Banana, chocolate and walnut waffles

This month's theme for We Should Cocoa is bananas. Bananas and chocolate are one of my favourite combinations so my mind immediately went into overdive with ideas. I've baked cakes, cookies, muffins and cupcakes with this flavour combination. I wanted to do something a little different and my mind turned to breakfast or more specifically brunch. Weekend brunches are sacred in our house as we don't often have time to either be at home or sit and have a leisurely brunch. There are a few recipes that we always come back to for brunch and one of them is waffles. I have a waffle mould and I normally bake my waffles in the oven. However, I've always wanted to have a waffle maker but felt it was too indulgent.  We got married recently so I added it to our wedding gift list and was over the moon when one of J's friends bought it for us. I finally own a waffle maker and it was put to use the day after we received it! We had basic waffles with fruit and maple syrup and it was delicious. 

Waffles made with a waffle maker turn out light and crispy whereas the baked ones taste a little more cake like. This weekend we had time to have a leisurely brunch at home so I started experimenting with recipes and came up with this banana, chocolate and walnut waffles. The waffles were chocolatey with a hint of banana and the walnuts added crunch and texture. I served them with sliced bananas, chocolate chips and maple syrup. I debated about a chocolate sauce but decided that maple syrup would be better. The batter made 9 waffles so I have lots in the freezer to be toasted for breakfast during the week. 

I'm sending this to We Should Cocoa hosted by Choclette from Tin and Thyme. The theme this month is banana which of course has to be paired with chocolate. 

I'm also sending it to Brilliant Breakfasts hosted by Made with Pink. These make for a very filling breakfast especially with the bananas and walnuts. 

It's also going to Cook Blog Share hosted by Kirtsy from Hijacked by Twins. 

Finally to Bake of the week hosted by Helen from Casa Costello.

My new waffle maker! I sprinkled some chocolate chips on top of the batter before cooking. There's way too much batter in this as it was the first one but I learnt quickly after that! 

 Lovely chocolatey waffles with banana and walnuts baked in. 

 served with sliced banana, chocolate chips and maple syrup

Makes 9 large waffles in a waffle maker

240g plain flour

60g cocoa powder

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 bananas

2 eggs

90mls vegetable oil

150g sour cream

200 mls milk

80g walnuts

sprinkling of chocolate chips

To serve

Sliced banana

Chocolate chips

Maple syrup

• I used a food processor to get a nice, smooth batter.
• Place the eggs, vegetable oil, sour cream, milk and whole banana and whole walnuts and blitz gently.
• Add in the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. 
• Be careful not to overmix the batter.
• Allow to sit for a few minutes. 
• Pre heat the waffle maker. When ready, add the batter but be careful not to put too much or it will spill out. Sprinkle some chocolate chips on top.
• Cook as per manufacturer's instructions. Mine took about 5 minutes. 
• Serve warm with sliced banana, chocolate chips and maple syrup. 

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.

Ginger Bonfire Cupcakes

As promised I have a Bonfire Night recipe for you. Today is Guy Fawkes Night celebrated annually on November 5th to commemorate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. The traditional cake eaten today is parkin cake which is a sticky gingerbread cake. I've taken inspiration and come up with a fun cupcake that has flavours of traditional parkin.

These cupcakes are perfect for the occasion and relatively simple to bake. I baked these twice as I had to experiment with the spice levels and different frosting and I think they are now almost perfect. It has a sticky gingerbread cake base topped with  lemon buttercream and orange matchmaker sticks. The flavours work well together as the sweet and zesty lemon frosting sets of the fiery, spiced cupcake. My initial trial I made a golden syrup cinnamon cream cheese frosting which was absolutely delicious but unfortunately the icing was too soft to pipe tall peaks required for the bonfire effect. The lemon frosting worked equally well in terms of flavour pairing and visually it looks much better. 

I'm sending this to a few blog challenges this month.

Treat Petite hosted by Kat from The Baking Explorer and Stuart fromCakeyboi. The theme this month is Autumn.

Recipe of the Week hosted by Emily from A Mummy Too.

#FoodYearLinkUp hosted by Charlotte from Charlotte's Lively Kitchen. Lots of foodies events in November and this is for Guy Fawkes Night.

 adding golden syrup to the cake batter 

 ready to go in the oven 

 I made 2 bags of frosting - 1 yellow and 1 orange and then placed them both in another piping bag with a 1M star tip to create the two tone piping effect.

 Pipe the frosting a high as you can

 Add orange matchmaker sticks so that it looks like a bonfire and add a sprinkling of orange sugar if you have it. 

 This is my initial failed attempt with the cream cheese frosting - absolutely delicious but less visually appealing! 

