Easter Yoghurt Muffins

Basic, classic, elegant. This is one of the most useful recipe, for all occassions. So today, as an Easter Muffins I want to present them - yoghurt muffins with a nice, delicate lemon taste and a raspberry surprise inside. 

I realize that the biggest surprise are the wrrapings, and some of You probably crave for them ;) They come from the website of one of the most known producent in Poland and you can find them and many others here. Have fun and Happy Easter! :)

The base, slightly changed, comes from this website. 

Ingredients (for 24 smaller muffins) all of them need to be room temperatured.

• 250g of natural yoghurt (but not a "0% fat" one)
• 150g of margarine
• 4 eggs
• lemon zest from 2 lemons
• 300g of flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• a pinch of salt
• 250g of sugar

Filling:

• Raspberry jam

Preparation:

1. Take a pan, melt butter inside. Let it cool down.
2. Start preheating the oven to 170C.
3. Prepare muffin cases and keep handy. 
4. Prepare a big bowl.
5. Put yoghurt inside and mix it with cool melted butter. Add eggs and lemon zest. Beat.
6. Now add sieved flour, soda, salt and sugar. Stir only till all the ingredients mix.
7. Fill the muffin cases with dough till their 3/4 height.
8. Put in the oven and bake for around 25-30 minutes, till you reach a dry toothpick.
9. Take them out and using a syringe with very thin 'needle' like ending and inject the jam inside.
10. Remove the excess of the jam that starts coming out from the muffin.
11. Let the muffins cool down.
12. Prepare the icing, for example from this recipe and decorate the muffins.
13. When done, you can dress up your muffins using this wrapping. Remember to cut it out precisely and laminate, before using :)
14. Bon Appetit! :)

Raspberry Buns

Absolutely stunning! Best buns I've ever eaten! Soft, moist, sweet raspberries plus mascarpone cheese make a wonderful couple if it comes to the taste and the overall effect is outrageous :) Perfect for breakfast, lunch, either at home or at work/school. A definite must-bake :) A big thanks to Deliciouslyyum for the recipe!

If You need a converter, feel free to use this one.

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 1 cup of milk
• 4 tablespoons of butter, cut into small pieces
• 3 1/4 – 3 1/2 cups of flour, divided
• 1 package of instant yeast (about 2 1/4 teaspoons)
• 1/4 cup of white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 egg

Filling:

• 8 oz. of mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
• 5 tablespoons of granulated sugar, divided
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 12 oz. of raspberries (if frozen, need to be defrost and dried on a paper towel)
• 1 tablespoon of cornstarch
• zest of 1 lemon

Icing:

• 1 and 1/2 cups of confectioners’ sugar
• 2 tablespoons of melted butter
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1-2 tablespoons of milk

Preparation:

Dough:

1. Take a baking tray, grease and put baking paper all over it. Set aside.
2. Take a bowl (suitable to put in a microwave or on the stove), put milk and butter inside and heat till the butter is almost melted and the milk is warm. Stir till the butter is completely melted. Set aside. 
3. Take a big bowl (you can do it using a stand mixer if it is suitable to knead the dough), put 2 cups of flour, yeast, sugar, and salt inside. Stir, so that it mixes.
4. Add the egg and milk to the dry mix and continue stirring until thoroughly combined. Start kneading for at least few minutes (till the douhg starts pulling away from the sides) and add remaining flour. 
5. Knead the dough for another 5 minutes. 
6. Cover the bowl with dough with a dry, clean cloth and put in a warm place (do not leave it near an open window, even if it is hot outside). Leave it for at least 10 minutes or until it doubles its size.
7. During that time, prepare the filling.

Filling&Dough:

1. Take a bowl, put mascarpone cheese, 3 tablespoons of sugar and vanilla extract inside. Set aside.
2. Take another bowl, put frozen raspberries, remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar and cornstarch inside, mix. Set aside as well.

1. When the dough is ready, sprinkle kitchen's surface with flour and roll it out until you get a 12 x 14 inches rectangle. 
2. Distribute mascarpone cheese mixture evenly over the dough. Put raspberry mixture on top and sprinkle with lemon zest. 
3. Now, time to roll the dough up - starting with one of the longer's side, roll the dough into a log. Close the sides very precisely so that the filling doesn't come out. 
4. Cut into slices (around 2-3 cm thick) and put them on previously prepared baking tray, leaving some space between them (the buns will rise again). Cover again with a clean kitchen cloth. Set aside in a warm place for at least 30 minutes (or till it doubles its size again). 
5. During that time, start preheating the oven to 180C. 
6. Bake the buns for around 20 minutes (or until the tops are golden brown).
7. Now, it is a good time, to prepare the icing.

