Mowielicious

Orange, Passion Fruit & Poppyseed Muffcakes

Ever had a muffcake?

I remember B left a comment way back when on my Coconut & Cinnamon Celebration Muffins, saying 'seeing as they're half muffin, half cupcake, shouldn't they be called muffcakes?'. And I totally loved it, thought it was the cutest name. More recently, the hilarious and adorable Catty from thecattylife.com, made some muffcakes too, and her video had me rolling on the floor with laughter at her hesitation before she said the word 'muffcake' for the first time. 

I think it's totally adorable, so, dear readers, my question is: what's in a word? And what do you think of 'muffcakes'? Well, actually, before you decide, maybe you should try this recipe first.

After last week's nearly monochrome lamingtons, plus now that we're in the depth of winter proper, I decided I really needed some colour in my life and on this blog, so I got myself some gorgeous orange and red ranunculi and befriended yet another lovely flower lady in the process at this rate I'm hoping to get free flowers for life!. It's really the little, simple things in life that make me happy, like flowers, cake, sunshine or a really good book.

Speaking of which, I've just finished reading Dan Brown's latest 'The Lost Symbol' and I loved it. Obviously it was nothing too deep, just a very good page-turner, which is what Dan Brown is good at really. What are you reading, dear readers? Anything interesting or fun? What was the last great book you read? Please do share as I'm always on the lookout for great books.

I'd been craving orange and poppyseed muffins for some time now, but only had an orange and poppyseed cake recipe. I didn't see why it shouldn't just as easily work as muffins, with the addition of some passion fruit I had lying around, and thus these muffcakes were born.

 

Christmas Cookies Week: Spectacular Spekulatius

German Spekulatius (the Belgians call them Speculoos while the Dutch call them Speculaas) are my absolute favourite Christmas cookies. I can happily munch on them all year round. The ingredients strike the perfect balance between cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves for a taste, that to me, is pure Christmas.

You might already be familiar with my mad spekulatius obsession, like when I used them in my Belgian Speculoos Tiramisu Verrines, or my Pink Almond Spekulatius Burfi. It just goes to show how versatile they are and that they can be used in almost any dessert. I've had so many emails and requests for my family recipe, so here, finally, is my grandmother's own.

If you'd like more Christmas cookie ideas, see my Christmas Cookies page.

 

Click on image above to enlarge

Blackberry & Raspberry Macarons With Ginger & Lime Buttercream

Last week's FBC has left me feeling revived, refreshed and very inspired to try and make this blog the best it can possibly be, and probably the most important lesson: to inject more of myself into it. It was very energizing meeting others that share the same passion, love and insanity that is food blogging.  Over the next few weeks, there are going to be slight changes to this blog, all thanks to FBC, the people I met and all we talked about.

I've also been getting emails over the past few months asking for 'behind the scenes' pictures of (the madness that is) my working process  so I'm adding a picture to the end of this post that shows what a mess my floor looks like when I'm taking pictures with all the props I try and incorporate into each shoot. Email me or leave a comment to let me know if you'd like to see more detailed photos. Of my props. No, no, not MY props. Oh, you know what I mean.

Now, I'm almost ashamed to say it, but I've been baking since I was 8 years old (no, that's not what I'm ashamed of!) and I have never once made French macarons (macs). They are quite different from coconut macaroons in that one is spelt with one o and the other is spelt with two o's, and when I saw that Jamie & Deeba had started a whole new blog called MacTweets for people like myself who have never dared attempt to make these French beauties before, I knew that it was the ultimate baking challenge and I had to at least give it a try. Besides, how hard could it be? It's just a bunch of egg whites!

Oh, how wrong I was.

Before you even begin, can I suggest that you do what I didn't: research and read everything you can about making macs before you actually make them. By the time I got mine right, I'd read THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, and of course THIS.

Also, what I found *really* helped was watching the following videos on how to make macs, because I can't stress enough how important it is to see what the texture of your batter is supposed to look like before you pipe it. Everyone says it's supposed to flow like lava, but you wouldn't know exactly how fast or slow that flows unless you're standing next to a volcano or watching the Discovery channel 24-7. And for that matter, how would you know if it's the lava that's freshly erupted, or the lava that's cooling down? Anyway, just watch THIS, THIS and THIS (videos of batter by the way, not lava!). 

The last video is in French, but trust me, just watching that hottie will make you want to make macarons it doesn't matter if you don't speak the language. Mute it if you have to, but just watch - you'll learn so much about mixing, piping and handling the macs, I promise.

The important bits:

- Egg whites: You must age your egg whites to achieve a harder macaron shell that doesn't break easily. The usual ageing time is between 24-48 hours, and I feel like I aged ten years waiting for them to age. Alternatives to the ageing process (egg whites that is, neither of which I've tried by the way) are microwaving your egg whites for 10-15 seconds or adding roughly 10 grams of dried powdered egg white to the fresh egg whites.

- Macaron feet: Yes, feet. And no, you haven't landed on some internet fetish site (not that I know what those are - ahem). When you bake your macarons, they form what have come to be lovingly known as 'feet' around the bottom of each macaron shell. Whether you get feet or not depends on a combination of things - your almond flour and how much of it you use, how much you stir your macaronage, and how your oven bakes.

- Silicone: I can highly advise you to invest in good silicone implants baking sheets. It will prevent your macarons from sticking to the baking paper. If you do use baking paper, you might need to slightly dampen the underside of the paper, but only after the baked macarons have cooled. 

- Know your oven like you know your man: When is he warmest? When is he coldest? When does he give you what you want? Is he fiery? Temperamental? Impulsive? Does he bring out the best or the worst in you? I have a very hot, erm, oven, and even though I got feet every time, my macs always turned too brown. So I had to experiment by lowering temperatures and placing the baking tray on different shelves in the oven. In the end, what worked for me was preheating the oven to 160˚C, then lowering the temperature to 140˚C, placing the tray on the top shelf for 10 minutes, then turning the tray around and placing it on the middle shelf for 10 minutes. And that's just my oven... can you imagine what I do with my man?!

Recipe, macaron tips & tricks, and a picture of my messy floor when I'm taking photos after the jump!

Belgian Speculoos Tiramisu Verrines

This post is long overdue! I'd been meaning to make these ever since I got back from my trip to Belgium, but the wedding *just* may have got in the way.

As I mentioned in a few older posts, I'd heard so much about how creative the Belgians are with their speculoos biscuits. The two main things they use them in are tiramisu (instead of normal sponge fingers) and cheesecake (for the base). So, I tried a few of each on the trip, and to me they tasted absolutely divine - best tiramisu ever. But I was told by Heather, the friend I was visiting, that it all actually wasn't up to scratch in the restaurants we ate them at, and that she had the perfect recipe. And I must confess, it is positively sinful.

Now I know not everyone has access to speculoos biscuits (I'll be putting up a secret family recipe closer to Christmas!), but I find almond thins work quite well as a substitute. Also, not being one to stick to recipes, I've changed Heather's recipe around slightly, not only the ingredients but the presentation. This tiramisu is actually meant to be served in a large rectangular pyrex dish, with layers of whole biscuits, the way tiramisu usually is served. But due to my slight obsession with everything verrines at the moment, I thought they might look nice in glasses.

Continue for recipe and more pictures: