Breakfast muffins with walnuts and raspberries

I know, I know, there have been quite a few muffin recipes on this blog lately. But I just had to share this one with you. We are talking about breakfast muffins. That´s right: dessert for breakfast. Plus, these are guilt-free healthy muffins. Meaning they are made without wheat flour and sugar. Say whaaat? It´s a crazy world we are living in.

Usually, I am a bit skeptical when it comes to super healthy vegan, gluten-, sugar- and fat free desserts. Don´t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of eating healthy. I have at least 5 different types of flour in my kitchen, I love whole grain bread more than anything and I can´t go to the farmers market without buying tons of fresh fruit and vegetables. But when it comes to dessert I was always more of a “the more the better” kind of person. Life is too short to not eat dessert. And the best cakes are just the ones made with tons of butter, cream and chocolate. Also most of the super-healthy-low-carb-sugar-free recipes require a lot of ingredients that are (a) hard to get and (b) kind of expensive. That being said, I was very interested when I saw the recipe for breakfast muffins over at Green Kitchen Stories. They are made of things you usually have at home or can easily find at the supermarket, like walnuts, oats, bananas and dates. And the combination sounded really great. So I decided to give this whole healthy-baking thing a try.

The result was AMAZING. The muffins are soft and fluffy and surprisingly very sweet. They taste like a mixture between granola, oatmeal and pancakes. So they really are perfect for breakfast. The original recipe is with turmeric and blueberries. I adapted it a little by using cinnamon instead of turmeric and adding raspberries. I also altered the granola topping by adding some caramelized walnuts. Because things are always better when caramelized!
Makes about 18 muffins:
100 g walnuts
85 g rolled oats
130 g buckwheat flour, spelt flour or whole grain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp freshly ground cardamom
½ tsp sea salt
160 ml buttermilk or plant yogurt
80 ml oil or butter
2 ripe bananas, mashed
5 fresh dates, mashed
3 large eggs
Raspberries, frozen or fresh
For the granola topping:
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp runny honey
1) Using a food processor or a blender, mix walnuts and oats into a coarse flour. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and mix with the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom and salt. With a blender or a food processor, mix buttermilk, oil, bananas and dates. Mix with the dry ingredients. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl for a minute before carefully adding them to the batter. Add raspberries.
2) Divide the batter among the muffin tins. For the granola topping, mix all the ingredients and let them caramelize in a pan. Add on top of the muffins. Bake the muffins in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes at 180°C.

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Sweet

Rhubarb muffins with a vanilla-mascarpone topping

Yay for rhubarb! You might have noticed that I really really like rhubarb. Which is why it should be no surprise that I am presenting you another rhubarb-recipe today. I mean, you gotta take advantage of the season. Soon enough it´ll be time for strawberries, blackberries, raspberries…Gosh I love the fruits of summer!

I started my baking career with muffins. When I was younger I would get together with friends and we would get baking. And anytime there was a birthday, fundraiser or any other occasion that required sweet treats, I would make some muffins. The good thing about muffins is that you can adapt them according to season. All you need is a basic batter and from there you can add whatever you like best. The batter is important though. Over the years I learned from a lot of mistakes and by now I know some tricks to make the fluffiest muffins. First of all, prepare the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder…) and the wet ingredients (eggs, butter, milk…) separate from another before mixing them all together. Use buttermilk or yoghurt instead of milk, it makes the batter softer. Stir only until the ingredients are well mixed, don´t keep stirring, otherwise the muffins will become dry. You can also put a little bit of water into one muffin cup. This will cause more humidity while baking and the muffins will turn out soft and fluffy.

Using rhubarb for muffins is kind of a genius idea. To make the whole thing even better, I mixed some mascarpone, yoghurt and vanilla bean and added that as a topping. With just a hint of homemade jam, each one of these muffins tastes like heaven. Seriously!