Icing:

1. Mix confectioners’ sugar, butter, vanilla and milk. 
2. When the buns are ready, take them out from the oven, let them cool down for a while and distribute the icing all over their tops.
3. Keep closed for max 3 days or store closed in the freezer for maximum 3 weeks.
4. Bon Appetit! ;)

Cherry Éclairs

Uhh, at first they seem so quick and easy, but the filling and final preparing them was more of a challenge :) However, the final outcome is really wonderful :) I gave a good plate for my brother, but before he reached his house, the plate was already empty ;) 

It would be a sin, not to recommend them ;)
This recipe is a mix of recipes from those two pages.

Ingredients:

Éclairs dough:

• 250 ml of water
• 125g of butter or margarine
• 1 glass of flour
• 4 eggs
• a pinch of salt

Filling:

• 200 ml of milk
• 300g of cherries (fresh or frozen)
• 3 egg yolks
• 20g of flour
• 20g of potato starch
• 90g of sugar
• 1 packaging of vanilla sugar
• 1 tablespoon of butter

Icing:

• 1 glass of powdered sugar
• 4-5 tablespoons of water

Optional icing ingredients:

• flavoured extract - vanilla, almond, lemon, etc.
• food colouring
• or - instead of icing - ganache, chocolate frosting

Optional ingredients - decoration:

• cherry (or any other flavour - different fruit, caramel, chocolate, coffee, nut...) mousse
• whipped cream
• fruit
• nuts
• mincemeat

Preparation - dough:

1. Take a baking tray, grease and put baking paper on it. Put aside.
2. Take a pot, put water, butter and salt inside, boil.
3. When brought to boil, add flour and stir energetically (to prevent the bottom from burning). The dough should be smooth and should not stick to the pot.
4. Put aside, to let it cool down completely.
5. When cooled down, mix the dough with eggs, for a quite long time, till smooth.* 
6. Put the dough inside a syringe or a piping pastry bag with a steel piping nozzle (preferably quite big star shape).
7. Distribute long pieces of cake, leaving some space between them, as they will grow quite much.
8. Bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes, on 200C. Make sure they're ready inside.
9. When baked, cool down and cut lengthways.

* Longer mixing helps it grow up in the oven later on, as there is no baking powder.

Preparation - filling:

1. If your cherries are frozen - defrost, make sure there are no kernels, pour away the water.
2. If fresh - throw away the kernels.
3. Put the cherries in a bowl. Mix, with a mixer, till smooth, to get a mousse. If there's cherry juice, pour it away, for a different use.
4. Take a pot, pour milk and add cherry mousse inside. Start boiling. When brought to boil, turn off the heat and put aside to let it cool down.
5. Take a mixer and its bowl, beat the eggs with sugar and vanilla sugar. Add flour and potato starch. Using a spatula, mix precisely.
6. Gradually add cherry milk mixture to the mixer's bowl, stiring precisely.
7. Put the mixture back in the pot and start boiling. Stir all the time, as it will thicken, like a custard, quite fast. Be careful not to burn the bottom.
8. When thick and ready, add butter and stir, to let the butter melt. Cover with foil and put aside, to let it cool down. Later on, when cool, keep in the fridge (it will thicken more), till you need it.

Preparation - icing sugar:

1. Put all the ingredients together and stir to get a desired consistency of the icing (needs to be thick). 

Finishing:

1. Prepare a baking grill or another baking tray, cover with baking paper, put aside.
2. Take the top pieces of your Éclairs and dip in previously prepared icing. 
3. Transfer them into steel baking grill or baking tray and leave for a while in the fridge.
4. Put the cherry filling inside a syringe or a piping pastry bag with a steel piping nozzle (preferably quite big star shape) and distribute it on the bottom piece of your Éclair in any way desired. You can add fruit, whipped cream or use only the cherry filling.
5. Cover with the suitable top piece covered with icing.
6. Store in the fridge.
7. Bon Appetit! :)

Strawberry Yoghurt Cake

I was looking for a nice strawberry cake recipe. But not the strawberry cake I’ve already made, ahh, I craved for something new, as I’m addicted to trying new recipes. And I found this strawberry yoghurt cake. One word: Wow! That’s the quickest and the one of the cheapest cake I’ve ever made! And I needed to bake 2 pans, one after another, day after day, cause it disappeared so quickly! I’m utterly shocked! And how many variations this one particular cake has, that’s unbelievable! Delicate, spongy, sweet, perfect for a morning coffee and for a nice lunch at work ;-) What’s more, that’s one of the ‘light’ cakes, so we can feel excused for eating half of the baking pan ;) (giggle) 

I do recommend!

