Lemon raspberry mini muffins

They look absolutely fantastic.

They taste amazingly fresh.

They sound like a brilliant and quick idea.

What are they? They are my favourite lemon & raspberry muffins!

Feel free to fall in love with them.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡♡

Makes 14

Recipe adapted from bbcgoodfood.com

lemon raspberry muffins @ frock & fork

You will need:

125 g self raising flour

75 g caster sugar

1 egg

70 ml vanilla yogurt

60 g melted butter

zest of 1/2 lemon

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

100 g raspberries, crushed slightly

icing sugar, for decoration

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180 ℃. Line mini muffin tray or silicon muffin cups with muffin cases. Sift the flour into a medium size bowl and add the sugar. Whisk egg and yogurt, add the melted butter, lemon zest and lemon juice, mix well throughly. Add the wet mixture into the dry one. Add the raspberries. Mix everything gently. Divide the mixture into the muffin cases. Bake for 20-30 minutes; until risen and golden. Remove from the oven, cool and eat them all!

lemon raspberry muffins @ frock & fork

lemon raspberry muffins @ frock & fork

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Isabelle’s divine lemon squares

I don’t know about you, but for me weekends often call for homemade baking. I just love when the end of the week has that extra sweet dimension  There is nothing better than a good cookie or a piece of cake to go with my  Saturday and Sunday espresso.

When I saw Isabelle’s lemon squares @ Eat My Cake Now, I knew straight away it would be a hit and something I would actually eat any time of the day. I have always liked lemon squares and always thought you need to make them Betty Crocker’s way, you know quite sugary – but not anymore! Isabelle’s amazing lemon square recipe offers an utterly superb twist. Not only she uses coconut but also condensed milk, which combined with lemon juice turns into some sort of soft cheese-type of creamy filling. Divine! Absolutely clever idea! I am sure you will adore this recipe as much as I did.

Please note, I didn’t tweak the recipe but you may want to modify it a bit to suit your needs and likes. I know some people don’t fancy too much lemon and this dessert is quite lemony. I personally love it. Ps: Those lemon squares taste like heaven after chilling in the fridge overnight.

Here is my version of Isabelle’s delish lemon squares:

Lemon Squares

Makes 14 (depending how big you want the squares to be)

lemon squares @ Frock & Fork

You will need:

90 g oatmeal
120 g  flour
12o g  coconut
70 g  brown sugar
180 ml melted butter
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
300 ml sweetened condensed milk
125 ml lemon juice

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 180 °C. Line 23 x 23 cm baking tray with baking paper.

In a large bowl, mix all dry ingredients: flour, oatmeal, coconut, brown sugar, salt and baking powder. Pour  in the melted butter and mix well. In another bowl, combine condensed milk and lemon juice. Take half of the coconut & oatmeal mixture and place it in the baking tray. Pour all milk & lemon juice mixture. Crumble the remaining coconut & oatmeal mixture on top, pressing lightly. Bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes. Cool at least 30 minutes before cutting into squares, if still soft, cool completely and after that chill in the fridge; once set, cut into squares.

lemon squares @ Frock & Fork

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Very Easy Apple Cake

What a wet day we had in London yesterday! Drama! To avoid any melancholic feelings that the rain was portending, I baked a yummy apple cake. The recipe comes from Tracy’s blog Pink Purl. When I saw the nice photo, short list of ingredients and easy to follow instructions, I decided to bake her Norwegian apple cake immediately. I have changed the proportions a bit and substituted half of the flour with finely grained almonds but you can view the original recipe here: The Comfort of Apples.

Apple Cake from Pink Purl

frock & fork

You will need:

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup grained almonds
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp baking powder
3 apples, peeled and sliced

Topping:

1 tablespoons sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

a small handful of sliced or chopped almonds

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 200 ℃. Line a round cake tin with baking paper and butter the sides. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Sieve and add the flour, grained almonds and baking powder.  Then add the egg and mixing well. Pour the mixture into the cake tin. Arrange the apple slices on top of the cake butter. Sprinkle everything with the topping mixture. Bake for 30 minutes. Cool the cake and serve with vanilla ice cream or icing sugar on top.

