Crumble topped Coffee & Walnut Muffins

Sometimes I get such a craving for something that I just have to have it. The only trouble is I ask myself “will it get eaten by the whole family” and “will it just go to waste”. I was craving a simple coffee cake one day and I know that it would’ve gone to waste and it would not have got eaten by the whole family. Muffins are so portable and the kids (well, at least one of them) will eat muffins so my coffee cake was replaced by Crumble topped Coffee & Walnut Muffins.

I love having a few basic recipes up my sleeves so I can transform them into whatever flavour I want. No need to go and find complex recipes each time. This is just my basic muffin recipe with a couple spoons of instant coffee powder and finely chopped walnuts added.

Remember when you’re making muffins to never ‘overwork’ the batter otherwise the muffins will come out tough and not fluffy and soft.

Adding a crumble topping takes a plain muffin to a whole new level. I’ve got a real thing for crumble toppings lately. If it can be topped, it gets topped. This is just a basic topping too and I’ve added a small amount of chopped walnuts.

Press the topping firmly onto the muffin batter before putting into the oven.

The muffins are perfectly fine like this but with a simple coffee glaze, they are taken to the next level. My son loved these. My daughter not so much. She was probably thinking I had hidden vegetables in them but she doesn’t like nuts of any kind so she would’ve eventually put them down. My husband loved these too. They are perfect for the freezer so you only need to pull out the amount you need so no waste.

I’ve been making muffins a fair bit lately. Must be the cooler weather. These muffins certainly satisfied my coffee craving.

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Crumble topped Coffee & Walnut Muffins

A delicious crunchy crumble topped Coffee & Walnut muffin, perfect for lunch boxes, morning tea and the whole family. Satisfies that craving for something sweet.

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 12

Author Anne

Ingredients

Muffins

• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 tbs instant coffee powder
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup oil Canola or vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg beaten

Crumble Topping

• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 tbs walnuts finely chopped
• 3 tbs butter melted

Coffee Glaze

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tsp instant coffee powder
• 2 tbs milk may require more

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2. Prepare muffin pan by inserting cupcake papers or spray pan with oil spray.
3. Combine flour, sugar and instant coffee.
4. Combine milk, oil and beaten egg.
5. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and gently mix through.
6. Spoon mixture into prepared muffin pan.
7. For the crumble topping, combine all ingredients with a fork until mixture resembles crumbs.
8. Spoon crumble topping onto each muffin.
9. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
10. For the glaze, combine all ingredients until the consistency is like cream.
11. You may need to add a little more milk. (Only add 1/2 tbs at a time until you reach the desired consistency.)

Recipe Notes

This mixture makes 12 large Texas sized muffins.
It will make 24 mini sized muffins.

Apple & Walnut Turnovers

As a rule, we never eat dessert, that is unless it’s winter time and it’s a good excuse as any to try some warming desserts. Having puff pastry on hand in the freezer is dangerous (for me anyway) because you’ve got some great options to prepare a quick dessert like these Apple & Walnut Turnovers.

Granny Smith apples are in full season at the moment and are great for cooking. It was just a matter of melting some brown sugar with a little water, softening the apples and adding a little cinnamon while they cooked.

You could cut the square piece of puff into four triangles but there was just the two of us for dessert this particular night and well, I’ve got nothing to say except I really wanted to get a good fill of apples. Once the apples have cooled slightly, spoon into the centre of the triangle piece of puff.

Top with the other triangle of puff and press the edges with a fork to seal. Brush the top with egg wash and pierce a hole in the top to allow steam to escape.

I sprinkled a little sugar on top before popping in the oven and the result was very warming and full of flavour with a light puffy pastry and a soft apple filling with the crunch of the walnuts.

I hope you didn’t throw the liquid away that you cooked the apples in? That is a delicious caramel that can be poured over the vanilla ice cream. This is the exact reason why we don’t have dessert every night. Too much of a good thing? You could try this with pears, plums, peaches, nectarines or other firm fruit.

Apple & Walnut Turnovers

• 2 apples, peeled and diced
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped roughly
• 2 sheets puff pastry, thawed
• 1 egg, beaten for egg wash
• sugar for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 170 deg C.
2. Add diced apples, walnuts, brown sugar, water and cinnamon to a pan and allow sugar to melt and apples to soften. (Save liquid from softened apples.)
3. Cut puff pastry into two triangles. (For a smaller pastry, cut into four triangles. By rights, I should’ve done this!)
4. Spoon cooled apple mixture into centre of pastry triangle.
5. Put other half of triangle pastry on top and brush edges with a little egg wash.
6. Press with a fork to seal and cut a small hole in the top of pastry to allow steam to escape.
7. Brush tops with egg wash and sprinkle with a little white sugar.
8. Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Serve with vanilla ice cream and/or custard and spoon reserved liquid from the apples over the ice cream.

