Lemon Cupcakes

Hello friends,

Here I am again. Sorry that it took me a while to post something here but life has been hectic lately. However time flies and it is impossible to retain it. We’re in June! Oh gosh! It seems it was yesterday when I was baking a “Roscón de Reyes” for New Year’s Eve celebration and now we are in “summer” and I still have to survive a couple of months to enjoy my favourite season: Autumn, can’t wait!! But first I would love to be fed up with some hot weather…. Please sun, come here and give us some light and beautiful sunsets… colour the sky and my skin? In Spain it is already hot for a couple of months and I have just got better from a flu/cold that was going on here, isn’t it ridiculous? A cold in summer?! Not even the cats are around…and there’s a mouse in the garden!!!!

And because life has been busy, it doesn’t mean I haven’t spoiled my sweet tooth. This is a recipe for those who (like me) don’t see blue sky and need some desperately!! This cupcakes will not only light up your day but will make you feel you are on holidays!

Adapted from Sally’s

Ingredients

-115g unsalted butter (softened at room temperature)

-150g caster sugar

-2 eggs (at room temperature)

-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

-190g all-purpose flour

-2 teaspoons baking powder

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-120ml milk (at room temperature)

-zest and juice of 2 lemons

-lemon curd for topping (optional)

How to make it

  1. Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Make sure they are well combined.
  2. Add the eggs, one at a time and the vanilla extract. Combine.
  3. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and salt. Combine them well.
  4. Pour the dry ingredients to the wet ones in 3 times.
  5. Grate your lemon and squeeze them and fold them in the batter together with the milk. Do not overmix the dough.
  6. Preheat your oven at 180ºC. Then prepare your muffin form with paper liners.
  7. With the help of an ice cream spoon, scoop the batter in every muffin paper and take them to the preheated oven for 18 min or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
  8. Take them out of the oven and let them cool down before frosting.

As you can see in the picture, I ate mine with lemon curd and it was so lemon-y. I loved the fresh flavour with a hot and bitter coffee.

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Do you also like lemon-y treats?

Xoxo Pink Maple

Overnight oats with fruits

I am a creature of habits for many things and I think it runs in the family… I like going to bed not too late and getting up around 7.30 every day (even at the weekends). But regarding my breakfast I sometimes like to vary it a bit. I am not sure if I’m a savoury or sweet breakfast type in the morning. I like coffee, I need it every single day…and when I don’t have it I feel I haven’t had breakfast at all, so you get me, right? (Creature of habits). Have I mentioned that I suffer from insomnia? Now I have. Yes, it is a problem that I’m struggling with and it is not because of the caffeine (I don’t have more than 2 cups of coffee a day: one in the morning and another one at 3pm). So, most of the nights I lay awake in bed and I think about breakfast, and by thinking either I get obsessed with recipes that I haven’t made yet and they seem good for the following morning or I fall asleep and I don’t remember anything of what I was thinking the night before. That’s me.

Not sure when I got obsessed with overnight oats, but I must tell you it is one of the favourites at home and we have it almost every day when I don’t do experiments. Overnight oats are filling and it is a very complete breakfast that one can alternate with fresh fruits, nuts, peanut butter, chocolate, pumpkin…

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If you google overnight oats recipes you will find lots of recipes with very fancy pictures (nicer than mine) and it is definitely not a new trend. But as I haven’t posted any of my favourite breakfasts yet I thought it was about time. My recipe I’m sharing here today is a simple bowl of oats with love. So here we are with the recipe:

Note: this recipe makes 2 bowls

Ingredients

-1 large banana (smashed)

-1 tablespoon chia seeds

-1 ½ tablespoon flax seeds

-1 tablespoon peanut butter (optional)

-10 tablespoon rolled oats

-Vanilla soy milk (almond, coconut or dairy milk also works fine)

-mixed unsalted nuts (pecans, cashews, almonds, peanuts…)

-fresh fruits (diced apples, strawberries, blueberries…)

How to make it

  1. Smash the banana and toss the chia and flax seeds. Combine.
  2. Add some milk and stir. Then the rolled oats and combine.
  3. Pour more milk and stir. Add the peanut butter and mix well.
  4. Add some fresh fruits if desired or save them for topping the bowl the next morning.
  5. The consistency of the oatmeal must be not too dry, so be free to pour more milk. This will help the chia seeds make a creamy pudding with the rest of the ingredients.
  6. Prepare two recipients and seal them well and refrigerate them overnight. Hence overnight oats!
  7. The next morning add some more milk and top your bowl with fresh berries, dark chocolate chunks, more nuts…whatever you like.

