Banana Nut Muffins with a Cinnamon Streusel Topping!

Have you ever thrown a house party for no particular reason? Well, if you have you’ll know that having 50 people ’round Isn’t an easy undertaking. Between the mountain of food the needs to be cooked, the house that needs to be tidied and the entertainment to be organised it’s a hell of a lot of work.

So these were one of the only foods that I managed to photograph (they were out of the oven first) while the light was good. I know I’ve done a lot of muffins and cupcakes, but they really are my favourite things! And these ones are especially good.

The excessive amount of brown sugar makes these muffins almost caramelly! There’s barely any granulated in this recipe at all. And brown sugar is a bit healthier, right?

Weirdly enough I don’t find many people who get as excited over a muffin as I do. There’s just something about the warm spongey cake studded with chocolate chips (always necessary) and hidden under the disguise of ‘a fairly healthy breakfast option’  that’s just so comforting! So these muffins are for anyone who joins me in the muffin fan club, they’ve even got a brown sugar cinnamon streusel on top! 🙂

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/02/18/master-muffin-mix/ This is the link to the original recipe. All credit goes to Sally.

These high rise muffins have to most glorious crispy crust on top. It’s the initial high baking temperature that makes them rise so high and form that amazing crust. The brown sugar in the streusel also gave them a caramel sheen.  I think that these muffin tops would be worthy of Lorelai any day. If she were around I’d be making a muffin bottom pie for sure! (Sorry about that ‘Gilmore Girls’ reference there!)

These muffins were gobbled up in no time. They were devoured even before the Avoca Carrot Cake, which is a sure fire favourite around here. It must have been that they were freshly baked and still steaming with the melted chocolate chips still warm in their centres and the aroma of cinnamon just drifting…… Sorry, I got a bit carried away there! All I meant to say was that these muffins are divine. And an amazing Autumnal treat. Perfect for the changing of the season.

Well, happy baking guys! Hope you’ve had a good first month back to school.

xxxxx

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The Missing Link: The Classic Victoria Sponge.

This has been long due. I didn’t feel that I had the right to call myself a baker (or bakress, if you’re a feminist) until I’d proved to you all that yes, I can bake a victoria sponge, and I can get it to rise!

 

I made this recently for a host of guests that we had staying over. It seemed the perfect choice, who doesn’t like a victoria sponge? I thought that everybody did, that was one rule that I thought there was no exception to. Until……. I had an 8 year old boy come up to me and tell me that he didn’t like jam, he didn’t like jam! I’m still flabbergasted, sugary berryey goodness! What’s not to like? So I commissioned a special slice without cream for him. The problem was finding it once the second layer was on top!

However, all in all, this cake went down well, scrap that, it went down amazingly! Screw modesty! So why was I polite and took the smallest slice? When I went back for seconds it was all gone. 😦

This is possibly one of the simplest recipes out there, and it’s foolproof, even if you only have one baking dish of the right size. ‘Looks down embarassedly’. Ok, I admit to it, I did have to bake the cake twice. I only have one 9 inch baking dish so I cut the recipe in half and did it again. Silly, but what could I do? (I really am in a rhetorical question mood tonight.)

 The strawberries in the middle of the cake give it a summery zing that you just don’t get from the jam. And the buttons on the top are a kind of family tradition, my Mom’s been putting them on top of my birthday cakes since I was about 5.

And for the leftovers.

I’m going to write the recipe up because I’m not 100% sure where it came from, I’ve known it forever you see!

 

Classic Victoria sponge Recipe:

For an incredibly moist, spongey and summery treat.

Serves 10. (8 if you want leftovers)

Ingredients:

For the cake:

300g caster sugar

300g butter

6 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

300g self-raising flour

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons of milk

For the filling:

250g strawberries

A tub of single cream

Berry jam

And chocolate buttons (optional but advised)

 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/ 170F/ Gas mark 5.
2. Grease 2 9 inch silicone cake tins.
3. cream together the butter and sugar.
4. Add in the eggs and vanilla essence and mix until well combined.
5. Mix in the flour and baking powder, do not overmix. This will knock any air out of you cake mix and will make it less light and airy.
6. Then stir in the milk to thin out. Your batter should be smooth and creamy.
7. Pour into your prepared cake tins and level with a spatula. (I got a new rubber one recently)
8. Pop into the oven bake for about 20 – 25 mins or until the cake springs back when you poke it and a knife comes out with only a few small crumbs attached.
9. Cool on a wire rack until your cakes reach room temperature.
10. Then spread with jam, cover with sliced strawberries and dollop your cream on before dropping your second layer of cake on top and covering with you (optional) chocolate buttons!