Double chocolate, hazelnut and cherry muffins

Late last Sunday I felt like baking something. It was getting late and I didn't want anything overly complicated. I looked through my cookbooks for inspiration but nothing really caught my eye - the recipes were either too fussy or I didn't have the right ingredients to hand. I looked in my fridge and cupboards for inspiration. Earlier in the day, I'd bought some soured cream as they were on offer and that's how this recipe started. I wanted to use the soured cream so immediately I thought of a chocolate cake or muffin. I decided to make muffins as I didn't have to make frosting. I was recently sent a selection of baking goodies including chocolate chips from Dr Oetker to use so a chocolate chip muffin was forming. I also found a bag of hazelnuts so I added these in.  At the last minute, I added chopped cherries on top so it looked festive. 

I was really pleased with how these muffins turned out - it was moist and chocolatey and I loved the taste and texture of the roasted hazelnuts (which I left whole as I was too lazy to chop them). The cherries were a nice touch and added a little sweetness to your first bite. 

These muffins are really quick and easy to make. No special equipment required and the washing up is done whilst the muffins are in the oven. I think they look quite festive with the cherries on top. You can also add a drizzle of white chocolate for the extra wow factor. 

I'm entering this to Made with love Mondays hosted by Javelin Warrior. 

And to Tea Time Treats hosted by Kate from What Kate Baked and co-hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage. The theme this month is Festive Food Gifts and I think these would be a great alternative to traditional Christmas cake and cupcakes. 

I'm also sending these to the Biscuit Barrel Challenge hosted by Laura from I'd Much Rather Bake Than... The theme this month is Quick and Easy so these fit perfectly.

And to Calendar Cakes hosted by Rachel from Dolly Bakes and co-hosted by Laura from Laura loves Cakes. The theme this month is Jingle Bell Rock.

And to Treat Petite hosted by Stuart from Cakeyboi and co-hosted by Kat from the Baking Explorer. The theme this month is Happy Holidays and I think these are perfect for any holiday.

And to Four Seasons Food hosted by Anneli from Delicieux and Louisa from Eat your Veg. The theme this month is Party Food and these muffins would be perfect for any party.

 adding chocolate chips to the flour mixture 

 adding roasted hazelnuts 

 mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients 

 decorate with chopped cherries on top 

 yum! 

Recipe adapted from 1001 Cupcakes, cookies and other tempting treats

250g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
85g light muscovado sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
100g plain chocolate chips
100g white chocolate chips
100g roasted hazelnuts
300mls soured cream
85g butter, melted
Chopped cherries (optional)

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Roast hazelnut in the oven - approximately 6-8 minutes or until fragrant and golden brown. 
• Set aside to cool.
• In a medium sized bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
• Stir in the chocolate chips followed by the roasted hazelnuts.
• Place eggs, sour cream and butter in a separate bowl and mix well.
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Be careful not to overmix.
• Add chopped cherries on top for decoration. 
• Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely or eat warm if you prefer. 

With thanks to Dr Oetker for the chocolate chips used in this recipe. 

Peanut Butter Granola Bar

I felt like making granola bars one weekend. It's not something that I regularly bake but I decided it was a good way to clear out my baking cupboard as I could put in a combination of seeds, nuts and fruits all of which were sitting in my cupboard gathering dust. I often buy ingredients in case I want to make something or it's on offer and sometimes I forget about them or change my mind and they end up sitting there for ages. So this recipe is slightly made up based on ingredients I had available but you can easily adapt this your tastes. 

The bars were really tasty and I got lots of compliments about them. I love the peanut butter in there and the mix of fruit, nuts and seeds make it seem healthy. Definitely a good on the go snack or lunch box treat. 

I'm entering this to Tea Time Treats hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage this month and co-hosted by Kate from What Kate Baked on alternate months. The theme this month is Flapjacks, Oats and Tray Bakes.

I'm also entering this Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. The challenge was started by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food 4 All inviting us to share our frugal food recipes.  This recipe is a great way to use up bits of dried fruit, nuts and seeds that you have lying around in your cupboard. It's probably not cost effective if you had to buy all the ingredients separately as seeds and nuts are generally on the expensive side. However, I didn't have to buy anything to make this recipe as I had everything to hand so I think it fits the bill for credit crunch munch.