Enjoy! You will be energized for the whole morning! There is so much you can do in overnight oats 🙂 I do love it!

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xoxo Pink Maple

Strawberry Pie

Hi there, how is it going in your lives? I hope everything is good. The time flies, and we can’t hold it :(. I don’t know how spring is where you are, but here it is starting now. Our first flowers have blossomed in our garden and I can see the birds are coming more often and the cats too.

By the way, it has been a while since the last time I posted something here and…

We have to plant tulips from the Netherlands, yes! A couple of weeks ago my husband and I visited Amsterdam and the weather was…sh..! Actually it was better than we expected but it got very cold and we were all day out zigzagging bikers. Have you ever been to Amsterdam? People ride their bikes like crazy, hello? The bikers think they are pedestrians… such a chaos! So here is the thing, we bought 100 bulbs for only 7.95 Euros! But half of them got wet there because it was sh…weather and as a result they got mouldy and we had to throw some away. Now they are planted and hopefully they will say “hi” soon. I can’t wait to see the colours (in the bag was written that they are a colourful mix)… we will wait impatiently.

In Germany there is something in May called “Die Eisheiligen” because apparently the weather can get a bit crazy and be freezing for some time before we really have spring/summer. Why do I even tell you this? I don’t know, but I have learnt a new word in German and I wanted to share it here. Anyway, we’ve been having healthy strawberry smoothies with linseeds lately and I had on my ToBake list strawberry pie… because WHY NOT? We eat strawberries in overnight oats, with yoghurt, dunked in chocolate, and I couldn’t resist making my favourite dessert…so here is the recipe:

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(Adapted from Joy the Baker)

Strawberry pie

Ingredients

Pie crust

The same pie crust that I have used in my last apple pies. Check the recipe here.

Filling

-1kg fresh strawberries washed, dried, and sliced in halves

-112g white sugar

-56g light brown sugar

-30g cornstarch

-dash of salt

-2 tablespoons of lemon juice

-1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

-1 egg (egg wash)

-Pink sugar for decoration

How to make it

  1. Prepare the pie crust in advance and refrigerate it.
  2. For the filling: wash and slice the strawberries; add the sugars, salt, ground ginger, cornstarch and lemon juice. Combine it well.
  3. At this point preheat the oven at 200ºC.
  4. The filling will be very juicy. That is what we want.
  5. Prepare your pie form and butter it before placing the pie crust. Remember the pie crust must be chilled before baking.
  6. Pour the filling and weave the pie strips.
  7. Brush the pie with the egg and decorate it or not with sugar.
  8. Bake it for 15 min at 200ºC, then lower it to 180ºC and continue baking for 30 more min.

My filling was all this, mm really good stuff, fresh and seasonal!

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Everything fit in the pie form, do not discard the juices!

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This is how my pie looked with the weaved strips

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Add some sparkles and eggwash… and ready for the oven

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after the 45 min…mmm smells so goooooood! let it rest for at least 3 hours

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Enjoy this juicy strawberry pie and feel the spring in your belly! 🙂

xoxo Pink Maple

Saint Patrick’s Day Cupcakes

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to you all!

How are you today? Are you wearing a beautiful green outfit? 🙂 I am wearing green socks!! Today is a kind of national day in Ireland and I’m thrilled to show you what I’ve baked. It’s the same recipe from an earlier post but this time I’ve used green!!! (of course). These muffin/cupcakes are soft and delicious. The secret ingredient is buttermilk and it makes your treats moist and so soft that it seems as if you were eating clouds literally.

Today’s post is shorter because I’m baking Irish soda bread 🙂 and cooking sweet potato and mandarin soup. Sorry but the day is busy here today. I promise I will post my bread recipe very soon.

Just before the oven…

dough

After 12 minutes at 160ºC they turned into this:

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To bake these green cupcakes/muffins follow my 3 colour cupcakes recipe and add green food colour as much as you like (if possible use paste, avoid liquid colour).

