Milk Chocolate Chunk Muffins - Donna Hay

Milk Chocolate Chunk Muffins

I need to get more organized. Um, it's June (how can it be JUNE?!?) and I've been saying this "New Year's Resolution" all year (and the year before that!)

I love to bake and should have an organized system of recipes to make. I've tried Pinterest, Google Bookmarks, calendars, "starring" things in Google Reader, printing out recipes and putting them "in a special place" (read: perhaps in a box or folder on my desk that quickly gets covered up...) to try to get organized.  I would like to have a calendar, shopping list and plan of action so I can prep the ingredients the night before. Right now, I roll out of bed and flip through some cookbooks or scraps of paper. This morning, I found milk chocolate chunk muffins from an old favorite, Donna Hay's Simple Essentials Chocolate cookbook and went into the kitchen for an early morning baking adventure.

Anyone have a good system of organization? If so, let me know! :)

This recipe is made with oil, milk and eggs as the liquid. I didn't have vegetable oil and used olive oil. I topped the muffins with some reserved milk chocolate chunks.

Finally, this has nothing to do with these muffins, but I wanted to share this photo of Cidney the Girl Doggie. She spends a lot of time, um, rolling around in the dirt in the backyard. When she comes back from the groomers, it looks like she got highlights in her blond hair!

Recipe:
Milk Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Adapted from Simple Essentials Chocolate by Donna Hay (on Amazon and in Libraries)

2 cups (300 g/10 1/2 oz) self-rising flour, sifted  (I didn't have self-rising flour - not a common item for sale in Los Angeles - so I used 284 grams all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, and a dash of salt)
1/2 (40 g / 1 1/2 oz) cocoa powder, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder (see note above)
1 cup (220 g/7 3/4 oz) caster (superfine) sugar (I did have superfine sugar from C&H)
2 eggs (room temp)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup (160 ml/5 fl oz) vegetable oil (I ran out of vegetable oil so I used light olive oil)
1/2 cup (125 ml/4 fl oz) milk (I used low-fat milk)
1 cup chopped milk chocolate (I used Trader Joe's block of Milk Chocolate, about 6 ounces)

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with liners or spray with baking spray.
2. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and sugar in a bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, vanilla, oil and milk.
4. Mix liquid ingredients into the flour mixture until just combined. Do not overmix.
5. Fold in the chocolate (reserve some to put on top)
6. Scoop into muffin tins. (Top with a few pieces of chocolate)
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. (My muffins took much longer...don't know if it because I made several changes to the recipe, my oven or what.)
8. Makes 12 (I got 14 muffins).

Donna Hay's Banana Cake

Just when the bananas on my shelf were planning their revolt (I always forget how quickly bananas spoil in the summer), I decided to try Donna Hay's Banana Cake.

And, of course, it's a Bundt. I think the intervention is coming soon...

Everything comes together pretty quickly. I left the butter and eggs out overnight so I could make it half-asleep this morning.

Donna has a caramel sauce of brown sugar and cream...but I didn't have the cream so I made a powdered sugar, milk and vanilla simple glaze. A glaze made of powdered sugar and maple syrup would be awesome as well.

My co-workers said, "Banana...GREAT!" I tried to tell a few of them that is wasn't health food (one stick butter, three eggs and 3/4 c sour cream)... but they just saw the banana.

Heck, I'm with them. This cake is totally on the my food pyramid.

To Southern California Friends:
If you are in town this weekend (July 11-12), check out the Renegade Craft Fair in downtown Los Angeles. My friend, JustJenn is one of the exhibitors!

Recipe:
Banana Cake from Donna Hay's Simple Essentials: Fruit, page 76
These blogs have the recipe posted:
Banana Cake Recipes
Piggy's Cooking Journal (in metric)
Cooked from the Heart

Chocolate Sponge Cake (Donna Hay)

The library is a perfect place for the a one-night stand.

Well, perhaps a three week stand. And you can enjoy it even more with a renewal.

Borrowing cookbooks from the library is a great way to give a new book a spin around the kitchen before any commitment.

This happened with Donna Hay's Simple Essentials: Chocolate book.
I got it at the library, fell in love with it, and after a few clicks on Amazon, it arrived at my door.
Sweet.

Donna Hay suggests a layer of jam, cream, and/or berries in the center of two 9" sponge cakes. And that sounds real nice.
But what do you do when you just bought a new jar of Nutella? You go with Nutella. No questions asked.

I sliced some California strawberries. Yum.

The only thing missing is a nice layer of whipped cream. I tried! I put the bowl and whisk in the freezer and was all ready. Reached into the fridge. And pulled out an expired carton of whipped cream.

Drats.

So, when you make this...include the layer of Nutella and add a layer of sweetened whipped cream.

That would be dreamy.

Recipe:
Donna Hay's Chocolate book, page 58

Apple and Cinnamon Tea Cake (Donna Hay)

Apples.
Cinnamon.
Cake.

Yum.

Apple and Cinnamon Tea Cake

My co-worker went to the American Library Association conference last year (oh yeah, thousands of librarians in one place...[insert your own joke here]). She was waltzing around the vendor area and one of them was packing up...decided to not shlep all of the display books back home...so she gave away this great Donna Hay Simple Essentials: Fruit book!

And then my co-worker gave the book to me! How sweet! Oh yeah, did I mention that pages were marked with "suggestions" to make and bring to work?! (just kidding...sorta)

This book is awesome and beautiful. Every recipe is short and sweet (she fits 4 recipes on one page!!) and each one has an awesome photo. Donna Hay has a lovely empire of magazines and books. Australia is so lucky to have such a gem.

Okay, so my intention was to make the cake as directed on page 82...but I didn't have all the ingredients and ended up substituting so many things I don't know if its her recipe anymore. Anyway, my creation was yummy. And I'm sure her recipe would only be much better, richer and more delicious. I'll gather all the right ingredients and make it again.

Here are the changes I made:
- Used an 8” springform (instead of an 8 1/2" springform) so mine is a bit taller. Next time, I'll use a 9" springform.
- Used what I had at the time – skim milk instead of whole milk.
- Used granulated sugar instead of caster or superfine sugar (because I didn’t have it on hand)
- Misread the ingredient list and used 6 oz. butter (1 ½ sticks) instead of 6 ½ oz.

apple and cinnamon tea cake

Cream together: 6 ½ oz. soft butter (if my conversions are right, this should be 1 stick + 5 T butter), ½ t cinnamon and 2/3 c caster (superfine) sugar.
Add one at a time: 3 eggs.
Sift onto batter: 1 ½ c all-purpose flour and ½ t baking powder.
Mix in: 1/3 c milk.

Place on top of batter: 4 small green apples, peeled, halved, cored, and cut thin - but don't cut all the way through. I didn't press them down at all because the apples were small snack size gala apples. Sprinkle on top: 1 t sugar and ¼ t cinnamon.

Bake for 50 minutes (160 C / 320 F) then brush on ¼ c apricot jam or jelly, warmed. Pop back into oven and bake for another 10 minutes or so. I ended up baking mine for 65 minutes at 325 F.

Yummy! And the co-worker who gave me the book? She loved this cake. Thought it really focused on the apple.

Get a copy of Donna Hay's Fruit book here, or see if your library has it on Worlcat!