Baked Fennel with Green Olives

I have a confession to make: I stole this idea. Yes, stolen, point-blank, from an especially lovely German family who had me over to dinner shortly before I left Germany. I'm back in Australia, soaking up lovely weather and sunshine, and as soon as I get myself settled, I'll be making this dish again. I'm still barely cooking; I've been home for just over a week, after a lovely visit to Singapore, and I've been eating at friends' houses on a regular occasion. So, needless to say, this blog has been sorely neglected. But that's okay; I'll get back into cooking very shortly.

This dish is incredibly easy; it does take some oven time, but it's simple and delicious. I like it on its own, though I'd recommend some crusty bread to soak up the extra juices. It would probably also be delicious over pasta, rice, risoni, polenta, semolina or couscous. Name your carb of choice, really. I'll be trying it as a pizza topping when I next decide to make pizza dough from scratch; I think the slices will need to be thinner, but the flavours are unbeatable.

A note on the olives: I recommend using marinated. I mean, the extra flavour isn't going to hurt! I liked the extra large green olives from a stall at the Dom Markt; marinated in masses of garlic, some parsley and stuffed with whole blanched almonds, those olives were to die for. Of course, you could always use plain green olives, or black olives, but go by the basic rule: if you don't want to snack on 49825749857 olives while you're making this recipe, then don't bother using them.

Baked Fennel with Green Olives

olive oil
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 x 15cm spring rosemary
1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
1 cup water
2 fennel bulbs
about 10 green olives, halved lengthwise, possibly marinated*

Preheat your oven to about 200 degrees; this is a guess, because my German oven was so unreliable. Take a guess.
Slice fennel into halves and then thin slices, keeping them joined at the base so that the segments hold together. I slice mine so that they're about 1cm at the thickest point. Arrange in a large baking dish; you want them to fit closely but to avoid too much overlap.
In a cold pan, add a splash of olive oil and the garlic slices. Sautee until the garlic is fragrant, then add the rosemary leaves, which have been separated from the stem. When the garlic is starting to colour just a little, add the tomatoes and water. Season to taste with salt and pepper (and a little dried savoury or thyme, if you like).
Carefully spoon the tomato mixture over the fennel, so that it's evenly covered. (If you like things saucy, I recommend doubling the volume of sauce.) Scatter with olives.
Bake for about 45 minutes, until fennel is very tender. Scatter with fresh parsley, if desired. Eat eat eat!

*I use extra large green olives, marinated in masses of garlic, and some herbs. I recommend olives stuffed with almonds, too.

Cornbread Muffins

Aren't these pretty? Golden yellow cornbreads, just waiting to be nibbled up... which is precisely what happened, and the reason why there's only 4 left. I confess to having eaten half, and the housemate had another two, so it's not all my fault. What is, however, entirely my fault, is the use of cupcake papers. Don't do it. You might think you're saving yourself the trouble of washing the pans, but really, you're just going to end up with near-impossible to remove papers. Don't waste those precious crumbs of cornbread! Just grease your tins. This recipe speaks for itself; dead easy, pretty quick to bake, and delicious. I had a couple with vegemite, but my housemate recommends them with syrup.


Cornbread Muffins
(makes 12 small muffins)

1/2 cup plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1 cup coarse polenta
1 tsp rosemary or thyme, optional
1/4 cup olive oil
1 scant cup soymilk
1 Tbsp syrup (I used maple, but agave would also be great)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Grease your muffin moulds of choice.
Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. It will seem quite liquid, but don't stress.
Allow to rest for 10 minutes, so that the polenta can soak up some liquid. It'll be thicker when you come back to it.
Distribute evenly within 12 small muffin cups and bake, 20-25 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
Eat with your favourite Southern fixings, or better, with Vegemite. ;)

Blackberry Cake

This post is an old one that I wrote and never published, for some reason. I know that berries are out of season here in Germany (um, hello, first snow!) but I figure it's appropriate for my lucky Australian friends, who are already enjoying fantastic weather. I'm jealous. Sorry to those of us (ok, I'm only thinking about myself here!) for whom this is seasonally inappropriate, but it's better than letting it languish in the archives, right? :)

This post is a tribute of sorts. Not to anyone in particular, but to our friend, the blackberry. Yep, I know you think I’ve gone completely nuts. You’re not that far off the mark, except that you’re about 25 years behind the times. No, the reason why I’m writing to honour the blackberry is that it’s a fruit that I’ve never been able to freely enjoy. I’ll explain why.

