Caramel chocolate chunk muffins, National Celtic Festival, a party and more long weekend eats

What is the purpose of a long weekend if not for cooking and sharing good food, heading out of town and relaxing at home!  We managed to do all of this on the recent Queen's Birthday weekend.  I don't claim to have brilliant photography of all of it but sometimes when you are enjoying yourself, it hard to spend much time behind the camera.

Actually my pictures might have been better if I had remembered to take my DSLR camera to Geelong so I could have taken better quality photos.  We went down to my niece's birthday party at Inflatable World.  It was a great place for the kids to run around in the middle of winter.

My sister in law made gorgeous cupcakes for Ashy.  Sylvia had a sore tummy after everyone sang happy birthday so we didn't stay long.  I took a cookies and cream cupcake with me and they were delicious.

We stayed at my parents' place in Geelong and my mum had stayed home cooking rather than going to the party.  For dinner we had curried cauliflower naan pizzas and a delicious tarte tatin for dessert.  The pizzas were delicious but the tarte tatin was amazing.  The apples were cooked so that they just melted in the mouth as they should and were beautifully caramelised.

On Sunday, Sylvia, my mum and I headed out to the National Celtic Festival while my dad rested up at home. The weather was not as pleasant as last year's festival.  The sun shone but the wind rattled our bones.  We saw some highland dancing, some buskers and the medieval sword fights.  Perhaps the highlight was an amazing vegetarian burger from Jerry's Vegie Burgers.  Made of lentils, rice, corn and other vegies, it was so good with some satay sauce, tomato relish and green leaves in a bun.

We stayed at my parents' place long enough for Sylvia to play with her cousin, while I shopped, and to eat fish and chips for dinner (thanks go to my brother Dave who went out to the fish and chip shop a second time when my corn jack was forgotten!   Then home so we could get up the next morning and make dodgy pancakes in our own kitchen.  I tried making pancake mixture (with beetroot powder) to use in a squeezy bottle but it was not my finest hour in pancake making.  This spider web was the best of a bad bunch and you should have seen it once I tried to flip it.

More successful was my almond feta that I made on Monday.  I confess that I left my almonds soaking for 2 days and found them with some cloudy shapes in the water.  I decided that the almonds were just cultured and ploughed on with the recipe.  It was very good in a salad sandwich with home made sourdough bread, spinach and Italian butter beans.

As the day drew to a close, I baked.  Sylvia wanted caramel cupcakes.  Fortunately Kari had posted a healthy recipe for choc chip caramel muffins only a few weeks previously. I love caramel but it is so sickly sweet.  These muffins were actually not very sweet at all and the bittersweet chocolate chunks in my muffins were quite dominant.  They were also quite stodgy in a substantial and satisfying way.  The stodge, however, meant they kept their knobbly shape of the thick batter rather than smoothing out when baking.

After baking, I made us a dinner of leftovers: pasta with a creamy sauce, Italian butter beans, tofu bacon and almond feta together with some spinach.  It made for a very satisfying pasta meal. Sadly it would be a lot of work to make it from scratch so it is unlikely to be a regular meal.  However I was rather pleased with bringing the creamy pasta (which Sylvia loves) and Italian beans together.

After dinner we all had a muffin and had one for lunch the next day.  We loved them so much that I made them again yesterday and again they were pounced upon with enthusiasm.

My only qualm about the muffins, which is not limited to this recipe, is that it is hard to detect the nuts.  Recently one of Sylvia's teachers expressed concern about one of her class mates having peanut butter sandwiches for lunch at school because of Sylvia's peanut allergy.  I get far more worried at the thought that someone will offer her a chocolate brownie made with a spoonful of peanut butter in it.  It is so easy to know peanuts are in a peanut butter sandwich but less easy to detect all the hidden ground nuts and nut butters in baking.  I don't have any answers to this quandry, given that I love baking with nuts but it is a concern.

Fortunately Sylvia is not allergic to cashews and has enjoyed these muffins.  I am pleased to have an easy recipe that is full of lots of healthy ingredients and minimal refined sugar and flour.

I am sending these muffins to Kimmy for Healthy Vegan Fridays 51, and Karen (and Janie) for Tea Time Treats.

More healthy baking from Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Chocolate almond rice bubble slice (gf, v)  
Chocolate tahini cookies (v)
Fruit, Nut and Tahini Slice (v)
Fruity Quinoa Muffins (v)
Glo Bars (gf, v)
Healthy banana bread 
Heidi’s chocolate cake
Rustic muesli squares

Caramel Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Lightly adapted from Bite Sized Thoughts
Makes 12 muffins

1/2 cup raw cashews
1/2 cup medjool dates
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 scant cup soy milk
1 cup plain wholemeal flour
1/2 cup plain white flour
1/4 cup coconut sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
85 g dark chocolate, chopped (I used 70%)

Cover cashews and dates in boiling water for about 15-30 minutes (ie while you prepare the other ingredients).

Preheat oven to 180 C and place muffin papers in a 12 hole muffin pan.

Pour 1 tablespoon of vinegar into a 250ml cup measure and fill the rest of the cup with soy milk.  Set aside to curdle and thicken.

Place flours, coconut sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium mixing bowl.

Drain water off cashews and dates.  Blend with about a third of the milk mixture until smooth.  (I do this in a high powered blender but I think a little texture would be ok if your machinery is a bit less powerful.)  Pour or spoon into dry ingredients.  Tip the rest of the milk mixture into the blender and blitz to lift as much of the dates and cashews off the blender and pour into the dry ingredients.

Mix the wet and the dry ingredients together with a spoon until just combined.  It will seem quite dry but will mix in ok.  Then gently mix in the chocolate chunks.

Spoon mixture into muffin papers and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in a muffin comes out clean.  Best at room temperature and they keep for 2-3 days.

Update: September 2015: Made these with substituting 1/4 cup of maple syrup for milk - it brought out the caramel flavours.

On the stereo:
Title: Meghan Trainor