I'm also entering this to a new blogging challenge called Treat Petite. It's hosted by Kat from The Baking Explorer and Stuart from Cakeyboi and the idea is to submit any sweet treat that's individually portioned and not a big cake. The theme this month is 'No Theme' so anything goes. These are perfect bite sized sweet treats! 

 brown sugar, crunchy peanut butter, honey, golden syrup, oats, dried cranberries, flaked almonds, roasted chopped hazelnuts, seed mix

 I also had an opened pack of this pineapple and papaya mix so I added it in as well 

 Love the colours! 

 Melt honey and butter 

 toasted granola 

 make the peanut butter mixture 

 drizzle with chocolate before serving 

100g butter
100g honey
480g oats
100g flaked almonds
100g toasted chopped hazelnuts
60g seed mix (pumpkin, sunflower, hemp seed, linseed, sesame seed)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
100g dried cranberries
145g pineapple & papaya mix
100g crunchy peanut butter
125mls golden syrup
70g soft brown sugar
50g dark chocolate (optional) for drizzling at the end

• Melt honey and butter in a small pan.
• In a large mixing bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.
• Pour melted honey and butter mixture over the dry ingredients and stir well.
• It should be a dry mixture at this point.
• Spread out thinly over 2 lined large baking trays and bake for about 10-12 mins, stirring half way until lightly toasted and slightly browned. Be careful not to burn your granola at this point!
• In a medium sized saucepan, melt peanut butter, golden syrup and brown sugar. 
• Transfer cooled toasted granola into a large mixing bowl.
• Pour over the peanut butter mixture and mix well.
• Press into a large rectangle tin as shown and allow to set completely. (I put mine in the fridge for about 20 mins)
• Drizzle with melted chocolate if using. 
• Slice into large squares and serve. 

Kinder Bueno Cupcakes

When my co-host for AlphaBakes Caroline announced that this month's letter is 'K', the first thing I thought about was kiwis hence my kiwi and strawberry muffins.  However, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that K was not that difficult as quite a few things start with and/or contains the letter K. One of these is Kinder Bueno which is a milk chocolate covered wafer with a milky and hazelnut filling. I decided to re-create this chocolate bar in a cupcake form and came up with these! A white chocolate and ground hazelnut cake filled with nutella and finished with a generous swirl of milk chocolate frosting and a square of kinder bueno. 

It's always nerve wrecking creating a new recipe as you're never sure if it will work or not so I was pleased that these cupcakes turned out beautifully.  I hope I'm not the only one who finds melting white chocolate a pain. It's much easier working with dark chocolate so I used a white chocolate mix which I found successful when making my maltesers cupcakes previously.  If you prefer a stronger white chocolate taste, I'd recommend melting white chocolate or using white chocolate chips. The cake itself was light and nutty. The cake really tasted like Kinder Bueno in cake form! 

I'm sending this to AlphaBakes hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes this month and by myself on alternate months. The letter as mentioned is K. 

 Kinder bueno chocolate bars, ground hazelnuts, white chocolate mix, nutella 

 make a small hole in the centre of the cupcake and fill with a teaspoon of nutella 

 cover it up

 and add frosting on top

 the finishing touch

 cross section 

 I found this lovely presentation box at Sainsbury's 

An original recipe by bakingaddict

Makes 18 cupcakes

For the cupcake
250g butter
200g caster sugar
100g ground hazelnuts
120g self raising flour
2 x 11g packs of instant white chocolate drink mix
2 eggs
60mls milk

Milk chocolate buttercream frosting
225g butter
200g icing sugar
175g milk chocolate, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Preheat the oven to 170C. 
• Line 2 muffin trays with cupcake wrappers.
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Add in the eggs, one at time, mixing well with each addition. 
• Mix in the flour, white chocolate mix and ground hazelnuts. 
• Finally mix in the milk. 
• Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely. 
• Make a small hole in the centre of each cupcake and fill with a teaspoon of nutella. Replace the hole with cake as shown.
• Make the icing by beating the butter and icing sugar until smooth. Add the milk chocolate and vanilla extract and continue beating until light and fluffy. This could take up to 5 minutes with an electric mixer. 
• Pipe a swirl of buttercream icing on top of each cupcake and decorate with a square of kinder bueno chocolate bar. 

