Blueberry and Vanilla Muffins

Blueberry and Vanilla Muffins

Hopefully you have recovered 
from the excesses of 
Pancake or Shrove Tuesday.

We had a marathon pancake 
eating tea which was great
fun.

We all enjoyed covering the pancakes with 
various toppings and 
feeling somewhat sick
afterwards.

Childhood memories in the making.

Miss Bee managed a gut-busting
eight pancakes,
Mr. Bee in respectable five,
and me only four.

Little bee was not interested as 
they had made pancakes at
school that afternoon and was,
in his words,
"not a fan".

I had bought some lovely fresh 
raspberries and blueberries
as a choice of topping 
but seemed to
have ended up with 
quite a few left over.

I suspect the chocolate spread 
was a more popular choice.

So, not wanting to see the fruit 
go to waste I thought a nice, 
quick batch of muffins
was called for.

These are the easiest thing to make and are
very popular with everyone.

You will need :

250g plain flour

2 tsps baking powder

150g caster sugar

175ml milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

150ml sunflower oil

100g blueberries

2 tbsps of oats and brown sugar mixed together

1. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with 

some pretty paper cases,

and pre heat the oven to 180c / 160 c fan/ gas 4.

2. Put all of the ingredients 

except the blueberries and

the oats and sugar mix 

into a bowl or mixer.

Combine until all the ingredients 

have come together.

3. Fold in the blueberries.

The recipe calls for 100g of blueberries 

but I suspect I had a few 

more than that.

A few grams here or there will 

not spoil the mix

and it will not see any of your 

fruit going to waste.

4. divide up the mixture equally 

into the muffin cases.

I find an ice cream scoop 

very helpful for this.

Sprinkle with the oat and brown sugar topping mix

and place into the preheated oven 

for approx  30 minutes,

or until the tops are a lovely 

golden brown

and the blueberries will have 

probably burst and

those beautiful purple juices 

are running down the

sides of the cases.

Leave on a rack to cool.

These are delicious warm or cold

but fresh out of the oven,

they are just too good to resist.

They are such beautiful little treats 

of blue jewelled 

fruitiness.

I'm sure my hungry lot will have t

hese demolished

as soon as they 

arrive home from school.

Have a lovely weekend and until

next time,

enjoy your day.

B 

x

Passion Fruit Pavlova

Better Late Than Never....

It had been my intention to write this
post last weekend,
but obviously that did not happen.

I make a million and one plans
in my head but
it's pot luck which ones actually
come to fruition.

Never the less,
I really wanted to share this recipe with you.
It is a lovely treat and you could
make it anytime of the year,
but with Valentine's Day approaching
I did think this would be the perfect
treat.

Mr. B is a sucker for anything sweet,

and meringue is a particular favourite

of his.

With this in mind,

a trip to the supermarket at the weekend

gave me the inspiration for this recipe.

There were special Valentine's

promotions of the usual chocolates

and pink champagne.

But, nestled in amongst these slightly

unimaginative treats were some

passion fruit.

I stood and pondered for a while 

"what I could make with them?",

and on a bit of a whim,

six of them dropped into my basket.

Not an official impulse buy,

but not on the shopping list either.

I do try not to buy things

'not on the list'

but fail miserably every time.

Life is too short to not buy something

essential every now and again, right?

I remembered watching a You Tube video

from Edd Kimber a while back

where he was whipping up a 

passion fruit curd.

This seemed like to perfect opportunity 

to give it a go.

This is a two stage recipe.

The first being the Passion fruit curd,

and the second stage for a

amazing pavlova.

A very definite Busy Bee family

favourite.

you will need :

6-7 passion fruit - enough to give you 80mls of juice

5 eggs yolks (4 of the whites will do for the meringue later on)

100g unsalted butter

150g caster sugar

1. Juice the passion fruit through a sieve

into a heatproof bowl.

Do this by squeezing the halves into 

the sieve and rub the

pulp with the back of a spoon against

the sieve to 

release the juice into the bowl

underneath.

2. Add the sugar and egg yolks to the juice

and pop the bowl over a pan of

simmering water.

Whisk continuously until the

liquid starts to thicken.

The colour will change to a more opaque

pale orange and

the mixture should coat the back of a spoon.

 Be sure to stand over the

 pan during this process and 

inhale.

Th smell is utterly divine.

3. Remove from the heat and add the butter.

Stir gently until the butter 

has completely melted.

Pour into a sterilised jar and keep in

the fridge until ready to use.

The next stage is to construct the meringue

pavlova case.

I understand meringues

 can be quite a daunting challenge

for some people,

but it really is not that hard to do.

you will need :

4 egg whites

225g caster sugar
1.5 tsps white vinegar
1.5 tsps cornflous
1.5 tsps vanilla extract

for the filling :
300ml double cream

Passion fruit curd
Passion fruit to decorate (optional)

1. Lay a sheet of baking parchment
on a baking tray.

I put four dabs of the meringue

mix onto the corners of the 

baking tray to help the

lining stick.

Preheat oven to 160C/ 140c fan/gas mark 3.

 Whisk the egg whites in a clean, 

dry bowl until they are stiff. 

Whisk in the sugar a spoonful at a time. 

2. Blend the vinegar with the cornflour

and whisk it 

with the last spoon of sugar

into the egg whites.
Add the vanilla extract here too.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and glossy.
They should hold their shape like above.

3. Spread the meringue out to roughly 

an 8” circle on the baking tray 

and build up the sides so that they 

are higher than the centre. 

4. Put the baking tray in the centre of the oven, 

turn the heat down to 150c/130fan 

or gas mark 2 and bake the meringue for 1 hour.

After the hour gently tap the top
of the meringue.
There should be a hollow sound which
indicates it's done.

Turn the oven off but leave 

the pavlova in the oven to become quite cold 

(otherwise it will split open as it cools).

I tend to leave it in the oven overnight

and it will be beautifully cold

and 'set' in the morning.

Remove the pavlova from the 

baking tray and place on a suitable serving dish. 

I have a lovely heart shaped dish but 

unfortunately my pavlova came out just

a touch too big to fit,

so I used this pretty glass plate instead.

5.Place the cream  in a basin and beat until blended 

and the mixture is thick and creamy.

Now at this point you can either blend in the

passion fruit curd,

(about half of the mixture you made

should do it but of course if

you prefer a stronger flavour,

simply add a little more,)

until it is a lovely warm 

pale orange colour.

Or you can put the plain cream mixture

into the pavlova and then place

three or four generous dollops of the curd

into the cream and swirl around until you

are happy with the appearance.

Place in the fridge and
leave to stand for at least 1 hour
before serving. 

Look at that beautiful, oozy cream.

You could also scatter some passion fruit

seeds over the top for decoration at

this point too,

but remember you would need to buy

an extra passion fruit to do this.

Don’t leave overnight – 

this dessert is best made on the day you want to serve it,

but I'm sure whoever you make this for

will not want to leave it.

Until next time,

enjoy your day

Bernice

x