A new tool, and a brunch bruschetta

Do you remember those novelty t-shirts that were common before low-cost carriers carried us all everywhere all the time? Before social media gave a platform for holiday bragging? Back in those days our method for showing off about our travels was the print "My [insert relation] went to [insert geographic location, preferably mainstream] and all I got was this lousy t-shirt". Well, how's this one for a real-life retro-but-modern feel: my boyfriend went to San Francisco and came home bearing me a brand new iPad mini. Total and utter surprise on my part, I can tell you! And this is my first attempt to blog on it.

Since my boyfriend and I only had one weekend together in March due to travels aplenty, we spent most of it together. We are both big fans of breakfast in general, and at the weekend especially a cooked one. Yesterday I came up with a new recipe for his unsuspecting taste buds to wrap themselves around. As in my habit it was constructed out of what happened to be in my fridge: mushrooms, spinach, eggs, chorizo. In some ways it is a variation on classic cooked British breakfasts, but simultaneously it has continental vibes. I think of it as a breakfast bruschetta.

Breakfast bruschetta for two hungry people

250 g chestnut mushrooms
60 g chorizo (air dried)
100 g fresh spinach
2 ripe tomatoes
4 fresh welfare eggs
4 slices of bread

Clean the mushrooms and quarter them. Cut the chorizo into little cubes. Heat a large frying pan and add the mushrooms. Keep the pan on a hot flame for a couple of minutes, then turn down the heat and add the chorizo. Cook for another couple of minutes, until the chorizo is cooked. Cut the tomatoes into quarters, and add them for a minute or two. Add the spinach leaves and cover with a lid for a couple of minutes until the spinach has wilted. Season if you think it's necessary; I find that it's not needed.

Meanwhile, poach the eggs. If you've never done this, don't be scared! Boil 4-5 cm of water in a wide saucepan, then add a teaspoon or two of white wine vinegar. Crack the eggs one by one into the water, which should be almost at boiling temperature. I find it easier to crack the eggs in advance into separate small bowls, then tip them in. Leave the eggs in the simmering water for around 3 minutes - longer if the eggs are larger or if you prefer them more cooked. Remove the eggs with a suitable tool, like a slotted spoon, onto a warm plate covered in kitchen roll to drain off water.

Toast the bread. To serve, place two slices of toasted bread per plate, ladle over the mushroom-spinach-chorizo-tomato mix and top with two poached eggs. Some cracked black pepper on top works well.

Addicted to beetroot, and beetroot, orange and chocolate muffins

Three or maybe four years ago I tried the amazing combination of chocolate and beetroot for the first time. I have long been a fan of beetroot in most of its incarnations; it is only the cruelest of pickling that I don’t like. Think beetroot carpaccio, think tender wee beetroots roasted and served with butter, think beetroot hummous. The same year, 2009 (or was it 2010?), I saw a recipe for beetroot cake in the comments thread of some article on the Guardian website. I was intrigued and had to try it, turning the recipe into muffins instead. Those muffins were brought to work, perhaps in an attempt to get some feedback or more likely to avoid eating them all myself. My colleague J was so taken with them that she considered asking me to make her a beetroot chocolate wedding cake.

Just before Christmas I heard of a newly started, small artisan chocolatier in Edinburgh called Edward&Irwyn. It was small, and to the outside world it was not much more than a blog. On the last evening I spent with my boyfriend before we both left for our respective family Christmases, he gave me some of the E&I chocolates. One of the two flavours was beetroot, orange and milk chocolate. It was, quite simply, divine.

With J’s return to work after maternity leave (not an easy return due to nursery bugs galore, I must add), and the delicious E&I chocolate in mind, I decided to try to bake something like the muffins I had made before, but denser and moister. If you’ve read other posts of mine recently you might also recall an obsession with a certain recipe by Dan Lepard, so using oil rather than butter was an easy choice. I didn’t have to experiment more than once to find the right mixture. 

Beetroot, orange, chocolate. Photo: Helene Frossling

Chocolate beetroot orange muffins

3 eggs

80 g caster sugar

80 g golden syrup

120 ml vegetable oil

250 g cooked beetroot

zest from one-two oranges

120 g plain flour

60 g cocoa powder (not sweetened!)

1 tsp baking powder

Start by switching on the oven to 180 C, and getting out a 12-hole muffin-tray, and line with cupcake cases. I find metal muffins trays far easier than silicone ones, but we all have different preferences.

Finely grate the cooked beetroot and zest the oranges. In a small bowl mix the plain flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.

In a larger bowl and using a hand-helg electric whisk, mix eggs, sugar and golden syrup until light and a bit fluffy. Mix in the vegetable oil. At this point switch from the electric mixer to a spatula; the rest you want to do with a bit more finesse. Gently fold in the beetroot and orange zest. Once mixed well, fold in the flour mix. Divide between the cupcake cases. The mix will only rise a little bit when baking.

Bake the cupcakes for 20-25 minutes. Let them cool before eating, and eat within a couple of days if you want them at their freshest. I have no idea how long they stay ok, but I think most people wouldn’t find out as the muffins would be long eaten before they go stale. If you want to frost them to make them more like cupcakes I recommend the Hummingbird Bakery Cream Cheese Frosting. If you donb't have their books, Ocado has the recipe.