Recipe Swap: Sticky Maple Muffins & Maple Syrup Cake

Well it is that time again...Vintage Recipe Swap!  This month marks the first birthday of this excellent adventure in cooking, and although this is only my third month of participating, I feel part of something exciting and am delighted to have met so many lovely and inspirational cooks from all over the world.

So, Happy Birthday to the Vintage Recipe Swap and many thanks to Christianna for coordinating this monthly endeavour!  Please visit Christianna’s Blog here.

I am always nervous about revealing my contribution and curious as to what take everyone else will have on the same original recipe.  This month, as the recipe is for cake, I am even more eager than ever to see what my fellow swappers have created.

So to this months swap – Maple Syrup Cake!

I couldn’t decide what to do with this and actually got a wee bit carried away, and, with the assistance of my eldest daughter, Elsa had a little celebratory tea party to mark the first anniversary of the swap with both cake, and muffins!

The first is a maplely twist on my mums amazing sticky toffee pudding (the recipe for which, I’ll post soon!)

Sticky Maple Muffins (With Maple Buttercream)

Ingredients

240g Chopped Dates

150ml Water

110g Butter or Margarine

110g Caster Sugar

280g Self Raising Flour

1 Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda

1 ½ Teaspoons Baking Powder

2 Eggs

260g Maple Syrup

½ Teaspoon Salt

½ Teaspoon Cinnamon

For the icing (and plenty of it):

700g Icing Sugar

175g butter or margarine

5 Tablespoons Maple Syrup

16 Pecan kernels to top

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 ^oC (160 ^oC Fan) and place the muffin cases into your muffin tin (this recipe makes around 16 muffins).

In a small pan, cover the dates with the water and bring to the boil.  Simmer for 5 or so minutes before removing from the heat and stirring in the Bicarbonate of Soda.  Leave to the side.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar and then add the eggs one at a time.   Beat in the maple syrup and once combined, sieve in the Flour, Baking Powder, Salt and Cinnamon.

Then add the date mixture and stir in well.

Divide the mixture between the muffin cases and bake in the oven for around 20 minutes.  Allow to cool before icing.

For the Maple Buttercream Icing...  Put the icing sugar in a food processor and pulse, this will remove any lumps. Then simply add the butter and maple syrup and blitz until fully combined and looking smooth and tasty!  I think because of the inclusion of the syrup, this icing is slightly more difficult to work with than regular buttercream and the results may not be as pretty, but this stuff is extremely delicious and works very well with the sticky muffin base.

Maple Syrup Cake (With Fluffy Maple Topping)

I actually decided to make this cake after finding the recipe for the topping, so while I can take credit for the cake, the topping comes courtesy of Jim Fobel’s Old Fashioned Baking Book. 

The cake is very simple and is not dissimilar to the original recipe for this months’ swap and doesn’t require to be iced. In fact, I think it would be nice dotted with some pecans or walnuts and a drizzle of maple syrup, however, I just had to make Mr. Fobel’s “Fluffy Maple Frosting”.

Here goes...

Ingredients:

425g Plain Flour

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

½ Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda

Pinch of Salt

½ Teaspoon of Cinnamon

¼ Teaspoon of freshly grated Nutmeg

4 Tablespoons of Milk

425g Maple Syrup

3 Eggs

Fluffy Maple Frosting:

130g Maple Syrup

110g Granulated Sugar

2 Egg Whites

Pinch of Salt

Handful of walnut halves

Method

Grease a 23 cm cake tin and preheat your oven to 170 ^oC (150 ^oC Fan).

Sieve the flour, spices, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a large mixing bowl.

In a pan, gently melt the butter and maple syrup together and remove from the heat.  Beat the eggs and add them, together with the milk to the syrup mixture.

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and beat to remove any lumps.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for approximately one hour.  Leave to cool before icing.

For the Fluffy Maple Frosting -

Sit a glass bowl atop about an inch of boiling water and beat all the ingredients together with an electric hand mixer for around 6  minutes or until stiff peaks are formed.  Remove the bowl from the pan and beat for a further minute.  Use the frosting immediately to decorate your cake.

Anna - pinching muffins!

Pumpkin & Apple Bread (with a sticky topping)

This was actually the second recipe I came up with while experimenting with pumpkin over the last week.  I must admit to having never cooked with pumpkin before, aside from soups, but as my little girls have been getting excited about Halloween and they are readily available in the shops at this time of year, I thought why not.  

