Caramel Apple Muffins

While blog hopping about the other day I come across a recipe for Caramel Apple muffins. The pic was gorgeous and scrummy looking, however, it was written in Dutch! Thankfully, so many people asked for it to be translated, the lovely lady also popped the recipe onto her English blog at In My Life .

Now, I didn't have the sort of special caramel she was using, in fact all I had on hand (and no I wasn't driving into town for one thing) was some crappy old Cottees Caramel flavoured ice cream topping, at the back of the pantry. It really is terrible that stuff, but I thought this might be a good way to use it. Quite frankly, next time I will either make the caramel, or even go as far as a good old can of Nestle Caramel Top'n'Fill (I bet that'd be yummy in it), however, these muffins come up pretty darn good, except for that hint of fake caramel through it.

So taking the lovely Paola's recipe, I made a little change , and made notes for other changes for next time, but here is what I've done already.

Caramel Apple Muffins

250g Plain flour (next time I'll use wholemeal to be extra good)
150g sugar ( I used half brown sugar half caster sugar, and it was yummo!)
2 tspn cinnamon
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tspn bi-carb soda
3 apples, peeled and cut up into small chunks, or you could grate if you prefer less chunky muffins.
2 eggs (free range of course)
Vanilla
150ml milk
65ml oil (I am going to attempt to sub this for apple puree next tiem as well to cut the cals a little)
Caramel

And its your typical basic muffin making method. Put all your dry ingredients in a bowl, add apple and toss it around. In a jug combine all wet ingredients. Pour B into A, mix until just combined.

Now the caramel. Fill your muffin trays only half way, then drizzle about a teaspoon or so of caramel and then top with the rest of the muffin mixture.

Then bake in a moderate oven (180 celicus I guess) for about 30 minutes, give or take the usual differences our ovens all have.

Drizzle more caramel on top after they come out the oven, if you like, then scoff hot with butter!


Also, keep out of reach of children, especially 3 year old boys, or there won't be any left for lunch boxes this week. Worse than bloody seagulls that kid!

Food Porn Meme

Yikes! My blog is only a few months old and already my tag cherry has been popped!! And I must say, its been tagged with true style as well. The veracious Purple Goddess has tagged me for the Food Porn Meme, started by Rosie of Smokey Mountain Breakdown. So hopefully I get this right, as I haven't had a lot of experince is this blogging world, but food porn sounds almost as exciting as shoe porn!

1. What food do you consider the best “date” food? In other words, what meal or food item do you think is sexiest to eat in the company of someone you would like to look sexy around?

Date food? Ummm, ok.... let me think about this.... Grumbles and I really haven't been on a date in a very, very long time (like 13 years) but if I wanted to be all sexy around him I think it would be something you eat with your fingers, lots of licking and sucking and all that, so maybe ... KFC! Oh, or pizza from this little pizza shop that doesn't exist anymore, where the oil used to dribble everywhere and you were forever licking all that yummy stuff off yourself.

However, if it was 'sex' food.... I think I can quite happily drizzle, mmmmm, yes.... warm chocolate fudge and.... (is it getting hot in here?)

2. What well-known person would you like to share a meal with—with or without clothing. (saying whether or not clothes are involved is optional).

That guy off Supernatural, the one who plays Dean (I have no idea what his name is), him. He can start in his grubby, ass hugging jeans and his dark chest gripping tee and his worn leather jacket, with that cute, half smart ass, half "I want you" grin. And as each course of drippy, saucy, finger licking good food is dished up, he can strip off an item. Dessert can be him.... and warm chocolate fudge sauce.... (really, is it warm, or is it just me?)

3. What does your perfect breakfast-in-bed look like? (Food AND the details, please. Candles? Music? Flowers? Hot tub? Dancing girls?

Like a few other meme writers have said, I don't think food and bed works for me. There's crumbs, and coffee dribbling down your chin, and its just uncomfortable. However, if breaky was served in a hot tub, then your talking. There would be bubbly, and fruit, and croissants, a little cheese, candles, scented bath oils, and massaging.... (seriously, its like 35 degress here!)

4. What do you consider the best application of whipped cream to be?

What else, but to go with the warm chocolate fudge sauce.

5. Oh-God-No, Biff, the yacht is sinking! You are sent to the galley to retrieve the food. What luxury food items do you snatch first? The champagne? The caviar? Smoked Salmon? Truffles? Chocolate? Or something else?

