The Baking Medic

Enter the White Chocolate Coconut Muffin

So I think this is my 3rd variation of that brilliant original buttermilk muffin recipe — and it has yet to fail me! That being said, these muffins turned out slightly differently from how I expected them too.  At first I wanted them to be lemon white chocolate coconut muffins, but alas, Aldi was shut for Easter! So they became White Chocolate Coconut muffins.

As ever, I am a big fan of using up ingredients (waste not, want not) so the coconut and white chocolate were both left over from my Cookie Monster cupcakes.  When I was buying ingredients for them, I waaay overestimated the amount of googly eyes I would need! So I had 2 packs of white chocolate buttons left, just waiting to be thrown into some tasty muffins.

» Read the rest of this entry «

me want cookies!

These cupcakes were so much fun to make! I first saw them a few weeks ago on Facebook.  I thought they looked spectacular and immediately wanted to make some of my own.  So I set about looking for the perfect way to recreate these Cookie Monsters. :)

Firstly, I needed to make them look “fuzzy”.  I opted to use dyed coconut instead of dyed coarse sugar for two reasons.  Firstly, coconut is a lot easier to obtain in St Andrews and secondly, these cupcakes have a generous amount of icing and are topped off with chocolate buttons and a chocolate chip cookie.  I don’t really think they needed the extra sugar. :P

» Read the rest of this entry «

I seem to be baking a lot recently! But when I get stressed, I bake. And well, the exam’s tomorrow, so baking is a relatively short and productive revision break. Although, I must say it’s not terribly wonderful for my, ahem, waistline. :P O well.

I made this because on Thursday evening, my other half, B, had some Couchsurfers staying with him! We had a wonderful meal together and talked about everything under the sun from how to properly pronounce “Salford” in the Manchurian accent to driving down dirt tracks in rural Mexico.  They were just starting another several month tour of the UK, Europe and Asia before heading home to Australia.  Talk about living the dream!

» Read the rest of this entry «

These muffins are the first variation on the muffin recipe that I posted earlier this week, the Pear & White Chocolate Chip Muffins.  The recipe once again uses oil instead of butter, comes together so quickly and gives you delicious muffins with generous muffintop (the best part!).

These muffins are Jaffa Muffins! If you don’t know what Jaffa cakes are, you’re missing out.  They’re a UK cookie/cake covered with a layer of orange jelly and topped off by a coating of chocolate.  Whether or not they’re a cake or a biscuit is a source of great debate, but these are without a doubt muffins. :)

» Read the rest of this entry «

Pear + White Chocolate = Delicious Muffins

It’s the Easter break here in St Andrews and most students are off cavorting away somewhere on the Continent. Alas, for medics, the 2 week break finds us at home or still in the Bubble looking longingly outside as we get our first days of spring.  Such is the lot of people who have midterms the first day back from the “break”.

But I still found some time to make these muffins.  A few months back, I made a Glazed Pear & White Chocolate Bundt cake.  I loved the combination of pear and white chocolate, two soft sweet complementary flavours.  So this past weekend, I was running low on a few ingredients and was looking for a recipe to use up a couple of pears that I had sitting around.  See I was butter-less, which pretty much rules out 75% of cake and cookie recipes.  So I decided to go looking for a muffin recipe and I found a great basic buttermilk muffin recipe.  The recipe originally called for berries, but I substituted the same volume of chopped up pear and white chocolate chips.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Making all those wee white chocolate raspberry mousses. NOM.

A few weeks back, I taught a Chocolate Baking Class for the Fine Chocolate Society.  The amazingly talented Frank George, Sarah Wilford, and Verena Walsh were such a great help! Luckily, Verena had the foresite to bring her camera and she has just passed on the photos to me.  If you’re interested in some of the recipes, I’ve made the Zebra cake and White Chocolate Mousse before.  You can find the Zebra Cake here and the White Chocolate Mousse here.

» Read the rest of this entry «

macaroons!

People sometimes get confused when I talk about macaroons.  They come in all different shapes and sizes, some chocolate coated others pure coconut.  It’s even easy to confuse macaroons, the sweet soft coconut confection, with macarons, the French confection made with eggwhite, icing sugar, and ground almonds.  Macarons come in a rainbow of colours and flavours, vs macaroons are mostly coconut with a hint of almond extract. Wikipedia tells me that the Australians like to hide a dab of jam in the centre of their macaroons prior to cooking.  What a delicious surprise!

» Read the rest of this entry «

Omg. This mousse is divine!  And I think it’s most defining feature is that it’s eggless — so no consuming raw eggs (although I confess to regularly trying the cookie dough) or any fiddling about with beating until “soft peaks” form.  The secret to this mousse is that it uses cream cheese and whipped cream to achieve it’s smooth creaminess and lightness.  This recipe was adapted from a version I found on one of my favourite blogs, Closet Cooking.  Kevin there adapted it from a recipe from the Dairy Farmers of Canada — which explains the prominent use of dairy products in the recipe.

» Read the rest of this entry «

tada! proof that size matters not!

This recipe proves that bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better! I made this cake a few weeks back for my Valentine’s Day dinner with my dear other half.  We decided to have a relaxed night in rather than a sappy and overpriced night out. :)

My dear other half was in charge of the main meal whilst I was given the task of procuring dessert.  Giving my obsession with all things chocolate, I was not terribly troubled by this.  However, I still had to find a cute dessert that be sufficient for the two of us. :)

» Read the rest of this entry «

Possibly my favourite cookie recipe of 2010.

I’m home for the holidays! And I’m lucky to have made it out of the UK, judging by what I hear from my friends back in Scotland.  Apparently Heathrow resembles a refugee camp and the queue for the Eurostar stretches 1km back! Eek.  Indeed I hope all of this will have calmed down before it’s time to go back to the Bubble.

As usual I have a long droughts with no posting followed by a flash flood of recipes and photos.  I do bake in between posts! Lots! It’s just hard to get a good photo and even harder for me to motivate myself to post when most people who read this probably already sampled the baked goods. Ah well. It’s the end of 2010, so I thought I’d include some pictures of my favourite cakes and other sweets from this year.  If you’d like any of the recipes, just let me know!

» Read the rest of this entry «