In Australia, the blackberry is a major pest. How, you ask, could something so delicious be such a massive problem? Unfortunately, blackberries are rather good at spreading and taking over native habitats… they’re also rather good at scratching me to pieces, but that’s another story. So, what happens in Australia, is that wild blackberry brambles get poisoned, to stop them from spreading further. Which means, of course, that their fruit is unsafe to eat – you don’t ever know whether the plant has been recently sprayed, and is yet to show the signs of the poison. So really, it’s just not a good idea to eat them.

Here in Germany, however, the blackberry meets a rather different fate. Rather than being vigorously attacked, it is completely ignored. Normal people don’t bother to pick the fruit, even – the brambles I’ve raided (ahem) were still miraculously intact. I won’t talk about the thorns, or how they’re completely overrun with stinging nettles… but rest assured that sufficient injuries were sustained to make these berries taste even better. What this glut of berries means, to a greedy forager such as myself, is that a person collecting these berries can come home with a good three or four kilograms of fruit, and consequently have no idea what to do with it all. Blackberries are at their best as soon as they’re picked, and if you have the world’s smallest freezer, then you’re going to have to use them fast.

I love to bake. Baking, I’d like to think, is in my blood. From crowding around the breakfast bar in our kitchen, the children of my family absorbed a love of baked goods whilst watching our mother prepare yet another oven-bound glory. Of course, as children, we didn’t know that yet – we just wanted the chance to lick the batter off of whichever utensil our mother would let us have. But as adults, we’re definitely still into our baked goods, and we’ve definitely all got a weakness for cupcakes.

However, this isn’t a cupcake post. This is a cake post, because I only own one 6-hold muffin tin, and that’s not a terribly express way to use a large quantity of blackberries. I won’t tell you about all the ones I scoffed fresh, or mixed with soy yoghurt and oats… I’ll might tell you about the jelly later, though, if you’re lucky. (ed note: mission accomplished!)

I don't mean for this to be an advertisement for cocoa powder or soymilk here, but hey, it's what I used and it tasted good. I don't have any affiliations, but if anyone wants to give me freebies, that would be great. Sadly, I don't see that happening, so I'm going to have to accept that I buy the soymilk that doesn't taste too 'beany' and the only cocoa powder I've found.

Now, the fruit-to-cake ratio does make a difference here. If you add too much fruit, your cake won’t hold together nicely, and it’ll take longer to bake. Though, admittedly, my oven is among the slowest contraptions to grace the world of electrical appliances. However, the idea is to chock as many berries as possible into your cake, so it’s… uh… healthier? To hell with health, I just want to eat as many blackberries as possible.

So, I’m going to just write an estimate of what an appropriate amount of berries would be… and you’ve got my license to double it. Seriously. It would be awfully hypocritical of me to tell you to stick to a recipe, when that’s the one thing I’m completely incapable of doing. The devil on your shoulder is telling you to add more blackberries, and you should believe him when he tells you that it’ll be delicious. I’ve made half my cake vanilla and the other half chocolate, because I’m catering for a mixed audience here… I wouldn’t usually ice a cake like this, but I think today I will, because it’s going to be eaten by a) children and b) men. No photos of that, because I’m transporting it to Muenster un-iced, sorry.

I used a rather large pan for this – it’s actually just really long, and by no means a standard size. I’m sure you could use a 9x9inch pan with much the same results. This is a big cake, but seeing as how everyone knows that berries are fantastically healthy, you’re allowed to eat twice as much.


Blackberry cake

4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3 cups berries
4 tsp baking powder*
¾ cup cocoa (or to taste)
2/3 cup oil
enough milk or soymilk to bind… perhaps 2-3 cups? Depends on your mix.
2 Tbsp vanilla*

For the vanilla cake:
Sift 2 cups of flour and 2 tsp baking powder into a bowl. Add 1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup oil and the vanilla. Then add enough milk or soymilk to mix it into a thick batter. I don’t give quantities here, because I just eyeball it, and also because the amount differs depending on your flour and any extras you might add (like cocoa powder, as below.) If you don’t know what a cake batter should look like, email me, and I’m sorry for your deprived childhood.
Add half the berries and combine gently. Pour mix into a lined cake tin, and use the same bowl to make up the chocolate cake.