I mentioned this one to Grumbles, and he said "the esky, it'll float so you can hang on to it and it has beer". But I respond with, "do luxury yachts have eskies?" Apparently a fridge will also float, so not only do we have beer (Carlton Dry Fusion please), but there is also the bubbly, the cheese, the dark chocolate (even though i wouldn't normally keep it in the fridge, I would make exceptions for floating in the ocean), and also the eye fillet steaks so we can have a cook up while stranded on a tropical island somewhere... Just us, and island and chocolate fudge sauce....

Ummm, ok, so I'm meant to tag 5 other people to join in on the fun. This might be hard, but I'll see how I go. I don't tend to comment much, I'm usually a lurker, so hopefully these people don't find it odd me tagging them.

Culinary Concoctions by Peabody - I love how she can bake so often, and always do something different and delicious looking and then she can photograph it so I don't even need to lick the screen to see how it tastes.

Diary of a Madcow - Ok, so Madcow writes about her hilarious family life, but I know MC is also a food snob. She assures me foie gras is delectable but I don't believe her, but then I don't eat offal. Still I reckon she will do a pisser of a response to this meme.

Smitten Kitchen - I fell in love with her Blondies on first sight a couple of weeks ago and its been a one sided love affair ever since.

Ummm, can that do for now. If anyone else wants to join in on the fun, let me know. :)

Yum yum! Hot Cross Buns!!

Today is Good Friday, a part of our Easter Holiday. So I admit, I'm not religious, wasn't brought up with religion and sorry if I offend, but it doesn't particularly interest me. So I'm not overly sure of the whole story, but it is about Jesus being crucified and resurrected.

Hot Cross Buns at Easter, to me, is like Christmas Pudding at Christmas time. Something you wait all year for, to scoff until you feel sick and then never want to touch again, until next year.

Last weekend, I decided to have a go at making my own for the first time ever. It was fun. I felt like I did something special and productive, but sadly the recipe wasn't quite perfect, it was missing a little flavour, even if the house did smell like heaven at the time. On top of that, silly me has now lost the recipe, so I can't post it, with what I think would be good modifications. I will hunt it down and try it again though.

Anyways, after we all scoffed 2 each, hot, dripping with butter (calories, they are just a fictional creature made up to scare us I'm sure) we still had a few left. So what else do you do with left over Hot Cross Buns that were going stale by the hour. You make Bread and Butter Pudding!

I'm a bit of a 'a bit of this, and a bit of that' when it comes to my B&B pud, but here's my rough version.

Hot Cross Bun Pudding Possumchops Style

3 to 4 x hot cross buns
1 x 300ml carton of cream (thickened or puring, even light is fine)
3 x eggs (free range would be perfect)
A splash of milk (maybe 1/4 cup)
A table spoon or 2 of golden syrup
2 or so tablespoons of raw sugar
A teaspoon or 2 of ground cinnamon
A dash of vanilla
And a good sprinkle of ground nutmeg, although I wouldn't be upset if you used freshly grated .

Ok, so there's no butter, but if you like you could butter your buns.

Anyways, I cut off the crust and cut the buns onto cubes, maybe 1/2 inch square or so, it doesn't have to be perfect. Put those into a medium sized baking dish ( I used a ceramic dish about 17x23cms) that has been lightly greased. You can make it deeper if you like, there are no hard and fast rules here.

In a bowl whisk all the other ingredients except the nutmeg until very well combined. Pour over the buns and do the hokey pokey (I just heard that song on Playschool in the background) so all the bread is nice and soppy. Sprinkle the top with a hearty dose of nutmeg and bake in an oven at around 170deg celcius for about 30 - 45 minutes (You want it to be set in the middle and golden on top).

Now to just increase the ass-widening ability of this dessert I made a nasty, cheats ice cream of 300mls of thickened cream (don't use light this time, you want it to whip up) with half a can of condensed milk. Beat these together with beaters until light and fluffy and then freeze for a few hours. Make sure you don't share the beaters, bowl or spatula with the kids, its too damned tasty to give away to people who don't appreciate sweet creamy treasures.

Serve your pud warm with a nice scoop ice cream. It actually reminded me of Chrissy Pud, with the fruits and the spices of the buns. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and had to work my butt off at the gym this week so as not to gain any weight (shock horror I actually lost a kilo! Woohoo!).

