Raspberry & rhubarb breakfast muffins

I'm sorry little blog, you've been neglected. Life called and I left you alone and un-updated for far too long. But now I'm back, in a new tiny unit that has a kitchen that is half the size of my previous one and is just as old. Still, it's all good. A place to live is a place to live. The kitchen might not be great, but the oven turns on and that's enough to keep me happy.

Anyway, when you're in the middle of unpacking there's not much time to make something fancy. This is especially the case when half your things are still in boxes and there aren't any fancy implements within arm's reach. When I made these muffins I hadn't even unpacked my muffin tray. luckily I had unpacked my favourite muffin papers and a single baking tray. I love these muffin papers because you don't need to put them into a muffin tin, you just place them on a tray and away you go. One less thing to clean, especially when you no longer have a dishwasher. I also had a few bowls unpacked, a couple of gadgets but no whisk or stand mixer. I also had a insatiable desire for muffins and was immensely curious as to whether or not the oven actually worked. Luckily, muffins only require a few bowls, and a spatula - hooray!

These muffins are super simple and delicious straight out of the oven. With a muffin in hand unpacking seems a whole bunch more approachable.

Raspberry & rhubarb breakfast muffins

(adapted from The Art & Soul of Baking)
makes 9-12 standard muffins

285g (2 cups) unbleached plain flour
135g (2/3 cup) sugar, plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
85g (3 ounces) butter
Finely grated lemon zest
125ml (1/2 cup) milk
65ml (1/4 cup) yoghurt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup frozen raspberries
1/2 cup finely chopped rhubarb
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F) and position an oven rack in the centre. Place 12 muffin papers in a muffin tin, or 9 self-standing papers on a baking tray.

Place the flour, 2/3 cup of the sugar, the baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and stir thoroughly.

In a medium fry-pan, melt the butter with the lemon zest. Turn off the heat. Add the milk and yoghurt and let the mixture stand for a minute or two. Pour the milk into a medium bowl, add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until well blended.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Pour the milk mixture into the well and stir well with a spatula. Mix only until there are no streaks and the batter looks fairly smooth. A few lumps scattered throughout are fine. Gently fold through the raspberries and the rhubarb.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups. Stir together the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar, cinnamon, and ground nutmeg and sprinkle over the tops of the muffins.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the tops feel firm and a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Transfer the muffin tin to a rack a let cool for 5 minutes. Then, remove the muffins from the tin and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Almond, ricotta, & raspberry cakes

Sometimes I like to imagine that I'm a champion for ugly food. I pretend I'm battering down conventional norms of beauty with my ill-formed and slightly bizarre creations. It's my way of reassuring myself that it's okay if things aren't perfect.

My imaginings make me feel better, they stop me worrying about my seemly constant ability to create ugly food. Still, I don't consciously set out of create food that looks odd, it just happens again, and again, and again.

The comforting thing about ugly food is that it's not necessarily bad food. In fact, there's something wondrous about imperfect food. Sure, you don't want to be served it at a restaurant, but if a friend makes it for you it becomes oddly comforting. It says: "hey, I made this for you and you alone." You can tell it came out of the oven of someone who is as imperfect as the food they're giving you, someone who as imperfect as you are. You don't feel awkward when you get crumbs everywhere, or when you greedily go back for more.

Ugly food is utterly unpretentious (unlike me, I'm hugely pretentious). It sets the mood for an unpretentious event. In a world where there's so much showing off, ugly food says "don't worry, I'm not perfect either."

Yet, when I serve ugly food I find myself trying to justify why it's ugly over and over again. I'll say "it wasn't meant to look like this, it's because I didn't have the right ingredients" or "they would have risen properly if I used the right pan", or whatever reason I have this time. I'm completely insecure, utterly paranoid that my creations won't be enjoyed because they're not as pretty as they could have been. It's a challenge to accept that, frankly, no one else really cares what they look like.

Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that these cakes aren't pretty but they taste damn good.