Enjoy these cupcakes with an Irish coffee, for example, and have a wonderful GREEN day. Don’t forget to pinch those who don’t wear green, today’s allowed!!

Pink Maple

Spanish tortilla (potato omelette)

The other day I felt a lack of energy…I think it was because of the boring winter days we’ve been having lately. Every single day clouds, clouds and more clouds. Not even the cats of the neighbourhood have been climbing the roofs and coming to our garden. It felt quite sad to see the same sky everyday. Yeah, I know my husband always says that I’m so Spanish…and because of that I need sun. It is not true that I always need sunny days, but from time to time it doesn’t hurt.

I’m the kind of person that loves how the days are shorter and shorter in autumn with the beautiful fall sunsets, and on the contrary I seem to find summer plain and sad. Maybe I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, I don’t know. Or maybe I’ve had so many hot days in my life living in Spain… I have no idea. The thing is that a part of me was missing some warm weather and Spanish food… I even was looking at some beautiful places in Barcelona that I’m dying to go in April. YES! I’m going to Barcelona very soon :). I will visit my brother and if there’s time I will see more relatives that live there. Last time I visited Barcelona I was pretty young and I have almost no memories of it.

There’s a very beautiful café there called “El bosc de les Fades” and I can’t wait to go and have coffee. I’ve also checked for a cat café and there’s one!!!!! I still have to make a plan for this trip but definitely I will go to these cafés :).

Regarding the food I was missing it is included gazpacho, pan con tumaca, escalivada, croquetas…and TORTILLA!!!!!!!

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So I finished my chamomile tea and I went to the kitchen to prepare the ingredients. It is simple, easy and delicious with only: onion(s), eggs, potatoes, salt and spices.

Ingredients

-1 big onion

-600g potatoes, peeled and sliced or cubed

-6 eggs

-salt

-oregano

-olive oil

How to make it

  1. Peel the potatoes and wash them. With a knife cut the potatoes in small cubes or thin slices.
  2. Peel the onion and do the same as with the potatoes.
  3. In a pan add some olive oil and when it is hot fold in the onion first and stir them for 3 minutes. Never let the onion get burned. Once the onion is a bit cooked add the potatoes and cook them with lots of oil. Prevent the potatoes from getting stuck on the pan. Please use more oil if necessary. Also add some salt and other spices that you like.
  4. When the potatoes and the onion are ready, take them out of the oil (we don’t want extra oil in our potatoes) and put them in a big bowl.
  5. Beat the eggs in another recipient and add salt and the spices you like. I added oregano.
  6. Pour the eggs to the potatoes and with a spatula mix them well.
  7. In a pan add oil but not as much as before when cooking the potatoes and onion. We have to add oil but not too much, otherwise you can’t get burned when turning the tortilla. Do not let the tortilla get stuck on your pan. That would be sad and you would eat scrambled tortilla :(.
  8. Turn the heat on to medium heat and cook it on one side for a couple of minutes. Check with a spatula if it is getting stuck on the pan. If it does, don’t panic! Try to scratch it from the pan and when the sides of the tortilla seem cooked and the bottom too, then use a flat and bigger plate to turn it.
  9. Put the tortilla back to the pan and cook the other side, if your pan needs a bit of oil pour some. Cook it for a couple of minutes and use the plate to turn it again.
  10. Serve immediately.

We had tortilla de patatas with “pan con tumaca” (bread spread with fresh tomato, salt and olive oil) for dinner and my husband had it with some ham.

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Enjoy it! Please I would love to see your tortilla recipes.

XOXO Pink Maple

Salted Caramel Apple pie

The other day I made my third apple pie and it turned out great. I’m getting more confident in the kitchen, I can tell.

This pie in particular had a more intense flavour than my two first pies; it might be because of the lemon zest and the caramel sauce?!

It really is a favourite at home now and I am planning to bake more soon. You don’t have to be afraid of the pie crust, believe me… because if I can make it, you can make it! How positive I do sound! Right? So many people have told me about their failure with the pie crust making but I suppose you have to work on it, experience that is the word! And follow a fair recipe! If you are thorough with the steps of this recipe, you will succeed. Just go ahead and surprise yourself 🙂

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First of all we are going to start making the pie crust. The recipe is exactly the same than the one I’ve made for the last pies.

