Chocolate & Banana Cake

Hot Cross Buns

Traditional Easter buns.

Apple & Mascarpone Muffins

The use of mascarpone in this recipe is a bit of a revelation, to me at least. You’d think adding any kind of cream cheese to batter would make it heavy and dense, but the opposite is the case here. The mascarpone causes the cupcakes to become extremely soft and light and crumbly. Whipping the egg whites separately before adding them makes the cakes even more airy and wonderful. These are the kind of cupcakes that make a fantastic dessert, but can just as well be eaten for breakfast seeing as they’re not sickly sweet.

1 large apple
100 grams of flour
150 grams of mascarpone
40 grams of butter, melted
5 tablespoons of (vanilla) sugar
2 eggs
5 grams of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon of cardamom
a pinch of salt

First cut the apple into small cubes and set aside. Separate the eggs and beat the whites, with a pinch of salt until white and fairly stiff, don’t beat it to within an inch of its life though, you don’t want it too dry. Set those aside too.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and spices. Add the egg yolks, butter and mascarpone. Give this a stir. It will probably offer quite a bit of resistance, but don’t give way! A little hand cramp is but a small price to pay. Once its combined add the apple and a small scoop of the egg whites. This should make the stirring much easier. Gradually add the rest of the whites, folding them in delicately (but not timidly). The mixture has to be thoroughly combined.
Spoon into a muffin pan either greased or lined with paper muffin cups. They won’t rise a crazy amount, so filling the forms about two thirds of the way will be fine. Bake in a preheated oven, 180 degrees, for about 25 minutes. They should be golden brown and an inserted strand of uncooked spaghetti should come out clean.
Commence swooning.

"Donut" Peaches