Anyway, if you do make these, I highly recommend you make them in the specified metal moulds. I made the error of baking half of mine straight into paper cups and found they didn't rise particularly well and, despite being cooked, sunk as soon as I removed them from the oven. The cakes baked in metal moulds fared much better and did not sink. I transferred the ones in metal moulds to paper cups once they were cool enough to handle.

Almond, ricotta, & raspberry cakes

(adapted from Gourmet Traveller)
makes 9

90g butter, softened
120g caster sugar
65g brown sugar
Zest of 1/2 an orange
2 eggs
50ml milk
100g gluten free plain flour
80g almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
300g ricotta
50g sour cream
40g caster sugar, extra
50g raspberries, fresh or frozen
50g toasted almonds, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 180°C, grease and flour nine 180ml metal dariole moulds and place them on a baking tray.

Beat butter, sugars, and orange zest using an electric mixer until lightened in colour and texture, about 3-4 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl then add the milk and beat to combine.

Stir in the flour, hazelnut meal, and baking powder. Spoon into prepared dariole moulds and set aside.

Process ricotta, sour cream, and extra caster sugar in a blender or food processor until smooth. Divide evenly among the batter filled moulds. Scatter mixture with raspberries and almonds.

Bake cakes until they are well risen and golden brown, about 30-35 minutes. Cool cakes in moulds for 5-10 minutes, then run a small knife around the sides of the moulds and careful remove cakes. Transfer to paper baking cups, if desired. Cool on wire rack.

Raspberry & lemon friands

Friands, friands, friands. I'm never sure what I think about you, sure you're simple to make but you demand expensive ingredients such as almond meal and berries. Yes, you're a good way to use up excess egg whites but are you really worth it? Apparently my friends think you are, I still remain unsure.

Friands are an Australian and New Zealand treat, but like most things they're an adaptation of something else. Apparently they're based off financier; my source for this information is, naturally, wikipedia. Any information beyond this little snippet of trivia is hard to find.

In Australia you can buy tins specificity for making friands, they're typically oval shaped. However, it's not the shape that makes a friand a friand, it's the ingredients. Friands come in many shapes and sizes - why the oval shape has become associated with the friand I have no idea. I personally prefer to bake mine in cute paper cases because they're so easy to clean up when you've finished as there's no tray, except for a flat baking tray, to wash up.

I think these friands could use the addition of coconut, however everyone I mentioned this idea to shook their heads at me and said "no!" rather loudly. Next time I'll make them with coconut and we'll see how everyone reacts.

Raspberry & lemon friands

(adapted from Use Real Butter)
makes approximately 8

125g (4 oz) unsalted butter
110g (1 cup) almond meal
235g (1 2/3 cups) icing sugar
115g (3/4 cup) plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
5 egg whites
45g (1/3 cup) frozen raspberries

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F), place paper baking cups on a flat tray.

Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Cook the butter until it is light golden in colour, remove from heat and set aside.

Combine the almond meal, icing sugar, flour, baking powder, and lemon zest in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Stir in the egg whites and mix until well combined. Pour in the butter and stir until completely combined.

Spoon batter into paper baking cups, filling each cup just over 3/4 full. Scatter a few berries on top of each friand, resist pushing them into the batter. Bake friands for 15-20 minutes, or until they are golden on top. Cool on a wire rack.

Dark chocolate & raspberry muffins

Muffins are hard to photograph. They're not inherently pretty in the same way layered cakes, individual tarts, and cupcakes are. Muffins are kind of messy and don't have a singular defining visual feature - or at least mine don't.

Nevertheless, what they lack in visual beauty they often make up for in taste.These muffins aren't elegant or stunning but they are amazingly tasty. They're packed full of raspberries and chocolate, two things that never fail disappoint me.

When I making these I honestly doubted that I would be able to fit all the raspberries in but I could and I did. Each muffin has around eight raspberries and a whole bunch of chocolate. Eight doesn't sound like that many raspberries but bear in mind that these are cooked in a standard muffin tin.