Once your pie crust is shaped into discs and are taken to the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours, you will make the filling.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE PIE CRUST

Pie crust

INGREDIENTS FOR THE CARAMEL SAUCE

Adapted from Sally’s

-200g white sugar

-90g salted butter

-120ml heavy cream

-1 teaspoon salt

INGREDIENTS FOR THE FILLING

-6 apples, peeled, cored and sliced.

-2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

-60ml lemon juice

-31g all-purpose flour

-1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

– 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

-1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

-100g white sugar

-1 beaten egg

-pink sugar for decoration

How to make it

  1. Start with the caramel sauce. In a small pot add the sugar and cook it at medium heat. Stir it with a spatula. The colour will turn brownish after some time, so be careful and add the butter. Combine it well and continue stirring until no lumps are left. Lastly add the heavy cream and salt. The caramel sauce will boil and form bubbles, so stir it for 30 seconds and take the pot aside to continue stirring. It will look runny, but it will thicken easily.
  2. Now for the filling: grab a big bowl and toss the sliced apples, flour, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, grated lemon zest and lemon juice and combine well. Discard the liquid from the apples when adding the filling to your pie crust.
  3. After 2 hours or longer, take one disc of pie crust out of the fridge and with a rolling pin form a big circle and cover your pie form. At this point you are ready to fill your pie.
  4. Start adding some of your filling and alternate it with tablespoons of caramel sauce.

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In this picture above I had added the apple filling with the spices.

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And this is when I almost died of love. Incredible. This apple salted caramel filling is so perfect. Indeed my favourite pie in the world!

5. Having filled the pie form, there’s only one thing left: the lattice crust! Being my first lattice pie, I was nervous with this step, but I made it look beautiful. What I did was taking the second disc out of the fridge and used the rolling pin again and with a sharp knife I cut tears and I covered my pie with them carefully. I loved it! It looked so professional 🙂

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Please try it at home, do not wait until it is fall season, this is worthy all year round. Plus, you can save some money (on) room spray or air freshener because the smell of this pie is unbeatable!

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What is your favourite pie? Do you eat it only in fall and winter?

XOXO Pink Maple

Bagels

One of the goodies that reminds me of NYC is bagels…yes, those beautiful bready buns that look like donuts…mmm toasted with delicious cheese cream… it is the definition of heaven <3. In USA one can find them everywhere, warm and ready to take. It is amazing how well they spread the cheese with such a thick layer… In one of our trips last fall in Providence I had the pleasure to try a pink bagel, and it was pink because it had cranberries… hence, the colour! As I have probably told you in earlier posts I am learning to bake my favourite desserts!! My mother is a good cook but unfortunately she has never baked anything… it is funny to see her face when I show her my cupcakes, cakes, etc. via Skype. Astonished she says: where did you buy that?

People say you need a lot of experience with yeast. It might be true; we need so many trials, fails and so on. We learn best when seeing our fails, we need to learn lessons. So I can tell you not to worry about yeast! It is like any other ingredient. Treat it with love and you will bake wonderful treats!!

Look at these buddies… perfect for breakfast, lunch, merienda and dinner.

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For our recipe today we will need these ingredients: fresh yeast, sugar, butter, salt, flour and milk. The method we will follow is so simple too. Just go to your kitchen and grab your ingredients, let’s get it started!

This recipe is an adaptation from this one 🙂

Yield: 10 bagels. Time: 2 hours

Ingredients

-245ml bowling milk

-15g fresh yeast (minced)

-½ teaspoon salt

-25g white sugar

-50g butter

-1 egg white

-400g bread flour (in Germany “flour 812”)

-1 egg yolk for bathing (optional)

How to make it

  1. Start boiling the milk and pour into a mixing recipient together with the butter and sugar. Stir until the temperature is not boiling hot anymore (it should be lukewarm).
  2. Add the fresh yeast into the milk mixture and let stir it. Let it rest for 15 minutes until some bubbles appear.
  3. After the resting time of the yeast. Fold in the salt and the egg white into the mixture. Combine it.
  4. Last add the flour and mix it with a spatula. Knead your resulting dough on a floured board and put it back into the recipient.
  5. Cover your recipient with a lid or transparent paper and let it rest for about 1 hour on a warm surface. The yeast needs warmth.
  6. Once the time is up and your yeasty dough has doubled its size, bring a pot to simmer.
  7. Divide the dough into small balls and shape them like bagels.
  8. With a spatula bring the bagels into the water for 15 seconds each and quickly take them out and put them on a baking sheet. Repeat this with all the bagels.
  9. Preheat the oven to 200ºC (10 minutes).
  10. Decorate your bagels as you like, with sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, linseeds, etc.
  11. Take them to the oven and bake them for 17-20 minutes, until they get a bit brown.
  12. Let them rest for 10 minutes before eating.

