Apple, toffee, raisin and butterscotch muffins

This is a variation on the toffee apple muffins that I posted earlier in the week. They were so popular I baked them three times in a week! I had further requests but had run out of ingredients. I decided to use up leftovers that I had to create a variation of the muffin and it worked beautifully. Personally I prefer this version as it has butterscotch chips and raisin. J prefers the toffee apple muffins.

I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge guest hosted this month by Tracy from It's Not Easy Being Greedy on behalf of Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. This recipe uses up the bits of ingredients in my cupboard - raisin, butterscotch chips and 4 toffee sweets.

It's also suitable for the Credit Crunch Munch challenge guest hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary on behalf of Helen from Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla from Fab Food 4 All.

Makes 14 muffins

2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1 pot of 165g fat free yoghurt
150mls milk
100g brown sugar
100g butter, melted
300g plain flour
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs
4 toffee sweets, chopped into quarters
100g raisins
100g butterscotch chips

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• In a large bowl, mix the yoghurt, milk, eggs, sugar and butter.
• In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients.
• Stir into the wet ingredients until just mixed.
• Stir in the chopped apples,toffee sweets, raisins and butterscotch chips.
• Divide the mixture between the muffin cases.
• Bake for approximately 25-28 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Toffee Apple Muffins

A quick and easy atumnal bake today. These muffins are really quick to make and are bursting with flavour. You get juicy apple pieces and melted toffee and a hint of spice to round it all up. I adapted a recipe from BBC Food and used low fat toffee yoghurt instead of milk for extra flavour. You can also add nuts which complement these muffins well but I kept these nut free as a colleague is allergic to walnuts. These were a real hit and I baked them 3 times last week! I have another very exciting bake for Bonfire Night coming up so make sure you check back soon :)

I'm sending this to Treat Petite hosted by Kat from The Baking Explorer and Stuart from Cakeyboi. The theme this month is Autumn.

 adding chunks of apple

2 toffees per muffin 

 I love that you getlarge chunks of apple to bite into and how the toffee has melted all down the sides of the muffin

Makes 14 muffins

2 pots of 165g fat free toffee yoghurt 

60 mls milk

2 eggs

100g brown sugar

100g butter, melted

300g plain flour

1.5 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 apples, peeled, cored and choped

28 toffee sweets

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• In a large bowl, mix the yoghurt, milk, eggs, sugar and butter.
• In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients.
• Stir into the wet ingredients until just mixed.
• Stir in the chopped apples.
• Divide the mixture between the muffin cases.
• Place 2 toffee sweets on top of each muffin.
• Bake for approximately 25-28 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 

Hot Cross Buns

If you read my blog regularly you will see that I love baking cakes, cupcakes and cookies. I've started to bake more with pastry recently which includes trying different types of pastry and I even had a go at hot water pastry but that's for another post. Bread baking is a different matter and I've tended to stray away from baking bread or dough.  

J has been asking for hot cross buns since before Easter. It's traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the UK and in many other countries. Unfortunately I didn't get round to baking it and Easter flew by in the blink of an eye.  A week after Easter and J was still asking for his hot cross buns so I decided to give it a go. 

I used a Paul Hollywood recipe from BBC Good Food and followed it exactly. As it's my first time baking hot cross buns I decided not to stray from the recipe. The dough needed to prove 3 times and by the time I finished baking this it was almost dinnertime! Luckily we had a busy day doing some home improvements and did not have a chance to have lunch so these were a welcome treat with a cup of tea. I also gave some to our lovely neighbours next door and to our new neighbours who moved in a few weeks ago. 

They were very impressed with the homemade hot cross buns and so were we. The buns were soft and fruity and tasted so much better than the shop bought ones. We had them warm from the oven with lashings of butter and they tasted heavenly. We also had them toasted the next day with some homemade marmalade (from a friend) and it tasted just as good. 

I'm sending this to Bready, Steady, Go! hosted by Jen from Jen's Food and Michelle from Utterly Scrummy Food For Families.  Both Jen and Michelle are keen bread bakers so they've decided to host this challenge together. I think it has a great challenge name which was chosen by one of Michelle's daughters. 

It's also going to Treat Petite hosted by Kat from The Baking Eplorer and Stuart from Cakeyboi. The theme this month is Hello Spring. 

Food Year Link Up hosted by Charlotte from My Recipe Book. These are of course for Easter.