I used demerara sugar to sand the tops of these though, if you don't have any on hand, you can use raw sugar as suggested by the original recipe. I prefer the taste of demerara sugar and I think the large grains are quite beautiful. My muffins had quite a crisp top, I imagine raw sugar would give a similiar texture.

Truthfully, I don't really have much else to say about these muffins. They speak for them-self.

Dark chocolate & raspberry muffins

(adapted from Bourke Street Bakery by Paul Allam & David McGuinness)
makes 10 standard muffins

265g (1 + 3/4 cups) plain flour
1 + 1/3 teaspoons baking powder
200g (1 cup) caster sugar
205 (7.2 oz) butter
320ml (1 + 1/3 cups) buttermilk
2 eggs
150g (5 oz) dark chocolate, roughly chopped
140g (5 oz) raspberries, fresh or frozen
55g (1/4 cup) demerara sugar

Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Line a 12-hole standard muffin tin with paper cases.

Place the flour, baking powder, and sugar in a bowl and whisk well to combine.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat, then remove from the heat and stir in the buttermilk. Using a whisk, stir in the eggs, one at a time, whisking to combine. Pour the buttermilk mixture over the dry ingredients and whisk to combine, using a large spoon, gently fold through the chocolate.

Using a 1/4 cup spoon mixture into prepared muffin tins. Cover each muffin with raspberries, pressing them into the batter slightly. Spoon remaining batter over the raspberries. Sprinkle the tops with demerara sugar.

Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the muffins are well risen and firm.

Remove muffins from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before eating. Muffins are best served warm.

Home-made chocolate wagon wheels

Wagon Wheels inhabit a special place in my imagination. I remember them from childhood as a treat that I always wanted but never got. I remember them as being delicious. So, imagine my disappoint when I eat a Wagon Wheel for the first time in years only to discover that they're, well, not actually that delicious.

I find this happens with a lot of childhood treats, either things just don't taste like they used to or my tongue has gotten pickier. I have a feeling it's a combination of the two. Still, wahtever the reason the disappointment is immense. It's like a betrayal but a whole lot less exaggerated.

From the betrayal often stems motivation and this time is no exception. When browsing through Cookies by the Australian Woman's Weekly I found a recipe for "Choc-mallow Wheels", knowing they actually meant wagon wheels I vowed to make them.

And the next day I did. An accomplishment for sure, it's not often that I vow to do something and actually do it.

Home-made chocolate wagon wheels

(from Cookies by the Australian Woman's Weekly)
Makes 14

125g (4.4 oz) butter, softened
165g (3/4 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
1 egg
225g (1 1/2 cups) plain flour
35g (1/4 cup) self-raising flour
25g (1/4 cup) cocoa powder
28 marshmallows
80g (1/4 cup) raspberry jam
375g (13 oz) dark chocolate
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Beat the butter and sugar in the bowl of electric mixer until lightened in colour and texture. Beat int he egg. On the lowest speed, or by hand, stir in the sifted flours and cocoa powder, in two batches.

Turn the dough out on to a floured surface and knead until smooth. Roll between two sheets of baking paper until 3 mm (1/8") thick. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease two oven trays and line with baking paper.

Using a 7 cm round fluted cutter, cut 28 rounds from the dough. Place 3cm (1") apart on trays. Bake for 12 minutes and then cool on wire racks.

Turn half the biscuits base-side up and place back on oven tray. Use scissors to cut marshmallows in half horizontally. Press four marshmallow halves, cut side down, onto biscuit bases. Bake for 2 minutes.

Spread remaining halves with jam and press, jam-side down, onto the softened marshmallows. Stand for 20 minutes or until marshmallows are firm.

Melt the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from heat and stir in the oil.

Dip the biscuit wheels into the chocolate and, using a metal spatula smooth away any excess chocolate. Place on baking paper-lined trays to set.

Yellow cake with raspberry butter-cream

I haven't iced a cake since my birthday, so last night when I had the desire to make a cake and then ice it I decided to run with it - despite the multitudes of other things I had to do. Also despite the fact that I've never made a cake in my current (awful) oven.

