The best chocolate muffin recipe ever!

Have you ever felt like you've been searching for something all your life and then suddenly BOOM! Well get ready because here's that chocolate muffin recipe you need. I'm not a major fan of chocolate but my goodness these muffins... They are unreal. They are the perfect combination of bitter cocoa, rich chocolate, buttery richness yet feather light thanks to the cornflour. It's Dan Lepard's recipe for Chocolate Custard Muffins and it does have a long list of ingredients and a rather unusual method but the results are well worth it. First you make a custard with the cocoa and cornflour then you beat in the chocolate and butter. I really wasn't convinced that it would work but I trust his recipes and twenty five minutes in the oven later and I'm in love. Best Chocolate Muffin recipe ever.

Dan Lepard's recipe for Chocolate Custard Muffins can be found here on the Guardian website. It's also in his book, Short & Sweet, which has just won the Andre Simon Award for food book of the year.
These are the ultimate muffin to have with a glass of cold milk!

Lilly x

Happy Belated New Year! Two days after my last blog post our gorgeous baby boy Liam came into the world! I was planning on making a gingerbread house but never got around to it as he decided to arrive early. My festive baking plans were sabotaged! Liam is doing really well now and we're almost in some sort of routine. I feel like I've known him forever and he sleeps most peacfully in the kitchen with the oven humming and the mixer whirring!

I've been up and down to Dublin doing a series of Baking demos on RTE's Fourlive programme for the past few weeks. We did four in total: Breads, Scones, Sponge cakes and pastries. They're all on RTE player now. I also did one just before Christmas on the Peanut Butter Cookies. One of my absolute favourites from Make Bake Love.

I've been doing lots of writing including a once a week piece for The Sunday Business Post's Agenda magazine. I really love that as it involves making a great family meal each week.Next Sunday's will be a gorgeous roast vegetable and goats cheese tart. It's great because I spend the week cooking and experimenting with different flavours. It really has become my dream job!  

So if you've only just come across my blog as a result of Make Bake Love or if you're a regular around here: Happy New Year and let's make 2012 an absolutely great year full of gorgeous food!

Lilly x

Chocolate Tiffin Christmas Puddings: Easy Edible Christmas Gifts

 I remember when I was a child seeing the incredible Christmas cakes that my mother would make taking centre stage on the Christmas Table. When the time came to remove the ribbon, little glittery trees and Santa figurines we would all be so excited with the thought of what lay beneath the thick white icing. The disappointing reality was that under that icing was a thick layer of homemade marzipan and a fruit cake soaked in brandy and full of plump sultanas and nuts. Of course nowadays I realise that those cakes were works of art, a labour of love that my mother had spent hours preparing and mixing. As children we just presumed that these incredible cakes would be made from chocolate; but sadly no. The same went for Christmas Puddings, I so wished they were made from solid chocolate. A few days ago I got that sinking feeling when I saw a TV advert for Christmas Pudding and I realised that now that I am a grown up I can make chocolate puddings if I want, Yessssssss. And thats how these gorgeous tiffin christmas puddings came to be made. The perfect little present for the chocolate lover in your life!

Mini Panettone : Easy Edible Christmas Gifts

Above: Macadamia, White Chocolate and Cranberry Panettone & Mini Chocolate & Almond



Lately I've become addicted to baking Panettone. Baking them and eating them that is. They have to be one of the most comforting of Christmas recipes. The warm yeast rising and the mixture of spices fills the house with the nicest of smells. No candle could compete with the toasted Macadamia, White chocolate and Cranberry beauty that I made recently. Mixed Spice and Raisin, dark Chocolate and Orange. The different flavour combinations are endless. I decided to make some small ones to give as part of  some Christmas hampers. One of these with a little jar of flavoured butter (cointreau, rum or brandy) makes a gorgeous gift and if not eaten straight away they can be toasted for breakfast or transformed into a luxurious bread & butter pudding!

Quick Pumpkin Soup

 

I love soup weather. When it's freezing outside and gets dark at five in the afternoon then there's nothing better than a mug of soup just before dinner. I love having soup while I'm waiting for dinner to cook. It's like a vegetable smoothie full of nutrients and healthy garlic and onions.And also sometimes cream. Ahem. This soup is great though because it has ginger, garlic and coconut milk and it uses up any leftover tinned pumpkin that you might have from making the pumpkin muffins. Win win!

Easy and Gorgeous Pumpkin Muffins

I spent all of last week in Dublin to launch MakeBakeLove and was delighted to be able to wander around one of my favourite food haunts Fallon & Byrne. I picked up two tins of pumpkin puree, for once I'll be ready for Halloween! I decided to make Pumpkin Muffins. Pumpkin Pie is still on my list of must bakes; Donal Skehans' gorgeous version is here.

This recipe only uses 100g of the tinned pumpkin, I'll post a recipe next week on a gorgeous soup that you can make with the remaining pumpkin!

'Make Bake Love' is out!

The book is now finally out! Yay! It's incredible to see stacks of MakeBakeLove in bookshops all over the country. Even though it only came out on Friday I've already had loads of people baking from it and letting me know what their favourites from the book are. It really is so exciting to be able to share the book with people who have never seen the blog and to see so many people getting back to baking! Massive thanks to all at Gill & MacMillan and to the brilliant Kristin who copy edited the whole book for me. She has her own lovely blogs Edible Ireland and Dinner du Jour and co-founded The Irish Food Bloggers Association. It was an incredible stroke of luck to have such a talented perfectionist on my team!

I was also really lucky that my boyfriend Colm took the photos of me for the book, seeing the photo he took on the cover really makes it for me!

If you can't make it to a bookshop and want to order online then here's a list of places where you can get it. I'm told it's out of stock at the moment on Amazon so these are your best bet!

Dubray Books

Gill and MacMillan

The Book Depository

Also some brilliant news: The book has been shortlisted for Best Irish Published Book Of The Year! I'd love if you took the time to vote for MakeBakeLove here. Thanks a million!

Lilly x