Enjoy this lovely autumn apple cake!

frock & fork

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“I ♡ Peru” Sugar Cookies

It was a feel-good Sunday even though London seemed miserably grey and unattractive during the entire day. Yet, spending a few hours with my two friends, Marce and Jens – well this just made my day! When I meet those two travel enthusiasts, I always have a great time, loads of laughing and great talks over long lasting meals. So, yesterday we giggled, chatted, ate 1,5 kg of roast beef, drank 2 bottles of Rioja, exchanged Peruvian and Polish chicken soup recipes, arranged ceviche cooking class for me, wondered about the Eastern Europe cultural diversity and the legends of Peruvian Inkas. Marce, who is a person behind a young and energetic travel agency Takeme2peru, is absolutely in love with the country of her origin. She has been planning a special trip to Peru for her friends (my peru group travel) already for a couple of months. Everything what she has done so far to make that trip happen, she has done with passion, vigor and fascination. To celebrate Marce’s recent birthday, which I unfortunately missed because my Eastern Europe voyages, and to celebrate the design of her bright new Takeme2peru logo, I decided to make some cookies. Since I know how Peru is close to Marce’s heart, I baked cookies in the colours of the Peruvian national flag: red and white. Luckily, I have come across Mandy Mortimer’s blog lately; btw you will love Mandy’s recipe collection and photographs. Mandy has featured a great sugar cookies with white chocolate recipe. Immediately, when I saw the pictures of her red heart cookies, I madly fall in love with them and knew they would be a hit and a great present for Marce. And I was right – Marce loved her “I ♡ Peru” cookies and for me it was such a  joy and fun to knead, roll, cut out and chocolate paint those little sugar babies!

Sugar Cookies with white chocolate

Makes 36 sweet and tender cookies

by Asia(Jo)

Please visit Mandy Mortimer’s blog for a full recipe and detailed instructions.

http://www.mandymortimer.com/green-clover-sugar-cookies/

by Asia(Jo)

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Granola madness

Today was a special day. After a couple of long years I rediscovered a fantastic song written by a friend of mine, Kasandra, who is a great artist and a newly born blogger. She posted her “Don’t wake up choking” song to her Wordfalls blog and I would listen to it throughout the whole day. It’s funny how much you appreciate something once you come across it again …. At the end of the day I shared the song with another friend of mine. Soon after we let ourselves totally enjoy the song’s bluesy feel …. perfect for today’s grey and wet weather.

Even though, I have madly felt in love with Kasandra’s music and its melancholy, at some point I felt an unusual joy. I decided to celebrate Kasandra’s talent, the song of the day and my feel-good mood. For this reason I made a small, luscious granola yogurt dessert.

This super easy meal can be eaten as breakfast, snack or dessert and is easily adjustable – add more or less yogurt, honey and cereals depending on your taste. You can’t go wrong with it!

Enjoy it because it’s healthy and delicious!

Granola yogurt

Serves 1

by Asia(Jo)

You will need:

4 tablespoons of Greek yogurt

2 tablespoons of honey

3 tablespoons of homemade granola or good quality musli (I used dorset cereals)

5-6 strawberries/raspberries or blueberries

a few nuts or pumpkin seeds, to garnish

Preparation:

Pour the yogurt into a glass or a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of honey, followed by the granola/cereals/musli. Add the remaining spoon of honey. Chop strawberries. Arrange the fruit on top of the yogurt/honey/cereals layers. Sprinkle everything with some nuts or seeds. Voila! How simple is that?

by Asia(Jo)

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Coffee kisses

Recently, I have discovered a very cool series of pocket cook books called All Colour Cookbooks published by Hamlyn. Each of them consists of 200 easy to make, mouthwatering recipes with beautiful photographs and clear instructions. The colour of book cover reefers to different food themes, for instance, red book is dedicated to baking, green book is all about salads and pasta dishes, purple book is devoted to low fat dishes, orange book introduces easy suppers while the brown one is full of veggie feasts. But there is many more giving you a wide choice of different cuisines or food interest. So far I bought two of All Colour Cookbooks: Super Salads and Cakes and Bakes.

Have a look at a sweet recipe from the red book Cakes and Bakes - Coffee Kisses.

