Bailey's Irish Cream Muffins #MuffinMonday

All that is good and more-ish about Bailey’s Irish Cream, baked in muffins, including a generous quantity of the actual stuff. 

St. Patrick’s Day has never been one of those days we celebrated in our house, despite my Irish roots and a grandmother with the last name of Fleming. As a school child, my memories included coloring shamrocks in class and discussing the patron saint of Ireland and the apparently baseless but fun legend of how he chased the snakes out of Ireland. And pinching people who forgot to wear green. As I got older, St. Patrick’s Day was a good reason to go to a party or have a green beer at a pub, preferably one named Kenneally's or Muddy Murphy’s. But I’ve grown up now and truth is, green beer is pretty unappetizing and it’s been years since I pinched or got pinched, no matter what the attire. Now if I want to celebrate the Irish, I’d rather have a short glass of neat single malt whiskey or some Bailey’s Irish Cream. Or, come to think of it, some Bailey’s Irish Cream muffins. What’s your favorite Irish tipple? Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day at your house?

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup, packed, or 100g soft brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons or 4 g instant coffee powder (I used two sachets of instant espresso powder.)
1 tablespoon hot water
1/4 cup or 60g butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup or 60 ml whipping cream
3/4 cup or 180ml Bailey's Irish cream
2 eggs

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C and either grease your 12-cup muffin tin or line it with paper liners.

In a small measuring vessel or cup, dissolve the coffee powder in the hot water.

In a big mixing bowl, mix together your dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In small mixing bowl, whisk the melted butter, the Bailey’s and the cream with your two eggs and the dissolved coffee.

Fold the liquids to the dry mixture, stopping when they are just mixed. There might be little dry bits and that's okay.  That's preferably to over mixing.

Divide the batter between your prepared muffins cups.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove from the muffin tin and finish cooling on a rack.

Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Walnut Cheese Bread

I should call this Leftover Bread but there are a lot of people out there who turn their noses up at leftovers.  I am not one of them.  My favorite breakfast is, in fact, whatever we ate the night before.  But this bread deserves much more than leftover status, because it is wonderful.  I made it this week as part of the Random Recipe Challenge for October, where the instigator, Dom, from Belleau Kitchen, asked that we delve into our store cupboards and pick a random, forgotten item to make into something delicious.  I took a little liberty with the storage area because my freezer is way worse off than my cupboard.  I have a penchant for bagging little bits of this and that to “use later” (read: hardly ever) and thought it would be more of a challenge and certainly more random since many of the bags aren’t even labeled.  I know, shame on me.   Anyhoo, what I came out with was actually two bags: One with small pieces of leftover cheese, some blue, some chèvre with a soft rind, a little cheddar and one that I imagine might once have been a proud piece of Tomme de Chèvre.  The other bag contained walnuts.  I thought about throwing the second one back in but what’s the challenge in that?  I did an ingredients search on EatYourBooks and came up with a lovely Delia Smith quick bread recipe from her How to Cook Book 1.  I’d have to adapt it to accommodate the walnuts but I figured I could take a little leeway since I had challenged myself with two ingredients, instead of one.  And while I was at it, I decided to use some leftover sweet potatoes from the refrigerator, instead of grating a fresh potato.  After all, clearing out unused stuff was the point of the game!  It feels so good!

Wildly adapted from Delia’s Goats' Cheese, Onion and Potato Bread with Thyme.

Ingredients
1 level cup and a rounded 1/3 cup or 175g flour
1 1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 oz or 170g cooked sweet potatoes
3.5 oz or 100g walnuts
6 oz or 170g assorted strong cheeses
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
4 tablespoons milk
1 egg
Olive oil for greasing the cookie sheet
Butter to serve, optional

Method
Preheat the oven to gas 375°F or 190°C.

Pare the hard rind from the cheese, if there is one, and cut it into 1/2 in or 1cm cubes.  I left the soft rind on the chèvre or goats' cheese because we like it.

Chop your walnuts rather coarsely.

Put the flour, baking powder and salt into a big, roomy mixing bowl and whisk to mix, which gives the flour a good airing.  (Delia actually said to sift all three from up high for the same effect but my sifter had left that day, in the airfreight to Dubai, so the spare whisk would have to do.)

Mash your cooked sweet potato and add it to the flour.  Mix the potato in with a fork, until it looks like crumbs.  Use your hands if you need to.

Add two-thirds of the cheese to the potato/flour bowl.

Add in the walnuts and the smoked paprika.

Still using a fork or spoon, gently mix everything thoroughly.

After that, beat the egg with the milk.

Pour the mixture into the bowl, just bringing it all together to a loose, rough dough, still using your fork or a rubber spatula.  It will seem too dry to come together but just keep mixing and turning the bowl and the dough and your patience will be rewarded.   It will come together.

Rub a little olive oil on your baking sheet and transfer the dough on top of the oil.
Pat it gently into a 6-inch or 15 cm rough round.  You may need to wet your hands with some water to keep the dough from sticking to them.

Now lightly press the rest of the cheese into the surface of the dough.

I saved the small chunk of cheddar for this purpose, in case you are wondering why they all look the same. 

Bake the bread on the middle shelf of the oven for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove it to a cooling rack or cutting board and serve it still warm if possible.  Slathering of butter optional but delicious.

Enjoy!

After note:  To take using leftovers one more step, this was delicious toasted on the griddle the next morning for breakfast.

There is nothing better than bread fresh from the oven, except maybe sweet potato, walnut cheese bread toasted the next day.