Jam-Filled Muffins

The parking lot for the hiking trail in the village of Sirishtnik is a small square at the end of the village, near some abandoned houses. The people and the houses are now gone, but the fruit trees are still giving fruit and mid-November there were some scattered quinces on the grass under the quince tree at the end of the parking lot. Last year, when we hiked there more or less at the same time of year, we gathered a handful of fruits and made quince jam, which came out very aromatic and delicious.

This year the quince harvest was even bigger and we made almost a dozen and a half jars of jam, which should last us years :) Here is the method and recipe we applied this time:

The total amount of quinces we gathered was 3.5 kg. We washed them and put them in hot water to boil until soft, so that they would be easier to cut and clean. Then we took them out of the water (which we preserved), let them cool and cleaned them. After all cores were removed, the harvest yielded about 2.5 kg quince meat. To that we added about 1 l of the water, in which the fruit was cooked and blended them with a hand blender. Then we added 1.8 kg sugar to the mash and let it stay in a cool place for a couple of hours.

Once the sugar had completely melted and soaked in the quince mash, we added the juice of half a lime and brought the jam to cook at medium heat for an hour. once the jam was cooked, we poured the hot jam into the clean jars and turned them upside down to cool, no boiling of the jars is required.

I used the jam to make a batch of jam-filled muffins. This is probably my fifth batch of muffins with jam core lately. I've been experimenting with the batter and the filling method and though I wouldn't claim that I've nailed it, I am pretty happy with my latest results:

Ingredients for the muffins:

• 2 eggs
• 80 g sugar
• 200 g yogurt 
• 70 g sunflower oil
• 200 g flour 
• 5 g baking powder + a pinch of baking soda
• 5 g spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves) + a pinch of salt 

Preparation:

Beat the eggs with the sugar, add the oil and yogurt and mix. Stir in the flour, mixed with the baking powder and the spices. Distribute the batter in 12 muffin forms. Place a teaspoon of jam in the center of each muffin form, stirring it lightly to push the jam inside the batter. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 25 min, until a toothpick test confirms readiness.

Enjoy with your fresh coffee or tea.

My Favourite Muffins

In the days before Christmas we got a package we had ordered on AliExpress, containing 500 muffin liners. And that's how it all started :)))

I began experimenting with a simple vanilla muffin recipe, trying to perfect it to make exactly 12 puffy and delicious muffins. 

After several iterations, I found this to be the final (so far) perfect proportion of ingredients:

• 180 g flour
• 200 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 100 g yogurt
• 80 g milk
• 40 g sunflower oil
•  pinch of salt
• 5 g baking powder + 2 g baking soda
  

To the above I might add vanilla, chocolate drops, cocoa, lemon zest, grated chocolate, raisins, nuts, etc.

Preparation: Mix and stir the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir. Distribute in 12 muffin forms and bake in a preheated oven at 200C for approx. 20 min, until a toothpick test shows the muffins are done.

 I've made these entirely chocolate flavoured, adding 25 g cocoa to the mixture

I tried them with lemon zest, lemon flavour and lemon icing

I tried them marbled

and even with pears in a cake form. And they tasted perfect with coffee every time!

No Sooner Said Than Done

or on spontaneous knitting.

Actually most of my knitting is spontaneous (what an interesting pattern, I'm going to knit it, but in a different color and yarn) versus planned (say, it's winter, it's cold, I need a cardigan, I'll knit myself a cardigan). However some of my knitting is more spontaneous that other. Some projects make it to my Ravelry queue and stay there and mature and when (if) I pick them up, I've had time to think my initial  urge over, to plan the color and the style to go with my existing wardrobe. But there are others, that jump right from the magazine to the needles with a short detour to the yarn shop, without any clear idea how the thing will fit with my other clothing items and if I need it at all.

Such is the case with this little cardigan from the latest Vogue. I started the second sleeve last night and I'm still not sure if I like it or need it, but I'm having fun, and in the end - that's what matters :))

And a bunch of muffins I made last night. I'm still in search for the perfect muffin recipe. This one is close:

• 1 3/4 cups of flour
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup of milk
• 2 eggs
• 80 g of butter
• 1 tbsp of baking powder
• 1/2 cup of raisins
• 2 vanillas
• 3 tbsp of cocoa powder

Cappuccino Muffins

While browsing through Pepa Stoeva's cooking blog, I was inspired to make some muffins. Pep-40's blog features a variety of muffin recipes and as an avid chocolate and coffee lover my first natural choice were her cappuccino muffins. However, as I usually do, I changed the proportions for my muffins, reducing the oil and increasing the sugar - I do like my sweets less oily and very sweet! Other than that I followed her preparation instructions and both the mixture and the baking came out very successful.

Here's my interpretation of the recipe:

• 240 g flour
• 180 g sugar
• 1 pocket of instant cappuccino (12 g)
• 1 tea spoon of instant coffee
• 2 tea spoons of cocoa powder
• 1 pouch of baking powder (10 g)
• 2 eggs
• 200 g milk
• 80 g vegetable oil
• 50g white raisins

Preparation:

• Mix the flour, the baking powder, the instant coffee and the cocoa powder in a bowl. 
• Stir the eggs with the sugar, add the oil. 
• Dissolve the instant cappuccino in the milk and add the cappuccino milk to the egg, sugar and oil mixture. 
• Add the dry flour mixture to the liquids and stir. Add the raisins and stir some more.
• Preheat the oven at 180C.
• Distribute the paste into the muffin forms and bake for 25 min at 180C.
• Serve with coffee and enjoy.

This recipe gives 18 average size muffins (70 mm baking molds). My form is small, only 12 molds, so I used additional 5 silicon molds, which are a bit bigger. Next time I plan to adjust the recipe for just 12 cups, so we would eat them up faster and try some other variety - the possibilities seem countless.