This is how I divided the dough and how I shaped them 🙂

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Here you can see how I dunked the bagels into the warm water for 15 seconds

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I tossed poppy seeds, linseeds and sunflower seeds for the topping and I bathed the bagels with the egg yolk that worked as a kind of glue for the seeds 🙂

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After the baking they turned out like this:

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How do you fill your bagels? Do you normally have them for breakfast?

Pink Maple xoxoxo

3 Colours Cupcakes

Last Friday I went to Rewe (a supermarket in Germany) and I bought this colour paste in blue. In comparison this brand is more economic than another one I like.

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So far I hadn’t baked anything with the desired colour and I knew there was something wrong…now I know, that was the liquid food colour. (Don’t use them) Spend some money and buy quality, and speaking about money my new colour paste’s brand is amazing and way cheaper than other brands. There is no need in using the whole colour tube as I used to do with the liquid colours; you only need 2 or 3 drops maximum.

The reason I stopped by in the baking aisle was because my husband’s birthday is coming and I want to bake him a carrot cake and cookie monster cupcakes and other colourful cookies!! Yes, we like sweets! :). To my surprise the marzipan carrots were sold out and I discovered the blue food colour and this time in paste. Undoubtedly I grasped it and I put into my basket and with a smile I headed to the queue to pay. I still have to come back for the marzipan carrots and more stuff, but that will be next Friday.

So, after my dentist appointment yesterday I decided I wanted to bake something I had always wanted to make but never had the right food colour type and I did these beauties:

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I baked only 12 cupcakes in my cupcake form and my husband and I ate 4 with coffee in the afternoon. They were so fluffy and smooth and I could have eaten 4 only myself. First batch and total success, I will make them again. And I’m already looking for new recipes to bake tomorrow. My cupcakes will be gone by tomorrow…

I haven’t prepared any frosting, so maybe this post could be renamed to colourful small muffins or something. Next time I make them I will prepare a vanilla cheese cream frosting! But I can say that this time I’ve enjoyed them with no topping and they were perfectly soft and delicious!

The recipe is super simple and it is a version of this recipe, but I chose 2 colours pink and blue and left the third one neutral.

Let’s go with the recipe.

Ingredients

-120ml buttermilk (room temperature *)

-115g unsalted butter (softened at room temperature)

-156g all purpose flour

-3g baking powder

-1/8 teaspoon baking soda

-1/8 teaspoon salt

-100g white sugar

-2eggs (room temperature)

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-2 drops of pink and blue food colour in paste

*Don’t you have buttermilk? Don’t worry! You can make it yourself. In a glass pour 120ml of milk and add two teaspoons of lemon juice and stir. Let it rest for 15 minutes.

How to make it:

  1. Take the butter, buttermilk and eggs 1 hour before you plan to bake. They need to be at room temperature and you cannot cheat by using the microwave.
  2. In a small recipient toss the sifted flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Set aside.
  3. In a larger recipient whisk the butter with an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Then add the sugar and repeat for 3 more minutes. Once it is well mixed, add the eggs (one at a time) and mix. Proceed and add the vanilla extract and mix again.
  4. Start mixing the wet ingredients with the dry ones and mix. Alternate this step by adding the buttermilk at times, and continue with the dry ones until everything is well combined.
  5. Divide the batter into 3 different bowls and proceed to colour them. I used 2 drops of pink for one bowl and 2 drops of blue for the blue colour. I didn’t colour the third bowl.
  6. Preheat the oven for at least 10 minutes at 200ºC.
  7. Prepare your cupcake form with the cupcake liners and with 3 different spoons pour 1 spoon of pure batter, another one of pink and another one of blue. Combine the colours as you like it. Do NOT stir the colours or you won’t have the beautiful contrast. Check here, this is how they looked, I love the 3 colours, it is so girly!!!: IMG_4059_PPc
  8. Take the cupcakes to the oven and lower the temperature to 160ºC. Bake them for 5 minutes with up and down heat and after that time just heat from the bottom of the cupcakes for 4 minutes. Finally change back to up and down heat for 3 more minutes and your cupcakes will be baked. Insert a toothpick to see they are ready. Total time will be 10-13 minutes.
  9. Allow them to cool down and frost them or eat them without frosting. IMG_4062_PPc

I will have some later and I will think about how I can make my palate dance with funny treats!