The only thing that I found particularly difficult to explain to You is a polish dessert - powdered, quick, jelly-like, fruit-flavoured 'kisiel'. I can't find an equivalent for it in English. I do encourage You to look up for it. Wikipedia defines it as 'kissel' and explains a little bit what it is. If You are unable to buy it, You can easily use jam ;)
I made quite a lot of changes, though still - big thanks for KwestiaSmaku for the recipe!

Ingredients:

1 glass = 250ml

• 2 big eggs
• 1 glass of greek yoghurt
• 2 glasses of flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 500g of strawberries
• ¾ -1 glass of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of vanilla sugar
• 25g of melted butter (or 25g of oil)
• 1 powdered strawberry kissel
• 2-3 tablespoons of strawberry jam

Optional ingredients:

• Powdered sugar
• X g of any other berries ;) (I had one bowl of currants from my garden, so I used them J)
• Icing sugar

Preparation:

1. Bring eggs and yoghurt to room temperature.
2. Prepare 3 bowls. Mix flour with baking powder very precisely and sieve to the 1^st bowl. Put aside.
3. Wash your fruit. Take 500g of strawberries, cut out the leaves, divide into halves (250g each), put in remaining 2 bowls. Cut the strawberries into halves (if the strawberry is really big – 3 pieces)
4. Take a mixer’s bowl. Put sugar and vanilla sugar inside.
5. Melt the butter in a small pot.
6. Take a rectangular baking pan (preferably 20x30 cm, might be a little bit bigger), grease it precisely with soft butter. Put aside.
7. Start preheating the oven to 165C.
8. Prepare the kissel as the recipe on the packaging says. Mix with jam. Mix 1/3 of this kissel-jam mixture with one strawberry bowl. Put aside.
9. Add eggs to the mixer’s bowl with sugars.
10. Using a mixer, start beating for 7 minutes. After that time, put the mixer aside, add yoghurt, melted butter, sieved flour with baking powder and slowly, precisely, for a short time, stir, using a big spoon or spatula, only till all the ingredients link, not longer.
11. Put the dough in previously prepared greased baking pan, distribute the dough all over the pan.
12. Take a bowl with kissel strawberries. Here – preferably – don’t use much of the kissel as it may destroy the cake, it is perfectly enough if there is some kissel on the strawberry. Put the strawberries all over the cake, leaving some space between them (chequered pattern works and looks perfectly).
13. When done, put it in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Observe your cake, it might take less or more time for Your cake to be ready, as every oven works differently – You are probably the person who knows it best.
14. After those 20 minutes, if the top is gold, use a toothpick to check, if it is ready inside. If not – cover the top with foil and bake for another 10 minutes or so.*
15. Cool down, take out from the pan. Take the second bowl with strawberries and kissel, fill the holes in the cake - firstly with some kissel, then with a strawberry.
16. Sprinkle the cake with (for instance) remaining fruit (or any other additional fruit if You have prepared them), powdered sugar, icing sugar or add remaining kissel all over the cake.
17. Bon Appetit! ;)

*the cake should be much bigger, its sides should stick out from the pan, the top should be gold and a toothpick clean (if there is any cake glued to a toothpick, it is not ready yet)

Italian Torta Margherita

Very easy and tasty cake. Last minute idea, when you have a craving for a cake ;)The only thing I needed to buy to prepare it was a greek yoghurt ;) So the cost of preparing it is automatically low too :) Recipe comes from all over the Internet, containing some Italian websites (for example: ricette.giallozafferano.it , emikodavies.com) :)

Ingredients:

• 300 g of greek yoghurt
• 300 g of sugar
• 3 eggs
• 150 g of oil
• 600 g of flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 16 g of vanilla sugar
• 200-500 g of fruit - plums, apples, nectarine, pear (preffered harder ones, not very juicy)
• some butter
• powdered sugar or icing sugar

Optional ingredients:

• 2-3 teaspoons zest of a lemon (optional)
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. Wash, peel and chop the fruit into wedges.
2. Start heating the oven to 200C.
3. Take a big bowl.
4. Put yoghurt and sugar inside, add eggs and stir. Add oil and stir again.
5. Add flour, baking powder and optional ingredients (if desired). Stir everything.
6. Add fruit and stir again.
7. Take a springform cake tin (though I used fluted cake ring) grease it thoroughly.
8. Put the dough in a tin and bake for 30-40 minutes in 200C.*
9. Check, by using a toothpick if the cake is ready (put the toothpick as deep as possible, to get sure).
10. Take it out from the oven, cool down, then overturn the cake and by tapping, take it out from the form.
11. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or icing sugar.
12. Bon Appetit! :)

* The top of the cake may start getting burnt very fast because the oven is already preheated. To prevent your cake, when you notice it starts burning, put a piece of foil on the entire top of the cake. 

Carrot Cake

The best carrot cake I've ever eaten. Even my family was surprised when they tried it. A definite must-do!

The recipe comes from my friend (greets!). She's got it that recipe from her friend who is a landlady, owning a hostel in Polish mountains(https://www.facebook.com/SchroniskoJaworzec), pampering her guests with that cake ;) 

Ingredients:

• 4 big eggs
• 1,5 glasses of sugar
• 2 glasses of flour
• 3/4 glass of oil
• 1 good teaspoon of gingerbread spice
• 1 good teaspoon of cinnamon spice
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 2-3 glasses of grated carrot

Optional ingredients - decoration:

• powdered sugar
• icing sugar (for example from that recipe, but lemon here, with carrot cake, is optional)
• chocolate glaze

Preparation: 

1. Take a mixer and its bowl. Put eggs inside the bowl and mix to get a fluffy, bright foam.
2. Without stopping the mixer, add sugar, flour, oil, gingerbread spice and cinnamon as well as baking powder and soda. Mix till all the ingredients link.
3. Add carrot, stir.
4. Start preheating the oven to 130C.
5. Take (preferably) a rectangular pan, grease it and put the baking paper inside.
6. Pour the dough to the pan.
7. Put the cake inside the oven, increase the temperature to 170C and bake for 35-45 minutes to the dry toothpick.
8. When finished, leave the cake in turned off, opened oven for a while.
9. Decorate the cake.
10. Bon Appetit! :)

Lemon Cupcakes

Recipe from this website, as always, a little bit changed ;)

Ingredients:

• 1,5 glass of flour
• 1,5 teaspoon of baking powder
• 115 g of butter
• 3/4 glass of sugar
• 2 big eggs
• lemon peel made from 2 lemons
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
• 1/2 glass of buttermilk or kephir or 12-18% sour cream
• ready made icing sugar (you can use self-made from this recipe)

Preparation:

1. All the ingredients should be in a room temperature. 
2. Sieve the flour and the baking powder into a bowl. Put aside. 
3. Put the butter and sugar in a food processor's bowl and using a mixer, mix it till it gets bright and smooth. 
4. Add one egg, mix till it links. Add another egg, mix again till smooth. Add lemon peels and lemon juice, mix. 
5. Taking turns, add a little flour and a little sour cream to the dough, stir after adding every ingredient till it links with the dough, using a tablespoon. Continute, till both ingredients finish. 
6. Take you muffin forms, put paper muffin cups inside (if your muffin form is made of silicone, you don't have to put paper muffin cups). 
7. Put the dough to every muffin cup to its 3/4 height (or less, not more) 
8. Bake in 180C for 20-25 minutes. Using a toothpick, check whether your cupcakes are ready or not. Read how to do it HERE.
9. Cool them. 
10. You can decorate your muffins with icing sugar, either ready-made or you can prepare your own. 
11. If ready made - follow the instructions on the packing (boil the packing), cut a small hole in the packing, and making round moves slowly pour the icing on every muffin. 
12. Home-made icing sugar here. 
13. Bon appetit!

Icing sugar

Ahh, that's a very useful tool, to make your cakes or cupcakes  not only taste good but also look wonderful :)It is a very easy way to decorate cakes, cupcakes, cookies, etc. in every pattern imagined.

Ingredients:

• 1 glass of powdered sugar
• 4-5 tablespoons of water

Optional ingredients:

• flavoured extract - vanilla, almond, lemon, etc.
• food colouring

Preparation:

1. Put all the ingredients together and stir to get a desired consistency of the icing (needs to be thick). 
2. Put into a piping bag and distribute over cake, cupcake, etc. in any pattern desired.
3. Bon appetit ;)