Makes about 12 muffins:
200 g rhubarb
275 g flour
3 tbsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. cinnamon
150 g sugar
1 egg
250 ml plain yoghurt or buttermilk
80 g butter

For the vanilla-frosting:
200 g plain yoghurt
200 g mascarpone
1 vanilla bean
50 g sugar

1) Wash the rhubarb and cut into little pieces. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix the egg, yoghurt and the melted butter. Add the flour mixture and rhubarb and mix well.
2) Place the batter into the muffin cups. Bake in the preheated oven at 175° C for about 20-25 minutes. Let cool completely.
3) For the topping, mix yoghurt, mascarpone, sugar and the core of the vanilla bean using an electric mixer or a kitchen aid. Spread the topping generously on the muffins using a knife or a piping bag.

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Cake, Sweet

Cheesecake – after a family recipe

There are some dishes that just don´t taste right when using a different recipes or ordering them in a restaurant. For me, that is true for my mom’s lasagna, my dad´s pasta and this cheesecake. They are just such typical family recipes. I´ve tried different recipes but with what I knew from home in mind, I always ended up being disappointed. Therefore, when it comes to making any of these recipes, I just trust in the ones I have. They are foolproof. At least for me.

Käsekuchen

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Osterbrunch, Sweet

Carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese topping

Holidays are great. I never really appreciated them, If you are a lazy college student like me, it doesn´t really make a difference if it´s Tuesday or Sunday. But since I have to get up early every day to get to my internship I am really thankful for weekends and days off. I am using this long weekend to sleep in and get busy in the kitchen. We are having a big brunch with the family and I wanted to make an Easter recipe. I wasn´t exactly sure what to make though, I am no expert when it comes to traditional Easter recipes. I did however had a huge craving for carrotcake-cupcakes. And if carrots are good enough for the Easter bunny, they sure are good enough for cupcakes. So here we go!

Technically I am kind of cheating with this recipe because I have posted it before. But I love it so much and didn´t want to try a different recipe and be disappointed afterwards. Plus, the cream cheese topping is perfect. I have to admit, I think cupcakes are super cute but sometimes they are just to sweet and sugary. I am not a huge fan of the traditional topping made with butter and sugar but everybody is different. Feel free to try a different topping with this recipe and let me know how it goes.

Makes about 24 cupcakes:

375 g carrots (about 4-5)

250 g flour

3 TL baking powder

275 g sugar

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Salt

250 g butter

1/2 TL cinnamon

4 eggs

100 g chopped almonds

100 g ground almonds

1) First, peel the carrots and grate them finely on a grater. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon and salt. Add the butter and the eggs. Finally add carrots and almonds. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full.

2) Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven at 175° for about 25 minutes. Let the cool completely before adding the topping.

For the topping:

200 g cream cheese

2 tbsp. cream

100 g powdered sugar

1) Mix cream cheese with the cream. Add powdered sugar and mix well with a mixer until you get a fluffy topping. Spread the topping generously on the cupcakes using a knife or a piping bag.

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Sweet, Vegan

Rhubarb-strawberry jam

Spring is here. The weather was so great last week, warm and sunny; it almost felt like the beginning of summer. Everything is blooming and blossoming, there are just so many colors everywhere. And I did manage to get a light sunburn just from a picnic in the park. Today was the first day where the weather was grey and rainy so I decided to get me some spring in a jar. With rhubarb-strawberry jam!

I love when rhubarb come in season. It´s a reminder that winter is really over and it means that all the other wonderful summer-fruits are soon in season. I knew I wanted to make something with rhubarb this weekend but I wasn´t quite sure what. The idea to make jam was pretty spontaneous and since rhubarb itself tends to be a bit sour, I decided to add some strawberries as well. Continue reading “Rhubarb-strawberry jam” →

Breakfast, Sweet

Banana bread with chocolate chips

At the moment I am finding out what it means to be an adult. I´m doing an internship and that means getting up early. And being gone for most of the day. And not having that much time left for baking and even less desire to make something complex and fancy once I get home. Seriously, kudos to everyone who is blogging on top of their full time job! How do you manage that? I am already looking forward to the free time and flexibility college life offers.

In college I already noticed that I am not a huge canteen fan. Most of the ones at college do offer a great variety and try to be as fresh and organic as possible. And the one at my Internship is not bad either. I just prefer to cook at home or bring my own stuff to work. Before I started this internship I was imagining all the yummy things I would take to work but reality is me frantically searching for stuff to throw together the night before. Maybe I should reconsider the whole grown-up-responsibility-thing.

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DAS LEBEN IST SÜSS!