Date, orange & walnut muffins

There’s something about the oranges in winter. Its nature’s way I guess of providing an extra boost of Vitamin C to ward off those winter colds and flus and to boost our immune systems. The Navel oranges are just gorgeous at the moment and add such a wonderful flavour to baked goods. I just adore the taste of orange in the batter (I may or may not be guilty of licking the bowl on my own) and the smell that permeates from the oven while its baking. I made an easy Orange Cake a couples week before and needed some muffins for the kids, so while the oven was on, I created this flavour combination. (Not suitable for the kids for school because of the nuts but my son ate them at home with me).

This recipe is my basic muffin recipe with a few additions. That’s what I love about a basic recipe. You can add anything you like to it depending on what you’ve got. Keep those basic ingredients in the pantry at all times and use what you have, for example, a handful of sultanas, chocolate chips, grated or chopped apple and cinnamon, raspberries and white chocolate, apricot and coconut. The combinations are endless for muffins. Check out your local muffin store for flavour combinations and re-create them at home.

Date, Orange & Walnut Muffins

• 2 cups Self Raising flour
• grated rind of 1 orange
• 1/2 cup finely chopped dates
• 1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup oil (I used Canola)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg

1. Add all ingredients, mix lightly and pour into cupcake papers and bake in a 180 deg C oven for 15 minutes. 
2. Makes a dozen large sized muffins, 18 cupcake sized muffins or 24 mini muffins.

Pear, Thyme & Ginger Cake with Ginger Custard & Walnut Praline

So, this is the dish I cooked for the Gourmet Garden Best Blogger-Come-Chef competition a fortnight ago in Noosa. After I won my heat back in November last year and once the dust had settled, I set my mind to what I might cook come May. You all know how I love to bake and I wanted to show how versatile herbs could be in sweet dishes. So, what to cook?

I didn’t have any brief, like what equipment was available, how long we had, did we have an oven, could we do a sweet, blah blah blah. I had visions of a savoury cheesecake, a baked pastry plait, tropical tapioca puddings featuring herb infused tropical fruits. My mind was working overtime. I’ve always known pear goes well with thyme as I’ve had it in fruit loaf my Nanna cooked. I experimented with a few different recipes and all worked well in the oven but what if I didn’t have access to an oven? Two weeks out from the competition, we found out we had 45 minutes to cook and an oven between 11 of us so I figured I’d steam the cake instead. A bit of tweaking to the recipe and the above cake was born. My son and I tried it about half a dozen times, so about 6 kilos later, after experimenting with ice cream, custard etc, I decided on the custard and walnut praline additions.

I would rather this cake be baked in an oven and served with a side of double cream and I will whip one of those up in due course (once I get through the overflowing supply of pear cakes in the freezer). The recipe would be slightly different should you want a baked cake. I did bake this recipe in the oven and although okay once straight out of the oven. It goes quite hard when cold but could easily be zapped in the microwave to soften up.

Here’s the recipe, for one cake but could easily serve two. (It might seem like a lot of components but they work pretty well together. You could just make the cake and serve with ice cream.)

Pear, Thyme & Ginger Cake

• 1 egg
• 2 tbs milk
• 1 tbs oil
• 1 tsp Gourmet Garden thyme (or 1 tsp fresh or 1/2 tsp dried)
• 1 tbs Gourmet Garden ginger (or 1 tbs grated fresh or 1 tsp powdered)
• 2 tbs sugar
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ c SR flour
• 1 pear
• extra butter for greasing dish

Caramel Sauce:

• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbs butter
• 1/4 cup cream

Ginger Custard:

• 300ml milk
• 1 tbs cornflour
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 tbs Gourmet Garden ginger (or 1 tbs grated fresh or 1 tsp ground ginger)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Walnut Praline:

• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1 cup sugar

1. Put saucepan with steamer insert (or wok with bamboo steamer) filled with water onto boil.
2. Mix together egg, milk, oil, thyme, ginger, cinnamon and sugar until well combined.
3. Sprinkle flour on top and mix well.
4. In a small saucepan, melt together 1/3 cup brown sugar and 2 tbs butter.
5. Peel pear and dice. Add half diced pear to cake batter and other half pear to melted brown sugar/butter mixture and remove from heat.
6. Grease a suitable container well with butter. (I used a large round tea cup.)
7. Spoon a couple pieces of diced pear into greased container.
8. Spoon over batter, cover with foil and put in steamer and steam for approx 20 mins.
9. Cake will be done when a skewer is inserted and comes out clean.
10. Toast walnuts in an oven or pan until warm to touch.
11. In a pan, sprinkle sugar for praline and do not stir. Move pan around to finish melting all the sugar. Pour over walnuts and spread out on a baking dish lined with baking paper. Will harden in a short time.
12. Add cream to brown sugar/butter mixture and return to heat to warm through.

