What's cooking?

So what’s cooking at the Welch household this month? We go with what’s in season: apples, pumpkins, etc. Good stuff with its health benefits. We all know that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Trying to make the kids eat more apples, I need to be creative. Got this recipe from one of my favorite cooking sites: www.kuking.net. See below: Devonshire Apple Cake. Made it last week.

The kids also will not eat pumpkin in a soup or any other dish, even though they love the pumpkin's vibrant orange color. They also love muffins! Banana muffins are sort of a staple food in the Welch household. So pumpkin chocolate chip muffins was a good variety this weekend, especially for the season. Pumpkins are dirt cheap in Ukraine these days. I buy them at the market from babushkas who sell them already cut and cleaned. Sweet!

By the way, did you know that pumpkins are an excellent source of beta carotene. Our bodies ‘translate’ beta carotene into Vitamin A and reap its rewards, making us less likely to develop certain cancers as well as other diseases. So basically, it's really good stuff. See the recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins below. The recipe is from another favorite site of mine: www.allrecipes.com

Devonshire Apple Cake

Devonshire Apple Cake 

INGREDIENTS:

450g/1lb apples 

juice of ½ lemon 

350g/12oz self-raising flour 

2tsp baking powder 

350g/12oz sugar 

4 eggs 

1 tsp almond essence 

2-3oz marzipan (optional) 

225g/8oz butter, melted 

flaked almonds

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease and base line 12 x 9 in roasting tin with baking parchment.
2. Peel, core and thinly slice the apples and squeeze the lemon juice over them. 
3. Measure the flour, baking powder and sugar into a large bowl. Beat the eggs together with the almond essence and mix into the flour with the melted butter. Mix well then spread half this mixture into the tin. Arrange the apples over the top of the cake mixture. Chop marzipan into small cubes and scatter through apple. Carefully top with the rest of the mixture; don’t worry if the apples show through. Sprinkle over the almonds. 
4. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1¾ hours or until the cake is golden, firm to the touch and slightly shrunk away from the sides of the tin. Leave to cool for 15 minutes and then turn out and remove the paper.

P.S. I use silicon bakeware, so it was done before an hour was over. Also, no baking parchment is needed for silicon.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chips Muffins

Pumpkin Chocolate Chips Muffins 

INGREDIENTS:

3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

3 cups white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 cups canned pumpkin puree*

4 eggs, beaten

2/3 cup water

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 24 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, sugar, salt and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, beat together pumpkin, eggs and water. Stir pumpkin mixture into flour mixture; beat until well blended. Fold in chocolate chips.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

*It is easy to make pumpkin puree from scratch. After the pumpkin is cut into pieces, seeds and pulp are removed, I put the pumpkin pieces in a casserole dish, add a little bit of water, and bake them in a pre-heated oven at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).