For the chocolate cake:
Sift 2 cups of flour, cocoa powder to taste (you can always add more later!) and 2 tsp baking powder into a bowl. Add 1 cup sugar and 1/3 cup oil. Then add enough milk or soymilk to make a thick batter. Add the rest of your berries, and gently spoon it onto the vanilla cake already in the pan, being careful not to disturb the layers. (Or swirl it to make a marble cake!)

Bake in a medium oven (180 degrees C, or 160 fan-forced) for 45-50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. This cake is best eaten with icecream or (soy) yoghurt, and of course, a cup of tea.

*This is European-strength baking powder. You’ll need a little less if you’re using the American/Australian version, or better yet, omit it completely and just use self-raising flour. I use very heaped teaspoons.
* Vanilla extract is impossibly a) hard to find, and b) expensive here in my town. What I’m sadly having to use is vanilla powder, which isn’t nearly as good. Feel free to adjust vanilla to your personal preference, according to whether you’ve got powder, extract or essence.

Pear Muffins

There were two lessons learned from my recent foray into making pear muffins using pear puree. The first was that the excess batter could be thinned with a little soymilk, and made into pear pancakes. I'm definitely doing that one again sometime.

However, I should also write a hundred lines on the blackboard of my memory:

I must not add the rest of the packet of baking powder simply because there's only a teaspoon left.
I must not add the rest of the packet of baking powder simply because there's only a teaspoon left.

These muffins looked like the best thing I'd ever baked... until I took them out of the oven. By the time they cooled, they were little sunken souffles, with a dense texture. However, they still tasted amazing, so I put a spoonful of vanilla soy yoghurt onto the hollows created by the sinking, and enjoyed them as rather tall pear tarts. ;)

Orange Cake with Cranberries

It's the 19th day of Vegan Mofo now, and we're all slowing down. The days are getting shorter, and so are our posts. There's a lot of soup, of sweets, and of warm and comforting foods to console ourselves about the weather. There might not be the sunshine that I adore, but in consolation, occasionally I splash out on something that brightens my day. Then I mix it with cake. Nom nom nom...

This time, it was cranberries. I know, I know; they're imported and the ecological cost is definitely not included in the cost of the punnet. I'm only human, and I'll try better to control my cravings. I really need to stop going to the supermarket when I'm hungry, because I simply can't be trusted with delicious fruit... mm, cranberries. I love sour fruit in sweet cake, and this time I took it a step further: instead of making a basic vanilla cake, I made orange cake. Can I hear a round of applause? Oh yes, I'm giving myself a standing ovation for that one. Though I halved my standard recipe; I'd recommend you make the full quantity, unless you're like me, and you're liable to eat the whole thing yourself. Then, and only then, do you have permission to make half.

So, after playing cranberry-tetris is the bottom of the baking tin, which was a lot of fun for someone like me, I carefully spooned over the orange-rich batter. The cake itself was dead easy, improved by a generous amount of orange zest in the batter. If you're into the kind of citrus that'll slap you in the face to wake you up, then this is definitely a recipe for you. Not that I much mind if it's not, because this orange batter is definitely a recipe for me, and it'll be getting a workout in future.

In the last sharehouse that I was living in, I was queen of the garden. It wasn't a difficult post to achieve; I lived with two men, neither of whom had any interest in gardening. When we moved in, the entire backyard was a dust bowl, with a few gnarled fruit trees and a few spindly weeds. I could see right away that we had a generously-sized almond tree, what seemed to be apples or pears, and some citrus. I gave myself blood blisters by pruning them with small secateurs and sheer willpower. I don't know how much I can say that my hard work paid off: the two apple trees were seriously diseased, which I never did end up treating. The lemon errupted with fruit, but I didn't utilise it enough. I ate a few green almonds, nibbling on the kernels while they were in the jelly-like stage, but the rainbow lorikeets and that one screaming cockatoo ate the rest before they were anywhere near maturity. But the oranges? Oh, the oranges.

