Polish bilberry doughnuts, made this evening

Pączki are delicious Polish doughnuts, filled with preserves. The most common filling is marmalade made from rose buds or plum marmalade, but you can fill them with any thick preserve you prefer. One of my favourite fillings is Advocaat custard which is vanilla custard with a kind of egg liqueur. My mother mostly fill them with plum marmalade which is delicious as well. In Poland pączki have their own day, but it’s very common to eat them during the whole year. I still remember when I was 9 years old and I toghether with my mother visited relatives in Poland during summer; we went to a bakery and bought loads of fresh pączki which we ate outside the bakery. Then we went back inside and bought another 30 to bring back to my aunt. The baker must have thought we were insane. But that is actually the problem with pączki, because when you start eating fresh still warm pączki, you just can’t get enough. When my mother used to make them at home we ate them all in no time :-) Anyway, the main day for pączki is last Thursday before Lent which is called Tłusty czwartek and means fat Thursday. I missed fat Thursday this year, which was a few weeks ago, so I made Pączki this evening even though lent has started. They were nice, but I wasn’t pleased with the result so I will make a new try tomorrow. I used bilberry jam as filling and it was lovely. Tomorrow I will probably use the same filling but I will modify the recipe and then post about it.

Photo taken this summer, when out for a picnic.

Theese muffins are frequently baked in our house, especially during summer when we love going out for a picnic. They are quick to bake and taste divine. As they are rather sweet they go perfect with coffee or a glass of cold milk.

Milk chocolate banana muffins
makes 10 large muffins
(originally from Dagens Muffin)

150 gr butter
200 ml caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla sugar
50 ml milk
300 ml flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 bananas
200 gr milk chocolate (preferably Marabou)
10 large paper cups

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Whip butter and sugar until white and fluffy. Add the eggs, vanilla sugar and milk. In a separate bowl mix flour and baking powder, and then carefully combine with the batter. Fill the paper cups with the batter. Cut the bananas and the chocolate in pieces. Press down banana and chocolate pieces into each cup. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden.

Mmm, Muffins….

Has the girl gone crazy? Rhubarb and Almond paste? Again? And this time together?
After Fredrik’s post about rhubarb the other day, I recalled that I had some rhubarb in the freezer. And as you’ve noticed I just can’t resist almond paste…
I found a lovely muffins recipe on ICA’s homepage, that I just had to try especially since one of the gifts that I got from my colleagues last week was a muffin tin for giant muffins. The muffins turned out great, but on the other hand rhubarb is great in all shapes and forms :-)

Rhubarb Muffins with Almond Paste

12 normal ones or 6 giant

200 gram rhubarb
75 gram butter
100 ml milk
2 eggs
150 ml demerara sugar
250 ml flour
1.5 tsp baking soda

FILLING:
75 gram almond paste
25 gram butter
0.5 tsp cardamom (I didn’t have any so I used cinnamon instead)

GARNISH:
25 gram almond chips

Rinse and peel the rhubarb, cut it in 1 cm pieces. Melt the butter, add the milk and let it cool. Whip the eggs with the sugar until fluffy. Add the butter and milk. Combine the flour with the baking soda and the rhubarb; add to the egg mixture. Pour the batter two-thirds of the way full into a greased muffin tin or in individual paper forms.

Grate the almond paste. Add butter and cardamom and mix until smooth. Divide the mixture into 6 pieces or small balls, or 12, depending on which tin or forms you use. Squeeze down an almond paste piece in every muffin, but not too deep as it will sink while in the oven. Sprinkle the almond chips over the muffins and bake in 225°C, for about 15-20 minutes depending on your oven!

Here you can see the almond paste kernel and the lovely rhubarb