While pumpkins are obviously the norm these days for making Halloween lanterns, here in Scotland we have traditionally used turnips, known here as “neeps”, to make them.  However, as I was in the mood for baking and didn’t think turnip flavoured cakes would be too tasty, I opted to use this relative newcomer to northern Scottish Halloween festivities – the pumpkin.

Ingredients

300g Wholemeal Flour

100g Soft Dark Brown Sugar

2 Teaspoons Bicarbonate of Soda

1 ½ Teaspoons Cinnamon

½ Teaspoon Grated Nutmeg

¼ Teaspoon Ground Cloves

50ml Ground Nut Oil (or other flavourless oil)

340g Pureed Pumpkin

115g Pureed Apple

2 Eggs

For the topping:

1 Handful of Roasted Pumpkin Seeds*

50g butter

50g caster Sugar

1 Tablespoon of Plain Flour

1Tablespoon of Milk

1 Apple – Cored, Peels, Quartered & Thinly Sliced

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 ^oC (160 ^oC Fan) and grease and/or line a 900g/2lb loaf tin.

Add the flour sugar, Bicarbonate of Soda and Spices to a large bowl and mix together. 

In a separate bowl, mix together the pureed fruit, eggs and oil and then add to the dry ingredients – be sure not to over mix.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for approximately 55 minutes.

You don’t need to add a topping, but this is very tasty!

In a small pan, melt the butter and gently sauté the apples.  Add the rest of the ingredients and melt together slowly.  Bring to the boil and remove from the heat.

Heat up your grill and simply pour the mixture over the cake (you may want to arrange the apple pieces).  Place the cake under the grill until the topping begins to bubble – remove from the heat and leave to cool.

*I used the method posted the other week by my friend Boulder Locavore from Recipe Swap  - only I added a shake of cinnamon instead of salt, herbs or savoury spices.

Toffee Apple Millionaires Shortbread

If you read my post last week, you will have noted that I had problems with recipe I was desperate to make as it just sounded sooooo delicious.  So this week, with a few alterations from the original recipe, I’ve done it and yes, it is good! 

Still on our holidays at Granny and Pampa’s, I have had more time to cook because of the extra hands to help out with the wee ones and have had willing Guinea Pigs for the various sweet and savoury recipes which I’ll be posting soon – so keep watching this space!

Unsurprisingly, given the capture of a certain Libyan Colonel this week, work has been on my mind, particularly knowing (with a little jealousy) that this will impact greatly on the work load of my colleagues. With Gadaffi dead it is likely that many of my clients in Aberdeen will be looking at entering or re-entering the Libyan market, which will make for interesting times when I finish my maternity leave at the start of next year!    If you are interested in what is going on in Libya right now, sign up for a free copy of the Weekly Libya Report prepared by my colleagues.

A low point of this week has also been work related, with the difficulty I have experienced sorting out childcare for when I go back!  I really think there should be more help with childcare costs for young working families as there is in other European Countries and in Australia.  It certainly makes it difficult to find that work-life balance!

Rant over and despite the appalling weather and childcare stresses, we’ve been spending lots of time with family and good friends, making teddy bears, and jumping on bouncy castles - and I, at least, have been eating way more than I should be!

It is obviously apple season and when I saw this recipe in the October issue of my favourite foody magazine, Delicious, I was really keen to make it.  Being at Granny’s house in a little village in Lanarkshire, I couldn’t find ground rice in the local shops and nor did Granny have a baking tin of the size detailed in the original recipe.  However, I overcame these obstacles only to be thwarted by the caramel recipe which, most likely through fault of my own rather than the recipe, I could not get right.  To this end, I resorted to a tried and tested family recipe for caramel, which worked a treat!

Toffee Apple Millionaires Shortbread

Ingredients

Shortbread:

200g Butter / Margarine (chilled)

250g Plain Flour

50g Caster Sugar

Caramel:

2 Tablespoons Golden Syrup

200ml Condensed Milk

115g Butter / Margarine

115g Caster Sugar

Extra Knob of Butter (for frying apples)

3 Braeburn Apples

Topping:

150g Dark or Semi-Sweet Chocolate

100g Milk Chocolate Cooking Chocolate

Method

Grease and line a 28cm x 18cm Swiss Roll tin and preheat your oven to 170 ^oC (150 ^oC Fan)

Sieve flour into a large bowl or blitz quickly in a food processor.

Chop the butter into small pieces and add to the flour.  You can either rub this in with your fingertips or pulse in a food processor.  Mix in the caster sugar and work until it all comes together.