The orange tree was, if I recall correctly, navel oranges grafted onto a lemon rootstock; there were stray fruit from below the graft, but they were never worth using, especially not with a true lemon five metres across the yard. But the oranges were phenomenal. They were quite small compared to the giant supermarket oranges that we see today. Pretty natural, considering that I didn't thin the crop at all. But the tree was thankful for what pruning I had managed; it errupted in fruit, beautiful orange globes that sated my craving for citrus for the entire season. And my parents' cravings, and many of my friends' cravings; those who were able to take home a bag, anyway. My garden had both amazing successes and disappointments in the two years that I lived in Leader Street, but nothing elipses the sheer happiness of gorging every day on oranges.

Orange Cake with Cranberries

2 Cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 small oranges, zested and juiced

3/4 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla powder

1/4 cup oil

soymilk
200g (ish) cranberries, fresh or frozen (not thawed)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C. Line a baking tin - I used a round springform - with baking paper and arrange your cranberries over the bottom, in a single, even layer.
Sift your dry ingredients together into a bowl, so that they mix together. Add the oil, orange zest and orange juice, and throw in enough soymilk to mix it into a fairly stiff batter - about a cup or so.
Spoon the batter carefully over the cranberries, being careful not to dislodge them.
Bake for 40-45 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Remember to insert it into the middle of the cake, and not right down into the berry layer, otherwise it'll always come out sticky.
When the cake is sufficiently cooled, cut yourself a large slice, slather it with the cranberry-orange compote (recipe soon!) that you made with the leftover half-pack of berries, and be careful of the hot berries that will explode in your mouth as you bite in.
If your larder is sufficiently stocked, serve with vanilla soy yoghurt and a sprinkling of almonds.

Back in Australia, I often added a touch of Mandarin Napoleon (brandy) to cakes like this... I recommend it. ;)

Couscous stuffed Pumpkin

Ok, I know that's not a pumpkin, it's a delicata squash. But hey, I'm only one person here, so I don't need to make a whole giant filled butternut (oh wait, that's also a squash) for myself. So, the easy solution: Make four servings, using two smallish delicatas, and then keep them in the fridge. It should have lasted longer than two days, but I think we all know that I'm totally hooked on eating dinner foods for breakfast... oh, and for lunch. And even for dinner, sometimes.

This recipe is super-easy, and simply requires the patience to let your vegetables roast. That's the hardest part by far. Comparitively easy is cutting your delicata in half, scooping out the seeds, and chopping a few vegetables. It's a cinch, I promise, and you end up with a dish that looks like a lot more work than it actually was. I put roasted pumpkin into my couscous mix, simply because I had a muskatcurbis that I wanted to roast. The flesh is a brilliant orange and it has fantastic flavour, so I recommend them. However, if you're going to use a butternut, it's easiest to cut some flesh out from the centre of the pumpkin, so that you have more space to stuff with couscous. Then you've got the extra to roast, and your butternut won't need so long in the oven. It makes the whole 'patience' part a little easier, too!

Usually I like to sautee my zucchini, but it's just as easy to throw it with some oil and leave it in the oven for a while. I added some tomato a little later (it needs less time than the zucchini) and it worked a treat. If you like your zucchini to be more browned, just add more olive oil. I was probably a little too light on the oil, in fact. That's what I get for trying to be healthy: poorly-coloured zucchini cubes. Somehow, I'm not too affected by such tragedies. ;)

I eat a lot of olive oil already, because I try to steer away from hydrogenated fats. Also, it's one of the more natural oils, because it can be pressed; I don't like the idea of solvents being used to produce something that I'm going to eat. I know that I do get lazy, and eat processed foods (give me bread!) but I'd like to think that overall, I'm healthy. Sure, I like occasional sweet treats, but not after every meal. I'd much rather dip a piece of crusty bread into a bowl of olive oil, sprinkled with salt... don't get me started on how much I love salt! But before I get too many ideas about my next snack, I'd better write out this recipe.

Couscous Stuffed Pumpkin
1 butternut or 2 delicata squash, halved lenthwise and seeded
olive oil
1/2 cup instant couscous

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1 cup vege stock (boiling hot please)

1 large / 2 small zucchini

3 cloves garlic

2 large tomatoes

1/2 tsp cumin powder

1/4 tsp ground coriander seeds

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

salt and pepper

Roast your squash - if you're using the butternut, hollow it out as I mentioned above, and roast the extra flesh in some olive oil. For a nice colour, rub the insides of the squash with olive oil. A sprinkling of salt won't go astray, either! My delicata took 20 mins at 220 degrees, but butternut will take somewhat longer.

