Happy Easter Holidays!

I am still in the middle of preparing the lunch, but my cakes are ready, wanted to wish you all a very Happy Easter.

The below are variation to Anett's pudding filled muffins I've done them with almond pudding filling.

Happy Easter Everyone.

Frost dried strawberry and lavender muffins

This was supposed to be a Kitchen Aid winning recipe. I should have properly read the terms and conditions and not submit the recipe 8 hours after the submittion deadline (just because I wanted the perfect picture... )

And it was the perfect cupcake according to my taste, chocolate and strawberries, what could possibly go wrong?... 

Well, the ingredients were: 

• 175g self-raising flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• 175 g stevia sugar
• 100g unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon lavender
• 1 tube freeze dried strawberries
• 125 ml almond milk
• 12 small strawberries
• chocolate frosting

Preparation:
Prepapare the batter as usual (dry ingredients mix in one bowl, butter and egg in the other, and then mixed together) and add the lavender to it- Pour a tablepoon of batter into the cupcake papers and place a small strawberry in the middle of each. Cover the strawberry with batter.

When ready and cooled decorate with chocolate frosting and drizzle with freeze dried strawberries.

It tastes lovely and I love the surprise of biting into an unexpected piece of strawberry... Well no Kitchen Aid for me this time, neither did I get on Hummingbird Bakery's radar with my creation, but this was a nice experiment and I liked it. :)

Anett's muffin with pudding

Ingredients for 10 muffins:

• 150 g plain flour 
• 1 tbsp baking powder 
• 3 tsp cocoa powder 
• 80 g sweetening powder or granulated sweetener 
• 1.5 dl milk 
• 0.5 dl oil 
• 1 tsp. almond extract 
• 1 egg 
• zest of a lemon 

For the pudding

• 2,5 dl milk 
• 0,5 package vanilla pudding 
• 5-6 sweetening tablets 

Mix the flour, baking powder, and cocoa in a bowl. Mix the milk, seetening powder, almond extract, lemon zest, oil and the egg in an othet bowl and whisk the ingredients. Add the dry ingredients, i.e. the content of the first bowl to the mix in the second bowl, and the batter is ready to go.

The next step is the pudding, mix the pudding powder with the milk and 6 sweetening tablets and prepare the pudding. Pour the ready pudding into a bowl and wait until it cools a little.

Place the muffinpapers into the baking form. I love these mosts, I got lovely golden ones for a change. Place a tablesppon of batter on the bottom of the paper, then 2 teaspoons of puddings and then cover the pudding with batter.

You can also decorate the muffins, I had cranberries, coconut flakes and decorating pearls at home this time, so this is what I've used before placing the muffins into a preheated over, at 180 Celsius. Take it out after 20 minutes and our lovely muffins are ready.

Carbohydrates per muffin: 20g/CH

Hints:

• If your goal is to avoid using sugar, do not use puddings that can be prepared without cooking, always use pudding that needs to be cooked and doesn't contain sugar (e.g.: Dr.Otker)
• From all the powders replacing sugar Haas Glukonon worked best for me, I use it every time I bake (Note it's not available in the UK) .
• Eat slowly absorbing carbohydrates (cakes, deserts like muffin) in the morning or evening if you fancy with a bit of milk or cafe latter. In the afternoon - highly recommended for those on a diet - choose quickly absorbing carbohydrates like diary products or fruit.
• The milk can be replaced by any lactose free milk in the recipe.