Press the shortbread dough into the prepared tin and use a tumbler to even out the surface.  Prick all over with a fork and put into the oven.  Bake for five minutes before reducing the temp to 150^oC (130 ^oC fan), and baking for a further 40-45 minutes.  

Remove from the oven and cool before adding the caramel.

To make the caramel add the butter, sugar, condensed milk and syrup to a medium sized saucepan and gently melt together, stirring all the time.  Bring the mixture slowly to the boil and continue to do so for 7 minutes – and don’t forget to keep stirring!

When you have finished making the caramel, peel, core and thinly slice the apple.  In a shallow pan melt a knob of butter and fry the apple until soft and golden.  Add the apple to the caramel and mix through.

When the shortbread base is cold, pour the caramel mixture over the shortbread and spread out evenly.  Put in the fridge to set.

For the topping, you can, obviously use any combination of chocolate you like, but the gram quantity detailed here should adequately cover the tin size I used. For this, simply melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over boiling water.  Set the chocolate aside for a few minutes before pouring over the shortbread and caramel to cover.

Leave to set before cutting into squares or slices. 

Once, cut up, it is best to keep this in the fridge as it is sticky!

Just FYI, and if you are interested in making the original recipe (which can be found on page 106 of Delicious, October 2011) this may be of use...

The original recipe is as above with the following changes:

Use a 20cm x 20cm tin.

Instead of 250g of plain flour, it calls for 200g plain flour and 50g of Ground Rice (or Semolina).

For the caramel, it instructs as follows:

Add 350g Caster Sugar and 200ml water to a sauté pan, dissolve slowly.  Increase the heat and bubble the mixture for 10 minutes until the syrup colours around the edges.  Carefully watch the mixture and occasionally shake the pan (but do not stir).  Once it has turned a dark caramel colour, pour in 260ml of double cream and mix quickly with a wooden spoon.  It also instructs to transfer to a bowl to cool slightly before adding the apples.

Try as I might, I could not get this to work (although I suspect the fault here is mine and not that of the recipe).

Top with 200g or dark chocolate (60% cocoa solids).

Otherwise, the methods as detailed in my version above are the same.

Tosca Cake

I am salivating as I write this, in memory of this delicious cake that I first made for a family BBQ last weekend (and because I am starving and waiting for my Chinese food to be delivered)!

Anyway, it is the “Tattie” holidays in Aberdeen (so called as it is traditionally when everyone helps with the potato (tattie) harvest in this part of the world).  As I am still on maternity leave and my eldest is off nursery for two weeks, we thought we’d visit Granny and Pampa – some extra hands while my husband is off in Ljubljana interviewing for his current research project.  A fun-filled two weeks planned visiting family and friends a little further south in Scotland, in Lanarkshire.

I have always loved northern European cakes and when I spotted this recipe in my strange (but fabulous) little cookbook, a charity compilation put together by the International Women’s Club of Moscow, it invoked memories of ones eaten as a child.  I just had to make it.   It is really simple, light and absolutely delicious and great as a cake or desert – Mmm!

I believe this cake to be of Swedish origin but attributed to a lady called Mette Iversen of Denmark in the book – thank you Mette, whoever you may be - I will be making this again and again!

Ingredients

Cake

125g Caster Sugar

2 Large Eggs

100g Self Raising Flour

1 ½ Teaspoons Baking Powder

Pinch Salt

50g melted Butter or Margarine

Topping

100g Softened Butter

125g Lightly Toasted Almonds (I used sliced almonds)

100g Caster Sugar

2 Tablespoons Plain Flour

2 Tablespoons Milk or Cream

Method

Prepare a 20cm (8 inch) round cake tin (I used a deep sandwich tin) & preheat your oven to 160 ^oC (140^oC Fan).

In a roomy bowl beat the eggs until they are thick and pale and then gradually beat in the sugar until it falls in thick ribbons.

Fold in the sifted flour, baking powder and salt. Mix in the melted butter (this should be quite cool). 

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30 minutes.

(If you have a double oven put your grill on quite a high heat just prior to the 30 minute mark).

While the cake is baking, prepare the topping by simply adding all the ingredients to a pan, stirring constantly and heating until it just boils – do this just before the cake is ready to take out of the oven.

(If you have a single oven, put the grill on quite a high heat as soon as you remove the cake from the oven)

Remove the cake from the oven and carefully spread the topping over the cake. Put the cake under the grill until nicely brown.  It is important to cool the cake before removing from the tin – 2 hours!

(My brother took what was left home to include in his pack lunch – I think this one will keep well in a tin for a good few days!)