Vanilla Vanilla Vanilla...

A true baker's kitchen is not complete without vanilla. The smell of pure vanilla is beautifully intense and always brings good memories.

However, there seems to be a lot of products with artificial vanilla flavouring... and I can't do artifical flavours. So vanilla aroma for my cakes is out of the question! Go extract!! Unfortunately I cannot find it anywhere only vanilla pods. 

Luckily I follow some amazing bakers online and one of my favourite on youtube, yoyomax12, has made a very useful video on how to make your own vanilla extract.

I started a week ago so now my extract is in a dark cupboard maturing away! when it is ready for use I will show you my results. In the mean time here is Yoyomax12's video tutorial on how to make your own vanilla extract. Enjoy!

I sterilised my bottles as I used green glass water bottles. To do this all you have to do is place them in a  cooking pot submerged in water (only enough to cover the bottle opening). Bring to boil and let it sit in boiling water for 15 minutes(also place bottle screw cap in the water). Remove them from water with tongs and let them cool down on a kitchen cloth.  

Passion fruit

Because I sell some of my baked goods, I seem to have this need to be original and make all recipes my own. As a result, lots of experiments go on in my kitchen.

For my experiments I require tasters to try out my goodies(which is not hard to find!) and among my tasters I have some really good critics, being my number one critic my mum.

One of my work colleagues was kind enough to give me a big bag of passion fruits for me to try making some cupcakes with it! So I searched all my cupcake books (which surprisingly did not have any recipes for passion fruit cupcakes) and the internet for a good recipe for passion fruit cupcakes. I ended up making my own recipe for them and let me tell you they were pretty amazing! obviously one of the reasons why they were so successful was because the passion fruits were home grown (which makes a big difference when it comes to flavour).

However I encountered some opposing opinions between the tasters... With or without the seeds?!  

Autumn memories

Autumn is here... but the weather isn't reflecting it!(I'm still going to the beach).

However I am craving all the flavours that remind me of this beautiful season. Due to my upbringing, I have a very rich list of autumn ingredients, such as, pumpkin- introduced in my life by my aunt through pumpkin pie and pumpkin spice Halloween cupcakes. I also associate with Autumn quince. I am Portuguese and in October most Portuguese households will smell of rich aromas of sugar and quince, as on the stove you will find gigantic pots filled to the brim with all the ingredients that will soon become quince jam. 

And roasted chestnuts?! definitely a must- have during these months! the streets of Porto are filled with people selling roasted chestnuts(wrapped in newspaper), will leave you with black fingers(from peeling). But nonetheless delicious and comforting in the red, yellow and orange days. 

Every year I look for new and innovative recipes to try and since last year I have been anxious to try quince jam muffins. A great way to enjoy this rich jam for Breakfast. 

So I finally I got to try them and they came out amazingly good! 

I used my mum's solid quince jam (natural pectin,sugar quantities and cooking times will determine whether it's more solid or gooey). For the muffins I used a basic recipe taken from The Good Housekeeping cookbook (2007, revised edition) and gave it my own twist. 

So give it a try and let me know what you think!

 Bake away :) 

  

Quince Jam Muffins

Makes 12

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup wholewheat flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter(1 stick), melted
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Quince jam cubes (add to taste)

1. Preheat oven at 200ºC (400ºF). Grease twelve 2 1/2" by 1 1/4" muffin-pan cups.
2. In large bowl, with wire whisk, stir flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In medium bowl, with fork, beat milk, melted butter, egg, and vanilla until blended. Add liquid mixture to flour mixture; stir just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).
3. To the muffin batter add quince jam cubes and lightly blend them in.
4. Spoon batter into prepared muffin-pan cups. Bakes until toothpick inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean. 15 to 20 minutes. Immediately remove muffins from pan to cool down.

For the quince jam I have found to good recipes that you can follow to make your own at home. Here are the links:
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/membrillo_quince_paste/
http://greekfood.about.com/od/dessertspastriessweets/r/marmakythoni.htm 

You can also look online for places to buy the jam in your hometown.