Meanwhile, chop your zucchini and toss in oil with garlic cloves. Roast for 10 mins before throwing in your chopped tomato, which will take another 10-15.
Add the boiling stock to the couscous in a large bowl. Stir so that the couscous is thoroughly soaked, and leave to sit for 10 minutes to absorb. Test for texture - if the couscous is still hard in the centre, add another 1/4 cup boiling water. How much you need will depend on how coarse your couscous is, so keep that in mind.
When your vegetables are cooked, take them out of the oven. Peel and finely chop the garlic, then mix them through the couscous. Season with your spices and a generous amount of salt and pepper. Add the parsley at the last second so that it doesn't blacken, and fill the roasted pumpkin shells with the couscous. Eat!

Quince and Cinnamon Muffins

I love these muffins. They don't look perfect (c'mon - they're in pirate themed paper! How could they be anything otherwise!) but I blame my own tendency to go overboard with fruit... not that a few dimpled muffin-tops are going to stop me from doing that. (I could make so many smartass comments about muffin-tops right now, but I'm going to restrain myself.) They're just made according to my basic "unkillable" mix, which is completely versatile, but with cubes of cooked quince and a generous amount of cinnamon in the middle. I also think that some kind of alcohol would have been amazing, but unfortunately, all I had was gin. I'm a gin kind of woman, what can I say? I'd like to think that that says great things about my personality... because, you know, there's that line about women and gin going together like the devil and sin. But if you missed that reference, just ignore it. Keep calm and carry on.

That said, quinces are an amazing fruit. I'm the first person to admit that quinces are a pain in the ass to prepare, however. They have an uneven shape, which means that frequently they're difficult to peel - especially if you're like me, and you're using a peeler, in order to pare away as little fruit as possible. I want the skin gone, sure, but the rest is all for me. Oh, except the core: that's the other section that will annoy you. Make sure that you remove the core thoroughly, because the outer core sections are really gritty, and if they're left in then the texture will get on your nerves. Quinces should be smooth and delicate, not gritty. If you're going to bother cooking a quince, make sure you bother to do it right.

I just simmered mine in plain water, but feel free to add sugar to taste. I'm a huge fan of having a sweet muffin or cake with sour pieces of fruit dispersed throughout, because I love the contrast of flavours and textures. Speaking of which, in the next few days, hopefully I'll have some pictures of cranberry and vanilla cake to share with you... it's just a matter of having the time to bake it. I'll get around to it soon, I promise! In the meantime, make the basic cake mix according to the link above, but use cooked (veeery well-drained) quinces in place of berries, and spice your batter liberally with cinnamon, nutmeg, or mixed spice. Use any leftover quince in crumble, or blend for quittenmus. Then devour them with a warm cup of tea, or coffee, or soymilk with cinnamon (so delicious) so that you can warm your hands... cake truly is a food for every season. ;)

Roasted Tomatoes.

This is the easiest recipe yet, but ohhh it's among the most delicious. This is the dish that converted how I feel about tomatoes in salad. I think that making it with my home-grown tomatoes was also a revolutionary thing, because it was probably among the first times that I ate a tomato that actually tasted the way that a tomato should. If I'm eating tomatoes that aren't completely ripe (as in, juicy and squishy ripe, not as in kinda-red-and-firm ripe) then they'll be cooked, thankyouverymuch. However, sometimes I still feel inclined to cook those ripe tomatoes, if only because I'm suddenly aware that I have far too many tomatoes on my windowsill. This week it was only ten or so tomatoes, and thankfully they were quite small. They didn't quite make it into pasta sauce, because that spaghetti squash was so disappointing. When I was growing tomatoes in my Leader Street garden, I'd have thirty or forty on the windowsill, which generally instilled me with a sense of panic.

However, in this recipe, the tomatoes shrink considerably, because they're slowly baked so that they lose their moisture without losing their shape. I think this was probably one of the original benefits to this recipe; it meant that I could fit so many tomatoes in my fridge, thanks to the wonders of tupperware. I'd pour the liquids from the roasting dish into the container, too, and use it as a salad dressing. Then there was the day that I combined these tomatoes in a salad with nothing more than home-grown cucumber and toasted, crusty sourdough bread, and covered it in the tomato juice. I ate that salad at least twice a day for several weeks, it was that good. And it got rid of lots of tomatoes. I think that was probably also when I became addicted to olive oil. It was a really good summer.

