Buttermilk Choc-Chip Muffins

There are some things you just have to have and, when the craving strikes, you may need to make do with the contents of your pantry or fridge to get them from the oven to the plate as quickly as possible.  As fate would have it, when the hunger for a muffin fresh out the oven and oozing with melted chocolate chips struck, I was the proud owner of a quarter of a carton of buttermilk and a half-finished packet of dark chocolate chips.  Oh, and the small remnants of a packet of shredded coconut.

This is a great way to use up your leftover buttermilk which, if you're anything like me, ends up getting chucked out when I discover that it's out of date in the next fridge purge.  And you can substitute all the "flavouring" ingredients (coconut/cinnamon/choc-chips) with anything you happen to have handy - provided it all weighs 200 grams total.  So be creative and add in some mashed banana, crushed peanuts or grated apple instead.  Don't leave out the buttermilk though - it's the secret ingredient!

These muffins - which turned out so light and moist - are the result of the odds and ends in my pantry (and fridge) and nothing else.  Desperation is the mother of invention after all.  I recommend wolfing them down fresh out of the oven, preferably while still steaming, and they're even better if you have a cup of coffee on hand too.  Leftover muffins should be blitzed for 10 seconds in the microwave before you eat them - you want the chocolate chips melty and delicious when you dive in.

Buttermilk Choc-Chip Muffins

Ingredients
-  220 grams self-raising flour (sifted)
-  3/4 caster sugar (I love raw caster sugar)
-  1/2 cup sunflower oil
-  1 cup buttermilk
-  1 teaspoon vanilla essence
-  1 egg, beaten
-  150 grams chocolate chips
-  50 grams shredded coconut
-  1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Firstly, preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius and line your baking tins with muffin liners (I have a large supply of various colours and styles but kept to a simple black liner for this very basic, unpretentious recipe).

Next, in a small bowl or jug combine all the wet ingredients (buttermilk, sunflower oil, beaten egg and vanilla essence) and combine thoroughly.


In a larger bowl, add the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, shredded coconut, cinnamon and chocolate chips).  Make a well in the centre and add your wet ingredients.  Combine quickly by folding and stop as soon as it's properly mixed.  You don't want to over-mix as this will make your muffins chewy and pretty average, to tell you the truth.

Spoon the batter into your lined muffin tins, about two-thirds full.  Don't dollop it any higher than the edge of your liner, as these rise quite a bit.

Sprinkle some reserved shredded coconut and a few choc-chips on top of each muffin, then pop the tins in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  My oven is hotter at the back, so I switched the tins around half way through.

I didn't bother letting all of the muffins cool down on the racks - I love them fresh out of the oven while the choc-chips are still melty.

Sugar 'N Spice Loaf Cake (...with a Sidetrip to France)

To those of you who have spent any time with me in the last month, you would be aware that I am heading off for a wonderful holiday in France with the Cooking Fairy Godmother (aka my mum).  We're going on the mother of all girly holidays and, given our foodie tendencies, it will be no surprise to any of you that the second part of the trip will be spent at Kate Hill's lovely cooking school in Gascony.    The first week will be spent in Paris following in the footsteps of Julia Child, finding the perfect macaron and taking as many opportunities to sample champagne as possible!

I will be checking in as often as possible with photos and updates on our foodie adventures.  In the meantime, I leave you with a delicious loaf cake with spicy flavours from one of my retro-favourite cookbooks, The Southern Living Cookbook.

The cinnamon and nutmeg (it originally called for ground cloves, but this appears to be the one spice I don't have in my pantry) undertones in the cake are all you need to make this loaf cake a little bit special - no frosting required.  Although, I'm sure a little light glaze would not have hurt at all.

I was making this to package up for my Grandma to have in the afternoon with a cup of coffee while Mum and I are away.  It's a quick and basic recipe that's perfect if you're looking for something to take along to the office morning tea.  I also think this would go nicely with a cup of mulled wine by the fire, but maybe that's just me!

Sugar 'N Spice Loaf Cake

Ingredients

-  3/4 cup butter (softened)
-  1 cup white sugar
-  3/4 cup dark brown sugar
-  3 eggs
-  2 1/4 cup plain flour
-  1 teaspoon baking powder
-  3/4 teaspoon baking soda
-  1/2 teaspoon salt
-  3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-  1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
-  1 cup buttermilk
-  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius and butter/line a loaf tin.

Cream the butter and add the two sugars until fluffy and a lovely caramel colour.  Add the eggs, one at a time, while the beater is on a medium speed.  Make sure it's combined well and scrape the sides down.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, rising agents, salt and spices together - this sure beats the hell out of sifting it!   Now add the flour, one third at a time, alternating with the buttermilk.  Add the vanilla extract.  Don't over beat it, just use the mixer on a medium speed and stop as soon as it's combined and smooth.  If you mix it too much, it will toughen up the result.

Dollop into the prepared cake tin and pop in the oven for approximately 40 minutes, or until the cake tester comes out clean.  Allow to cool in its tin before removing or it will split!

Buttermilk & Sage Cornbread

There were a few reasons this cornbread recipe came to be.  I guess it all started with me being at home sick with a nasty head cold and in need of comfort food.  The core of this recipe is the skillet cornbread recipe my Texan Uncle Chip bequeathed me (it was his mother Bonny's recipe) along with my cast-iron skillet, which is only ever used for cornbread and is never, ever washed - only wiped cleaned, oiled and then returned to the cupboard.  So, given my infirmity, I decided a steaming hot slab of cornbread, fresh from the oven and slathered in butter was just what the doctor ordered.

