Marmalade and ginger muffins

A few people have said to me recently that they miss receiving recipes and musings from ‘aviewfrommykitchen’, so I thought perhaps it was time to dust off the laptop and post something delicious. I have been posting stuff on Instagram and there are quite a few recipes and ideas on my page if you haven’t already spotted them – the handle is the same: @aviewfrommykitchen

As we are travelling back to Turkey next week and I know that our Seville orange trees will be groaning with fruit, just begging to be made into marmalade, I thought a marmalade-related recipe might be timely.

This is such an easy recipe, as you just melt a few things in a saucepan, then add a few dried things, with the eggs going in last, so that they can’t scramble in the heat. I invented this recipe to use up some marmalade which had crystallised in the fridge – once melted, it was perfectly good. The semolina gives the muffins a really satisfying crunch, but if you want to make these and you don’t happen to have any in the cupboard, just replace with more flour. As self-raising flour is as rare as hen’s teeth in Kaş these days, you can just use plain flour – for each 150g flour (obviously include the semolina in the weight too, if you are using that), add two flat teaspoons baking powder (look for kızartma tozu – the stuff in the little paper packets, sold next to the yeast and vanilla – baking soda or karbonat is an entirely different thing, which you’ll find with the herbs and spices. Obviously.)

Once the muffins are baked, they are glazed with more marmalade to give them a deliciously sticky topping. You can use any sort of marmalade – I used a homemade mixed fruit version, containing pink grapefruit, which gave the muffins a pleasing bitter note. Feel free to swap the pistachios and almonds for other nuts or seeds – whatever you have in your cupboard.

Marmalade and ginger muffins
Makes 12
You will need a 12-cup muffin tin, lined

250g self-raising flour
50g semolina
½ teaspoon baking powder
150g Demerara or other light brown sugar
170g marmalade, plus 2 tablespoons extra for glaze
120g butter
100ml milk
2 tablespoons yoghurt
2 eggs
40g each chopped almonds and pistachios, plus a few for topping
2 tablespoons finely chopped crystallised ginger*, plus a little extra for topping

1. Heat the oven to 190°C fan.

2. Put the marmalade, sugar and butter in a saucepan large enough to hold all of the ingredients, and melt over a medium heat until the sugar and marmalade have completely dissolved. Remove from the heat and whisk in the milk and yoghurt.

3. Stir in the flour and semolina until just combined, then whisk in the eggs, along with the nuts and ginger.

4. Divide between the lined muffin cups and sprinkle a little extra ginger and a few chopped nuts onto the top of each muffin.

5. Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes, until the muffins are a deep golden brown and feel just firm to the touch – they will firm up a little more as they cool. Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Melt the extra marmalade, either in the microwave or in a small saucepan (a Turkish coffee pan is your friend here), then brush each muffin with a little glaze.

*For anyone baking this recipe in Kaş, the easiest (and by far the cheapest) place to source the crystallised ginger is Muhtar supermarket, but you will also find it on the spice stall in the Friday market and in the spice shop on the corner behind the PTT.

Sticky toffee muffins, salted caramel glaze

sticky-toffee-muffins

I haven’t posted here for a while – but I have bona fide excuses. They include: an in-built tendency towards procrastination, terminal idleness, and a pure reluctance to cook because it’s too flipping hot. (I’ve also been doing 1.5 km of laps every day while the pool is still warm enough to swim, as my shorts seem to have inexplicably shrunk during lockdown).

Yesterday I made these muffins, thinking they would slot in as an easy pud for when our friend Linda came over last night and a good thing to stash in the freezer for another day. None of them made it to the freezer, but a couple did leave the house with Linda (I only made half of the quantity in the recipe here, so we only started with seven), and we have one each to look forward to with a cuppa this afternoon. And yes, for those of you paying attention out there, making half of the quantity left me with half of an egg, which was not wasted, but used to seal the blind-baked pastry for an egg custart tart that is coming with us to our friend’s house this evening. Continue reading “Sticky toffee muffins, salted caramel glaze”

Toscakaka (Swedish almond cake)

Toscakaka cakeWell, these are strange times. I hope you and all your loved ones are well. We should have been going back to Turkey about now, but it looks as though we will be in Cornwall until after the summer.

I am very much aware that there are worse places to be – today we were out for our daily walk on the Bissoe Trail and I think it’s fair to say that spring has thoroughly sprung. Primroses, daffodils, tulips, camelias and rhododendrons are in full and beautiful bloom – a cheering site to say the least.