Custard:

1. Add a little milk to the cornflour in a saucepan.
2. Add egg yolk, ginger, sugar and vanilla and mix well.
3. Add remaining milk and stir over a medium heat with a wooden spoon until thickened or it coats the back of the spoon.

To assemble:

1. Spoon caramel sauce on the plate where cake will be placed.
2. Carefully place cake on top of caramel sauce. Add custard to a serving bowl.
3. Take 2 or 3 sugar coated walnuts and place on top of cake.
4. Finely chop remaining sugared walnuts and place on the side of the cake and on the plate.

It might seem like a lot of ingredients and a lot of processes but honestly, its quite simple to put together. Trust me, I wouldn’t want to put myself under any unnecessary stress!

Cherry & Walnut Cookies

I have to confess, I haven’t been doing much baking lately. I’d fallen into the bad habit of picking up 2 for $4 packets of biscuits from the supermarket for the kids just so I had something in the house for them. Most days they’d have crackers and cheese or a couple of bikkies and a glass of milk. Mother guilt had set in and I’d beat myself up for it. Now, I realise it got me through a bad patch and after all is said and done, $2 is a pretty good price for a packet of biscuits but I don’t believe you can get that same taste as you can from a homemade biscuit.

Looking for inspiration, I dug around through the basket filled with dried fruit and nuts and grabbed the small packet of glacé cherries and a small

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amount of walnuts left in a packet. Cherries and walnuts are perfect together. I used the usual biscuit recipe I love so much given to me by my friend Claire in Tasmania. Just mix dry, mix wet and mix together. Melt and mix. That’s my kind of recipe. Even Miss Fusspot ate these. If she knew there were cherries and nuts in them, she’d freak. I told her the little red things were lollies.

Cherry & Walnut Cookies

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup plain
flour
185g butter – melted
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup glacé cherries, chopped finely

1/4 cup walnuts, chopped finely

Preheat oven to 160 deg C. Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet
ingredients. Mix together. Bake for approx 15 mins or until golden.

Nanna's Walnut & Date Slice

To everyone who voted for my Nanna's Walnut & Date Slice, which I entered as part of the Lurpak Butter Baking Challenge, you'll be happy to know that voting ended last night and I made it into the final 55! Thank you so much for voting for me everyone! I've won a $100 gift card courtesy of Woolworths Supermarkets.

Judging will now commence and a final 15 chosen. From there a final 5 will be decided by Sydney Patissier, Adriano Zumbo. The final 5 will win $1,500 each and their recipe printed on a recipe card, distributed throughout all Woolworths Supermarkets in Australia.

I'm so happy to get this far and so grateful that you voted for me. I truly, truly appreciate it.

Nanna's Walnut & Date Slice

To everyone who voted for my Nanna’s Walnut & Date Slice, which I entered as part of the Lurpak Butter Baking Challenge, you’ll be happy to know that voting ended last night and I made it into the final 55! Thank you so much for voting for me everyone! I’ve won a $100 gift card courtesy of Woolworths Supermarkets.

Judging will now commence and a final 15 chosen. From http://www.lookuppage.biz/users/paulsen/ there a final 5 will be decided by Sydney Patissier, Adriano Zumbo. The final 5 will win $1,500 each and their recipe printed on a recipe card, distributed throughout all Woolworths Supermarkets in Australia.

I’m so happy to get this far and so grateful that you voted for me. I truly, truly appreciate it.

Iced Banana & Walnut Loaf Cake

Here’s my old favourite recipe, again. The No Fuss Fudge Cake (NFFC) but in the form of a loaf cake. I thought I’d won the lottery by finding a banana in my freezer and made it into a cake. The kids are having banana withdrawls and at around $15 per kilo at the moment, they can continue to have withdrawls. After the floods earlier this year and cyclones, the banana industry is still trying to get back on it’s feet and they’re so ridiculously overpriced. I used to get sick at the sight of those slimy, black bananas in the freezer but seeing one recently got me all excited.

Iced Banana & Walnut NFFC Loaf Cake

1 and half cups plain flour

3 tablespoons cocoa (omitted)

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon white vinegar

6 tablespoons oil (I use canola)

1 teaspoon bicarb soda

half teaspoon salt

1-2 bananas, mashed

1/2 walnuts, chopped finely

Turn oven to 180 C. Grease a 20cm tin well. Dust inside the tin with a little flour. Tap out excess. Put the flour, sugar, banana, walnuts and water in a bowl. Add vanilla, vinegar, oil, baking soda and salt. Mix with beaters until smooth. (Mixture is runny.) Pour into the tin. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes then take out of tin. Ice with lemon icing. You could also leave uniced.