What could I make next?

xoxo Pink Maple

Sweet Potato Pie

Hiya, I’m kind of excited, nervous and happy all at once…it is because today is Saturday!!

The weather outside is grey sometimes dark grey, rainy and not so cold…but I like it, it makes me want to be at home and bake and light scented candles.

Also it is carnival here where I live, and I am not a carnival girl. My windows are closed and I have changed some appointments for next week to avoid going out in this madness of drunkards, dirt and animalization of the mankind. Oh gosh! (no offense) it is just… it is not my thing (sorry!!!!!). One of the things I hate about this party is using the underground…if that is full every day at rush hour…in carnival it is even worse. I’ve experienced it for 2 years already. I’ve had to go to the city centre and my tram came and to my surprise no room for more people, and I was like Oh god! I really have to fit in here! People with beer in their hands spilling it over others, it is just disgusting. You think it is ok when you step out of the tram but…the streets are apocalyptical it is like the setting of a city in a dark cyberpunk novel (not literally) but it felt like it without being futuristic. It is more like a mixture of that and being in the jungle.

I’ve never liked clowns…and the other day I saw a clown like IT style, it was pretty creepy…yeah I was on my way to catch the tram after a lesson. A part from that I missed the tram and I saw the display that showed 8 minutes for the next tram…yay! Going down the stairs to the platform I saw a very nice and folded 20 Euros note. Mmmm waiting was worthy! It seemed it had my name on it saying GET ME! So my tram came finally and lots of dressed up creepy and not that creepy people too. I got home and I told my husband that the following day would be an easy one because I didn’t have to leave the house to work. What a relief! No cut glass on the floor, noise and crazy costumes!

Because I don’t like wild parties I needed some calm moments and there is nothing that can help me calm down than baking something good! So I thought about making a different pie that tasted like something comforting! And as I have made only apple pie so far, why not give it a try to SWEET POTATO PIE.

With a magic touch of this pie crust recipe, sweet potatoes, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper, ginger, cloves, brown sugar, cornstarch, eggs and heavy cream anything will be looking as good as this:

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Well, actually it should look nicer than mine…the pie is good, it is cooked, it is tasty, it tastes like fall, but please do not bake it with beautiful pie crust shapes as I have done here. It caused cracks on it… lesson learned! Anyway, it is a pie and it is a reason to celebrate.

P.S: I promise I will post new photos as soon as I bake this again (which will be soon).

For all those pie lovers! Cheers!

So start doing it now 🙂 I help you making it:

Ingredients for the pie crust

-165g all-purpose flour

-½ teaspoon salt

-45g cold butter

-75g shortening

-60ml very cold water

Ingredients for the pie filling

-2 large sweet potatoes, peeled, boiled and smashed

-3 large eggs

-14g cornstarch

-1/2 teaspoon: salt

-1/2 teaspoon: ground ginger

-1/4 teaspoon: ground nutmeg

-1 ½ teaspoon: ground cinnamon

-a dash of cloves

-a dash of black pepper

-235ml heavy cream

-220g brown sugar

-50ml milk

How to make it

  1. Start making the pie crust and take it to the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. See how I made this pie crust here
  2. Prepare the filling: It is very straightforward and easy. All you need is peeling and boiling the sweet potatoes in a pot with water until they are tender (for about 20 minutes). Grab a mixing bowl and blend the sweet potatoes, add eggs and sugar and combine them well. Then add the cornstarch, salt and the rest of spices. Mix them and add the cream and milk. Repeat the action. So this is your pie filling. Set aside. It looks like purée, right?                                           IMG_3944_PP_small
  3. Turn on the oven to the maximum temperature (200ºC) and take the pie crust out of the fridge and on a floured surface and using a rolling pin flatten the disc (not so thin like almost transparent) until it has a considering thickness and cover your pie form that has been buttered before.
  4. Add the filling and bring the pie to the oven to bake for 10 min to maximum temperature (200ºC) and after that lower it to 160ºC and bake for 45 minutes. IMG_3949_PP_smallIMG_3950_PP_smallIMG_3952_PP_smallIMG_3955_PP_small
  5. Introduce a tooth pick and if it comes out clean then it is done! Or see if your pie filling is not very jiggly but if it is a little in the centre then your pie is ready.

