Wednesday 21 December 2011

We have already had one Christmas dinner, another one coming up!

Another triumph! Well, anyway, I didn't set the oven on fire like I did last weekend and I only forgot the chestnuts for the sprouts and omitted the perfectly formed and fried onions for the stuffing... but I thought last year's Christmas pudding from Monsieur Tesco was rather good considering it was 6 months out of date. The stuffing was a marvellous rescue,due to a brain wave of mixing all the left-over odds and ends of chutneys that I had made this year: rhubarb and ginger, pear and spice and mango and cardamom and bashing them into the mixture, totally made up for the lack of onions and chestnuts!
We had left-over cranberries of course and so I made some delicious cranberry and cream cheese muffins this morning and so as promised, here is the gluten free recipe but simply change the flour to your preferred kind to suit you. This can also be made lactose free too! Enjoy....
LEFTOVER CRANBERRY AND CREAM CHEESE MUFFINS
100g soft cream cheese or lactofree cream cheese
250g caster sugar
150g fresh cranberries or frozen
200g Doves Farm gluten-free or wheat-free plain flour mix
2 generous teaspoons baking powder
2 large free range eggs
75ml sunflower oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Heat the oven to 190C/170Cfan/gas5; line a 12-hole muffin tin with muffin cases.
Beat the soft cheese with 25g of the sugar and chill until needed.
Heat the cranberries together with another 25g of the sugar until they start to pop. Squish them a bit but not much!
Sift the flour into a large bowl, add the remaining 200g sugar, baking powder and pinch of sea salt. Stir in the eggs, oil, vanilla and cranberries. Divide the lumpy mixture between the cases. Make a small dip in the centre of each one and gently push in a blob of the cream cheese mixture. Bake for 25 mins or until firm and springy to touch. Cool on a wire rack and eat warm or cold.

Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas and I will be back with more recipes for the New Year