Soda Bread Muffins

Happy St. Patrick's Day! To celebrate, I adapted this Irish Soda Bread recipe from the delightful bakers at King Arthur Flour. SO GOOD for breakfast or an afternoon pick-me-up. I primarily adjusted the original recipe to work with gluten-free flour, incorporate my love of cinnamon, and use the abundance of sultanas in my kitchen!

I made these yesterday and there might be only three left. So I think it's fair to say these were a hit. Hope you think so too!

What you'll need (makes 18 muffins)

• 210g all purpose gluten-free flour blend
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 70g caster sugar
• 1 large egg
• 225g buttermilk
• 50ml milk
• 75ml vegetable oil
• 60g sultanas
• 120g currants
• caster sugar and ground cinnamon for topping

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 180C/360F.

Combine all dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, sugar, salt, sultanas, and currants - in a large mixing bowl.

In a smaller separate bowl lightly beat the egg, then combine with the buttermilk, milk, and vegetable oil. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and stir lightly. Really a turn or two with a mixing spoon should do it. To ensure optimum fluffiness for your baked muffins, take care to not over stir. 

Line a muffin tin with papers or lightly grease the tin - I went for papers here, clearly. Fill the paper liners at least 2/3 of the way up - these muffins do not rise too much, so I had no trouble with overflow.

Once you've filled the muffin tin, mix together about 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon, then sprinkle on top of each muffin.

Pop the filled muffin tin into the oven for 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden brown on top and/or an inserted fork comes out clean. Enjoy warm with coffee or tea! Or perhaps with a festively green juice?

The buttermilk made these surprisingly airy, and the adjusted liquid to dry ingredients ratio worked really well with the gluten-free flour blend (no crumbly mess, as is sometimes the case when you substitute gluten-free flour directly into a recipe - hurrah!).

Hope you enjoy your St. Patrick's Day! Any big celebration plans? Baking with Guinness or Bailey's maybe? I'd love to hear!

Cranberry Pumpkin Bread

Happy (belated) New Year everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays! It's been far too long since I've posted anything here, but I've been away having family time and eating way too much - I hope that sounds familiar to some of you...

Since it's freezing almost everywhere (apparently) and I'm sure you've all been just sitting at home pondering over what to do with your leftover pumpkin and cranberries, may I suggest using this bread recipe? It's extra tasty warm.

What you'll need:

• 140g plain flour (I used a GF blend here)
• 90g caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 40 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 120ml milk
• 2 eggs
• 200g pumpkin puree
• 300g cranberries
• 200ml orange juice

What to do for the cranberry sauce:

Rinse off the cranberries and then dump them into a saucepan with the orange juice. Bring just to a boil, then simmer until the cranberries pop. Set aside to cool while you prep the rest of the batter.

What to do for the bread:

Preheat your oven to 170C/325F.

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in a large mix bowl and stir together.

Next blend in the milk, butter, eggs, and vanilla with a handheld mixer on low/medium.

Once the batter is well blended, gently fold in the cranberry sauce.

Lightly butter a bundt tin and pour the batter in. Level off the top with a spatula or spoon.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until an inserted fork comes out clean. 

Loosen the edges of the loaf away from the tin using a spoon, and leave to cool for at least 15 minutes before attempting to remove from the bundt tin. 

Pumpkin cranberry bread morning snack, anyone?

Carrot Cranberry Bread

This is my first new recipe for the start of autumn this year - it's basically carrot cake's seasonally festive, slightly healthier cousin. I kept the added sugar fairly low here, letting the cranberries and carrots add the sweetness. I also used Greek yogurt instead of butter, which made for bread with a really nice and cakey consistency. Great with a morning coffee!

What you'll need:

• 250g grated carrots (3-4 medium sized carrots)
• 300g low fat plain Greek yogurt
• 340g flour
• 100g light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 170C/340F.

Spend an inordinate amount of time (not really...probably about 5 minutes, depending on your level of coordination) grating 3-4 carrots. Or rope someone into helping you. Unfortunately, no one else was there for me to Tom Sawyer into grating carrots. Seriously though people, is there a faster way of doing this? 

Hold a minor celebration when you are finished grating the carrots. Then, in a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, Greek yogurt, light brown sugar, and vanilla extract. I used a hand powered mixer for this step. Once everything is thoroughly mixed, fold in the grated carrots.

In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients - the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder, baking soda, and just a pinch of salt. Once blended, gradually fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Make sure to smooth out any flour and/or sugar lumps.

Next, lightly grease a cake tin (I used a bundt tin, which baked nice and evenly) and pour the batter into it. Smooth down the top of the batter with a spatula, then pop into the oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until an inserted fork comes out clean.

Let cool for about 5 minutes before slicing. Enjoy the first slice while it's still warm!

If you find that you still have some bread left over after 2 days or so, it's also really nice toasted with a bit of cream cheese or honey spread on top.