ashusbakes | ashstylegourmet's Blog

Hello to all the readers of my blog. I take the opportunity to thank all readers/bloggers who have liked my posts so far. As it’s a new blog, your likes give me lot of encouragement, and I am enjoying this blogging experience. Each blog post written so far has been a different experience, with something new thing learnt along the process in this wonderful blogging journey.

Continuing with the baking post, I am sharing the recipe of blueberry muffins that I baked yesterday evening, thinking of my dad, who always relished and loved the cakes that I baked. Thinking of him brings out a flood of memories and lots of cherished moments. Dedicating my blog to my dad, knowing his love for me, he will always be with me in this journey. He would have loved commenting and giving me valuable inputs to each and every post of mine, something which I am going to miss a lot. In the next couple of posts, I plan to recreate some moments for myself by cooking and sharing some of my dad’s favourite dishes.

Blueberry Muffins:

Ingredients:

2 Eggs

125g unsalted butter, softened

200g castor sugar (powdered sugar would also do)

300g refined flour + 1tsp baking powder

100 ml milk

1tsp berry essence

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan-assisted. Line the muffin tray with paper cases.
Beat ingredients-sugar, eggs, butter, milk and essence in medium bowl on low-speed with electric mixer until ingredients are just combined. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the mixture is smooth.
Fold in the refined flour.
Drop rounded tablespoons of mixture along with the blueberries into the paper cases; bake for around 25-30 minutes.
Cool on wire racks.
Top with icing of choice or fresh cream with more berries on top. I prefer it plain with hot tea or coffee.

Enjoy.

ashu 🙂

Today being Christmas, I decided to bake a cake using dry fruits and a cup of red wine.

Ingredients:

1 Bowl each of Raisins, Apricots, FigS, Dates, Mixed peels, and Sultanas

½ bowl of Almonds, ½ bowl of Walnuts.

1 cup of Red wine.

25 gm Butter/2 tbsp Castor sugar (use fine sugar)

225 gm Unsalted Butter

225 sugar: Firmly packed Dark brown Muscovado sugar

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1-2 tsp spice ( I used nutmeg/cinnamon/clove/pepper/cardamom )

250 gm All purpose flour (Maida)

5 eggs.

Method:

Chop and combine all the raisins, sultanas, dates, figs, apricots, and mixed fruit in a bowl.
Place the castor sugar in a thick sauce-pan over slow heat until sugar melts, add 25 gm butter and 1 cup of wine . Stir it.
Add the 225 gm butter, the brown sugar, and the mixed fruits, and stir so all gets mixed, bring to boil and remove from heat.
Transfer this into large bowl, stir in the bicarbonate of soda and cover the bowl to let it stand overnight at room temp. (pic#5 show how it looks)
Pre-heat the oven to 150 °C (fan assisted). Grease and line the cake tin with parchment.( I used 2 cake tins, different shapes)
Beat eggs in a bowl, add the spice to it and then mix it with the fruit mixture. Add the nuts. Fold in the all-purpose flour into the mixture.(pic#6 shows the batter after adding the eggs)
Pour the batter into the lined cake tin and bake for 1 hour and 30 mins.
Cool the cake on wire rack.

Fruit juices can also be used as an option instead of wine. The Muscovado sugar imparts a nice color and flavor to the cake, hence I used it for this cake. I had fun baking it, go ahead and try it out.