A Festive Plum and Gingerbread Dessert

This is what happens when one has a hankering for something sweet, and there's no chocolate to reach for! 

I had the following ingredients:

• Pepperkaker, or gingerbread as they're known in English 
• Plum compote from my grandparents' farm
• Plain yoghurt and a tub of Quark

The pepperkaker, I'm sorry to admit, are not homemade but from Ikea. Nothing wrong with Ikea, in fact these spicy cookies are delightfully crisp and moreish, but really if one's going to blog about baking well there should be some baking involved.

But if you happen to have an abundance of cookies in your larder this yuletide season, try this devilishly simple dessert:

All you do is combine equal quantities of yoghurt and quark, stir them together really well to get rid of any lumps.

Place this in a glass, either a pretty martini one as I did (see photo) or in any small cup/glass you have.

Then swirl some plum compote on top, or a compote of your choice - apple, pear, cherry or blueberry would all be excellent I reckon - then crush the gingerbread, sprinkle on top and voila! you've made the easiest, tastiest little dessert this Christmas...

It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that zing!

Perhaps Scandilicious should be re-named the 'Passionfruit' blog, as this dark, wrinkly fruit has been at the forefront of all my recent thoughts on baking. Which means all my thoughts generally. Not terribly exciting ones admittedly, but thoughts which nonetheless result in playing around with my favourite fruit on a bank holiday Monday evening. Does this mean I need to get out more? Probably. I'd like to think it's yet another successful experiment baking with passionfruit - this time with the addition of orange, and my Mother is visiting tomorrow so I've taken care of afternoon tea - bonus! Not to mention midnight scoffing later this evening ;-) By the by, these muffins are dedicated to my most fabulous former flatmate Nina - currently rusticated to Beijing - ni hao Nina, aka fellow passionfruit fan...

Passionfruit Muffins with Orange and Oats (or what's left over in your cupboard/fridge with a bit of zing)

• 250g plain flour
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 100g porridge oats (gives a good texture)
• 150g caster sugar
• 100g melted butter
• 180ml Quark (this was in my fridge, but use milk/yoghurt if you don't have any)
• 2 eggs
• 2 passionfruit
• 2 oranges - zest & juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Lightly oil 6 jumbo muffin tins, or 12 regular ones

In a large bowl, sift all the dry ingredients and stir through to distribute the raising agents. Add the orange zest then add all the liquid ingredients, stirring through with a large metal spoon, careful not to overfold or the muffins will be tough. Scoop mixture into muffin tray

Bake on centre shelf of the oven for 25 mins (regular size) 35-40 mins for the larger ones. These muffins come out light and fluffy, and predictably taste rather good with a cup of good olde English tea - see, I'm becoming more Anglo-Saxon by the day....

Lemon Poppyseed Cake...with a dollop of Quark and "rips" (norwegian for redcurrants)

Sundays are meant to be relaxing. A time to recalibrate, catch up with family or friends, walk the dog, go to the cinema, an exhibition, or even shopping (my least-favourite activity in the world - seriously). These are things perfectly sane people do on a Sunday, however I decided to do a stock-take of my kitchen cupboard as various items such as jars of pesto and bags of sugar kept falling on my head every time the cupboard door was ajar. Infuriating to say the least, and I'm easily ired, so I spent a couple of serene hours listening to Magic FM, whilst scrubbing the inside of the cupboard, re-organising all the jars of pesto and bags of sugar and then suddenly it occurred to me that I am in possession of far too much food. The mission for Sunday? Use up the remnants of the following: poppyseeds, ground almonds, polenta (uncooked), couple of lemons, etc. There's so much brown sugar in my cupboard that later this week will see a cornucopia of cookies, ginger cake and brown sugar oat & apricot muffins in the scandilicious kitchen...Oh, and I wrote down all the items in the cupboard which will go up as the official cupbopard stock-list on the inside of the door. Clearly I need to get out more. 

This lemony cake is akin to an American-style cornbread, which needs something like quark, or greek yoghurt to go with it (or lashings of butter if you're so inclined). If by chance you're feeling peckish on a Sunday, this is an extremely easy wheat-free cake to throw together - gluten-free, though not dairy-free as you'll see, especially with the extra dollop of quark on the side as evinced in the photo, one step at a time folks... 

Ingredients

• 180g polenta (cornmeal)
• 100g ground almonds
• 140g caster sugar
• 100g melted butter
• 100g Quark
• 2 eggs
• zest & juice of 1 lemon
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt

You'll need to lightly oil a 20cm round cake tin. Preheat oven to 180ºC

Place all the dry ingredients into a medium bowl and blend together to distribute the raising agents 

In a small bowl, using a fork mix the eggs with the quark and zest & juice of lemon. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add this to the well, blending in with the melted butter, until the mix is even. Spoon into cake tin and bake on the centre shelf for 45 minutes...

Serve with a dollop of either quark or fromage frais. For a more indulgent treat serve with creme fraiche or vanilla-whipped cream...I also squeezed the juice of one more lemon on top of the cake for a bit of zinginess!