Continue reading “Toscakaka (Swedish almond cake)”

Lemon poppy seed drizzle loaf

IMG_3945Appalling dearth of recipes appearing on this site at the moment – tsk tsk. I’ve been busy doing other things and also trying not to eat too many cakes and muffins, bearing in mind that shorts season is just around the corner. Also, we had a wonderful trip to South Africa last month, where we visited Amakhala Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape – we had a great time getting up at 5am (eek!) and spotting everything from groups of  beautiful nyala antelope, who visited our terrace every morning, to elephants, giraffes, zebras and a lioness with her three newly-minted cubs. Continue reading “Lemon poppy seed drizzle loaf”

Canadian Butter Tarts

IMG_3908.jpgTurkey seems to have forgotten to do autumn this year. October has been gloriously warm and sunny, with temperatures around 30 degrees during the day, perfect for swimming and sunbathing. The jacarandas and bougainvillea are still in bloom, and our Seville oranges remain resolutely green, though the ‘donkey bees’ have finished the last of the figs that were out of our reach at the top of the tree, and have now disappeared themselves.

Today, with the arrival of November, we finally have something akin to autumn weather – breezy, a few spots of rain this morning and a definite change in the colour of the sky.

At last there are some decent greens in the market – perky broccoli, brilliantly white tiny cauliflowers, extra-long leeks, and huge bundles of dark green chard. I even found some beansprouts in the supermarket this morning, so a stir-fry is on the cards for tomorrow’s supper. Continue reading “Canadian Butter Tarts”

Lemon semolina cake with rosemary drizzle

IMG_3880I know I am back home in Turkey because a) I have to have a shower or throw myself into the pool every time I’ve completed even the least arduous of chores, owing to looming heat exhaustion, and b) when I bent to pick up a towel that had blown down from the line, I realised I also seemed to be holding on to a viper. Ooops. That tends not to happen in Cornwall, though I am sure there is a first time for everything.

Anyway, said viper was not in the best of health and I lived to tell the tale – AGAIN – this would be about the eleventy-twentieth time I have picked up something that I didn’t intend to. Despite rescuing said asp on the long-handled dustpan and brush we keep for this very task, and taking him to a ‘safe place’ in the long grass across the road, he didn’t make it in the end. I suspect there had already been some foul play on the part of one of our moggies before the poor thing took refuge beneath the fallen towel. Continue reading “Lemon semolina cake with rosemary drizzle”

Rhubarb & ginger tray-bake

IMG_3768 (2).jpgOne of the most pleasing things about being back in the UK is the sheer variety of fruit and vegetables on offer. Fourteen years without summer treats like rhubarb, gooseberries and raspberries have served to remind me how lucky we are in this country to have such an amiable climate – we tried many times to grow rhubarb in Turkey, but once June came along, it literally cooked in the ground. Continue reading “Rhubarb & ginger tray-bake”

Baked coffee & walnut praline doughnuts

IMG_3690We thought summer had arrived earlier in the week – we even had a day on the beach, though I kept my tootsies well away from the very cold Mediterranean – I would have definitely had to be wearing wellies to even think of venturing in.

Kaş has endured a terrible winter – endless thunderstorms and months of pouring rain – the worst winter in 25 years apparently. Our house has leaked, though we got off lightly compared to our neighbours, who say that what they imagine to be several previously-undiscovered species of mould are breeding on the plaster in every room of their house. Robin has been digging about in the basement to find paint that matches our living room and hallway – paintbrushes will be wielded this week. I don’t expect I will be allowed to have a paintbrush, as I usually get more paint in my hair and on my elbows than on the wall. I will be in charge of refreshments. Continue reading “Baked coffee & walnut praline doughnuts”

Carrot & ginger muffins, and the delights of the Bodrum Bergamot

IMG_3645Weather report: extremely grumpy. Violent flashes, thunderous bangs, strong winds, torrential rain and a whole crop of waterspouts. For Pete’s sake people, we’re in the Mediterranean, it’s supposed to be sunny. The weather has forgotten how to behave. Continue reading “Carrot & ginger muffins, and the delights of the Bodrum Bergamot”

Raspberry & salted caramel cheesecakes

IMG_3606It’s official. Spring has well and truly sprung. Well, it has in this part of the world anyway. We have early rhododendrons, all kinds of magnolia, and camelias galore. Not to mention the daffodil fields, which are now in full bloom. I am pleased we are leaving for Turkey in a week’s time, as I hate to see the daffodils which have been grown for their bulbs dying out – they look so sad. Continue reading “Raspberry & salted caramel cheesecakes”