Recipe: Chocnanicot Muffins, I call them
Time Taken: 1 hour
Ingredients: 150g marg, 250g sugar,3 eggs, a teaspoon of
vanilla extract, 2 ripe bananas, 250g plain flour, 2 teaspoons of baking
powder, 125g ground almonds, 150g dried apricots, 150g plain chocolate aaaaand
either one big chocolate cookie or a few small cookies
Hi readers,
Today, it’s Wednesday! It’s another day in the big run up to
Christmas. For me, another day of general laziness and festive cheer. You can’t
begrudge me this, readers, because after I graduate in June I’m probably going
to be working for the next 50 years of my life. And some of those years I might
have to work on Christmas Day! The horror! So I’m allowed one last good Christmas.
And I hope, whether working or not, you’re having a good Christmas season, too.
:)
And so, soon after, Dominique started asking friends and
family and so on, to each donate £3 towards raising the money to help get
Robbie somewhere to live. She also slept rough for the night alongside homeless
people such as Robbie, in order to raise further money for the cause. And
Dominique’s raised over £20,000!! Isn’t that incredible?!
I’m so wowed by what she’s done! As my friends at uni and my
family at home know, I struggle a lot with the cold at winter. Up in Newcastle,
I’ve been really worried this year about the homeless people near our
university library. It’s been bitterly cold and all the students trudge past
them each day to go sit in a heated building, and they’re often still there
when we come out at the end of the day. I don’t know how they can bear it.
And I know there are a lot of people in need around the
world, and a lot of people in need in the UK. And you can’t help everyone blah
blah. And the actions of some homeless people may have contributed towards them
becoming homeless blah blah. But it’s bloody awful. And I hate that I don’t
have the money to buy the people hanging out around the library a cup of
coffee, at least. Something warm. When I have a proper job, I’m going to try to
buy a homeless person a hot drink every day in winter.
So today, in my warm home, I’ve been baking up a storm for
my family. And I hope I inspire you to do some baking too! It’s good for the
soul. :) But I was thinking, maybe, if you don’t have enough friends and family
to feed 12 muffins to, is there someone in need that you could offer a muffin
to? Maybe you could make someone’s day
by being generous beyond belief, and offering them a home baked muffin?
Plus, if this isn’t for you (and sadly I don’t know where to
find people living on the streets in Woodhouse) or you’ve been really taken up
to help people in need this Christmas, there are loads of ways you can spread
some magic in December! You could help out at a soup kitchen? You could spend
some time with an elderly person on your road? If it snows, you could even help
them to shovel their front path? You can make such a difference with your time.
Also, I found a really cool website where you can donate £5
to cover the cost of a birthday cake being baked especially for a child in
Sheffield, whose family is finding it hard to provide one on their special
day. Isn’t that the best idea ever? Check it out: http://www.freecakesforkidssheffield.com/
Anyway, I’ve said my piece. And I hope that, this December,
some of you might be thinking about the people who don’t have lovely homes to
go home to. I know I will. And I wish them all the best for getting through
Christmas.
And now I can tell you about my baking!! Today, readers, I
had the itch to do some serious baking in the kitchen! But I’m really broke so
I was strictly limited to the ingredients we have in the house. This is
normally a big issue, but I was pleasantly surprised!! The lovely mother has
come through, and stocked up for my visit home. :) In the end I decided to
combine banana, apricot and chocolate… in a moment of muffin-inspired genius!
To rustle up some of your very own Chocnanicot Muffins, follow
these 20 simple steps…
1.
As it’s very nearly Christmas, pour yourself a
drink. Why not?
2.
Line a muffin tray with 12 muffin cases.
3.
Prep your apricots! Measure out 150 grams of
them and chop them up into quarters using a sharp knife.
4.
Prep your bananas! Peel them both and use a fork
to mash them up.
5.
Prep your chocolate! Break it up into pieces in
a bowl.
6.
Prep your cookie! Use your hands to crumble it
up into tiny pieces in a bowl.
7.
Heat your oven to 180°C.
8.
Measure your marg and sugar into a large mixing
bowl. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Then crack your eggs into the bowl.
9.
Stir it up!
10.
Now stir in your mashed bananas. So much goo!
11.
Place a sieve over your bowl and sift your flour
and baking powder over the mix.
12.
Stir it up!
13.
Add your ground almonds and your apricot chunks.
14.
Once more, stir it up!
15.
Spoon
your mix evenly between your 12 muffin cases until they’re all mostly
full.
16.
Transport safely into the oven to bake for half
an hour. Catch a show on TV!
ChefBeHere Top Tip: The ad break of your show (I was
watching Friends) is the perfect time to turn your muffins around in the oven
so that they’re facing a different way, just in case some are baking quicker
than others.
17.
When your muffins are golden and well risen,
take them out of the oven and leave to cool.
18.
After a while (and maybe another drink) stick
your chocolate in the microwave to melt for a couple of minutes. Don’t let it
burn, mind.
19.
Spoon your melted chocolate evenly over each
muffin.
20.
Sprinkle your muffins with cookie crumble for
decoration! Serve to your adoring friends and family, and then anyone else you’re
feeling generous towards.
It wasn’t to be this simple for me, readers. Disaster struck
on Step 18 when I burned my chocolate in the microwave. It wasn’t fit for use
whatsoever, and we had no more chocolate or no icing sugar in the house. What a
nightmare! However, I got inventive and managed to melt some marshmallows in
the microwave, stirring hot chocolate powder into the marshmallow goo little by
little, and I used this instead of melted chocolate to stick my cookie crumble
on to my muffins with. Phew!
Here’s my marvelous muffins!
What do you think? Impressive, huh? I’m so proud!!
Decoration is not something I normally bother with. My baking often flies
straight from the oven shelves into the mouths of hungry flatmates. And it’s
such a shame! I’m so glad to day that I took the time to do something on top of
my muffins. Even inspite of the disaster I had in the kitchen. Because they
look so pretty!
Now, I can’t yet report on how these babies taste. They’re
under lock and key, being saved for pudding after our tea later. But hopefully
they taste as good as they look! As I was botching various recipes together,
and turning loaf recipes into muffin ones, I was a little uncertain about
whether these angels would rise or not or whether they might even explode, but
I hit it on the head apparently. Who knew. They domed to perfection!
So… go! Shoo! Stop drooling over my photos and go bake your
own muffins! Do it! If you don’t have the apricots you can sub in any other
dried fruit. And if you’ve already overdone the chocolate this Christmas, you
could drizzle glace icing over your muffins and stick a piece of dried banana
on top, there’s your decoration! Let me know how this one turns out.
And remember, always, to be grateful for the kitchen you
bake in.
Bake safely this Christmas amigos,
Hayley
