Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Last week on my last day before my one-week holiday, my boss asked me what I was going to do during my vacation. "I'm going to turn twenty-nine", I answered. "So you're going to bake cake?!", he said, smiling. And I answered that I was going to do that anyway, but, of course, my birthday is always the perfect occasion to have myself a little cake festival, as I like to call it. I had a few friends over yesterday to celebrate and I made sure they were going to get enough sweets. Next to cream cheese brownies (no birthday party without cream cheese brownies), a plum and an apricot cake, I made these peanut butter cupcakes which were also a big hit. A sweet and salty treat for the addict ;-)

Recipe

(slightly adapted from: Home Sweet Home by Tarek Malouf and the Hummingbird Bakery)

Makes about 12-16 cupcakes

For the sponge:

70g soft butter

210g plain flour

250g sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

210ml whole milk

2 large eggs

40g crunchy peanut butter

For the frosting:

500g icing sugar

160g soft butter

50ml whole milk

30g crunchy peanut butter

For the decoration:

salted peanuts

Preheat the oven to 170°C and line a muffin tray with paper cases.

In a bowl mix butter, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt with an electric hand mixer until they form a crumb-like consistency. In a jug, mix milk an eggs. With the mixer on low speed, gradually pour half of the liquid into the crumb mixture and mix thoroughly until combined. Raise the speed to medium and beat until the batter is smooth and thick, with no lumps. Scrape down the sides of the bowl from time to time. Once all lumps are gone, turn the speed back down and gradually pour in the remaining liquid, continuing to mix until the batter is smooth and combined. Add the peanut butter and mix through, making sure it is evenly mixed through the batter.

Spoon the batter into your paper cases, filling them two-thirds full. I usually use my ice-cream scoop for this. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until the sponge bounces back when lightly touched. Leave to cool slightly before removing from the tin and placing on a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

In a bowl, mix icing sugar and butter together on low speed until combined and there are no large lumps in the butter. Gradually pour in the milk whole mixing on low speed. When all the liquid is incorporated, turn the mixer up to high speed and beat the frosting until light and fluffy. Add the peanut butter and mix well until the frosting is even and smooth.

Spoon generous amount of the frosting onto each cupcake, then gently smooth over with a palette knife, making a swirl at the top if you wish. Top each cupcake with chopped salted peanuts.

Brownies with Chocolate-coated Raisins

Ok guys, let's talk brownies again! The adorable Yvette van Boven had the idea of adding chocolate-coated raisins to a classic brownie batter. A master stroke! The result are wonderfully sticky, chocolaty, sweet, sweet, sweet melt-in-your mouth brownies... Seriously, if you ask me, these here can even take on my beloved cream cheese brownies. Another secret weapon for your brownie repertoire.

Recipe:
(from the beautiful "Home Made" by Yvette van Boven)

150g butter and some for greasing the tin
200g dark chocolate
2 eggs
150g sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar or a tablespoon vanilla extract
200g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 pinch of salt
200g chocolate-coated raisins

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a 18x23cm baking tin with baking parchment or grease well with butter.

Melt butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat. When melted, take away from the heat and let cool a little. In a bowl, beat sugar, vanilla and eggs with an electric hand mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the chocolate-butter-mixture und and mix until well combined. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well. In the end, add the chocolate-coated raisins.

Pour your batter into the prepared tin and bake for about 25 minutes. If you insert a wooden skewer, there should not be any batter sticking to it. Let cool, then cut into squares.

A Simple Summer Nectarine Cake with Saffron

I took a short summer break from baking and spent the past few weekends at my mum's. Most of the time, I just relaxed in her beautiful garden. My brother now lives only three houses away and we spent the evenings barbecuing either at mum's or at my brother's. Wolfgang kept complaining about the lack of cake, though. Well, at certain temperatures, even I don't want to get near the oven anymore. But, now that those mild late summer days are about to come, it's time to make use of all the wonderful fruit this season brings along. This is a recipe from one of my new baking books and since I like to experiment with spices, I've adapted it slightly and added some saffron. The sweet and slightly sour nectarines go very well with a hint of saffron which gives the cake a fuller, warm flavor.

