Sour cream chocolate muffins

Sour cream chocolate muffins, the title says it all. I first discovered the sour cream, chocolate combination through Nigella Lawson, she uses this in many of her chocolate cakes. The sour cream seems to cut through the cloying sweetness of the chocolate. You don't get that sickly feeling meaning you are always able to go back for seconds.

As with most muffin recipes, this is so simple, mix wet into dry ingredients, mix not- so-well, bake and devour.

dry ingredients:

200g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

20gg caster sugar

P.O.Salt

50g cocoa

wet ingredients:

200g butter, melted and cooled

142ml pot sour cream

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

optional: 150g chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180c.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.

In another bowl add the wet ingredients, whisk well until combined.

Pour wet ingredients into the dry bowl and mix to combine. Do not over mix the batter should be lumpy.

Stir in chocolate chips, if using.

Spoon into muffin cases and bake for 25 - 30 minutes.

These muffins were delicious, dense and velvety. The sour cream makes such a difference to any chocolate recipe. I think this mixture would be great cooked in a loaf tin, sliced and served with cream.

Award time

I was very happy and surprised to be awarded a 'I love you this much' award by the lovely Rosie from Rosie bakes a 'peace' of cake. http://rosiebakesapeaceofcake.blogspot.com/ please go and have a look at Rosie's gorgeous blog, it is a inspiration.
Thank you so much Rosie!

I am going to pass this award on to Anna from 'At Anna's kitchen table. http://atannaskitchentable.blogspot.com/ I love Anna's blog, it has a lovely homely feeling, as if you are part of the furniture there. She is passionate about food and her family and it really comes though in her writing. She is very deserving of this award. Please go and visit her kitchen.

Easy chocolate croissants

This comes from Nigella Express, and to be honest the only reason I hadn't made these earlier was that I thought it was sacrilege to call a puff pastry parcel a croissant. Authentic they aren't but other than spending two days making real croissants this is the next best thing, well, apart from visiting a very good bakery.

I decided to make these as I had half a packet of pastry leftover from the curry puffs, waste not want not.

Basically this is what to do:
1 x 375g ready rolled puff pastry
1 x 100g dark chocolate
1 egg, beaten


Preheat oven to 220c. Unfurl the sheet of pastry and cut into 6 squares.
Cut each square diagonally to give 2 small triangles. Put the triangles with the wider part facing you, and the point away from you.
Break off small pieces of chocolate (approx. 1cm) and place on the pastry triangles, about 2cm up from the wide end nearest you.
Then carefully roll from that chocolate-loaded end towards the point of the triangle.
You should now have something resembling a straight croissant. Seal it slightly with your fingertips and curl it around into a crescent.
Place the 12 chocolate croissants on a lined but not buttered baking tray and paint with the beaten egg. Bake for 15 minutes until they are golden and puffy and exuberantly, if minaturely, croissant-like.

Well they were cute, even though they refused to turn golden brown. My daughter, croissant conosseuir, asked why I had tried to replicate her favourite French pastry with puff pastry, sacrilege indeed.
Would I make these again, only to use up leftover puff pastry, not that they weren't tasty, they were, if you like chocolate wrapped puff pastry. They were wolfed down rather quickly, but a visit to a good baker would be just as easy and far more delicious.

Curry puffs

This recipe comes from my favourite food writer's column, Tom Norrington-Davies, writing for delicious. Talking about snobbery towards curry powder, yes I am guilty too, we all seem to have a tub of the stuff lurking at the back of the cupboard, yet tend to use a array of delicious spices to achieve that hot, aromatic base for 'curry' in it's place. I use 'curry' as the word we British in particular use for anything even slightly spiced and not really authentic.
This recipe for a simple cheats samosa really caught my eye, if I can give in too curry powder I can live with a puff pastry style samosa.





Chicken curry puffs, from Tom Norrington-Davies.
450g potatoes, cut into 1 cm dice
3 garlic cloves
2 shallots
3 -4 sprigs fresh coriander
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp mild curry powder
1 tsp tomato puree
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp groundnut oil
250g coarsely minced chicken
500g block puff pastry
1 egg

Cook the diced potatoes in a pan of boiling salted water until they are just tender. Drain and cool.
Chop the garlic, shallots and coriander to a near paste using a food processor, place in a small bowl and season with the curry powder, sugar, tomato puree and soy sauce.
Heat the groundnut oil in a frying pan, and fry the curry paste over a medium heat for 10-15 minutes until it is a deep golden brown colour.
Add the minced chicken and a couple spoonfuls of water to moisten and continue frying until the meat is cooked through.
Fold in the cooked potatoes and check the seasoning, you might one more soy or a pinch more sugar. The flavour should be spicy-salty-sweet. Cool completely.
Preheat the oven to 200c / gm 6, roll out the puff pastry. Use a saucer as a guide and cut out 8 smallish discs; the size is up to you really, they could be canape or snack size. I use a 13cm saucer.

Make a egg wash by beating the egg with 3 tbsp water. Egg wash the edges of the pastry discs and fill the centres with the curry filling. Fold the discs into turnovers and crimp the edges before egg washing the pastries.
Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place the curry puffs on the tray, bake for 125minutes or until they are golden and fluffy. Rest for 5 minutes before attacking.

I was unsure how the curry puffs would live up to my beloved samosa but the filling of cooked potato and spiced chicken, tasted absolutely divine, so good that I almost did away with the pastry and had the filling as a side. Combined with buttery, flaky pastry these were a real treat along side my Saturday night 'curry' definatley a keeper. I will make these time and time again.