Chocolate, caramel & meringue muffins

So Autumn is most definitely here. Cooler temperatures, leaves turning brown, temptation of turning on the heating and school starting all signals the end of summer. I use the word "summer" in very loose terms this year, the wettest one for 26 years in Ireland apparently! In our local boy's school Friday is treat day and I know there would be crestfallen faces if there wasn't a tempting morsel in the boy's lunch boxes. Today is Isaac's first long Friday in school so I thought I would make a variation of one of his favourites, the chocolate muffin!

For 12 muffins you will need;

4oz butter
4oz caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3oz self raising flour
1oz cocoa powder
1tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and place muffin cases into your muffin tin.
Cream the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Add half of the beaten eggs and incorporate.
Add a tablespoon of flour if the mixture starts to curdle.
Add remaining eggs.
Sieve in the flour and cocoa powder and gently mix.
Add the milk and stir gently for a final time.
Spoon equal amounts into muffin cases, I find using an ice cream scoop very handy.

Bake in oven for 15 minutes or until fully cooked.
Leave on a wire rack to cool.

For the meringue;

I always use Nigella's meringue recipe as it has yet to fail me. Meringue is possibly one of my favourite things to both make and eat and this one is foolproof!

2 egg whites
150g caster sugar
1 tsp cornflour
1/2 tsp white wine vinegar

Whisk the egg whites in a spotlessly clean bowl until soft peaks form.
Add in the sugar a spoonful at a time and whisk till glossy.
Add in the cornflour and vinegar and give it one final whisk.
Spoon into piping bag.

To finish;

6tsp caramel (you can also use strawberry sauce, raspberries, banana or anything else that takes your fancy!)

Using a melon baller scoop a little of the chocolate muffin out of the centre and fill the hole with caramel.
Pipe on the meringue in large swirls before placing under a preheated grill.
Watch carefully as they literally take seconds to brown.
So hey presto, delicious little treats for your little darlings and you to indulge in!

A moment in time....

I was out walking with a friend of mine this week and we were chatting about my blog. I mentioned how I loved the thought of the kids discussing their favourite meals when they are adults and having all my recipes at their fingertips to recreate happy family meals. Blogging is similar to keeping a diary, I have always been a "heart on her sleeve" kind of girl and my emotions always run close to the surface. You give away a lot of yourself whilst blogging and I hope in years to come my children when reading it will see me as a great Mum and realise I always had their best interests at heart.

We went for a lovely stroll tonight after dinner in the graveyard behind our house, it's one of our favourite places to visit as it has loads of nooks and crannies to explore. I brought along the camera and took a few snaps and thought it would be nice to post them here. So kids if you are reading this in years to come I hope you remember how happy we all were together, xx.

My jerk style chicken.....

I hate throwing out food, especially food that I have lovingly prepared in the kitchen in anticipation of a lovely meal around the table. It's hard to please everyone and more often than not it's chicken that features on the menu as I know it will be eaten. It's nice to liven it up with a marinade or a rub and this one proved very popular chez Ryan yesterday! You can leave it overnight for the flavours to develop further but anything from 30 minutes upwards will do the trick. Don't be put off by the list of ingredients as I bet you will have most of them lurking in your kitchen press......

For a large chicken or 4 large chicken breasts you will need;

1 red chilli
1 shallot
1tsp cinnamon
1tsp ground cloves
1tsp all spice
1tsp ground ginger
1 lemon, juice only
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
2tbsp honey
3tbsp rapeseed oil

Whizz all the ingredients together to form a smooth marinade.
Massage into the uncooked chicken before placing in a preheated oven.
Cook the chicken for at least an hour obviously depending on its weight.
Transfer to a serving dish and tear over some fresh coriander leaves.
Serve, share, enjoy!

I came across a frightening statistic today that 90% of the chicken in Irish restaurants is not sourced from Ireland or even the EU! I for one never ask where the poultry is sourced from when in a restaurant but next time I will. Nothing is going to change if consumers remain nonchalant about these issues. Ask your butcher as well where is their meat sourced, you may get a surprise!

Apple, frangipane & cinnamon tarts

Frangipane is such an easy thing to make and so versatile to use. It's great in a tart, stuffed into fruit or even heated and poured over ice cold ice cream. Frangipane will keep in your fridge for a couple of days or in your freezer for up to a month. I had some left over from the last time that I made my delicious plum tart and you will find the recipe for it here....

http://paulaskitchentable.blogspot.ie/2012/08/vanilla-sugared-plum-frangipane-tart.html

To make these little tarts you will need;

A packet of filo pastry, defrosted
1 eating apple
1tbsp melted butter
1 cup of frangipane
Sprinkling of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
Allow some filo pastry sheets to defrost overnight in the fridge.
Lay them out and cut the entire layer into sixteen squares. Place the squares into a mini muffin tin and press down.
Chop up an eating apple and add it to the frangipane. Place a spoonful into each little filo case.
Brush the melted butter over the pieces of exposed pastry.
Place in oven for 10 minutes or until the frangipane has puffed up and the filo is golden.
Allow to cool on a wire rack before sprinkling with cinnamon.
Delicious!