Use good olive oil with this one, if only because you don't want to waste the amazing juices from the roasted tomatoes by saturating them in a mediocre oil. Red wine vinegar is my vinegar of choice here - it's not as overpowering or sweet as balsamic can be. Lighter vinegar lets the tomatoes shine through. Even if you're just going to eat these tomatoes as-is, make sure you've got some bread on hand so that you can mop up the juices. You won't regret it, I promise.

Roasted Tomatoes
10 small tomatoes*

3 Tbsp red wine vinegar

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

Slice the tomatoes in half and arrange in a single layer in a baking dish. Drizzle with vinegar, olive oil, and salt. Bake in a 160 degree C oven, for about half an hour, or until lightly browned. Turn off the oven, but leave the tomatoes in there to cool. This allows them to cook a little more, but really slowly, which intensifies the flavours. When the tomatoes are cool (or barely warm), use them in a salad, or just snack on them straight from the dish.

*If you have large tomatoes, just cut them into quarters or chunks. They might need to roast for a little longer. I've used all manner of tomatoes (Cherry tomatoes, heirloom varieties, Black Russian and Green Zebra...) and they all taste fantastic. Just make sure they're vine-ripened: if they don't have any flavour to begin with, then they're not going to develop any in the oven.

Quince Bake

Yeah, I know, another baked dish... but hey, faced with giant quinces, what's a girl to do? This one is incredibly easy, and took advantage of the leftover Quittenmus (pureed quince) that I made last week by using it in the cakey layer above the fruit. I sprinkled it with some spelt oats, because spelt oats are a good friend of mine. Also because it looks prettier, but eh, whatever.

As you can see above, one of the quinces had been in a couple of fights. They're a pretty tough fruit, best handled with a small, sharp knife. The skin tends to be a little fuzzy, like a peach, and they're totally inedible raw. I've never had the gumption to try one raw, actually, so that could be an old wives' tour created by those who despise sour fruit. The smell of the quince, as you cut into it, is so much better than the appearance of the fruit; light and floral, sweetsour, and fresh. Apple, my young padawan, you have absolutely nothing on your older friend, here.

You want to cut your quince into small chunks, ready to simmer in some water (with sugar added, if you need) as if it were an apple. Except, thankfully, it's not an apple - it's better. Yeah, I know, you're probably not as enthralled with quinces as I am, to which I say: suck it up, princess. This is my blog, and if I want to wax lyrical about fruit, then sure, I'm going to do so. Just be thankful that it's not another post about pumpkins! ;)

The stewed fruit it put into a small casserole dish, covered with the batter, and slowly cooked. I know it's not a friendly thing to do, but I pierce the middle of the batter after about half an hour - it releases a little moisture. If you have one of those flutes used to vent pies, then that too would be absolutely brilliant. The level of moisture here means that the bottom layer of the cake will be mushy and slightly battery in places, which is completely awesome if you were the kind of child who would fight tooth and nail to lick the spoon when your mother baked. If you don't like that sort of pudding-like consistency, then halve the fruit amount and double the cake batter, and bake it as though it were a quince cake or clafoutis. See, quince is for everyone!

Quince Bake

2 ripe quinces, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
sugar (to taste)

pinch cinnamon (optional)

1 & 1/2 cups wholemeal flour*

1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder*

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup sugar

1 & 1/2 cups quince puree (applesauce is fine)

soymilk/milk, as required

small handful oats, if desired

Simmer your quinces in water, adding sugar and cinnamon if you like (I don't bother - I like tart fruit) until the quince is completely tender. Drain thoroughly. I like to let them sit to cool, so that they release less liquid when they're baked. It improves the texture of the cake.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar, vanilla and quince puree, adding soymilk or milk if required, to make it into a thick batter. Whether you need to add extra liquid depends entirely on the consistency of your fruit puree.

Pour the batter over the quince pieces and bake, about 50-60 minutes in my slow oven, which was set to 180 degrees C. I cut a vent in the top when the batter was thick enough to stay apart, so about 30-40 minutes into the baking time. Just put a knife into the batter and pull it back to the sides, so that the fruit in the middle is exposed. It doesn't need to be too big.

