Banana-Berry Smoothie Muffins

Okay, I know it's not a food blog, but I've been on a bit of a baking binge recently, and it's only fair that I show you some of it: the good, the bad and the ugly.


I'm a little bit pleased with my odd wee brain for the way it came up with this one. I'd just set out to whip up a quick and easy batch of berry muffins, but the berries were huge and very frozen, and adding a cup or so of those would probably amount to one berry per muffin.

Pointless!

So I got out the blender, thinking to break them up a bit. Also pointless. It just shaved round the edges so that I had about a dozen rocks that were a bit smaller, and some mush coating the sides of the blender. Worse than before! Also, it meant I had to clean the blender for no reason, and we can't have that, can we?

I could probably make a smoothie then, I thought. And then it occurred to me, I could probably use that smoothie to make the muffins! Brilliant, if I do say so myself. And judging by the speed at which they were devoured, there seemed to be some agreement.


Here's what I threw in the bowl:

*1 egg
*2 cups of smoothie (mine flavoured banana-berry but you could use just about anything)
*1/4 cup oil
*1/2 cup sugar
*2 cups plain flour
*4 heaped teaspoons baking powder
*2 heaped teaspoons cinnamon

And then you:

Whisk all the wet ingredients together in the bowl and then stir in the dry.
Spoon the mixture into greased muffin tins and bake at 200C for 15 minutes or until golden.

Easy peasy!

Then you spend half an hour trying to get a decent picture of one - first by starting out with it on a non-sunny bench where the pictures were too dark to see, and then keep moving when you push the button on the camera (quite the photographer, me) to make sure you get blurry ones. After 50 goes, there's sure to be one that's usable.

All baking and photographic tips gratefully received!!



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Freestyle Baking: possibly the ugliest pin-wheels ever!

About six months ago, we lived about a kilometre up the road from a bakery that made really addictive spiced pin-wheels with custard in them. Then we had a house fire (I'll get to that story one day) and had to move about 40 kilometres away, and I haven't been back to the bakery since. Now and again though, I want one of their rolls, and finally that's coincided with the desire to bake.

Yay!

Now, because I'm a bit lazy by nature, I didn't really want to look for a recipe I liked and follow it step by step, maybe running out of one ingredient or another, or perhaps being asked to wait over night for them to rise. Lazy and impatient - so sue me. I'm not scared of freestyle baking; mostly it turns out edible.

So I started out with a basic pizza dough, the same as the one on this post, except that I added a couple of tablespoons of sugar. I get impatient waiting for the yeast to rise too (and mine is a little old and slightly dead) but whamming it in the microwave for 45 seconds on high helps it along nicely. If it's still not as high as you want to see it in ten minutes, give it another 45 seconds - too easy.

While waiting, I set to making the fillings:
*A couple of tablespoons of melted butter mixed with a cup of brown sugar and a tablespoon of cinnamon.
*A handful of sultanas.
*Custard. I wasn't a hero: I used custard powder and made it in the microwave.

Well, if it's pizza dough I'm using, I might as well make it like a pizza, I thought, so I stretched out the dough and added the filling. The dough was too thin and the fillings were too great, but I didn't care. It looked pretty.

I even poured the custard into a snap lock bag and snipped the corner off so that I could pipe it evenly onto the top. I didn't want huge globs of custard here and there just in case one of the rolls missed out. Also, I wanted it to look pretty for you - Aww, see what I do for you guys?

This is the last time it looked pretty though (it was worth it.)

I thought ahead a bit: see how it's rolled out onto baking paper? I knew it would be a pain in the bum to roll without that there, and I'd have been right. Even with it, and with the perfectly even rolling I did, filling started to ooze everywhere. There was no panic though - that puppy was stuffed full anyway.

Cutting caused more oozing and general fiddly stickiness. It was fun and gross at the same time. At that point, I wondered if I shouldn't have used a sweet scone dough, but then it wouldn't have been as bready and I wanted that. I chucked them (ten of 'em) in the oven at 200C for about 20 minutes, at which point they felt cooked and bread-like and also had an unexpected toffeeish coating. Bonus!

They're in no way as good as the bakery's, I'm afraid, but still totally edible. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so impatient with the rising and whatnot. But then we'd have had to wait, and who wants that?

As Mr. Me so rightly said: "Tastebuds don't care how ugly food looks."




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