Enjoy this warm sin with your loved ones or on your own 🙂

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Pink Maple

Chocolate Peanut butter cupcakes

It seems like the temperature is decreasing, it is kind of chilly out there. The weather forecast says there might be snow tonight and the whole weekend!! Let’s see how it turns out… I am starting to feel a bit tired of just rain, almost everyday. I know we are in winter, and we still have to wait long until the beautiful autumn… but is it too much to ask for a little bit of snow?

Where I live it doesn’t really get too cold in winter and I thought that I’d suffer like -15ºC but no, the winter is just plain as a cupcake without frosting.

Mmm speaking about cupcakes… yesterday I had a nice time at home. It was unexpected because I had been planning my lessons for the evening when in the middle of another lesson I received a text message from a student cancelling my planned work. I kind of felt a bit annoyed (it has happened twice this week) but also relieved because the weather was not so inviting to leave the house.

Having the whole afternoon and rest of the day for myself made me want to be lazy and do nothing, but I kicked myself and I did some magic in the kitchen (I’m sort of a good witch :)). I felt like cupcakes! Chocolate and peanut butter cupcakes!

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Have I mentioned that I do love coffee? And that I’m the only one who likes it at home? There’s something about coffee that I can’t explain… and I know that I have such a sweet tooth… I don’t have a remedy! So as I was feeling a bit kind of annoyed I said to myself that yesterday I would have a special moment just by myself.

The recipe I’m sharing here today is simple. It is an adaptation from the very number one of my favourite bloggers Sally’s.

You can make 12 cupcakes with this recipe and you can also turn them into a cake. It will only take you less than 1 hour in total of your precious time (18 min in the oven and 15 min preparation time).

I hope you are getting hungry and I wish you have no homemade treats at home in this moment :), please use some Pixie Dust and turn on the magical oven… Sweet party! (what did I just say?)

Ingredients

  • 2 ripe bananas (mine weren’t very ripe)
  • 100g white sugar
  • 2 egg whites
  • 175g plain yogurt
  • 70g all-purpose flour
  • 70g whole wheat flour
  • 55g unsweetened cocoa powder (cocoa for baking)
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 60g dark chocolate chips
  • 30g peanut butter chips
  • 65g melted peanut butter

How to make it

  1. In a bowl smash the bananas with a fork and toss the sugar. Combine them well using a mixer. Repeat the action when adding the egg whites and yogurt.
  2. In a second and bigger bowl sift the flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder.
  3. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ones. Do not over mix the batter only until the dry ingredients are integrated with the wet ones.
  4. Add the chocolate chips to the batter.
  5. Prepare your cupcake form with the cupcake liners and turn on the oven at 200ºC.
  6. Melt the peanut butter in the microwave.
  7. Divide the batter into the cupcake liners and top them with a teaspoon of the melted peanut butter. Then decorate them with peanut butter chips.
  8. Take the cupcakes to the oven and lower the temperature to 170ºC. Bake for 18 minutes. Watch them out; you don’t want them to taste a bit over baked, right?
  9. Introduce a toothpick to see if they are ready.

 

In this picture my cupcakes were about to be taken to the oven, mmmm chocolatey and peanutey? 🙂 The batter just tasted like heaven!!

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Take a look at those peanut butter chips, aren’t they the perfect match to dark chocolate cupcakes?? I confess…I had a handful of them, just pure peanut butter chips… and I didn’t feel guilty at all!

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Please take a look at these goodies, just fresh (not anymore this is only a picture), steamy, soft and glorious.

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I had a wonderful afternoon after all :). Turn your day into a special moment, for you and for your loved ones.

These cupcakes are the perfect breakfast, snack in between lunch, treat for your coffee and any cravings you have.

 

What are your favourite peanut butter desserts?

With love,

Pink Maple