Then my friends, Matt-in-the-Hat and the Divine Ms R, decided to bring the dinner to me and my couch (which, in a side note, is an excellent way to make a girl feel better, especially if it also involves watching some West Wing while eating the aforementioned dinner that has been brought to your door).  As a result, I adapted my Great Aunt Bonny's Texan cornbread recipe to make it gluten-free for Mr M to enjoy, and at the last minute decided to add in a little of my homegrown sage to jazz it up a little.

The great part about this cornbread recipe is that you can add things like sage, or jalapeno chillies, or sliced spring onions, or just keep it simple, stupid.  I also happened to have some buttermilk left over from last weekend's foray into Coconut Cupcakes, which I threw into the mix.  It produced a light, moist cornbread and, while not strictly essential - you could just use milk to thin out the batter - the buttermilk really added a lot to the final, moist result.

Finally, although I used a gluten-free self-raising flour (one of the new gluten-free direct substitutes now on the market), this recipe is just as good with plain old normal self-raising flour!  In Australia, you generally can't get the kind of stone-ground cornmeal used in the US for cornbread, so just use polenta instead.   I recommend scarfing this down straight out of the oven, either as a snack on it's own or as a side-dish to sop up the gravy from down home chicken and dumplings or slow-cooker casserole.

Buttermilk & Sage Cornbread

Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup cornmeal (or polenta)
- 1 1/2 cup self-raising flour (or gluten-free self-raising flour)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh sage leaves
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups buttermilk
- some extra milk if thinning out is required (approx 2 tablespoons)
- 50 grams melted butter for the batter
- 50 grams butter for the skillet

First step - preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius (if not fan forced, preheat to 200 degrees) and put in your skillet to heat up.  Your skillet should be heavy, preferably cast iron, pre-oiled and have the kind of handle that is not going to melt in the oven.

Next, in a large bowl use a whisk to combine your cornmeal, flour (the gluten-free stuff is quite powdery, so use an apron!), sugar and salt.  Fold through the chopped sage.

In a separate small bowl, whisk your eggs and slowly add the melted butter, whisking all the time to ensure the hot butter doesn't cook the eggs.  Now, make a well in the centre of the dried ingredients and add the egg mix.  Use a wooden spoon to combine, but it will look pretty "gluggy".  Next, add the buttermilk one half-cup at a time.  The batter needs to be at a pouring consistency, so add in the milk if necessary one tablespoon at a time, until it looks thick but pourable.

Now, take a moment to add the butter to your sizzling hot skillet - it should melt pretty quickly.  Swirl it around to make sure it coats the skillet, then add it back into the oven for about a minute.

When the butter is melted (but not burned!), pour in the batter, which should sizzle as it hits the cast-iron.  Pop it back in the oven and bake until it's risen and golden brown on top - around 20-30 minutes.

Slice immediately and serve piping hot with melting butter.

Buckwheat & Buttermilk Pancakes

What do you do when you discover you have the pox (shingles) and can't leave the house for fear of infecting small children, pregnant women and adults who, for some strange reason, forgot to get themselves a good dose of chickenpox as kids?  In my case, you plan out your food blogging for the next month and then make yourself some yummy breakfast.

Although Mr J is generally the pancake maker in this household (Note to all men: making pancakes every Saturday morning for your lady friend is a good way to both woo her and fatten her up), this morning I decided it was time for me to get my pancake making on and whip up something special for our breakfast... I was also feeling guilty that my having the plague means that Justin can't spend New Years with his friends who, sadly, are all either pregnant or have small kids.  The perils of the thirty-something set...

Anyhoo, I digress. Pancakes.  Now, ever since my father first introduced me to pancakes in the US when I was a little girl I have eaten these delicious cake-at-breakfast delights at every opportunity that has presented itself.  Always I have been torn between the two halves of the pancake world - the light and fluffy buttermilk pancake, and the dark nuttiness of the buckwheat.  Deciding between these two is the eternal dilemma for every pancake sitting.  But no more!  Today I combined the two and I am very please to say it turned out rather well.  Possibly next time I will do Mr J's trick of whipping the egg whites separately and then folding them in with the rest of the batter.  This produces an extra light and fluffy pancake, but for this morning I settled for the basic product.  So, here it is, the best of both worlds.

Buckwheat & Buttermilk Pancakes with Maple Syrup and Nectarines


Ingredients:


-  1/2 cup buckwheat flour (in my case, I apparently bought an organic product too)
-  1/2 cup plain four
-  1/2 cup milk
-  1/2 cup buttermilk
-  1 tsp cinnamon
-  1 tsp baking powder
-  1 tsp vanilla extract
-  1 egg
-  2 tablespoons white sugar
-  1 tablespoon olive oil (or other vegetable oil.  Personally, I think peanut oil would add to the nuttiness of the buckwheat)

Throw all the dry ingredients except the cinnamon into a large bowl and whisk together to combine.  Then add in the egg, milk and buttermilk and whisk until it looks creamy, but not too much or else it will make it a bit chewy.  Then pop in the vanilla extract and the cinnamon and combine.  Add in the oil and stir just enough for it to thin out the batter.

Now unleash your biggest frying pan, heat it up on the hob and grease it with butter until it's good and sizzling hot.  Using a soup ladle, pour in either one big pancake or two more modest-sized pancakes.  

When bubbles are beginning to form it's time to flip them - and don't leave it too late or it will burn.  And try to use a nice flat spatula, it's much easier to flip with the right implements.  Once they're done, I like to keep them warm on a plate in the oven (about 110 degrees) until they are all ready.

Given the wonderful availability of stone fruit at the moment, I decided to serve these delicious babies with sliced nectarines and pure maple syrup... maple flavoured syrup is the devil's spawn and must be avoided at all costs.   I also set the table and we ate like adults.  A fabulous distraction from being quarantined for New Year's Eve.