Welcome to Mum&sons

My two eldest boys challenged me to start a cooking blog with simple recipes that we can cook together - and my youngest one has now joined in. I am hoping they pick up some cooking and photograph skills... or that at least they learn to design and run a blog.


LEMON CURD MUFFINS

Delicious for breakfast or tea. The lemon curd bubbles a bit out of the muffins and gives them a nice twist.
You need:
- 75 gr butter
- 250 gr self raising flour
- 60 gr sugar
- 25 gr ground almonds (if you do not have this at hand  replace it with 30 more gr of self raising flour)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 egg
- juice and grated zest  of a lemon
- 100 ml milk
- lemon curd

Mix the flour, ground almonds, bicarb, baking soda, lemon zest and sugar. Separately mix: the butter melted, the lemon juice, beatten egg and milk. Mix both mixtures and strt them lightly (ideally just with a fork). Spoon the mixture on muffin paper cases (you will get 11-12 out of these quantities) filling them to 1/3 of the case. Add a teaspoon of good ( shop bought) lemon curd on each of them. Then spoon the remainign mixture over the curd so that you (almost) fill the cases. Bake in a preheated 200 degrees oven for 15-20 minutes.
Like with any baking the kids love helping with these... and eating them afterwards.

JAM BISCUITS

Not very healthy, I know - but I had to redeem myself after the mushrooms fiasco...
This recipe comes from Usborne's Beginners Cookbook. One of my kids received this as a present once from one of my friends. The biscuits look and taste messy and homemade. And there is something really satisfactory about the jam bubbling  all over the biscuits while they are in the oven.

You need:
225gr self raising flour
100 butter
100 sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
Jam (peach, plum or strawberry)

Preheat the over at 200 degrees. Mix the flour and cold butter (cut into small cubes) and rub them with your fingers until they become like breadcrumbs. Add the sugar. Then add the beaten egg with the milk and stir until it becomes a ball of dough.  Make small balls with your hand (you will get 16 more or less) and put them over a floured baking sheet pressing them down so that they become like little burgers. Make an indentation with your fingers in ehe middle of each biscuit and put a little bit of jam on top. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. You need to let them rest on a wire rack for 5 minutes after your take them out of the oven so that they get hard and the jam sets.

The kids do most of this on their own but unless you supervise how they put the jam on the biscuits they will make a huge mess, so beware!