Further adventures in apricot and white chocolate…

 

Following making my apricot and white chocolate cookies for the July We Should Cocoa challenge, I had leftovers of both key ingredients, so I decided to have a go at turning them into muffins.

I actually think I prefer these to the cookies, although that might be in part down to the fact that it was an absolutely gorgeous sunny day yesterday, so I actually had good light for the photos, which is very rare!

I adapted a recipe for blueberry muffins and probably put a slightly high proportion of chocolate and apricot in, as in addition to making the 12 promised muffins, I had an extra 20 mini cupcakes which are now being used in a muffin freezing experiment…

Yes, I am messy when I bake...

The mixture was pretty runny, but still held the weight of the chocolate and apricots so it they didn’t all sink to the bottom. I think the only mistake I made was not filling the cases high enough – as you can see in the photos the filling level varied, but the most full ones definitely looked the best.

I served these at a family lunch and they went down very well, so I would definitely make again!

Apricot and white chocolate muffins

• 280g plain flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 150g caster sugar
• Approximately 100-150g chopped soft dried apricots
• 175g white chocolate, chopped
• 2 eggs
• 250ml milk
• 6 tbsp sunflower oil
• Zest of 1 lime

Sift together the flour and baking powder into a bowl then stir in the sugar, apricots and white chocolate. Mix the eggs, milk, oil and lime zest in a jug, then pour into the bowl with the dry ingredients and stir in until just combined. Pour into 12 cupcake cases and fill to fairly near the top, then bake at 200 degrees for 20 minutes, or until risen and golden.

Apricot and white chocolate cookies – We Should Cocoa

This is a special month in my baking world, as it will be my first attempt at a We Should Cocoa challenge.

We Should Cocoa is alternately hosted by Chele at Chocolate Teapot and Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog, and each month an ingredient is picked to be paired with chocolate.

The July challenge hosted by Chele was apricots, which was a funny coincidence as my first post of the month was an apricot upside down cake (no chocolate included though).

I had planned to use fresh apricots, but when I discovered that 4 apricots cost £2.60, I had to think again and went for dried!

It took me a while to decide what to bake, and several ideas came up including the Moro chocolate apricot tart or some sort of muffins, but I settled on these white chocolate and apricot shortbread cookies.

I was intrigued by the idea of a cookie dough made with cream cheese, and as I had some left over from the Nutella cheesecake squares it seemed perfect.

At first the dough was a bit too sticky to properly roll into balls, and the resulting cookies were a bit mis-shapen and brown around the edges.

For the second batch though the dough had been in the fridge for 20 minutes and I used a bit of flour to roll them, and being actual ball shapes definitely seemed to make a difference to how they cooked.

The cookies were soft, a bit chewy and the white chocolate and apricot worked really well together. I personally liked the first batch which had a bit more crunch, but the friendly pony thought the soft ones were perfect, and is keen for them to be made again.

Thanks to We Should Cocoa for inspiring me to make these!

Apricot and white chocolate cookies (adapted from La Fuji Mama’s recipe)

(Makes approximately 2 dozen cookies)

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 4oz cream cheese
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup chopped white chocolate
• 1/2 cup of chopped dried apricots

Cream together the butter and sugar, then beat in the cream cheese. Stir in the flour, apricots and chocolate until combined. Chill in the fridge if necessary, then roll into balls on a floured surface. Place well spaced out on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 160 degrees. Leave to cool until firm enough to move to a wire rack, then enjoy!

Apricot upside down cake

In previous years, I’ve never really been too interested in apricots – when they’re competing with the likes of peaches and strawberries there’s usually no competition!

But this year I feel like I’ve been seeing them everywhere, and when I saw punnets were half price in my local supermarket I couldn’t resist.

I made this cake almost two weeks ago, and I sort of wish I’d waited – as apricots were chosen as the July theme for We Should Cocoa, a blogging event I’ve been following and wanting to get involved with for a while.

This cake doesn’t involve any chocolate, but on the plus side it means I have an excuse to bake with apricots again later in the month, which can’t be a bad thing!

Apricot Upside Down Cake (original here)

• 200g plain flour
• 2tsp baking powder
• 200g butter
• 200g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 10 apricots
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 100g caster cugar
• 300ml water

Heat the water, sugar and vanilla essence in a large saucepan. Halve and stone the apricots, add to the pan and bring to a gentle simmer. Turn off the heat and leave while you make the cake mix. Beat together the butter and sugar, followed by the eggs, then fold in the flour and baking powder.

Grease and line a 10″ springform cake tin. Place the apricots cut side down in concentric circles (or whatever nice pattern will fit!) then carefully spread the cake mix on top. Bake at 180 degrees for about 50 minutes, then remove from the oven and turn out on to a plate. While the cake is cooking, boil the water left over from the apricots down to a thick syrup. Pour this all over the cake, then serve warm with ice cream.