Weekends are perfect for baking & I especially adore Sunday mornings! It’s as if time stands still, those precious couple of hours when it’s just you, your cup of coffee calmness & the birds singing outside. Although I do love baking anytime, there’s a ravishingly relaxing appeal about weekend baking – up & at ’em early, whipping up a batch of bakes, their heavenly scent perfuming the whole house while everyone sleeps. Plus, we all have those days where only cake will do, even for breakfast. This is one of my favourite family “weekend baking” recipes & it fills that cake-shaped gap we sometimes have.
When I wrote this recipe, I wanted the fluffiness of a cupcake combined with the moist fruitiness of a muffin, so I created my brown sugar cuffins – no, that’s not a spelling error! My cuffins are just what Sunday mornings need – a delicious cupcake-muffin hybrid that’s a little bit lazy & fabulously faff-free. There’s not a drop of oil in sight, definitely no buttercream & there’s more whisking than stirring (electric whisking too, so very little effort required). They’re not going to win any awards for their supermodel looks either – cuffins are meant to be gloriously rustic homemade fayre, rather than delicate dainty perfection. Over the years, I’ve used different fillings (raspberry & white chocolate is always popular), but these are my favourite version. I’ll admit, they’re not the healthiest option, but they are exquisitely satisfying & if you do eat them for breakfast, you’ve got the whole day to burn off those calories!
The recipe below makes a dozen cuffins, although I like to bake double this amount & freeze some for future cuffin cravings (it’s real, trust me!). Ready to bake it happen? Hands washed, aprons on & here we go!
What you need:
4oz Self Raising Flour
4oz Salted Butter (room temp, slightly softened)
2 large Free Range Eggs
3oz Light Soft Brown Sugar (Muscovado)
1oz Caster Sugar*
1/4 teaspoon Vanilla Extract (the real stuff, not “essence”)
1 dessertspoon Greek Yoghurt (overflowing a little, not very precise)
Tip of a teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda
1/2 a heaped teaspoon of Baking Powder
Approx 150g fresh Blueberries, washed
Zest of a whole Lemon (wash & dry it first)
1 heaped teaspoon of Self-Raising Flour for the fruit
For the syrup:
Juice of a whole lemon
2 tablespoons Caster Sugar*
(*If you don’t have caster sugar, which I rarely ever do, you can use regular granulated sugar & whizz it up in a coffee grinder/blender to make it finer).
What to do:
Preheat the oven to 175*C (fan oven) & line muffin trays with paper cases (I used paper cupcake cases, which work perfectly).
Pat the washed blueberries on a clean tea towel or kitchen paper, then tip them onto a shallow plate or casserole dish lid & add the lemon zest. Sprinkle with the teaspoon of flour (you don’t need much) & give everything a good shake around, until the blueberries are completely coated. The zest may fall to the bottom of the dish, but there should be hardly any flour left (if there is, don’t worry, just tip everything into a sieve to shake off the excess). Set aside on the plate for later.
Using an electric whisk, cream the butter, sugars & vanilla extract together until it becomes a fluffy, spun gold colour.
Add one egg at a time to the creamed butter & sugar mixture, then whisk thoroughly, repeating until all the eggs are combined.
Sieve the flour, bicarbonate & baking powder into the mixture & then using a spatula, fold into the wet ingredients completely so you are left with a pale golden batter.
Add the Greek yoghurt & give it a good swish around with the spatula, before sprinkling in approximately three quarters of the blueberries & lemon zest (save some for pre-baking topping). Stir them into the mixture & you’re done!
Scoop little mounds of the mixture into your prepared muffin tins (carefully, so you don’t burst any blueberries), using either an ice-cream scoop or two large dessert spoons (they don’t need to be exact).
Once they’re all full, plop a few of the leftover blueberries on top of each cake with a few strands of lemon zest.
Bake on the lower shelf of the oven for approximately 20 minutes, until the cuffins have risen & are a deep gold – the plopped on blueberries will have half-disappeared into the tops.
To check they are cooked, poke a strand of dry spaghetti in the centre of a cuffin & if it comes out clean, they’re ready!
Carefully place onto a cooling rack & leave to cool slightly, while you make the zesty lemon syrup.
Squeeze the juice of a lemon into a jug (I usually stick a fork in the centre of each half, then squish it around firmly over the jug). Add a couple of tablespoons of sugar & heat either in the microwave or in a small pan, until the sugar has dissolved into the lemon juice. Set aside to cool for a couple of minutes.
Get the spaghetti strand again & poke a few holes in the top of each cake while they’re still warm. Spoon a little of the lemon syrup onto the cakes, drizzling sparingly (you can save any leftover syrup in an ice-cube tray in the freezer).
Leave them for a couple of minutes, until the syrup has soaked nicely into the top of each cuffin. If you allow to cool completely, you can freeze them in small batches using a bag or air-tight container. They take a few minutes to defrost on a cooling rack & will still be as moist & fluffy as when you first baked them – perfect for when you crave a cake, but don’t want to bake!
