Wednesday Baking II : Carrot cake Muffins with Cinnamon Glaze…

It’s Wednesday today, and just like last week, I’ve had a lovely quiet morning today, filled with baking, a bit of blogging and a
lo-hot of tasting.
This morning I made Carrot cake Muffins.
I just realized this is again a recipe with lots of raisins and cinnamon (!) Talk about coincidence…=)

The recipe is from Delia Smith. I love her Vegetarian Collection - it’s a big, beautiful book with simple and complicated recipes and the most amazing photo’s - even a simple potato looks gorgeous in here.
According to Delia this is the absolute best carrot cake there is. She worked on the recipe for years, carefully analysed it and made a lot of little adjustment over the years.

Changing the recipe seemed very stupid and completely sacrilege, so I followed the instructions precisely...
My only adjustment was the use of little muffin tins instead of two large cake pans. I was very pleased with the outcome; they were a lot easier to make and don’t they look sweet??
I’m very glad I didn’t change a single thing: this is indeed the best carrot cake ever

It’s sweet, dense and spongy and still fairly healthy judging all the ingredients...
You can taste all the different ingredients and flavours, but what really special is, is that not one single thing dominates in this cake – all the lovely flavours work together and are simply a perfect match!

Although I liked the cinnamon glaze, I prefer the muffin served just plain with the syrup…I love this syrup - It’s without a doubt the best addition ever for a carrot cake. It will be perfectly moist (but not wet!) unbelievably sweet and so delicious…
well, you just have to try it yourself ;)


Carrot cake Muffins with Cinnamon Glaze (makes 18 muffins)
base:
- 175g (1 cup packed) dark brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 ½ dl (2/3 cup) sunflower oil
- 200g (1 2/3 cups) self raising flour (wholemeal)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 tsp mixed spices (cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and white pepper)
- 200g (= 1 ½ cups packed, when grated) carrots, scraped and roughly grated
- zest of one 1 orange
- 100g (½ cup) raisins
- 50g (2/3 cup) grated coconut
- 50g (½ cup) pecan nuts
syrup:
- juice of one little orange
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 75g (½ cup packed, minus 3 Tbsp) dark brown sugar
glaze:
- 125g (1/2 cup) mascarpone
- 100g (1/2 cup) fresh cream cheese (8%fat)
- 2 tsp cinnamon powder
- 3 tsp brown sugar
- 50g (½ cup) pecan nuts (for the topping)

1. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F)
Make the cinnamon glaze first: whip all ingredients together until they’re creamy, cover with plastic foil and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.
Divide all the pecan nuts (100g) over a baking sheet. Grill for 6 minutes and turn oven back to 170°C (325°F)

2. Cut half of the amount of nuts roughly up for the cake base, and the rest very finely for the topping.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix sugar, eggs and oil for about 2 to 3 minutes, until sugar is completely dissolved. Sift flour, baking soda and mixed spices (put back the grains!) stir and add the ingredients to the cake base.

4. Butter and flour a muffin pan and a small cake pan. Pour base in forms (don’t fill them completely! About 2/3) and bake for 30 minutes, well risen and firm. When they stick to their forms, bake for another 2 to 3 minutes and check again. Leave them in their tins and make the syrup.

5. For the syrup: whisk together both citrus fruits and add in the sugar. Mix well. Prick (with a toothpick) little holes in the muffins/cake and divide and pour over the syrup.

6. Let cool completely. Take them out off their forms and spread (if you wish...) with cinnamon glaze. Sprinkle with chopped pecans and enjoy…

The Perfect Scone - the recipe

OK, I didn’t prepare ALL the different recipes I’d found and wanted to make from books, magazines and the internet, cause frankly, I was quite sick of it. But this last couple of days I have made:

Scones without, with a few, and scones with a lot of raisins.
Scones with milk and scones with buttermilk. (3 different recipes with all a different amount…)
Recipes with a lot of butter/sugar/flour and recipes with not much butter/sugar/flour.

I’ve made recipes which resulted in a soggy bunch, scones that were too dry and fell right away apart, pale ones, burned ones and a couple which tasted rather good actually, but nothing like a scone.
I’ve made light and heavy ones and I’ve experimented with the brushing; milk, buttermilk or egg yolk. (which doesn’t make the slightest difference by the way…)

After 3, I must say, very busy bake-days, I finally came up with a recipe that kind of looked like the ones I wanted - They weren’t close to being perfect yet, but he, NOW it could go somewhere(!)
So I made them again, now with more raisins, a bit more flour (I wanted them to be dry…) and a lot less butter (the previous ones were far to buttery; they had a heavy, greasy smell and aftertaste, I wanted them to be a bit more neutral)

Well, 10 minutes in the oven + 3 minutes under the broiler later…HURRAH !- I HAD MADE THE PERFECT SCONE!

They were light, dry and scrumptiously crumbly. The inside just fluffy and moist enough, with a golden brown coating and a delicious crispy, buttery crust.
Scones with just enough raisins, a wonderful aroma, gorgeous colour and trust me, the best flavour ever.
Best to eat freshly baked of course, still slightly warm, with some (homemade) jam and a nice cup of tea…

The recipe for the best scones ever:
(makes 6 big ones)

- 225 g self-raising flour
- a pinch of salt
- 40 g granulated sugar
- 50 g cold butter, cut up in little pieces
- 75 g raisins (or other dried fruit)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 3 Tbsp milk

1. Preheat the oven to 220˚C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, sift the self-raising flour with the pinch of salt, and add in the sugar.

3. Add the butter and crumble this, using your fingertips, through the flour until you have a fine texture, looking a little like rough breadcrumbs.

4. Mix in the raisins and stir in the egg and the milk. The dough will now be very quickly ready. Knead it a couple of times, but don’t overwork it. The dough should now feel soft and can easily be formed into a ball.

5. Divide the dough into 6 round little balls, flat the top and shape them so they’ll be about 2 cm high and have a diameter of 7 cm.


6. Brush them with a little milk/egg yolk (doesn’t matter which) and bake them for 10 minutes.

7. They don’t have their beautiful colour yet, so turn on the broiler for 3 minutes.

8. Now they are perfect. The bottom and outside are golden brown and the inside fluffy and delicious. They can be stored at room temperature for a few days or you can freeze them, but best to eat immediately.

I hope you’ll try them, and agree with me…let me know! :)