Finally to Let's Cook for Easter hosted by Nayna from Simply Food.

 bread flour with salt, yeast and sugar 

 the dough is soft and crumbly...

 ...but becomes smooth and glossy after kneading 

 adding in the fruit after allowing the dough to prove 

 looks delicious!

 I weighed each bun as suggested to ensure even cooking 

 The cross is made from a flour and water paste 

 The glaze gives it a really nice shine 

 Lashings of butter! 

Recipe from BBC Good Food 

Banana, blueberry and apple muffins

As usual I had a brown banana in the kitchen begging to be baked. I also found a slightly soft apple and some blueberries so I decided to incorporate everything into a muffin. These are great for lunch boxes or breakfast on the go. We kept them in the freezer and defrosted them for breakfast during the week which was really handy. The muffins are quite dense and cake-like and it was full of blueberries! I made sure to add extra blueberries on top just before baking and as you can see they didn't sink to the bottom!

I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. I used up a brown banana and an apple going spare in this recipe.

 banana and grated apple mixture; milk, vegetable oil and honey mixture 

 adding in lovely blueberries 

press a few blueberries on top before baking 

 bursting with flavour 

Recipe adapted slightly from BBC Food 

250g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

50g caster sugar
1 ripe banana, mashed

1 ripe apple, peeled, cored and grated

250g blueberries (set aside a generous amount to place on top of the muffin before baking) 

3 tablespoons honey 

60mls vegetable oil
1 laarge egg
185mls milk

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• In a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder and ground cinnamon. Add in the sugar. 
• Add in the mashed banana, grated apple and about 200g of the blueberries. 
• In a separate bowl or jug, mix the vegetable oil, milk and honey.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the large bowl and stir gently to mix through.
• Be careful not to overmix or to break up the blueberries. 
• Spoon into muffin cases.
• Place lots of fresh blueberries on top of each muffin - don't press too hard.
• Bake for approximately 20 -25 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 

Toffee Apple Cake

This cake came about because I wanted to make use of ingredients in my kitchen. I had initially planned to make toffee apple bites for my afternoon tea party but ran out of time. I started thinking about how I could incorporate toffees and apples into a cake. I found a recipe by Paul Hollywood online which looked really simple - just mix and bake. I doubled the recipe quantity as I wanted to use my large bundt tin and adding in a handful of extra toffees in the cake and a few more on top before baking. I debated about making a toffee sauce which would go well with the cake. 

The cake was really delicious. I love the combination of apples and toffees and that's exactly what you get with this cake. There's not many additions to mask the flavours and the melted toffee bits were my favourite. 

I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. I had a spare pack of toffees and some apples leftover which I used for this recipe.

 wet ingredients and dry ingredients - just mix together and add in the apples and toffees 

 adding chopped apples and toffee pieces (I didn't cut them as the recipe suggested) 

 I added some extra toffees on top before baking

 You can still see the apple chunks 

Recipe is from BBC Food from Paul Hollywood's Pies and Puds

The only change I made was to double the quantities which was perfect for my bundt tin and to add in more toffee pieces.

Banana, Apple and Cranberry Muffins

It's muffin time again! I went through a phase of constantly baking muffins and then not baking them for a while. They are really good for using up leftovers and the recipe is so versatile and forgiving you really can't go wrong. I created this recipe to use up leftover fruit and a bag of chocolate coated cranberries that I found in my cupboard. I also added some spice as it enhances the flavour and smells really good when baking. The muffins turned out beautifully - really soft and moist and I love the chocolate coated cranberries. It's a really tasty breakfast and perfect for lunch boxes too. 

I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary.

As it's a frugal recipe, it's also perfect for Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla from Fab Food 4 All.

 dry ingredients andmwet ingredients 

 adding in apples and chocolate coated cranberries 

An original recipe by bakingaddict
Makes 12 muffins

200g plain flour
150g soft light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 ripe bananas
1 large apple - peeled, cored and diced
150g dark chocolate coated cranberries
2 eggs
125mls vegetable oil
60 mls milk

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
• In a separate bowl, roughly mash the bananas with the fork.
• Add in the vegetable oil, milk and eggs and mix.
• Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients in the middle.
• Mix until just combined,
• Add in the chopped apples and chocolate coated cranberries.
• Divide into 12 muffin cases and bake for approximately 18-20 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.