Makes 15cupcakes 

For the cupcakes

150g butter

130g soft brown sugar

3 eggs

150g self raising flour

60mls golden syrup

2.5 teaspoons ground ginger

1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the frosting

110g butter

zest of 1 lemon

300g icing sugar, sifted

1-2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

food colouring - orange and yellow

For the decoration

Orange matchmaker sticks

Orange sanding sugar 

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Add in the golden syrup.
• Add in the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.
• In a separate bowl, sift the flour and spices and add it to the butter mixture.
• Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases - I use an ice cream scoop to get an even amount of cake batter per cupcake case.
• Bake for approximately 16-18 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely. 
• I made a double batch of frosting and it's plenty to frost all the cupcakes - I didn't want to risk running out as it would be difficult to get the same colour again. If you have leftover frosting, you can use it to make cookies! 
• To make the frosting, beat the butter and icing sugar for at least 5 minutes until smooth and fluffy. Add in the lemon zest and slowly add in the lemon juice until you get the required consistency. 
• Add the food colouring and mix well - I use colour paste.
• Repeat for the second batch.
• As shown in the pictures, place each colour of icing in a disposable piping bag and snip the end of the bag off. 
• Place both bags side by side into another piping bag fitted with a 1M star tip ensuring that the ends of the bags go into the piping nozzle.
• Pipe the buttercream on a plate initially to get a good mix of colour then decorate the cupcakes as shown.

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. 

AlphaBakes November 2015

Welcome to November's AlphaBakes. It feels like only yesterday when it was still summer and now we are well into autumn.  Where has the year gone? If you haven't already seen the "W" October round up on Caroline's blog then do head on over to check it out. The random letter generator has selected M as the letter for this month.

Look forward to seeing all your marvellous M entries.  Entry is via the linky tool below and if for some reason it's not working then please email alphabakes@gmail.com by 25th November 2015.

Quick reminder of the rules....

1. Post your RECIPE on your blog and link it to The More than Occasional Baker andCaroline Makes, stating the relevant month's host. If you do not have a blog, email us a picture and a brief description of your entry which we will include in the round-up at the end of the month.

2. You can use your own RECIPE or someone else's RECIPE. The recipe can be sweet, savoury or a mixture! Anything goes as long as the random letter is predominantly featured in the recipe as one of the main ingredients or flavours or in the name of the bake itself (i .e . not as a garnish , or using 'flour' for the letter F!) You can also republish old posts/RECIPES but you must include the information for this challenge as stated in these rules.

3. Add the logo to your post and add 'alphabakes' as a label to your post.

4. Entry is via the linky tool below. Alternatively, you can email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com by midnight (GMT) 25th of each month. Please include:

• Your name (that you want included in the round up or we will use the name of your blog) 
• Your blog post URL 
• RECIPE title 
• Photo of RECIPE (to be included in the round up) 

5. You can submit as many entries as you like.

6. You do not have to participate every month to join in.

7. You may submit your entry to other challenges as long as it complies with their rules.

8. If you use twitter, please use the tag #alphabakes and mention @bakingaddict and @Caroline_Makes. We will retweet all those that we see.


9. Have fun! :)

Spider Cupcakes

Happy Halloween everyone! This is a quick and easy project to make for Halloween. There's still time to bake these tomorrow as it's really simple and does not require any specialist equipment. The kids will have lots of fun decorating these! Life has been a bit hectic lately so I've not had a chance to do as much Halloween baking as I would have liked. I baked these late last night and they were a real hit at work today. I used a favourite chocolate cupcake recipe which is a mix all in one recipe with generous servings (makes 18 cupcakes). As I was short on time, I made a quick chocolate ganache to spread on top and decorated the cupcakes to look like spooky spiders. I couldn't find any black liquorice lace sweets but managed to find strawberry cables which is what I used for the legs. The eyes are made of white chocolate buttons and milk chocolate chips. The cupcakes were chocolatey and the ganache was divine. Great cupcakes on their own but much more fun eating all the parts of the spider too! 

I'm sending these to Treat Petite hosted by Stuart from Cakeyboi and Kat from The Baking Explorer. The theme this month is Black and Orange. I used orange cupcake cases and there's plenty of dark chocolate in the cake and frosting!

It's also perfect for #FoodYearLinkUp hosted by Charlotte from Charlotte's Lively Kitchen. There were lots of events for the Food Bloggers Calendar in October and I am sad to have missed out on quite a few but pleased that I've managed one Halloween bake.

 Strawberry cables, white chocolate buttons, milk chocolate chips and chocolate strands/vermicelli 

 place a generous amount of chocolate ganache on top of the cupcakes

 Spinkle the chocolate strands on top then add the 'eyes' and 'legs' as shown. 

 They looked really good in a red container

 I ran out of strawberry cable so 2 of them didn't have legs! 

For the cupcakes - Makes 18 cupcakes

280g plain flour
250g caster sugar
80g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
300mls water
170g butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon chocolate extract (you can also use vanilla extract)

For the chocolate ganache 

150ml double cream

150g dark chocolate

For the decorations

Chocolate strands/vermicelli

White chocolate buttons

Milk chocolate chips

Strawberry cables or liquorice lace sweets

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Place all the ingredients for the cupcake into a large mixer bowl and mix on low - medium speed for a few minutes until well mixed. 
• Scoop into cupcake cases and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely before decorating.
• Make the chocolate ganache by heating the cream gently until bubbles just form.
• Add in chopped dark chocolate and stir until smooth.
• Decorate the cupcakes as shown above.