Recipe
(slightly adapted from "Love, Bake, Nourish" by Amber Rose)

175g butter, softened
150g plain flour or white spelt flour
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
170g dark honey
3 tablespoons milk
100g ground almonds
1 sachet of saffron
400g very ripe nectarines, stoned and cut into 2cm pieces
icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 160°C and grease and flour a 24cm diameter springform pan.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter with an electric hand mixer until pale and fluffy. Add 2-3 tablespoons flour and beat in the eggs, one at a time. Continue to beat until you have a light, fluffy mixture (if it looks as if it's curdling, add another tablespoon of flour). Fold in the rest of the flour, the baking powder, the saffron, honey, milk and ground almonds and mix well. Gently fold in the nectarine pieces.

Scrape the batter into the cake tin, level the top with the back of a spoon or a palette knife and bake in the oven for about 1 - 1 1/4 hour or until the center springs back to the touch. Make sure the top of your cake does not burn. Cover with aluminium foil if necessary.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for at least 10 minutes before carefully turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Apricot, Walnut and Lavender Cake

I can't get enough of apricot cakes this summer. So here comes yet another recipe and I think, it's my favorite so far. As usual with Ottolenghi recipes, flavors are in perfect harmony. And doesn't this cake look beautiful?! I photographed it yesterday in the evening light. Guess what?! These are my very first food photos shot with a professional camera. It wasn't my own, though. I've always been quite happy with the results that I got out of my good old digicam in the past few years. But now, I think its days are numbered.

Recipe
(from here)

185g unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature
2 tbsp walnut oil
220g caster sugar
120g ground almonds
4 medium eggs, beaten
120g ground walnuts
90g plain flour
½ tsp vanilla extract
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1½ tsp picked lavender flowers, fresh or dry
Salt
600g (gross) apricots, halved and stones removed

For the icing:
50g icing sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Put the butter, oil, sugar and almonds in the bowl of a mixer and beat on a medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs bit by bit, making sure each addition is well incorporated before beginning the next, then fold in the walnuts, flour, vanilla, lemon zest, a teaspoon of lavender flowers and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt.

Line the base and sides of a 23cm cake tin with greaseproof paper. Pour in the cake mix and use a palette knife to level it out. Arrange the apricot halves skin side down and slightly overlapping all over the top of the cake, taking them right to the edge.

Bake for 70-80 minutes – cover with foil if the top starts to brown too much; also, note that when you insert a skewer to test for doneness, it will come out a little sticky because of all the moisture in the apricots.

While the cake is baking, whisk together the icing sugar and lemon juice until you have a light, pourable icing (adjust the amount of sugar or juice slightly, to suit your tastes). As soon as the cake is cooked, remove from the oven and brush the icing all over the top (we left that out). Sprinkle over the remaining lavender flowers and set aside to cool.

Roasted Bulgur Salad

Here comes my new favorite summer salad. I accidently stumbled over this recipe video and I was intrigued with the idea of roasting the bulgur first before cooking it. It gets a more nutty smokey deep flavor which blends in wonderfully with the roasted tomatoes and onions and the parsley. I made a huge bowl of this salad just for myself last week and I liked it so much, I even ate if for breakfast over the next days. You can adjust this dish just the way you like. Leave out the chickpeas, add some feta... Try it, it's one of these easy recipes you can't go wrong with.

Recipe:

(from here, but if you're too lazy to watch the video, I've written it down for you)

3 pints of cherry tomatoes (i used 2)

5 teaspoons olive oil

salt

1 cup of bulgur

1 medium red onion

2 big bunches flat leaf parsley

1 can of chickpeas

lemon juice

Preheat the oven to about 180°C to 200°C. If you have a convection oven, you can roast the veggies and the bulgur at the same time on two baking trays. Otherwise, do it one after the other.

Spread the bulgur on a baking tray and roast for about 15 minutes. Then, cook in about two cups of water for about 15 minutes (or for as long as it says on the package).

Wash the cherry tomatoes, cut in half and spread on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and toss it around a bit. Sprinkle with salt. Roast in the oven for about 15 minutes. In the meantime, slice the onion and after 15 minutes, add the onion to the tomatoes and roast for another 15 minutes.

Wash and cut the parsley. In a large bowl, combine cooked bulgur, chickpeas, tomatoes and onions, parsley and drizzle with some more olive oil. Season with salt and lemon juice. This salad is delicious either warm or cold.

Summer Berry Cake with Oatmeal and Coconut

Now that the sun finally makes an appearance (for good, we all hope...), I've got the perfect summer cake for you! It's one of those simple recipes that is just stunningly delicious... Some cakes just are a thorough success. This will make you the star of any picnic or garden party for sure!

