Apple-white chocolate cupcakes

Ingredients (7 cupcakes):

The dough:
75 g margarine or butter
½ dl sugar
1,5 dl wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon vanilla sugar
½ egg

The filling:
1 apple
60 g vanilla chocolate
cinnamon

Short crust pastry on the top:
20 g margarine
0,3 dl sugar
0,5 dl wheat flour

Preparation:
Put the warm margarine and all the other ingredients of the dough into a bowl. Mix them with your hands. Do the same with the short crust pastry ingredients in another bowl. Cut the apple and the white chocolate into small pieces. Form 7 balls out of the dough and settle them on the bottom of the cake cups. Add the pieces of apple and white chocolate into the cake cups. Dust the short cust pastry on top of the cupcakes. Finally add some cinnamon.

Bake in the oven heated to 200'c for about 20-30 minutes.

Serve the cupcakes after having stored them for 1 hour in the fridge.

Finnish style oat & chocolate cookies

Here's a recipe for cookies including dark chocolate, hazelnuts and lots of oats. They even made me think of how great it would be to eat them along with some hot chocolate, having a view on the lake at sunset. Maybe I am getting Finland-nostalgic.

Ingredients (12-14 cookies):
100 g dark chocolate
50 g hazelnuts
2 dl wheat flour
2 dl oats
1 teaspoon vanilline sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
100 g margarine or butter
1 dl sugar
1 egg

Preparation:
Cut the chocolate and the hazelnuts into small pieces. Mix together in a bowl the dry ingredients. Mix the soft butter with sugar. Add the egg and mix intensely. Finally add the dry ingredients and mix the dough until it becomes uniform. Form a bar 20 cm long and 6 cm wide out of the dough. Cut the bar into 1 cm wide pieces and place the pieces of dough on baking paper on an oven plate. Bake them in the oven heated to 175 c for around 12 minutes (they are ready when they have got some colour).

Banana-chocolate muffins with a shade of lemon

Here's a recipe for muffins of sophisticated taste characterised by the richness of dark chocolate (although I don't use the darkest one possible), the sweetness of banana and the freshness of lemon.

Ingredients (x12 muffins):
150g butter or margarine
2 dl sour cream
zest of one lemon
2 eggs
1 ½ dl sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
3 dl wheat flour
1 dl cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
3 bananas
200 g dark chocolate

Preparation:
Heat up the oven to 175 c. Melt the butter and add into it the sour cream and the lemon zest. Mix together the eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar so that the final result is light and airy. Mix the sourcream-butter mix into it. Mix in another bowl the wheat flour, cacao powder, baking powder and salt and add this flour mix into the dough. Slice the bananas and cut the chocolate into pieces and add them into the dough. You can however set aside some pieces of clocolate in order to decorate the surface of the muffins with them.

Fill cake cups with the dough. Bake in the middle level of the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Cakies with a warm chocolate heart

These little chocolate cakes in cake cups are great for giving your friends a good vibe when they come and visit you. Ideal with a hot drink like hot chocolate or espresso. What is special about them is that the inside is soft and really melts in the mouth. Also, there will be some strips of liquidy chocolate here and there. The minus is that you must do something else while they freeze up in the freezer for 3 hours before entering the oven.

Ingredients (7 cake cups):
100 g milk chocolate or dark chocolate
80 g butter
80 g sugar
20 g flour
3 eggs
1 pinch cinnamon
(icing sugar)

Preparation:
Mix the sugar and eggs in a bowl. Add the flour and dust it with a little cinnamon. Melt together in a pan the chocolate and the butter. Add the chocolate-butter into the dough you first were preparing. Mix until you obtain a pretty uniform colour. Butter the cake cups and sprinkle them with flour. Pour the mixture into the cake cups. Put the cake cups into the freezer for at least 3 hours. 3 hours passed, heat up your oven to 210 c, take the cake cups out of the freezer and put them directly into the oven. Bake them for 17 minutes. You can optionally decorate them with icing sugar when they're ready.

Banana and strawberries with white chocolate dressing

This is a perfect dessert for a summer evening. A delicious way to eat fruit, and if you are trying to cut down on your chocolate intake, this may be of help since the chocolate is only in the dressing!

Ingredients x4:
400 g strawberries
2 bananas
150 g white chocolate
a little cup of milk

Preparation:
Peel the bananas and remove the green part of the strawberries. Cut the bananas into pieces. Put the fruit into cups. Melt the white chocolate in a pan with just a little milk.

Once the chocolate and milk have formed a sauce, pour it immediately on the fruit.


Serve right away!