Sometimes, I’ll make chocolate cuffins (which my Husband has dubbed “The Chuffins”, because they’re chocolate) & omit the berries & lemon zest. I simply swap 1oz of flour for 1oz of cocoa powder (go for the good stuff, like Tesco’s Deeply Chocolate Cocoa Powder), add 50g each of white & milk chocolate chunks (put them in a bag & smack them with a rolling pin). If the batter is a bit stiff, add a little extra Greek yoghurt & then bake as above. These are really naughty though, so you might need to keep these for those chocolate fix occasions.
Before the rest of the family get up, go pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, grab a cuffin or two & indulge in a little cakely goodness before you start your day! Stay hungry! Aimee 😉 x
Early mornings are the best time of day for me, when everyone else is either sleeping or getting ready to go out. It’s usually dark when I leave & I love catching that inky blue sky as it slowly melts into an array of pretty pinks & golds. It’s a serene time of day for me & as Christmas is getting closer, people are bustling about, bags bulging & feet burning, so I like to soak up the calm before the chaos.
little cute creatures from my homemade modelling chocolate, ready to be wrapped & hopefully not eaten. This time of year can become a bit of a whirlwind of things to do & when this happens, I find it soothing to put on an apron & bake a cake. Cake should be created with care, not rushed but relished & enjoyed. A happy Cook makes a happy cake!
known for, my Lemon Drizzle Cake. Lighter-than-air layers of lemon cake & whipped buttercream that seem to evaporate like a zesty zephyr with every mouthful. It tastes like freshly squeezed sunshine & sherbet lemons, almost defying you not to feel brighter & more cheery as you eat it. This recipe is for a seven inch three layered cake, perfect for afternoon tea with friends or a celebration of your own & yes, even Christmas!
Add one egg, beating well until your mixture is glossy & fluffy. Repeat with the rest of the eggs, one at a time.
Using the spatula, press it into the butter & scoop from the sides of the bowl, folding & pressing until all the sugar is squished into the butter to form a very stiff paste.
Strain 100ml of the lemon juice into a measuring jug. Add the sugar evenly until the liquid has risen to 150ml – you should have an equal stripe of sugar & lemon juice in the jug.
Time to start assembling your cake! Get yourself a lovely serving plate & remove the buttercream from the fridge. I’m going to give you a couple of tips here that I’ve learned over the years too.
Using a stem of spaghetti or a skewer, poke several holes all over the cake.
Take the next layer of cake, flip it over as before & carefully lay it on top of the buttercream, making sure it’s level & even.
Sprinkle strands of fresh lemon zest all over the top of your cake, with a few on the plate around the edge. That’s it, your cake is ready to slice & share! I recommend keeping it as simple as this for an afternoon treat with friends, but if it’s for a birthday or celebration, decorate as you like!
so I don’t have to do much apart from put them on a plate. Then there are perfectly plump pancakes. I’m not talking about the delicately thin, elegant crêpes we usually eat on Pancake Day though. Breakfast pancakes are duvet-like delicacies – substantially thick, warming & with a fluffy filling. What they shouldn’t be is fiddly, time-consuming & boring! Now I’m not saying you need to be standing around the stove, flipping fluffy pancakes for all you’re worth at stupid o’clock (as if I would suggest such a thing!). The best way to get your pancake fix without the faff is to make a batch in advance & keep some ready made in the fridge (or freezer if you really want to be organised).
Heat up a large skillet or frying pan on a medium heat – your pan needs to be nice & hot before you start cooking your pancakes.
Remove each pancake, one at a time & lay on the plate with a strip of greaseproof paper in between each one to separate them.
If you’re serving them immediately, cover the plate with an upside-down mixing bowl to keep them warm & transfer to the table. If not, leave them to cool & wrap a couple at a time in clingfilm, then put them in the fridge or freezer. You can put them in an airtight container too, just keep them separated with the greaseproof paper strips, then serve when you want some. To reheat your pancakes, simply pop a couple in the toaster for about 30 seconds to warm through & that’s breakfast prepared!
These fabulous fluffed up pancakes don’t have to be dull either! They are perfect with an array of fresh fruit, beautiful berries or just a squeeze of fresh lemon juice & a drizzle of golden syrup. If I have a couple of punnets of fresh berries going spare, I’ll put them in a saucepan with some golden syrup & simmer gently until they become soft & squishy, making a warm fruit sauce to pour on top. These soft little flatcakes also taste scrumptious with scrambled eggs – great if you fancy something a bit more exciting than cereal (which is obviously for midnight snacks).
to serve them is to splodge spoonfuls of apricot jam in between the layers with whipped cream, top with a couple of fresh raspberries, then drizzle with pureed peaches – open a tin of peaches, chuck them in the blender, whizz up with a squeeze of lemon juice & pour into a serving jug! If you don’t want to use cream, maybe use strawberry or raspberry ice cream instead. These sumptuous stacks of sweetness look impressive & are really quick to assemble (especially if you have a few pancakes already made). There would have been pictures, but they never last long enough!