Hazelnut, chocolate and coffee spelt cookies

It's Random Recipe time again. This exciting challenge is hosted by Dom from Belleau Kitchen. He likes to keep us on our toes - you never know what to expect! Fortunately the challenge this month was not too difficult - count up all your books and use a random number generator to select the book to use. Open up that book to a random page and cook that recipe. I often use a random number generator particularly for random recipes to select my book and often to select the page as well. This time, the trusty number generator thingamidoodah (yes it's a real word) churned out no 34 which was.....

 This is a lovely little book full of cookie recipes. 

I opened it up to a random page and got Chocolate & coffee wholemeal cookies. I felt like I'd won the random recipe lottery. I did change up the recipe a little bit as I didn't have all the ingredients to hand. The resulting cookie was crispy, nutty and chocolatey. I didn't get much of the coffee flavour - will definitely add a bit more next time. On the plus side, the spelt and oats made it seem healthy which eased the guilt of eating four two cookies in a row. Definitely one for the cookie jar!

 camp coffee essence, spelt flour, roasted hazelnuts, chocolate chips, oats. 

 I love the melty chocolate bits inside

Recipe from Cookie Jar - I've given my adaptations below

175g butter

180g soft brown sugar

1 egg

70g plain flour

70g spelt flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

225g chocolate chips (i used a mixture of dark and milk)

185g rolled oats

1 tablespoon coffee essence (recommend 2 tablespoons for a stronger coffee flavour)

100g hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

• Preheat the oven to 190C.
• Grease and line 2 baking trays.
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Add in the egg.
• Sift the flour, spelt flour and bicabonate of soda and mix into the butter mixture.
• Stir in the chocolate chips, coffee, hazelnuts and oats and mix well.
• Use a small ice cream scoop to scoop out small scoops of cookie dough spaced well apart. 
• Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.
• Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Italian mixed nut and chocolate chip biscotti

I really struggled to come up with "I" recipes for our AlphaBakes challenge this month. I made ice cream cake pops earlier in the month and couldn't think of anything else until I thought about Italian biscotti. I found this recipe online from an Italian who lives in London and blogs at Broxholm Road. Her recipe is called Tozzetti alle nocciole della Tuscia. Tuscia is where she comes from and this recipe is from her mum. I was really excited to try this authentic Italian recipe but sadly my biscotti looks nowhere like hers :( I'm not quite sure where I went wrong as I followed the recipe closely but the end result was still really tasty. My dough was not sticky enough and I wasn't sure how to correct this - anyone has any tips/ideas? The biscotti was really crunchy and nutty and I particularly liked the chocolate chips.

As mentioned, this is for AlphaBakes, a monthly blogging challenge hosted this month by Caroline from Caroline Makes and by myself on alternate months. The letter this month is "I" for Italian biscotti. I will be hosting April's challenge so check back on 1st April to see what the next letter is. Don't worry, it won't be an April fool's joke ;) 

I used mixed nuts instead of hazelnuts as that's what I had 

 Making the dough which looks a bit crumbly 

 adding in the nuts and chocolate chips 

 my poor attempt at biscotti making! 

 baked and ready to slice 

 then baked again 

 delicious! 

Recipe from Broxholm Road

350g flour (plus extra if required)

250g caster sugar

80g butter

2 eggs (plus 1 for brushing)

250g mixed nuts or hazelnuts

130g chocolate chips

1.5 teaspoon baking powder

Grated zest of 1 lemon

pinch of salt

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
• Roast the nuts until lightly browned, approximately 8 - 10 minutes. Allow to cool.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan or microwave and set aside.
• In a large bowl, beat the eggs together. 
• Add in flour, sugar, butter, baking powder, lemon zest and salt.
• Mix well. 
• Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.
• Shape the dough into 2 long sausage shapes. If the dough is too sticky, add more flour. 
• Arrange the sausage shaped dough on a baking tray and brush with egg wash. 
• Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• Allow to cool for 30-40 minutes.
• Slice each log diagonally.
• Arrange slices on a baking tray and bake until dry, approximately 10-15 minutes.
• Allow to cool completely.