Eat straight from the dish with some kind of icecream or custard, if you can. Mush it up as you eat it, then realise that you never took a photo of how it looks inside, and realise that you've made it completely un-presentable to anyone who would want to see it. Eat a quarter for morning tea, and then half for afternoon tea (after a huge lunch), and then regret your lack of self-restraint when you get a stomach ache from eating too much food in one sitting. ;)

*If you have access to SR flour, use it instead of flour + baking powder. I'm using wholemeal flour because that's what I have in my pantry - white flour is perfectly acceptable, too.

Pumpkin and Cinnamon Muffins

As much as I love eating normal, dinner-and-lunch food for breakfast, sometimes it's nice to have something a little more 'breakfasty' as well. Baked goods seem to be the heart of breakfast here, whether it be bread rolls with ham and cheese or croissants or 'toast bread' with marmelade. And who am I to reject one of the few traditions that I like here? Baked goods strike me as about the only good thing that German food has going for it, because nothing else has impressed me. So, ever so occasionally, I bow down to the god of baked goods, and make some breakfast muffins.

I had a lovely container with some remnant dry-roasted hokkaido, which is very tense with a creamy, almost chalky texture. I like to roast a whole squash or pumpkin and just keep the pieces in the fridge for snacking. It's useful to have a pre-cooked vegetable in my fridge when I'm starvingly hungry, and it gets included in other meals as well. It's like the Autumn tradition of what my mother used to do in Summer, which was keeping a huge tub of sliced watermelon in the fridge for snacking.

I decided that I wanted to make some autumnal muffins, nothing too sweet, to eat with a little slather of marg in the morning. They're almost-savoury, cinnamony, and hold up well to being held on the toasting rack over your toaster - that appendage that only appears on European toasters for the ubiquitous bread rolls. They're probably a little too cakey to actually sit in your toaster in slices, but warm them by whatever means necessary, before you slice and slather. I promise you, it's worth the wait. If you're feeling lazy, or have a craving for sugar, drizzle one with a little maple syrup. Delicious, I promise.

I decided that it was time to try out my new baking pans, because really, everyone knows that pumpkin and pirates are a natural combination. Ahem. Either that or everyone knows that I'm a child at heart, that I like ridiculously decorated bakeware, and that I'm well on my way to becoming a crazy cat lady. As it turned out, these muffin pans were a great idea. A certain housemate had occupied the freezer space that I was intending to stuff with breakfasty treats, so I took half of the batch with me when I went to visit some friends in Muenster. And, as luck would have it, their kids have an especial interest in pirates. They ate healthy food without even caring what was in it, simply because it was wrapped in shark-and-pirate papers. They didn't even ask what flavour they were! After seeing the way that kids can be picky eaters, even with flavours that they do like, I was astonished. And amused.

I only had a 6-hole muffin tray (ok, it's a bit small, so it's more of a cupcake tray) so I used my ridiculously-long loaf pan to bake the other half of the mix. These were quite large, and owing to space restrictions, they ended up being quite cute and square when they were baked. I'm definitely going to do this again in the future. I'll definitely be making this again, but I'm probably using more pumpkin next time. I think that this recipe is good, but I like my muffins to be so loaded down with fruit (or vegetable, as the case may be) that they struggle to rise. So, really, what I'm admitting to here is that I'm going to make a recipe that definitely won't be blog-friendly, but that will be perfectly suited to my tastebuds. I'm excited already.

Yes, that is a Paderborn Student Union mug that you can see in the background, and no, it's not mine. I think all student-sharehouses just grow one or two mysteriously in the kitchen shelves.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

2 cups wholemeal flour

2 tsp baking powder*

1/3 cup neutral-flavoured oil

1 cup applesauce or apple syrup or maple syrup, depending on how extravagent you feel, and how sweet you want your muffins to be.*

3/4cup or more of milk (I use soy)

1 firmly-packed cup finely diced cooked pumpkin

1 tsp vanilla extract or powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Mix all ingredients together, adding more liquid if needed, and bake in muffin tins in a 180 degree C oven for 20-25 minutes. Alternately, bake as a loaf for 40ish minutes, until your skewer comes out clean.

*If you have access to self-raising wholemeal flour, simply use that instead of the plain flour and baking powder. The amount of milk needed depends entirely on whether you use syrup or applesauce for this recipe - just add more if you need. I used the syrup that is left when I make apfelmus, so that these muffins don't have any added sugar.