Even healthier breakfast muffins

Since making my first batch of muffins I have decided to adapt my recipe slightly. Not that there was anything wrong with the first one, I just thought making a totally fat free version might be a laugh. I sit at a desk all day, my body has no use for fat. So I subtituted the whole milk for skimmed, used fat free yoghurt and instead of oil I made some apple sauce and added 2 tablespoons of that. My top tip for making any baking recipe fat free is to directly sub the fat for apple sauce, but dont make the same mistake I did. Adding the apple made the mixture go browner whilst baking and the muffins appeared to be burning, leave them in for the full amount of time or they'll be stodgy.

The new muffins did taste just as good as the last ones, although they were a little more chewey, like brown bread. So I probably prefer the whole milk with oil version (I'm not one of those annoying people that refuses to admit that healthy food is not as tasty as fatty food).

Then I thought it might be interesting to break down what you actually get per muffin. Every morning now my breakfast basically consists of:

Half a slice of toast and 1/6 of a boiled egg

16.5g porridge in 20ml of milk, sprinkled with 6.25g sugar and a pinch of cinnamon

and 22g fresh fruit with a teaspoon of yoghurt

Which is actually a fairly well balanced healthy breakfast! Enjoy your guilt free morning cake.

Breakfast Muffins

I'm not really one for rushing, or doing pretty much anything fast, and the idea of wolfing down breakfast at 6:00am before I leave for work doesn't appeal to me. I prefer to take breakfast at my desk whilst checking my emails just before my working day begins. At the moment this consists of a banana, which is hardly ideal, so I've decided to make up some breakfast muffins to have as my fast food on the go.

Ingredients
200g Plain flour
200g Porridge oats
75g Caster sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
3 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Salt
2 Eggs
250ml Milk
2 tbsp Natural yoghurt
3 tbsp Vegetable oil
150g Blueberries
100g Blackberries

I switched on the oven and pre-heated to 190degC (200 if you don't have fan assisted). To start with I sieved all the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together into a mixing bowl and made a well in the centre. Then I separated the eggs, reserving the whites, and added the yolks along with the milk and yoghurt. This all mixed up into a batter, it doesn't matter if it's a little lumpy.

Next I poured in the oil and stirred fast until it was fully incorporated into the batter, then added the oats and mixed them in before add in the fruit which a carefully stirred in to avoid damaging the berries.

Finally I whisked the egg whites until they were light and fluffy and formed peaks and folded them in with a metal spoon.

I divided the mixture evenly over 12 muffin cases...

... and baked for about 30 minutes until they were nicely brown on the top and when I poked them with a skewer it came out clean.

I haven't made them terribly sweet because I don't have much of a sweet tooth, especially first think in the morning. If you'd like them sweeter then just up the sugar to suit your taste or sprinkle some over the top of each muffin just before baking.

Please consider your IT departments before eating and try not to get crumbs in your keyboards.

Carrot Cake

When it comes to carrot cake there's plenty of opportunity to go mad with sultanas and nuts but for true carrot cake, classic carrot cake here is a no frills recipe that allows the natural sweet flavour of the carrot to come through. I've livened it up in the topping, but what you do with the decoration is up to you.

Ingredients

275g Plain Flour

400g Caster Sugar

4 eggs

1 tbsp Ground Cinnamon

1 tsp Baking Powder

2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

350ml Vegetable Oil

375g Carrots

Pinch of Salt

Sieve the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt together into a bowl.

Lightly whisk up the eggs and then add the sugar, whisking it all up until light and airy.

Now add the oil in a steady stream, whisking it all in. Then swap your whisk for a spoon and start adding the flour. Add it bit by bit, make sure it's fully incorporated into the mix before adding the next bit. When that's done add the mountain of grated carrot.

Divide the mixture into 2 tins and bake at 160degC for 1 hour or until springy to touch.

Then take the out the oven and cool in the tin.

That's it! Now it's time to get creative, although I've kept the finish deliberately simple again.

Ingredients

275g Icing Sugar

250g Mascarpone

50g Butter

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

1 Orange, I didn't have one to hand so I used 2 citrus.

Slice the top off the bottom half of the cake to give an even flat surface to spread the filling on.

Mix together the butter and cheese until fluffy and fully combined.

Add the vanilla essence and stir it all until smooth. Now add the sugar, bit by bit from a sieve until all is fully combined. Finally zest your orange and stir that in.

Spread half the mixture on the bottom layer, place the other layer on top and spread the rest on that. Finally decorate with walnut halves.

I was really pleased with how this turned out.

And it was wonderfully moist and flavourful.

A feast for the eyes as well as the stomach.

Courgette Cake

Unlike a recipe for courgette cake I've made in the past this one doesn't have lime in and I haven’t made a lime icing, but that would have worked well with it I'm sure. Like the recipe I've made in the past though one of the challenges was pressing out enough moisture from the courgette and apple so as not to make the mixture too wet.

Ingredients

200g plain flour

200g caster sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1 large pinch salt

2 eggs

1 small apple

60g pecan nuts

80g sultanas

200g butter

150g courgettes

I pre-heated the oven to 180degC and started by creaming the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Obviously if you've had your butter out of the fridge to soften a bit first this is easier.

Next I added the eggs 1 at a time, only adding the second after the first was fully incorporated. Then I grated up my courgette and apple and squeezed as much moisture out of the gratings as I possibly could. This is really important, get as much out as you can before adding them to the bowl and stirring. Even after this I was able to pour out a little excess moisture.

Next I sifted in the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon all together, stirred all that in and added my chopped up pecan nuts and sultanas.

I lined a loaf tin and poured the whole bowl in, smoothing and spreading.

That went in for just over an hour until I was satisfied that the centre was as well baked as it was going to be. Once the top was light and springy but I couldn't see any moisture rising up through the cracks in the surface I took it out of the oven and cooled it in the tin on a wire rack.

Despite my fears over the moisture content it was another success, although not quite as light as I was hoping.

I think this is a great use of courgettes, or zucchinis depending on where you come from.

Beetroot Cake

I haven't made this before but I do like beetroot so I thought it was well worth a go. Not only so I love the taste of the stuff but with the amazing colour and that root veg crunch what's not to love!

Ingredients
150 fresh Beetroot

150g Carrot

300g Sugar

250g Flour

230ml Vegetable oil

1 tsp Cinnamon

100g Mixed nuts

3 eggs

1 tbsp Baking powder

Some salt to taste

Sieve the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking powder together. Combine the oil and sugar and add to the flour.

Beat that together. Now chop the mixed nuts, separate the eggs (keeping both parts) and grate the carrot and beetroot. Preheat your oven to 180degC.

Add the grated veg, the egg yolks and the nuts to the mix...

and stir all that together well.

Pre grease and line 2 cake tins. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and add them, folding them in with a metal spoon. Pour the mixture into the cake tins and they go in at 180degC for about 45-50 mins. If I'd had a deeper tin to hand then I'd have put them in that for more like an hour. Until they're springy to touch anyway.

Once done take them out and cool them on a wire rack.

I deliberately made a cake without any topping or decoration and just simply sprinkled some caster sugar over the top. Beetroot cake quite often has a chocolate element somewhere in the recipe but I really wanted the colour of the beetroot and its flavour to show through in the finished cake.

I was pretty pleased with it! Not as pink as I was hoping but you can clearly see the carrot and beetroot in there and it did taste great.

Anything that red must be good for you!