Makes 10

by Asia(Jo)

You will need:

2 teaspoons instant coffee

1 teaspoon boiling water

75 g butter, at room temperature

50 g light muscovado sugar

125 g self-raising-flour

For the filling:

2 teaspoons instant coffee

2 teaspoons boiling water

50 g butter, at room temperature

100 g icing sugar, sifted

Preparation:

Dissolve the coffee in the boiling water. Beat the butter and the sugar together in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add the dissolved coffee and then gradually mix in the flour to make a smooth dough.

Knead the dough and shape it into a log and then chill for 15 minutes. Slice the the chilled log into 20 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, arrange on a greased baking sheet and flatten by pressing with a fork. Bake in the preheated oven, 180 ℃, for 8-10 minutes until browned. Leave the biscuits to cool for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the filling: dissolve the coffee in the boiling water. Beat the butter and icing sugar together then stir in the dissolved coffee until smooth and fluffy. Use the filling to sandwich the biscuits together in pairs. Eat within 2 days.

Have a coffee kiss with your morning coffee – good day everyone!

by Asia(Jo)

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Mango fool – delish & easy yogurt dessert

I just successfully tested another fruit fool!

The recipe for mango fool comes from a bright new food magazine Dinner Tonight, which I bought a couple of days ago. The issue is full of recipes for quick suppers, weekend meals, side dishes and lunches, divine and instant desserts. There is hardly any articles so if you are looking for some travel inspired food reviews, kitchen equipment assessments, seasonal fruit and vegetable overviews or celebrity chefs recipes, refer to Delicious Magazine or Good Food. I found the recipes from Dinner Tonight quite impressive, yummy looking, quick and easy to follow, yet still creative and exciting. I am sure  it will be a useful source of reference when you plan a dinner party menu, weekend food or a super express meal for the weekdays.

Re the mango fool recipe, I found it quite unique. I liked the freshness of mango, the delicate lime flavour and the foamy, creamy, almost cloudy texture. You ought to try this yummy dreamy heaven!

Mango Fool

Serves 2-4

by Asia(Jo)

You will need:

2 ripe large mangos, peeled and stoned

150 ml double cream

1 x 250 g pot plain yogurt

zest and juice of 1/2 lime

2 cardamom pods, split and seeds crushed (I didn’t  this ingredient – I mark it as optional)

2-3 tablespoons clear honey

Preparation:

Puree the mango flesh in a food processor until smooth.

Whisk the cream to soft peaks, then stir in the yogurt and whisk a little more until thickened. Fold in most of the lime zest and juice, the cardamom and honey.

Spoon alternate layers of the creamy mixture and the mango puree into the glasses and decorate with the remaining zest. Serve chilled.

by Asia(Jo)

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Cute delicious stunning mini raspberry cheesecakes

I think raspberries are really graceful and delicate! You must enjoy them before this wonderful seasonal fruit begins to  disappear from shop shelves.
Try this recipe and appreciate a tiny bit of naughtiness Mini cheese cakes are perfect as a snack, fancy dessert and gift for a best friend or lover!

Divine Individual Cheesecakes (makes 12)

by Asia(Jo)

You will need:
For the base:
100 g wholemeal biscuits (I use McVitie’s The Original Digestive)
55g ground almonds
50 g unsalted butter, melted

For the cream cheese filling:
400 g cream cheese (I use Philadelphia)
100 ml soured cream
110 g caster sugar
1 free-range egg, plus 1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp grated lime zest
150 g raspberries
Icing sugar to dust

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 160 C.
Line a 12-hole muffin tin (I use muffin silicon forms) with muffin paper cases. Crush the biscuits to fine crumbs, using a food processor or rolling pin. (I put biscuits in a sandwich bag and crush them with my hands or with a rolling pin).
Put the biscuits crumbs, ground almonds and melted butter into a bowl and stir thoroughly to combine the contents.
Press 1heaped tablespoon of the mixture into the base of each muffin case. Chill.
Beat the cream cheese, soured cream and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg first, then the egg yolk, vanilla and lime zest, beating well after each addition. Spoon the mixture over the bases, then sprinkle the raspberries on top (2-3 berries for each muffin form). Bake for 20 min or until the cheesecakes are puffed. Cool, then chill until ready to eat. Decorate with 1-3 raspberries and dust with icing sugar to serve.

Enjoy them!

* Source: Delicious. Magazine June Issue ‘09

by Asia(Jo)

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