Perfect Pancakes

Happy Pancake Day! I have had a root around Pinterest to find some scrummy looking pancake recipes to share. I didn’t realise there were so many! Cookie dough, chocolate, apple, vegan, rainbow, gluten free… Have a look at the pancake board I have created by clicking here.

There has been a lot of hype around healthy “2 ingredient pancakes” which just have mashed up banana and egg in them which I am definitely going to try at some point.

My favourite ever pancakes have to be fat blueberry American style pancakes with lots of maple syrup and crispy bacon!

However today my flatmates and I are going to enjoy classic thin crepe style pancakes with lemon and sugar, very traditional.

Whatever you end up making today I hope you enjoy!

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Hi everyone, this week is my Reading Week from university so in between my mountain of work I should find more time for baking! To start the week off I have made lemon poppy seed muffins, a recipe that I have been using for years and that never lets me down.

The recipe is from a book  called Muffins: Fast and Fantastic by Susan Reimer. It’s a great little book filled with lovely, simple recipes that don’t use obscure ingredients you’re never likely to have at home.

Makes 9-11

• 9 oz plain flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3-4 ounces white granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 8 fl oz milk
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind (although I always use 2)
• 3 fl oz vegetable oil/melted butter (oil for lighter muffins, butter for richer)
• 2 tablespoons poppy seeds (optional, or you can always substitute for raisins)

Put muffin cases into a muffin tin (or if you don’t have one make mini muffins in a cupcake tin!) and preheat oven to 200 degrees (180 for fan).

Sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, sugar), including the poppy seeds/raisins if you’re using them. In a separate bowl beat the egg and then add the lemon zest, milk and oil/butter.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until JUST combined. You don’t want to see any dry flour, but you do want the mixture very lumpy still. Trust me on this!

Spoons into the cases until about 2/3 full and bake for 20-25 minutes. The top should be golden and spring back when pressed down gently. I then (while they’re still hot) spread a little glaze made from lemon juice mixed with a little icing sugar to give them a glossy, crunchy top.

Enjoy!

Lemon Cake Pops

For some genius idea I decided to do my first ever baking blog post on something I have never cooked before: cake pops. I was given a cake pop mould for Christmas, and my sister and I decided to make some to take to a friend’s house. They were a varying success but here is one of the better ones:

They are really simple to make, especially if you have one of the moulds for cooking them in. We followed the recipe that came with it and only 4 ingredients are needed:

(Makes 30)

• 4 ounces caster sugar
• 4 ounces soft margarine
• 4 ounces self raising flour
• 3 eggs
• (Optional: add a flavour such as a few drops of vanilla extract, or the grated zest of lemon as we did)

Cream the margarine and sugar, and then fold in the flour and beaten eggs. When the mixture is light and fluffy spoon it into the mould, so that it fills one of the halves.

Bake the pops in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for around 12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let the pops cool completely in the tin and then gently prise them out and they should look something like this:

And then the fun starts: decoration! You can use icing or melted chocolate to dip the sticks into before inserting them into the pops so that they stay securely in place. And then dip the pops in your chosen topping (we just mixed up some lemon icing with icing sugar and lemon juice and then rolled them into sprinkles). Leave to set in the fridge for around 2 hours and then you will have some cute cake pops tailored to your occasion!