I made the cakes last night, leaving them to cool whilst I slept. The cakes weren't perfect, in fact when they came out of the oven they were pretty terrible looking. I don't know why, but there was about a 2.5cm (1") difference between the sides of the cakes. They were mega slanted. Taste wise, they're fine. Just a simple vanilla butter cake.

Normally I'd just level the cakes and be done with, but if I'd leveled these cakes I'd be leveling off half the cake. Instead I plonked them on top of it each, with the small sides lining up with the tall sides. Surprisingly, the assembled wonky layers resulted in a fairly even cake.

This is the first time I've made egg based butter-cream, I generally tend to avoid icing cakes because I don't like butter-cream made purely with butter. This butter-cream was considerably more effort than just pure butter and icing sugar but it's definitely worth the extra time. It's not that the recipe is complicated, it just takes a bit longer. It's also one of those recipes that makes you really appreciate having a stand mixer and a good whisk.

I added a bit of raspberry syrup into my butter-cream, purely because I had it on hand. You could use any flavouring you like.

Yellow cake with raspberry butter-cream

Yellow cake

(adapted from The Modern Baker by Nick Malgieri)
makes two 23cm (9") round layers

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
170g (6 ounces) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1/3 cup milk

Set the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 180°C (350°F) Grease and line the bases of two 23cm (9") shallow cake tins.

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir to combine.

Combine the butter, sugar, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat with the paddle attachment on medium speed until lightened in colour and texture, 3-4 minutes.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition.

Decrease the mixer speed to the lowest and add half the flour mixture. Stop and scrape down the bowl and beater.

Beat in the milk and after it is absorbed, beat in the remaining flour.

Stop and scrape down the bowl and beater. Increase the speed to medium and beat the batter continuously for 3 minutes (I think I forgot this step!)

Divide the batter equally between the 2 pans and smooth the tops. Bake the layers until they are well risen and golden, about 25 to 30 minutes. The tops of the cakes should feel firm when pressed in the center with a finger tip.

remove pans from oven and cool for 5 minutes. Unmold cakes, turn right side up again, and cool completely on racks leaving baking paper on the bottoms.

Silky smooth butter-cream

(adapted from The Art & Soul of Baking)
Makes about 2 1/2 cups

2 large egg whites
295g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
225g (8 ounces) butter, very soft but not melted
1/2 cup raspberry syrup or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Place the egg whites and sugar in the bowl a bowl and hand whisk to blend. Bring 1 inch of water to a gentle boil in a medium saucepan. Place the bowl over the simmering water and heat, whisking constantly so that the whites do not scramble, until the mixture reaches 71°c (160°F) on a thermometer. Be sure to remove the bowl from the heat when taking the temperature so the eggs don't over heat while you set down the whisk. If the temperature is not hot enough, rinse the thermometer under very hot water, dry and set aside, then put the whites back over the heat.

Once the correct temperature is reached, remove the mixture from the heat and whip on high speed until it has cooled to room temperature. The mixture will be light and billowing, and resembles marshmallow fluff.

On medium speed, add the soft butter a couple of tablespoons at a time. Allow each addition to blend in fully before adding the next. Halfway through, stop the mixture and scrape down the sides of the bowl using a spatula. Continue until all the butter has been added and the mixture resembles velvety mayonnaise. Gradually add the raspberry syrup or vanilla and blend well.

Don't worry if your butter cream initially looks broken, according to the recipe there is nearly always a point when it looks awful. Continue adding the butter and beating until it looks how it should.

Jam sandwiched sugar cookies

Firstly - wow, a recipe that's not from Donna Hay!

Secondly - I feel like a bit of a traitor calling these sugar cookies because we don't have cookies here in Australia but I'm not sure what the Australian equivalent is. I'm not even sure if there is one, sugar biscuits just sounds wrong.