Quick pasta dinner....

I have had an eventful couple of days to say the least. Slashing my hand, trying to set my sitting room on fire and culminating last night by filling my husband's diesel car up with unleaded fuel! Today was a bit of a blur as we only had one car and I had to drop my husband to Mullingar for work, I had a work meeting to attend, two school pick ups and back to Mullingar to pick up Raymond! I needed a quick and easy dinner to throw together to keep the children going and to ensure plenty of fuel for under 11's soccer training. Pasta is my go to dinner on busy days as it is super quick and dinner can be on the kitchen table in a few minutes.

Pasta sauce

2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
400g can of chopped tomatoes
500g passata
1tsp sugar
Handful of fresh basil
2tbsp rapeseed oil

Heat the rapeseed oil in a large pan.
Add the garlic and onions and cook until softenened.
Add the tomatoes, passata and sugar and allow to simmer for fifteen minutes.
Add the basil and simmer for a further five minutes.
Set aside to cool slightly before blending.

This sauce is a brilliant sauce as it is easy to change the flavours, here are a few of my favourites;

Add a 1/2 teaspoon of chilli flakes to make a spicy sauce.

Roast some peppers until the skins are blistery and charred before adding to the pot.

Roast garlic in the oven until soft inside and squeeze into the pot of sauce.

Add fried chorizo after blending, in fact add chorizo to anything and I will gobble it up!

Today time was against me so I just blended the sauce and added it to some cooked pasta, topped with some extra basil and a grinding of black pepper and served alongside some homemade garlic bread. It made for a comforting meal which was badly needed!

It's very handy to make a double quantity and have some sauce in the fridge or freezer. Great to top some pizza with, add to lasagne or use as a base for tomato soup. Autumn days are truly here!

A new adventure.....

Yesterday marked the start of my adventures with my new Canon 550d. I attended a photography course ran by Tim Durham, a fantastic photographer based here in the midlands. We were sent out and about to capture a few images of Mullingar. Be kind, have just started by dipping my big toe into a huge ocean.....

Passion fruit curd, lime, meringue & raspberry tart

So there I was with two jars of passion fruit curd in the fridge, both of them literally screaming into my gluttonous belly "eat me, eat me"! I had to do something with them to prevent me tucking in with a spoon so I decided to make a few little tarts. People are always a little bit nervous when it comes to pastry but honestly the key is to handle it as little as possible and to make sure everything is chilled. These ingredients make enough for four mini tart cases but feel free to double the quantities as this pastry will happily sit in your freezer and await it's baking adventure turn.

For the pastry cases;

125g plain flour
60g butter
50g icing sugar
Pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
1tbsp milk

Cream the butter, icing sugar and salt together.
Rub in the flour and egg yolk until it looks like breadcrumbs. I always use a fork at this stage.
Add in the milk gradually to form a dough.
Place dough onto a piece of clingfilm and roll into a sausage shape. Allow it to rest in the fridge for at least a hour.

For the meringue;

I always use Nigella's meringue recipe as it has yet to fail me. Meringue is possibly one of my favourite things to both make and eat and this one is foolproof!

2 egg whites
150g caster sugar
1 tsp cornflour
1/2 tsp white wine vinegar

Whisk the egg whites in a spotlessly clean bowl until soft peaks form.
Add in the sugar a spoonful at a time and whisk till glossy.
Add in the cornflour and vinegar and give it one final whisk.
Spoon into piping bag.

Remove pastry from the fridge and cut into thin slivers. Place these into the tart cases and press down gently to join the edges, similar to a jigsaw puzzle. So much easier to do this than to roll it out. Bake blind in a 180 degree preheated oven for fifteen minutes or until golden at the edges.
Allow to cool.

Once the cases are cooled fill them up with passion fruit curd, use as little or as much as you like.
Pipe little noisettes of the meringue mixture onto half of the tart and place under grill until lightly browned. Keep a close eye as they can burn very quickly.
Take some fresh raspberries and add to one of the tart quarters and with the remaining section add some grated lime zest.
So there you have it, a very impressive looking tart that is super simple to achieve. The tang of the passion fruit curd, the sweetness of the meringue, the sharpness of the raspberries and the citrus flavour of the lime combine to make this a great taste sensation. I need to cook a dessert for Chef Derry Clarke in my upcoming Tesco Fresh Factor competition, do you think he would be impressed by this?