Again, no piccy sorry. Grumbles thinks I'm weird taking photos of food. He doesn't get this blogging thing at all.

The Possumchops Patch

Sunday afternoon also saw activity in the garden. Our second plot was finally christened with the planting of seedlings. A couple of punnets of mignonette lettuce (seen as my seeds didn't seem to happen), some Ox Heart tomatoes and a punnet of snow peas.

The first plot is trudging along slowly, but the poor thing needs a rest. Our first cucumber has been devoured (crunchy and juicy!), we've lost a baby to the grubs, and the latest one resembles a water balloon, not very big and bottom heavy. My poor cucumber plant is taking a solid hit from some tiny little mites, which I think might be aphids. I have a nice little flock of lady beetles attending to this problem, however, I think the mite is winning. I go out grub squashing every day and that has definitely made a massive difference on how much is being eaten before my eyes, but these little mites are just awful. I don't want to spray, as I don't want to scare off the lady beetles, but I'm not sure what else I can do.



We also lost our first zucchini, I suspect it wasn't pollinated as there were no boys flowers open at the time. This week we have a new baby zuch, and lots of boys, and plenty of bees, so fingers crossed this one will grow big and strong.


All my garlic has sprouted,

I now have 2 rows of beans, and my beetroot, or what germinated is struggling along. We also have about a dozen baby pumpkins on the go. We added dolomite lime and a little 5 in 1 to the soil after all that rain and next thing we knew, we had girls galore.

And Gramps left grasping a fist full of radish's and parsley, happy as Larry.

Possumchops Bakehouse

So my weekend was full of baking. The house smelt delicious for most of sunday, and I just happened to have on hand some gorgeous Passionfruit and White Chocolate Muffins on hand when Gramps popped around for a visit. Yum, yum, yummy! The only reason I made these was because I had most of a can of passionfruit left over after Chicken requested passionfruit yogurt to be made this weekend (divine BTW!). Glad I did, but darn my poor hips will be screaming at me for weeks now!

I also churned out another Pumpkin Loaf, made a very dodgy attempt at home made LCMs (seemed like a waste of perfectly fine rice bubbles and marshmallows to me), and then had a play with a box of bread and pizza dough flour I discovered a couple of weeks ago.

Specifically, I wanted to make a focaccia for lunch, however, I got distracted and it ended up being a side to a Chicken Cacciatore that we had for dinner on Sunday night. It come out ok. Think the base needed a little olive oil added to the mix, which I will try next time. But basically I just followed the bread making instructions on the box and divided the dough in half. One half I turned into a few little buns, which we scoffed hot out of the oven slathered in butter and vegemite, and the second half we got this:
I topped it with a handful of herbs from the garden, including parsley, oregano, rosemary and garlic, that I bashed in my mortar and pestle with Olive oil (can't use my Jamie Oliver flavour shaker as it has large cracks in it and one of my devil children has gone and lost the ball in it so I can't even get it replaced!) . I poured that across the bread and massaged it in a bit and added some chopped cherry toms, a little salami and crumbled some vintage cheese across it. It was left to proof and then baked on my pizza stone, which always gives the bases such a light and crunchy texture, just the way I love it.

I actually really enjoy making bread. I find the whole kneeding process relaxing, and it just lets you zone out and sort of get closer with your food. Or does that make me sound odd?

Anyways, I'm brewing the idea of making hot cross buns this weekend, and I'm also thinking about dusting off the old pasta maker and making some pasta as well, especially now that I also discovered pasta making flour. That has to work so much better than good old White Wings plain white flour doesn't it?

What lies beneath?

So we were poking around out in the front gardens the other day, which are just a couple of small flower beds which feature mainly gardenias and gerberas and a few petunias to fill the gaps, when we come across these humongous caterpillars! These 'little' guys were devouring one of my gardenias, the poor thing.
And there were heaps of them!
Yuck, yuck yuck! I'm squirming just at the photos.

I admit, I'm a bit of a princess, I can't touch things like that, and much less can't kill things. So Grumbles had to do all the hard work while I squealed and pointed them out.

Good news is, I've had something else pop up. I believe it is a bromeliade (however you spell that) that I thought I had successfully murdered and it'd gone to spend forever in the big flower garden in the sky. Obviously we just dumped the dirt from the pot in the garden bed. Nice to see something pretty survive and grow on its own accord. One point to Mother Nature. :)