Wednesday's Bake: Streusel Coffee Cake

It's GBBO tonight, and as usual I'm celebrating with another bake--this one a family favourite for breakfast or brunch. UK readers, coffee cake in the US is not cake with coffee as an ingredient, but rather a morning cake to serve with coffee-delicious!

Ingredients:

For topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup butter at room temperature
1 tsp cinnamon

(I tend to use a bit more sugar than flour)

For cake:

1 and 1/2 cups flour
2 and 1/2 tsps baking powder
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup sugar (I use golden caster)
1/3 cup melted butter
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon (optional--if you want the cake to be cinnamon flavoured as well)
The Method:

For topping, cut butter into flour, sugar and cinnamon until crumbly.

For cake, mix flour and baking powder. Add sugar to butter and egg; add milk and vanilla the mix with flour. Spread batter in greased 8 or 9 in cake pan. Bake in a 160/325 oven for 30 minutes. Thanks to Southern Food for the recipe!

Wednesday Bake: Raspberry Yogurt Muffins

Today's recipe is a breakfast staple in our household. A few years ago I started cooking family breakfasts on school mornings, as the alternative was everyone eating at different times and me not even being aware of when children were leaving the house. Now we all sit down at 7:45 to a (somewhat) cooked breakfast, such as this one:

We have a chance to chat, go over our days, and hopefully pray. This has been a great step forward in family life, however it has required me to amass a few more breakfast recipes! And so I discovered this one, which we have about once a week.

Ingredients:

120g flour
100g cornmeal/polenta
100g caster sugar (I use golden caster)
2 tsp baking powder
225g vanilla yogurt
4 tbsp butter, melted
1 egg
1 cup frozen raspberries

The Method:

Mix the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl or jug mix the wet ingredients, and add to the dry. Stir until moistened/mixed and then add berries. Put into a greased muffin tin (or use paper muffin cups) and bake at 180 for 12-15 minutes. Enjoy!

Really, this recipe is so easy--it takes me about 5-10 minutes to whip up, and I can pop them in the oven and have a quick shower while they're baking! I wasn't sure about the cornmeal and yogurt when I first made them, but actually those ingredients help to make the muffins moist and delicious!

Wednesday Bake: Banana Muffins with Orange Icing

In honour of The Great British Bakeoff, which is a firm favourite TV show in our house, I thought I'd make Wednesday Baking Day on my blog. I love baking, but I have to admit I'm nowhere near Bakeoff standards! Most of my bakes tend to be fairly delicious but rather messy looking. Royal icing and piecrust both defeat me. However I do manage to bake several times a week, usually for my children (and me!) or the boarding houses of the school where my husband works. Today's bake is Banana Muffins with Orange Icing, a great way to use up those browning bananas children refuse to touch! I made these yesterday and my children were a bit dubious--banana is not chocolate, after all. But they tried them and suffice it to say, they're all gone today.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup caster sugar (I use golden)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (I use a few drops more because I love vanilla)
1 cup mashed ripe bananas ( about 3 good-sized ones)
1 tsp grated orange rind (I usually miss this out--too much faff)
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup buttermilk (I mix 1 tablespoon lemon juice and top up to 1/2 cup with milk, leave for 5 mins)

For the orange icing:

1 cup icing sugar
2 tbsp plain yogurt (I leave this out if I don't have it in the fridge)
1-2 tsps orange juice

Method:

Cream butter and sugar and then add eggs, vanilla, bananas, and orange rind if using. Mix flour, baking powder and soda and beat into egg mixture alternately with buttermilk.

Spray muffin pan with nonstick sunflower oil spray or otherwise grease or use paper muffin cups. Bake in 180 oven for 15 minutes. Let cool slightly and then pour icing over the tops of muffins. Makes about 15 nice-sized muffins.