Friday 28 February 2014

Apple and maple syrup cakes

Individual apple and maple syrup cakes - Steph's Kitchen

People that know me know that I love desserts - especially desserts with fruit of some kind! I've been playing around with individual desserts lately (individual self-saucing caramel puddings coming soon!). A couple of weeks ago I tried a new recipe: Apple and Maple Syrup cakes.

This was a recipe that I was going to post later in the year, but when I posted the pic on Facebook I had so many of you request the recipe. So I had to move it up in my calendar!

Now for those thinking 'I'm not much of a maple syrup fan!' it's ok - you only use a little bit of maple syrup while it bakes, and then later you can just drizzle as much as you'd like over the top. Mr Steph is the same and isn't a massive fan of maple syrup. One thing to remember with maple syrup is that it is better to spend that little bit more and get a good quality one. I always buy a Canadian maple syrup but you don't have to.

Just like an apple tea cake, where the sugar on the bottom makes a lovely almost caramel crust, the maple syrup cooks the apple and creates a little bit of a sticky "top". You layer your cakes just like an apple tea cake too, placing the apple on the bottom first followed by the syrup and then the batter.

Cakes ready for the oven - Steph's Kitchen

Apple and maple syrup cakes

Makes 6 Texas muffin sized cakes, which is great for one serve per person
Alternatively, it will make approx 8 normal sized muffins.

85g margarine or diary free spread
1/2 cup of sugar
1 egg
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups S.R. flour
1/2 cup of rice milk or milk (I used rice milk)
6 tsp maple syrup
1 large apple (I used Granny Smith, which is a little bit more bitter than a sweet red apple)

The batter is made just like any other cake. You'll need your mix master or electric beaters, or if you don't have either you can simply use a wooden spoon - it just takes a little bit more work, and you might not get your margarine quite as fluffy. I often use a wooden spoon and it's fine.

Before you go any further - turn on your fan forced oven to 170 C or 340 F.

Adding the apples for the cakes - Steph's Kitchen
Cream your margarine or spread until fluffy, then add your sugar and beat again for a couple of minutes. Next is your egg and vanilla extract. Add them to your butter and sugar mixture and beat until well combined. We want to alternate adding the flour and milk. Add 1/2 cup of flour at a time to your mixture, beating it into the mixture before adding a little bit of your milk. Continue this until your flour and milk has all been added.

Now that's your batter done; let's get started on making the base of the cakes.

Peel and core your apple, slicing half of it into thin-ish pieces and the other half into small cubes. Add the cubes into your batter, mixing it through so that you won't have one muffin with apple and then none in the others when you start scooping your mixture later.

Next grease your muffin tray or spray it with oil. Put two or three slices of apple on the bottom of each cup, trying to create the one layer without too much overlapping. Drizzle a teaspoon of maple syrup in each cup, followed by scoops of your batter. You want to try not to fill the cups past 3/4 full. I try to aim for a little over half. If you have more mixture, then you can add more. It will just mean that you have bigger muffins.

Once you've constructed your muffins pop them in the oven for 25 - 35 mins until your cakes are cooked through.

Drizzle with a little bit more maple syrup before serving with custard, cream or ice cream - or a bit of them all!

Enjoy!
Steph xo





Friday 7 February 2014

The tale of Engagement Chicken

A tale of love, marriage ... and roast chicken

Engagement Chicken.
Image from Glamour.com

With Valentine's day just around the corner I thought it would be the perfect time to blog about a story I have been wanting to write for a while now.

I guess I should start by saying, have you heard about the engagement chicken recipe?

Now the first time I heard about this story was around the coffee machine at work. For those that know me well it is no secret that I definitely give Mr Steph a few nudges when it comes to (as Beyonce so elegantly put it) "putting a ring on it". It's to the point now where it's a little bit of a playful joke ... well a playful joke that actually means "Ok, why am I still waiting?!"

A colleague says to me, "Have you heard about engagement chicken?"
I reply with a look of bewilderment.
Now he himself looks a little puzzled. "I don't know ... maybe it's something from Iran -" his home country "- I just remember hearing about this chicken recipe called engagement chicken. Apparently if you make this dish your man proposes to you soon after ... maybe you soon try this on Mr Steph!"

I laughed along with him, but I was also very curious about a dish that could have some sort of pulling power of this magnitude. We left the kitchen and walked back to our desks, with him vowing to find out about it for me.

A few months later I had forgotten about it, had moved jobs and was settling into a new position. Suddenly my ex-colleague sends me a link out of the blue with a simple note: "Here's that engagement chicken recipe!" It was a link to a wikipedia article about the origins of the Engagement chicken recipe - and I must say it has a very interesting story!

Lemon and thyme - Steph's Kitchen


26 years ago Kim Bonnell, at the time the fashion editor of Glamour Magazine, developed a roast chicken recipe after a trip to Italy. She passed the simple lemon and herb roast chicken recipe to her assistant who soon after made it for her then boyfriend. A month later the assistant was engaged!

The recipe soon made its way round the office, with another three women getting engaged soon after they made the dish. In 2003 the recipe was dubbed "Engagement Chicken" and published in Glamour Magazine. Letters from readers soon followed with stories of how they were now engaged after the making the recipe as well.

Have I got you curious yet?

The recipe does sound quite delicious, but there are many other recipes that are equally as good I'm sure. So what makes this one different? According to the then-boyfriend of Kim's assistant it was a meal a wife would make and "It got me thinking."

So for all of you out there who are like me and just hoping that it happens sooner rather than later, how about you throw your fate in the hands of Engagement Chicken?

As it's not one of my own recipes I won't be posting it here on my blog. So here is the link to the original recipe: Engagement Chicken

I will eventually make this myself ... I may just have to wait a while as Mr Steph is a reader of my blog, and knowing him if I made it - even if it did make him want to propose - he'd wait longer just to torment me. He's bit of a stirrer, and I think he's waiting until I don't expect it. Hopefully in a couple of months he's forgotten about it and I can make it - letting the magic of "Engagement Chicken" do it's work.

Steph xo