School Lunch box idea no. 1 - Green and Gold Muffins

4th official day into School and I'm allready trying to think of new and exciting things to throw into the lunch box! Oh dear.... I had a quick scour through some recipe books and found an interesting idea from a small Tupperware magazine circa 2004. I've tweaked it a bit and I'm really happy with the end result (or should I say, the big school kid thinks they are yum too!) Also, I had to share the pic of "the big school kid" with a very funny zucchini! We had friends over on the weekend and they brought this from their vegie patch. The kids thought it was hilarious. Mr Zucchini was the life of the party!

ingredients

"Most of these things should be found in your kitchen or vegie patch ;)"

2 cobs of corn
1 small zucchini
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
3 tablespoons mozzarella cheese
1 cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons light olive oil
1 egg
2 tablespoons greek style yoghurt

how to make your green and gold muffins

Pre-heat oven to 190C fan forced. grease a muffin tray very! well or use cases.

Cut corn kernals off corn and place in a microwave safe container. Place the lid loosely. Pop in the microwave for 1 minute 30seconds. Set aside.

Grate the zucchini. Set aside

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.

In a seperate bowl combine the oil, egg and yoghurt. Add this to the flour mix along with the vegies, parsley and cheese. The mix will be quite wet. Give it a thourouh stir. Spoon into your muffin tin and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Let stand for a few minutes before turning onto a wire rack. enjoy!

treasure chests

....or cupcakes with cinnamon apricots and sweet clotted cream....

Apricots this season have been incredible. I'm not usually such a fan but they have been consistently yum! so, so sweet! and here I am again popping them in a dessert. As you know I'm a HUGE fan of pretty cupcakes. I especially love butterfly cakes. They remind me of my childhood when I was allowed to pick my very own sweet treat for afternoon tea. Butterfly cakes were always top of my list! The last time I made them myself was for my husbands birthday in 2006. As co-incidence would have it, Caroline from Fox Drink Water and her family were about to pop over to help us celebrate. The salads were made, the bbq was ready and the butterfly cakes were about to be assembled and then my waters broke............4 hours later (and 16 days early) our first child was born. SO yes, I haven't made them since and then these little cakes kind of morphed into little chests of buried treasure. They are delicious though and if you are a big kid at heart, well, I'm sure they will even transport you back to your childhood, when you were allowed to pick your very own afternoon tea treat.

ingredients

1) 1 ½ cups plain flour
2) 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
3) 110g softened unsalted butter
4) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5) ¼ cup milk
6) 2 eggs
7) just under 2/3 cup caster sugar

1 cup water
½ cup caster sugar
6 whole apricots,sliced in half
1 cinnamon quill

250g Clotted cream

how to make your Treasure Chests or cupcakes with cinnamon apricots and sweet clotted cream

Pop the oven on to 180C. Line a 12 cup capacity muffin tin with cases.

This part is best done about an hour before serving. Wash your apricots. Make sure they are ready to eat; not too ripe and not too unripe. Cut them in half, discard seed and set aside. Grab a wide based saucepan and pop in the water, sugar and cinnamon quill. Put over a medium heat and bring to a simmer, making sure all the sugar is dissolved. Once simmering, add the apricots and simmer for 3 minutes. Take out the apricots with a slotted spoon and pop on a plate in one layer. Set aside. Pop in the fridge when cooled down a little until needed. Strain the syrup and set aside at room temp.

Pop the first 7 ingredients into a bowl and mix with an electric mixer for a couple of minutes until mixture is smooth. Place large spoonfuls into cases and bake for 18 mins or until cakes are cooked through.

Place them on a cooling rack and assemble about 10 - 20 mins before serving.

TO ASSEMBLE:
Take out ingredients from the fridge. Grab your knife and at an angle cut the tops out of each cupcake. Using a teaspoon, scoop a little of the cupcake centre out and discard. Grab a bowl and add about 1/2 to 3/4 of the cream and add about 2 - 3 teaspoons of the syrup. Give it a really good mix together until it's well incorporated. Time to taste test! If you think it needs it add a little more syrup. Now, give each cupcake a good dollop inside (the buried treasure!), top with an apricot (cut side up) then replace the top of the cupcake over the apricot. Give them a good dusting with icing sugar. Serve.

VARIATIONS:
*Instead of clotted cream you could use marscapone.
*Instead of adding the syrup to the clotted cream or marscapone you could simply use a half teaspoon of rosewater or even a sweet dessert wine.
*Instead of apricot you could use pear
*If you're not a fan you could omit apricots all together and just fill with the clotted cream

enjoy!

I'm still in a European state of mind - yoghurt, honey and thyme cakes

This is my fool proof muffin mix used a different way once again. This combination has been done before,I'm sure of it, I know it! but I've never had it. Sweet things and herbs - together - just sound so exotic to me! So I really just wanted to have a little play around with the flavour combination to see what happened. The result? 1 very chuffed cook, 1 happy husband, 2 happy ankle biters and 1 happy Mother-in-law! I hope you enjoy them too!

I've made this mix even easier so all you have to do is weigh the ingredients as you go. Just don't forget to zero it after each addition!

ingredients

220g self raising flour
80g caster sugar

75g olive oil
125g greek style yoghurt
70g milk
1 x 56g egg
30g - 40g of your favourite honey (I've used the lavender honey by Bees in Bowties again. I know - I am in LOVE!)
approx a teaspoon of fresh thyme (leaves only and keep some aside to put on top)

how to make your yoghurt, honey and thyme cakes

Pre heat your oven to 180C and line your 12 hole muffin tin with cases or spray with an oil spray.

With a spoon mix together the flour and the sugar in a bowl. set aside.

In a jug whisk together the olive oil, yoghurt, milk and the egg very lightly. Pour into the dry ingredients and whisk gently until all just combined. Add the honey and the thyme and stir through gently.

Spoon a good dessert spoon full into each hole in the tray until you have used up all your mix. Place the remaining leaves on the top of each cake. No need to press them in, they'll do their thang. Place in the oven for 18 - 20 minutes. Allow to cool slightly on a cooling rack before serving.

I have to say we even had these with a cup of tea the next day for a quick and yummy breakfast......mmmmm