When you desire chocolate...

I can only say that these cupcakes were perfect. I have never made cupcakes before, and was suspicious about them. But all my assumptions are now gone, and I think I might try some other cupcake recipes too...And these are excellent for those who love chocolate and need something sweet, but I have to say that the cupcakes were so sweet that two was the absolute maximum. But of course you can eat more, if you're on that mood...:)

Super moist and chocolaty cupcakes

Ingredients:

4 oz (114 g) Bittersweet dark Chocolate broken into small pieces

1 (240 ml) cup all-purpose flour

1/4 (60 ml) cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 (120 ml) cup soymilk

1/4 (60 ml) cup water

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil (olive oil)

3 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting:

4 oz. Bittersweet dark Chocolate, broken into small pieces

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/3 (320 ml) cups powdered sugar

Directions:

FOR CUPCAKES:

1. Preheat oven to 350º F. Paper-line 20 (small, 14 big) muffin cups.

2. Melt the chocolate in a metal dish attached to a pot with boiling water. Stir until smooth. Cool to room temperature.

3. Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Combine soymilk and water in small glass measure. Beat brown sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl on high for 2 minutes. Beat in melted chocolate. Beat flour mixture into creamed mixture alternately with soymilk mixture.

4. Spoon into prepared muffin cups, filling 3/4 full.

5. Bake for 18 to 23 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely.

6. Frost with Bittersweet Chocolate Butter cream Frosting.

For Bittersweet Chocolate Butter cream Frosting:

1. Melt the chocolate the same way as before, stirring just until melted. Cool to room temperature.

2. Melt the butter in microwave, until it's liquid like. Mix the powdered sugar and vanilla extract, add the melted chocolate and butter. If icing is too thick, add milk, 1 teaspoon at at a time, to desired consistency. It should be light and fluffy. Makes one and half a cups.

For decoration you can grate some dark chocolate, or you can us your imagination and figure out some other decorations...

Red pepper and mushroom pie

I wanted to make an easy vegetarian pie with mushrooms and vegetables. I found the recipe for the base in the internet, and then just used some imagination to create the filling. It was really quick and tasted good and exuberant. The sun dried tomatoes gave a nice flavor and on the whole I was very satisfied. 

Red pepper and mushroom pie

The base:

4 dl graham flour

2 dl wheat flour

1 dl olive oil

1 dl water

0,5 tsp salt

The filling:

1 red pepper chopped into small pieces

1 shallot chopped

1 red onion chopped in circles

3 pressed garlic gloves 

about 150 g mushrooms

3 small tomatoes chopped

4 sun dried tomatoes sliced

handful of fresh basilica, chopped

grated cheese on the top

alpro soya milk on the top

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp curry

2 tsp chervil

0,5 tsp black pepper

a dash of herbamare or ordinary salt

1 dl tomato pure

To make the base:

1. Mix the dry ingredients, then add the water and oil. 

2. Press the dough into a casserole, and put in to 220°C degrees oven for ten minutes. 

To make the filling:

1. Pour some olive oil into a stewpan and sauté the shallot with the red pepper and garlic. Then add the mushrooms, fry for a while and add the chopped tomatoes.  Add the tomato pure, chopped basilica and the other spices. Mix well and take the pan off the stove. 

2. Put the filling on the base evenly, then set the sliced sun dried tomatoes and red onion circles on it. Pour alpro soya milk into the casserole, almost to the top. Sprinkle the cheese on the filling, and put into the 220°C oven for 20 to 25 minutes. 

3. Serve with green salad. 

To die for blueberry muffins

It's a beautiful day outside, and a perfect day for baking some delicious muffins. This is one of my favorite muffin recipes, with it it's impossible to fail and you can modify it by putting for example raspberries, strawberries or rhubarb instead of blueberries, or you can put different kinds of berries, like I did this time. I used blueberries and raspberries to make "Queen" muffins. They succeeded wonderfully, almost too delicious...I love the hint of cinnamon in this recipe, it gives an exciting taste to the muffins. For bigger muffins I recommend to double the recipe, and the topping crumb also. And of course you should use BIG muffin cups for these.

The recipe makes about 7 to 9 muffins when doubled, it depends on the cups. I recommend not to fill the cups very full, because the dough rises and it may burst out of the cups.

To die for blueberry muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup oatmeal

3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup vegetable oil (I use olive oil)

1 egg

1/3 cup alpro soya milk

1 cup fresh blueberries (or more if you want)

the topping:

1/2 cup white sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup oatmeal

1/4 cup butter, cubed

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 200 °C.

2. Combine all dry ingredients, and then mix the wet ingredients and combine with the flour mixture. Fold in blueberries.

3. Fill the muffin cups almost right to the top,

and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

To make the crumb topping mixture:

1. mix together sugar, flour, melted butter & cinnamon with fork and sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until ready.