World baking day 19th May 2013

This date nearly slipped me by, given the embargo on cookery channels when my beloved it at home.  Well I  caught an add a couple of days ago but did nothing about it.  I had even gone on Twitter the Saturday before, saying "do I or don't I bake" - at that time I had decided not to bake.  But I was going to make curd and said as much (again on Twitter), I used the hash tag World baking day.  In a stalkerishly short amount of time I had a Twitter from World baking day stating I had the bake brave spirit - dare I take the ultimate challenge.

I have to admit I was interested on clicking the link http://worldbakingday.com/en-gb/recipe/cream-puff-cake - well I wasn't keen to do anything too taxing  (had lots to do Sunday like make curd) but wanted to do something different.  Starting from the bottom I found level 7 was something that got me thinking!

So http://worldbakingday.com/en-gb/recipe/courgette-feta-muffins muffins it was!  A quick nip to the shops and I had the extra bits I needed to make these babies.

INGREDIENTS

• 200gr plain flour
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 150ml full fat yoghurt
• 100gr margarine
• A big pinch of salt
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 medium courgette (around 200gr), grated coarsely
• 100gr feta cheese, crumbled
• A handful of mint, chopped finely
• Half a handful of dill, chopped finely

I made a couple of small changes to the recipe, I made the yoghurt half fat and turned the margarine into real butter... well sub'd them I didn't turn the margarine into butter that's impossible.  I did that so I didn't have two lots of full fat items in this bake as well as the cheese.

So what's the method?
First mix the egg, yoghurt and butter together - sounds simple.  Well it ain't!  You won't be able to get a smooth batter like constancy with butter, you would either have to melt it down or come to terms with it being a lumpy liquid which gets spread everywhere when you try and whisk/mix.  Maybe marg would have mixed better..

Then sift the flour, paprika and bicarb in.  The website says to sift it into a separate bowl and then transfer into the wet mix.  Ha!  I've got enough washing up to do without the added flour bowl.

Fold in the dry and the wet mixture together, add in the "handful" and "half handful" of herbs in.  Now I must try and find a more exact measurement than "handful".  My hands are quite small and therefore the amount of herbs will be small.  If you have a meza-luna I would use that to get the fine chop as it is easier.  If you don't get a large knife (do be careful) and just chop until small.

Add the grated courgette and crumble in the feta.  Make sure you squeeze all the liquid out of the courgette before you add it into the mix.  It is wet enough and will effect the end result.  Personally I would also add a little more feta as the end result was "I need more feta".

The final mix looks a riot of pinky orange, green and white.  It's a really lovely mixture to look at.

The mix makes about 8 large muffins or (as I didn't have any muffin cases only fairy cakes ones) 12 of those.

Place in a pre-heated oven at 200c cook for about 20 minutes or until a skewer or toothpick comes out clean.  That bit a is a little hard to judge since the mixture contains cheese and will make anything look under done.  So you just have to trust your instincts on this one.

How do they taste?

Very nice indeed, although more salt and cheese is required, and I may try melting the butter next time and see what difference that makes.

But this is a great thing to make, sometimes you don't always want to bake a sweet thing :)

Now for the scale
Faff: 3 - this was a bit of a faff I have to say, with the grating, chopping and trying my best to mix the liquid together.  This is not your average sponge mix.

Time: In total the best part of 40 mins, as I hand grated the courgette (but this makes them less watery).

Smug: 2 - it's a nice little recipe and tastes good :)


Now who's gonna clean this mess up....

Oh yeah me!


















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