I'm in a weird place when it comes to calling biscuits cookies, I'm reading far too many American blogs and cooking books that the word "cookie" is slipping into my every day vocabulary. It just pops out from time to time, for no apparent reason. Cookies and biscuits are decidedly different things yet what I would ordinarily call biscuits are readily becoming cookies. I try to correct myself from time to time but, honestly, what's the point? It's amazing to watch my language change right before my eyes (or ears?)

Anyway, what these are called isn't all that important. What is important is the taste of things and these biscuits are delicious. They're incredibly buttery and light. They're actually lighter than my usual biscuits so they do have a tendency to crumble if treated roughly.

The filling of jam adds extra dimension and texture to biscuit. I'm not really a fan of plain ol' iced sugar cookies but the center of jam makes them quite delicious. I'm not a fan of overly sweet jams, so I chose one made with grape juice rather than glucose. The jam I chose isn't the prettiest raspberry jam I've ever seen but it is one of the tastiest.

Jam sandwiched sugar cookies

(adapted from The Art & Soul of Baking)
makes 15-25 biscuits depending on the size of your cutter

320g (2 1/4 cups) all-purpose flour
150g (3/4 cup) sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
225g (8 ounces) butter, cold and cut into 1 cm (1/2") pieces
2 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons sugar, extra
Jam of choice
Icing of choice

Place the flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl and beat on a low speed for 10 seconds. Add the butter and mix on low until the butter is broken into tiny pieces. Increase the speed to medium-low and beat until the mixture starts to form small clumps about the size of peas.

In a small bowl whisk together the egg yolks and vanilla. Add the egg mixture to the butter mixture and blend on medium-low until the dough forms several large clumps. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead several times, to bring it together. Divide the dough in two and shape into a disk about 1cm thick (1/2"). Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes, or until cold but still pliable.

Place one disk between two sheets of baking paper and roll to 1/4cm (1/8") thick. If the dough cracks, it may be too cold. Let it sit for a couple of minutes to warm up and then try again. If you get wrinkles if your paper, peel it off, smooth them out, and continue to roll. Flip the dough over and check the other side.

Once the dough is rolled, place it on a baking tray and transfer to the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough.

Remove the baking paper for both sides of one piece the rolled out dough and place on work surface. Line a baking tray with a new sheet of paper. Use cookie cutters to cut out desired shapes. For sandwich biscuits cut out the initial shape and then transfer half the biscuits to the baking tray spacing them about 4 cm (1 1/2") apart. Cut a hole in the remaining biscuits using a smaller cutter and remove the center. Transfer to baking trays. Repeat with remaining sheet of dough. Child the cut shapes while the oven preheats.

Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F) and position an oven rack in the centre. Sprinkle the biscuits with the reserved 2 tablespoons of sugar just before they go in the oven. Bake on pan at a time, rotating the sheet halfway through if required, for 10-13 minutes. Transfer to rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining Sheet.

Once cooled, spread the solid biscuits with jam. Dust the cut out biscuits with icing sugar and carefully place them on the jam.

Ice if desired, I used this recipe from I Am Baker but you could use any recipe you choose.

Flourless chocolate cupcakes with raspberry syrup

Long time no update, I suppose life sometimes gets in the way of baking, and by life I mean holidays. So no complaints there. There's nothing like a holiday away from home to cheer you up, though flourless chocolate cake comes close.

Back from holidays means back to work, so cupcakes are definitely appreciated as a pick me up. These cakes are deliciously bite size. They're large enough to be satisfying but small enough that you don't feel guilty going back for seconds. They're quite rich but not too the point that it's unbearable. They smell deliciously like chocolate.

I halved the recipe as most recipes tend to make too much for two people. I also made the cakes in smaller tins as the original made six Texas muffin sized cakes which seemed way to big for me. I ended up with ten mini cakes - though I probably should have filled each hole slightly so the cakes would be taller and fewer. Be wary of my baking times with this recipe, as my oven is quite inaccurate. You should be fine if you keep at eye on the cakes whilst they bake.