Lemon Buttercream:

2 cups icing sugar

100gm butter, softened

juice of 1 lemon

 

 

Nanna's Walnut & Date Slice

This is another one of my favourites from my Nanna's handwritten recipe book she gave me. It brings back so many lovely memories of morning and afternoon teas at her place. There was also another reason why I baked this today. I'm entering myself into a cooking competition, hosted by the Danish butter company "Lurpak". You have to cook a recipe and upload the photo onto their website for a chance to go into a draw for $1,500. I've never really won anything and I do love to bake. I thought there's no harm in trying. If you'd like to vote me, you can do so by clicking here. I think you're only able to vote once per day. The competition closes on the 17th of July so you have until then to vote. I appreciate it so much if you have.

I love the fact that this recipe is so badly stained. I wonder how many times Nanna referred to it over the years? It make me feel like I'm capturing a moment of time in her life when I look it, like I was there when she was busily making it. Best thing about this recipe is that it's just a quick mix recipe and baked in 20 minutes and you're done. It's so tasty too.

Nanna's Walnut & Date Slice

1.1/4 cups Self Raising flour
2/3 cups sugar
3/4 cups chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
125gm butter, melted
1 egg

Combine all ingredients and press into a slice tin (28x18cm approx) and bake in a 180 deg C oven (or 160 deg C oven if fan forced) for approx 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into squares when cool.

Thanks Nanna for another lovely recipe! In your honour, I set the table up outside with one of your lovely tableclothes, your bone china tea cup, saucer and plate and enjoyed a piece of the slice and a cuppa in the sunshine (as well as trying to take a half decent photo for the competition - I feel so stupid 'staging' photos sometimes).

Nanna's Walnut & Date Slice

This is another one of my favourites from my Nanna’s handwritten recipe book she gave me. It brings back so many lovely memories of morning and afternoon teas at her place. There was also another reason why I baked this today. I’m entering myself into a cooking competition, hosted by the Danish butter company “Lurpak”. You have to cook a recipe and upload the photo onto their website for a chance to go into a draw for $1,500. I’ve never really won anything and I do love to bake. I thought there’s no harm in trying. If you’d like to vote me, you can do so by clicking here. I think you’re only able to vote once per day. The competition closes on the 17th of July so you have until then to vote. I appreciate it so much if you have.

I love the fact that this recipe is so badly stained. I wonder how many times Nanna referred to it over the years? It make me feel like I’m capturing a moment of time in her life when I look it, like I was there when she was busily making it. Best thing about this recipe is that it’s just a quick mix recipe and baked in 20 minutes and you’re done. It’s so tasty too.

Nanna’s Walnut & Date Slice

1.1/4 cups Self Raising flour
2/3 cups sugar
3/4 cups chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
125gm butter, melted
1 egg

Combine all ingredients and press into a slice tin (28x18cm approx) and bake in a 180 deg C oven (or 160 deg C oven if fan forced) for approx 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into squares when cool.

Thanks Nanna for another lovely recipe! In your honour, I set the table up outside with one of your lovely tableclothes, your bone china tea cup, saucer and plate and enjoyed a piece of the slice and a cuppa in the sunshine (as well as trying to take a half decent photo for the competition – I feel so stupid ‘staging’ photos sometimes).

Apple, Cherry & Walnut Crumble

This Apple, Cherry & Walnut Crumble (Crisp) wasn’t really planned as it’s not exactly crumble weather in Brisbane at the moment. Something we usually like to keep for our cooler winter nights but I had some Granny Smiths lurking plus a half jar of Morello cherries waiting to be used up. I added the walnuts to the crumble mix and there was dessert for tonight.

You can use any fruit you like; peaches, apples, pears, cherries, nectarines, plums, pineapple, mango, bananas, whatever you like. My crumble mix is usually a bit of this and a bit of that. No real quantities and I like to use a nut of some sort in the crumble for a bit of extra http://radicore.org/fud/index.php?t=usrinfo&id=4352& crunch. I choose a nut that will compliment the fruit.

Apple, Cherry & Walnut Crumble

5 Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 cup Morello cherries, drained
1 tbs caster sugar

Crumble Mix:
1/2 cup plain flour
2 tbs butter
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped finely

Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Mix apple and cherries together, sprinkle sugar on top and put into a greased ovenproof dish.

Mix butter into the plain flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix in other ingredients and place on top of the fruit. Bake for approx 20 mins or until golden. Serve with ice cream, cream or custard or all three!