Recipe

(from the absolutely stunning "Summer" by Yvette van Boven)

250g flour

2.5 teaspoons baking powder

50g oatmeal

275g brown sugar

a pinch of salt

75g desiccated coconut

200g cold butter

2 eggs, beaten

500g summer fruit (e.g. raspberries and blueberries)

icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 30x15cm cake tin with parchment paper. I used my brownie tin (18x23cm).

In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, oatmeal, sugar, salt and coconut. Add the cold butter in pieces and rub with your fingers until you have a crumbly batter. Take away about 200g of the dough and put aside. Add the two eggs to the rest of the dough. You can do all of this by hand or with the kitchen aid. 

Press your dough into your prepare cake tin and smoothen with a spoon or plastic ladle. Spread the berries on the batter. Then, scatter the crumbles over the berries.

Bake your cake for about 35-40 minutes. The cake should be golden brown. Check with a wooden skewer, whether the dough is thoroughly baked. Insert into the middle of the cake, if the skewer comes out clean, it's fine.

Let the cake cool and dust with icing sugar before serving.

Apricot Tartlets with Pine Nuts

Apricots probably are my favorite summer fruit. Sadly, I have never been able to eat raw stone fruit without getting a stomach ache. I can only eat them if they're cooked. That means, once they're transformed into a cake, it's no problem anymore. That's why, in summer, apricot cakes usually make an appearance on my dessert plate more than only once. Here comes a wonderful tart recipe with a vanilla-flavored filling. The pine nuts could also be substituted by almonds, but I suggest you go with the pine nuts! I love their flavor and it's a really nice variation of the usual apricot-almond combo.

Recipe

(from the lovely Fräulein Klein's "Die wunderbare Welt von Fräulein Klein")

30g pine nuts (you can also use ground almonds)

100g cold butter

70g icing sugar

1 egg

200g flour

1/2 vanilla pod

100g white chocolate

250g crème fraiche

100g cream

1/2 vanilla pod

2 tablespoons sugar

400g apricots, washed, cut into slices

1 Tablespoon sugar

20g pine nuts

1 egg yolk

For the tart dough (if you're to lazy to do that, you can use store-bought): Roast the pine nuts (30g) and grind. Alternatively, you can use ground almonds. Put ground pine nuts, flour and seeds of the vanilla pod in a bowl and mix. Add egg, cold butter and icing sugar. You can either form a dough using your hands or - as I usually do - using a food processor. Form the dough into a ball, cover in cling film and refrigerate for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Prepare either a 24cm diameter tart tin or about 8 little tart tin. I used aluminium tins which you don't have to line with parchment paper or grease with butter or anything. Roll out your dough until about 3mm thick. Line your tins with the dough. Put the tins back in the refrigerator until you have the filling ready.

Melt the white chocolate over a hot water bath. Beat cream together with the seeds of the other half of the vanilla pod. Put crème fraiche into a bowl together with the sugar and mix until smooth. Add the melted chocolate and mix. Then, fold in the cream. Fill your tart shells.

Spread your apricot slices on the tartlets and brush with egg yolk around the edge. Scatter some sugar over the tartlets. Bake for 20 minutes. After ten minutes, scatter the pine nuts over the tartlets and bake for another 10 minutes.

Monster Cookies

After three weeks, I already feel pretty comfortable in my new office. And guess what?! One of my office mates is a peanut butter addict, too! So, after about two or three days, Bettina and I found ourselves discussing this topic with great enthusiasm. Sure thing, PB cookies were going to be the next treat to bring along to the office! People keep asking me why these here are called "monster cookies" and frankly, I have no idea. I just figured, monster cookies are typically American, the main ingredients being peanut butter, oatmeal and colored chocolate candies. I used one of my good old PB cookie recipes and slightly adapted it to create my own monster cookies.

Recipe

(adapted from The Weekend Baker by Agibail Johnson Dodge)

300g smooth peanut butter

160g brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

20g flour

60g old-fashioned rolled oats

150g Smarties (mini M&Ms would also work)

Line two baking trays with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

In a large bowl, combine peanut butter and sugar. Beat with an electric mixer on middle speed until well blended. Add the egg and the vanilla extract and mix until well blended. Pour in the flour and mix on low speed until well blended. Add the oats and the Smarties and fold in with a ladle.