The original recipe called for chocolate glaze to top the cake. If you're a choco-holic this is a great suggestion but I'm not - so I substituted raspberry syrup for the topping instead. Chocolate and raspberry is a match made in heaven!

Flourless chocolate cupcakes with raspberry syrup

Flourless chocolate cupcakes

(adapted from Simple Essentials: Chocolate by Donna Hay)
makes 10 cupcakes

100g dark chocolate, chopped
80g butter
3 eggs, separated
85g almond meal
85g white sugar

Preheat oven to 170°C (340°F), grease a 16 cup, 75ml (1/3cup) muffin pan or a 12 cup 125ml (1/2 cup) pan if you don't have a 75ml one.

Place the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan and stir, over a low heat, until chocolate is melted and smooth. Allow to cool slightly, then stir in the egg yolks, almond meal, and 2/3 of the sugar. Set aside.

Place the egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining sugar and beat until glossy. Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture.

Spoon the mixture into 10 of the holes in the muffin tin. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean and cakes are set. Remove cupcakes from the oven and cool for 10 minutes in tins, remove cupcakes from tins and allow to cool on a wire rack. When throughly cooled, serve with raspberry syrup.

Raspberry syrup

110g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) water
1 cup raspberries, frozen or fresh

Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan and stir over a low heat until sugar dissolves. Add raspberries and bring mixture to the boil. Stir raspberries to break them up. Boil, without stirring, for 5 minutes or until mixture has thickened.

Strain raspberries into a bowl though a fine sieve. Use the back of a spoon to force remaining raspberry mixture though. Discard the seeds Serve over cupcakes.

Chocolate, raspberry, & macaroon tarts

I actually made these quite a while ago but I figure there's no harm in adding them to the blog. I've been a bit sick over the last week so I haven't had a chance to cook, let alone photograph anything. I do remember these being delicious so I think they're worth sharing. There's no harm in sharing things for the past, right?

I'm a sucker for coconut and I'm always surprised when I meet people who don't like it as much as I do. I'm not sure what it is about coconut that I find so irresistible but if something has coconut in it, I'm there.

I'm also a sucker for chocolate and raspberries despite only having had fresh raspberries a few times in my life. I adore anything with frozen ones in it, so I can only imagine how good fresh ones are!

These tarts turned out quite different to the picture in the book, in the book they've sunken and collapsed in on themselves. They look good both ways, so if yours sink it's not a big deal.

Cramming the macaroon mixture into the cases was quite hard, I think the tart tins I own are shallower than the ones used in the book but I didn't realise this until after cramming all the mixture in. I'll never quite understand why books don't specify the height of tart tins, so if you're using 2cm (2/3") tart tins you'll probably end up with 7 tarts. You can cram the mixture into 6 tart tins but it's not really worth the effort. If you're using 2.5cm (1") tins you should be fine, though I haven't tried it.

Chocolate, raspberry, & macaroon tarts

(adapted from Simple Essentials: Chocolate by Donna Hay)
makes six 8cm (3 1/4") x 2.5cm (1") or seven 8cm (3 1/4") x 2cm (3/4") tarts

Macaroon base

3 egg whites
165g (5 3/4oz) sugar
255g (7 7/8oz) unsweetened, dessicated coconut

Preheat oven to 140°C (280°F).

Combine the egg whites, sugar, and coconut in a large bowl. Once thoroughly mixed divide evenly between the tart dishes. Press mixture firmly over the base and up the sides, using the back of a spoon if necessary.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until macaroon shells are firm and lightly golden.

Raspberry chocolate filling

125ml (4 fl oz) single cream
125g (4oz) dark chocolate, chopped
2 eggs
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 tablespoons self raising flour
200g (7 oz) raspberries, fresh or frozen

Turn oven temperature up to 160°C (320°F)

Place the cream and chocolate in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until smooth. Remove from heat and set aside. Place the eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat, using an electric mixer, until light and creamy. Fold in the flour and chocolate mixture.

Spoon the chocolate mixture into macaroon shells and top with raspberries. Bake for 25 minutes or until the filling is firm. Cool in tins.