Hurrah. It’s finally August. In twenty days, we’ll be eating at Oscillate Wildly. In two days, I’ll be making biscuits for Jimmy Barnes. Barnsey’s Biccies.

It was Sandwich-City at work today, as the guys had a large function to cater for : 400+ sandwiches, which took them several hours to complete. At the end of it, I rather cheekily asked an exhausted looking P if he would make me a sandwich. He didn’t take to it too well. Heh. Heh. Heh. Don’t know what he’s complaining about though; I was in a Tart World Of Pain all on my own. Soon I’ll be happy if I never have to cut another diamond shaped tart ever again.

Meanwhile, I’m still very into all cakes big and small, and cake decorating. Alan Richman once said, “I am thankful for muffins, because their acceptance has made it permissible for us to eat cake for breakfast”. Well, I’m thankful for cupcakes, because that just gives me an excuse to eat more icing than I should. Cupcakes are nothing without the icing (and icing is nothing without a bit of cupcake stuck to it, to temper the sweetness a little). My current favourite icing is a vanilla and lemon cream cheese number, that goes quite well with a whole range of flavours. When I was growing up, cupcakes were nothing more than a little bit of cake in patty pan paper, with a glace cherry stuck firmly in the middle of the batter. Pretty boring, but enjoyable all the same.

I told D, who is engaged, to hurry and get married so that I can have a go at decorating a full tilt wedding cake. He says, probably next year in March or April, and that he’ll probably have to come into my cake shop by then.

Ha.

There’s this common assumption people make; that if you cook, you will eventually want to start your own business. My aunt and uncle have been asking me this question for years. I’m not entirely sure why, as they haven’t seen much of what I’ve made, let alone tasted it, because they are both diabetic. They seem to just trust that what I do will be good (and I love them for it). But trust is like a grizzly bear with shifty eyes, standing in a dark corner of the room, pointing a glazed bear claw at you. I fear trust.

—

B is back.

Me : Did you give off gas?
Him: Hm. Why?
Me :It doesn’t smell so fresh in here.
Him: Must be me then. Me and my misbehaving bowels.
Me : That sounds like a country & western song. How does it go again?
Him: Parp.

When I think about the food of my childhood, the things that come immediately to mind are : Apples, Kraft singles, sour plums, red bean ice-cream and grape flavoured chewing gum. Not many of those I would love to see in a muffin, so apples it is.

Apples used to be my favourite fruit. I would eat at least one a day (though it never did keep the Dr. away), savouring each bite and whittling the fruit down to the barest minimum of core. I also loved hot apple pies, crumbles, green apple lollies and clear apple juice. Apple pie a la mode became my staple dessert during weekend family dinners at the Lake Club. As a child, dinner was always a means to gain access to dessert. So down the hatchet went the cheese burger and fries, and hello, apple pie a la mode!

This Caramel Apple Crumble Muffin is my paean to these memories. The apples are chopped and cooked gently in a mixture of butter and brown sugar until they are caramelly (but not too sweet) and tender, then folded through an aromatic muffin mix and topped with crumble that bakes to a wonderful crisp in the oven.

The original recipe (for blueberry muffins) comes from Sue Lawrence, a Scottish cook and food writer. Funnily enough, she got and adapted this recipe from an Australian chef! This in turn, is my adaptation of her recipe. You could even have it as a dessert with some ice-cream: muffin a la mode.

Caramel Apple Crumble Muffins :
(makes 6 standard sized muffins)

100g unsalted butter, softened
100g brown sugar
1 large free-range egg
140g plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
50ml (1/4 cup) milk
150g caramel cooked apples (2 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored, chopped into roughly 1cm dice and cooked in brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and butter until caramelised and tender)

For the crumble topping:
70g plain flour
40g demerara sugar
40g unsalted butter, softened

Preheat the oven to 190’C. Place 6 muffin cases in a muffin tin.

Cream the butter for 1-2 minutes then gradually add the sugar. Cream until pale, then beat in the egg. Sift in the flours, baking powder, cinnamon and a pinch of salt, then stir in the milk. Gently fold in the cooled caramel apple dice. Fill the muffin cases with this mixture.

To make the crumble, place the flour in a bowl, then stir in the sugar. Rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. (I like my crumble chunky, so I squeeze some of the mixture together to form larger lumps) Top each muffin with some crumble mixture, pressing down gently.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and risen. Remove to a wire rack and eat warm or at room temperature.

This Muffin Monday Roundup #5 is hosted by Wonder Sophie of Wonder Blog.

He left for the Philippines on Sunday morning. The apartment got so quiet, except for Glen Hansard whispering about The Cost. I had pastries and tea for breakfast, and then spent the rest of the day with feet tucked under a woollen blanket. By sun down, I had to send a message to J telling her I couldn’t make it to DeVine; that I was suffering from Sundayitis and couldn’t get out of my pj’s. “You bitch!” she replied, before confessing that she secretly wanted to be doing the same.

Dinner tonight was a compilation of leftovers. Rice, the odd end of broccoli, tuna and some lethal pea eggplant pickle I got for cheap at an asian grocery store in Burwood. It’s actually sickeningly garlickly, and everytime I unscrew the lid and that pungent scent explodes into the air, I forget why I still own the bottle. But then you mix the crunchy little eggplants into the rice and suddenly it tastes so good! When he is away, I rarely never cook. Once when he was in Singapore for a week, I had tuna salad for dinner every evening. To alleviate the boredom (which has actually never happened because I love tuna, but just in case..) I alternated with salmon.

While he’s gone, he has unintentionally taken our TV reception away with him. You might recall my mentioning that he bought a large TV recently. Not too long after it’s delivery, I came home to a living room strewn with the guts of an equally new computer. Turns out, the old computer (our MythTV box) couldn’t handle the new TV, so now we have a new computer to accompany it. Unfortunately, it still needs tweaking. So yesterday evening, I was getting no signal on this big ass TV, and only had videos to watch. What I ended up watching was a pretty funny episode of the Simpsons (which I haven’t seen in ages). Homer tries and fails to build Bart a robot so he pretends to be a robot instead, and ends up having to battle real robots equipped with chainsaws and guns.

I’ve decided I can do without TV for the time being. M and I both agree that TV rules too much of our respective evenings, even though it’s a great way to relax. Instead, I might start making inroads into Susanna Clarke’s book. Meanwhile, I also need to return to Adriano Zumbo to do more ‘research’ and during a bout of baking, I discovered my ultimate chocolate cookie. It’s moist, chewy and oh-so chocolatey. The next step is to increase the percentage cocoa in the chocolate from 64% to 99% and test if it produces bliss or bleurgh.

Tartine’s Deluxe Double Chocolate Cookie :

225g bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Valrhona Manjari 64%, and will next try it with Kennedy & Wilson 99%)
155g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
115g unsalted butter, at room temperature (I used Girgar)
225g sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
75ml (1/3 cup) whole milk

Preheat the oven to 175’C.

Melt chocolate in a bowl over a bain-marie, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and let cool.

Stir together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until creamy. Slowly add the sugar and mix until the mixture is completely smooth and soft. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition until incorporated before adding the next egg. Beat in the salt and vanilla, and then add the melted chocolate and beat until incorporated. Add the milk and beat until combined. Finally, add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until incorporated.

Drop the dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 1 inch apart. Bake the cookies until they are just barely firm on top when lightly touched but are still very soft underneath, about 7 minutes (I was greedy, so mine took a couple of minutes longer to cook as they were extra large). They will get firmer as they cool. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let cool. They will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for several days.

(Cookie snapshots to come. In the meantime, I took a papparazzi-loadful of photos of my breakfast….)