Chocolate-chip Muffins!

Today is the first day of a new era: no more amateur baking, no more guessing amounts - this time I followed the recipe, for real. And I finally got a good result! I even went out and bought scales: past baking nightmares have taught me that "more or less" doesn't quite work.

I got this recipe for Chocolate-Chip Muffins from Vera's blog, they're really easy to make and if you follow the recipe you will get nice soft muffins. If I got them, then you will too because I am far from having the baking finger.

I picked out the best ones for the picture up above...ha ha! But this is what the rest of them looked like! Lesson learnt. Do not overfill the muffin cups. I used paper muffin cups because I refuse to use alluminium in my kitchen. The alluminium ones are sturdier, but since we're on our way to a generally healthier life, let's steer well away from using it! The paper ones work fine but, as I just mentioned, be careful not to overfill them, or your muffins will look more like...run-away muffins. Or overly-affectionate muffins, trying to get close to the other muffins and coming together in some bakery version of holy matrimony.
If they do turn out like this, we may then adopt the philosophy of not judging a book by its cover, and that should have you covered.

Ingredients:

- 300 g flour "00"

- 50 g potato starch

- 1/2 packet of cremor tartar

- 100 g cane sugar

- 300 ml of rice/soya milk

- 5 teaspoons maize oil

- 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda

- 1 tablespoon of apple vinegar (or white wine vinegar)

- chocolate drops (as many as you like!)

Turn on oven to 170 degrees. Sieve the dry ingredients and mix them together: flour, potato starch, cremor tartar, sugar, bicarbonate soda. Pour in the wet ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon, and then add the vinegar and chocolate drops. Fill your muffin cups to 3/4....or a little less. I thought I'd filled mine up 3/4 - I should maybe reconsider my understanding of "three quarters".

Place in oven for 30 minutes, then check with a knife/stick: if they're dry, turn the oven off and let them rest for a few minutes, and then pull them out to cool.

And since you've gone to all this effort, you may as well taste one! Mmmmm....I've already eaten two. Insatiable....I'm going back for more!

Nutty-Choco "Ice-Cream"

I'll blame the summer mood for this excessive production of cold desserts - I don't know if anyone's been experimenting with the frozen banana-base, but I certainly have! And here's today's result. Scrumcious! Quite moossey as well.

Ingredients:

- 2 frozen bananas

- handful of almonds

- handful of walnuts

- handful of hazelnuts

- 3 pitted dates

- Agave syrup

- bitter cocoa powder

- for extra naughtiness: dark chocolate (without milk powder to maintain the dessert vegan)

- a liquid base: can be grape juice if you want to keep it gluten-free, or rice/almond/soya milk.

The procedure is always the same: peel the bananas and place them in plastic wrap in the freezer for about three hours or until frozen. In the mean time, soak the nuts in the juice or milk for the same amount of time.

Once the bananas are frozen, cut them up and place them in a food processor with the rest of the ingredients. I didn't really measure: I guess a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder, plus a little more for good luck. Agave syrup....mmm....I just put it in. You don't need much: the bananas and dates are already sweet, but a little syrup is good to contrast the bitter cocoa powder. Add the rest of the ingredients and start woozzing...oh! Also MUST add (before woozzing) about half a cup of juice/"milk" - this is always to save your blender, and to give the ice-cream a smooth consistency.

Don't forget the extra touch! Dark chocolate: cut it up a bit before hand and then give it a last woozz once the whole thing has already reached a smooth consistency.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the result! Might be nice to sprinkle some coconut flakes on top at the end...or not. May as well be 100% decadent while you're at it!