed a little bland to me and for that reason I always add berries to augment the taste. 

I came up with this recipe for my Mum's birthday this year, recently rediscovered it and made it to celebrate the end of repeats for my housemates (...basically an excuse to bake something :P). If you fancy it as just an apple crumble just replace the raspberries with an extra cooking apple!

Apple and Raspberry Crumble

Crumble

• 565g flour
• 2tsps baking powder
• 260g butter (chilled)
• 350g caster sugar
• 55g golden caster sugar

Filling

• 9 apples (I tend to use 7 cooking and 3 eating apples but whatevs)
• 300g raspberries
• 1 orange, zest
• 3 tsps cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180 C and grease a medium ceramic oven dish

Peel core and slice apples (not too thin) and lay them in the base of a medium sized lasagna dish or other ceramic oven dish (There should be a pretty damn tall layer of apple :P )

Scatter over the golden sugar, 55g of the white sugar, the cinnamon and the orange zest 

Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl and cut the butter into thumbnail sized cubes.

Using your fingertips rub the butter into the flour mixture until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs

Mix in the rest of the sugar and pour over the fruit layer, pressing gently but not packing it in

Bake for 45-50 mins and serve with custard, cream or ice cream (whipped cream is my definite favourite)

Orange and Raspberry Cake/Pudding/Yumminess

This is my first slight baking mishap in a good while (new record!). I wanted to make an orange pound cake so I found myself a pound cake recipe from years and years ago in my mums recipe box and set to work. On my hunt through the kitchen for yoghurt I found some raspberries that needed to be used before they were claimed by the grey fuzz lurking threateningly in the corner of the punnett.

So I made up the recipe and folded in the gloriously pink and pretty raspberries, transferred it into the tin and baked for the required time...then a bit more....then even more because the centre was still quite raw and squishy... it has to be because of the raspberries though because mum said the recipe works perfectly otherwise. All was not lost however. We simply served it as pudding with a scoop of vanilla ice cream :D

Anyone have any advice for me on how to stop this happening again? I'm gonna post up the recipe anyway so that anyone who knows how to deal with the devilish little raspberry can make this totally yummy cake/pudding. Or, you can leave it as I did and have it as a gooey, heavily scented, summery pudding

Orange and Raspberry Pound Cake

• 114g butter, Softened
•  170g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 190g flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 oranges, Zested and Juiced
• 160g Greek Yogurt
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 400-500g raspberries

Preheat oven to 175 C

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 

Stir in eggs and orange zest

In another bowl, combine the flour and baking powder

In a third bowl, combine the orange juice, vanilla essence and yogurt. 

Add half of the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture and mix gently (just enough to combine without over-mixing) 

Add the yoghurt juice muxture and stir gently.

Mix in the remaining dry ingredients and gently fold in the raspberries

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 55 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Allow to cool completely before slicing.

I baked this for around 75 minutes in an effort to make sure it was cooked through and as I already said it still came out quite gooey...the resulting pudding with cream was heaven!

If anyone has any advice about making it work as a cake I'd really appreciate it :)

x

Valentines Day Muffins (with lemon-cinnamon cream cheese glaze)

Ok, so I'm not a huge fan of the whole Valentine's Day thing. I mean, this was to be the first year I ever celebrated it with anyone but from previous years I had decided it was a really fake holiday; the sentiment is lovely and I totally agree with the idea but it's way to commercialised and just seems like a money spinner to be honest. Luckily for me, Ethan feels pretty much the same so we decided to go simple and have home-cooked food and curl up with a movie. 


I spent the day baking, making truffles (recipe to follow at some stage) and being the campus Valentines Day Fairy (I basically went and handed out my home made truffles, except the ones I was saving for himself of course). was presented with a really lovely meal of maple and mustard glazed salmon with various trimmings, which was really yummy (I shall be stealing the idea for my own recipe collection!) and then we basically spent the evening chatting and totally forgot to watch any sort of movie until we realised it was 11:45 and way too late to start watching anything :P (We're really good time-keepers, I swear).


In keeping with the whole Valentines is too commercial I decided I'd give Ethan something home made. He had mentioned wanting to try apple and raspberry muffins when we first started going out (almost a year ago :D), so I decided I'd give them a bang (I also wanted to try out my new measuring spoons and red polka dot muffin cases). I used an Apple Muffin recipe from a book I picked up called 1001 Cupcakes, Cookies and Other Tempting Treats and tweaked it a bit (as I always do). A problem I've found with some apple muffins I've tried is that they don't taste apple-y enough (yes, it IS a word! :P). But apparently, althought the raspberries were the stronger flavour, the 
apple still came through :D! 
The whole time these muffins were baking my 
whole kitchen was perfumed with the summery, 
heady scent of raspberries! It was wonderful :D!


I just decided to make up the glaze last minute because about a month ago I have made an orange version for my Mum to go on the Carrot cake cup-cakes I baked for her. She hates the frosting but likes the sweetness so I figured a glaze would provide enough sweetness without being too overpowering. For these muffins, I knew ornage wouldn't work so I thought lemon might be a good substitute and as it turns out I made the right call...phew! :D




Apple and Raspberry Muffins


(Makes 15)

• 280g plain flour
• 1tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 100-115g light brown sugar (depends on the sweetness of your apples)
• 2 dessert apples (I used Pink Ladies)
• 2 eggs
• 200mls milk
• 100g butter (melted and cooled)
• 130g raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat the oven to 200 C/400 F

Line a muffin tray with paper cases

Sieve together flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl and stir in the sugar

Peel and grate the apples and add to the flour mixture

Beat the eggs lightly in another bowl and beat in the milk and butter

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix gently until just combined, don't overmix or the muffins won't rise properly

Fold in raspberries gently, being careful not to crush them

Spoon the mixture into the paper cases, 1 1/2-2tbsp in each

Bake for 25-30 mins, until well risen, golden brown and firm to the touch. When inverted and tapped they should make a hollow sound!

Cool in the tin for 5 mins then cool completely on a wire rack

Notes:

The raspberries make these muffins super moist so they may take longer than 30 mins; mine took pretty much exactly that amount of time. Just keep a watchful eye on them!

Because I used sweet dessert apples I only used 100g of sugar but if you're using a tart apple such as Granny Smith I recommend using the full amount.

Lemon-Cinnamon Cream Cheese Glaze

• 2 tbsp cream cheese
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 7-10 heaped tbsp icing sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients and add more cheese/lemon juice/ sugar until your glaze reaches a consistency where it will drip slowly off the back of a metal spoon.

These muffins were a big hit (with and without the glaze), and I'll definitely be making them again :D I hope all of you had a fantastic day, full of love and affection :)

Kate xxx