Using a small ice-cream scoop or two tablespoons, scoop up rounded tablespoons full of the dough and, using your hands, shape into balls (about 4cm diameter - I made them a bit smaller). Arrange the cookies on the baking trays, leaving about 5cm space between them. Flatten them a little with your hand or a fork.

Bake one tray at a time until the cookies look dry on top, about 12 minutes. Take out of the oven and let cool on the tray for 10 minutes. Then, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 25 cookies. They can be stored in an airtight container in a cool place for about a week. You can also store them in the freezer for up to 3 months.

If you feel like it, you can decorate them with chocolate glaze after they have cooled down completely. You can use either store-bought glaze, or, over low heat, melt some chocolate (a bit less than 100g should do it) in a small saucepan and, with a teaspoon, drizzle over your cookies.

Muffins for the Bride

I can't believe Daniela is getting married next month! We've been talking about this for, what, more than a year now?! Yesterday was all about the bride. The motto of our hen party: the 50s. Dresscode: At least one piece of clothing had to be polka-dotted... Turns out: I don't have a single item with polka dots on it and I had absolutely no time for shopping in the past few weeks. But, as you can see, at least my muffins and mini-cakes totally conformed with the dresscode! Each of us girls had to bring homemade pastries so that our bride could sell them and make some money to cover our expenses. Actually, Daniela did a good job, we made quite a lot of cash! However, the bride struggled a bit with our "love test" (see pictures below), but, of course, we're letting her get married anyway ;-) Can't wait for the big day, Danny!

Pineapple, Coconut, Lime and Macadamia Muffins

(slightly adapted from Leila Lindholm's Backen mit Leila)

100g butter

200ml milk

2 eggs

120g sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla sugar or vanilla extract

240g flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 pinch of salt

1/2 fresh pineapple or canned pineapple, cut into pieces

100g desiccated coconut

grated zest of 3 limes

about 70g of macadamia nuts, roughly chopped

Makes about twelve muffins. I doubled this recipe and made 12 muffins and 12 mini-cakes.

Preheat the oven to 175°C. Line a muffin tray with paper cases.

Roast the desiccated coconut in a large pan. Pay attention here, it doesn't take long. Only roast until lightly brown.

Melt butter in a small pan. Then, mix with the milk and set aside. In a bowl, beat sugar, eggs and vanilla sugar. Mix with the butter-milk mixture. In another bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder. Mix with the wet ingredients. Add half of the desiccated coconut, the pineapple pieces, lime zest and half of the nuts. Mix until well combined. 

Fill the dough into the prepared paper cases. Sprinkle with the rest of the coconut and the nuts. Bake for about 25 minutes. Test whether they are done with a wooden skewer. If it comes out clean, take the muffins out of the oven. Let cool in the tray for a few minutes, then, transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.

A big big THANK YOU goes to Sandy for organizing a wonderful day!

Test: failed ;-)

Cream Cheese Brownies Reloaded

First day in my new office. Well, that's the thing if you switch teams within the firm. Of course, my new colleagues already knew about my passion for baking. So I thought about what to bring along today in order to live up to the expectations. Cream cheese brownies! After all, they are my secret weapon and the answer to everything. Still, I always like to try and come up with new variations... remember these or these?! This time, I added some nectarine slices and spices. Here it comes, another version of my beloved cream cheese brownies which just did the trick.

Recipe

(adapted from: Myriam Zumbühl - Kochen mit Myriam)

125g dark chocolate

125g butter

2 eggs

200g sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or one sachet of vanilla sugar

75g flour

1 pinch of salt

200g cream cheese (e.g. Philadelphia)

1 egg yolk

1 sachet vanilla sugar

a large pinch of ground cinnamon

a pinch of ground ginger

1-2 nectarines, cut into thin slices

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Line a brownie tin (18x23cm) with parchment paper.

In a bowl, mix cream cheese, egg yolk, vanilla sugar, cinnamon and ground ginger.

Over low heat, melt butter and chocolate in a little pan and let cool a bit. Beat sugar and the eggs until pale and fluffy. Add vanilla sugar. Add the molten chocolate and mix well. Sieve in flour and salt and mix. Once the batter is smooth, pour into your prepared brownie tin.

Scatter cream cheese batter onto that with a spoon. With a fork, spread the batter a little and create swirls so that you get a marble effect. Spread the nectarine slices onto the batter.

Put into the oven and bake for about 20 - 25 minutes until the top is crispy and shiny but the inside is still moist. Let cool and then, cut into slices.

I doubled the recipe above.