Event: Our First Birthday!

Our first meeting last year was on 10th February, we will be celebrating our 1st birthday on Sunday 19th February, 19:30-21:30.

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This meeting's theme will be birthday party food!  Bake us your most fabulous bakes for our birthday bash!  Think retro or modern, sausage rolls and birthday cake, sprinkles and vol-au-vents and all manner of miniature foods!

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As always, if you'd like to join us, just choose a bake to bring and email Becky to reserve your spot.  Duplicate bakes will be asked to choose again so get in quick if there's something specific you'd like to bake!  

If you're new and want to know more about what goes on, you can see previous event reports here and read more about how it works on our about page.

Event: Christmas Party!

Our Christmas party will be held on Thursday 15th December from 7:30 - 9:30pm.

To join in the festivities and sample some Christmas themed goodies, please let me know your choice of bake to reserve your place asap!  The usual suspects are likely to get snapped up fast so if you have something specific in mind, drop me an email as we try to avoid duplicates.

Remember, you don't need to be an expert baker to take part, just enjoy baking and eating said bakes!  There's no judging and it's all very informal, a bit of fun with fellow baking fans and a great way to meet new people.  Our Christmas event would be a great one to start with if you've been unsure about coming along!

I've just updated our "about" section on the Facebook page to include the following summary:

"We are a fun baking (eating) club who like to share yummy bakes and get to know new people in the local area. 

Affiliated with Uckfield WI, we have members of all ages and baking abilities. We meet every 6 weeks or so (often on a Sunday evening) and have a different theme for every meeting.

You don't have to be in the WI, nor a master baker to join! We aren't strict and there's no judging, just come along and enjoy all sorts of different bakes.

If you'd like to join us, please head to our website for more information on how it works and what you need to do."

As it's our Christmas party, I shall treat us all to some mulled wine (or un-mulled if that's not to your taste) and the usual tea and coffee will be available of course!

Of course, I always make a few suggestions and despite some of these being obvious choices, they are Christmas classics:

Mince Pies
Christmas Cake
Stollen or even a Stollen Wreath!
Sausage Rolls
Chai Spiced Chocolate Baked Cheesecake
Strudel
Gingerbread Men/Cake/Brownies...
Christmas Tree Cupcakes

And some more examples of Christmas bake ideas from my old Glasgow Baking Club.

Recipe: Feta & Herb Savoury Muffins

For our GBBO themed meeting, I made a recipe by Nadiya, last year's winner, which just happened to feature in July's edition of WI Life.  They are supposed to be Feta & Dill Muffins but I hate dill with a passion so substituted a few different herbs (detailed below) and made some other minor adjustments too like adding Parmesan to the top, although I plan to change them again next time - there are so many things you could add to them.  They are also super easy to make!

They went down very well at the club, it's nice to have a savoury bake for a change and we all enjoyed them hot as I only just got them in the oven before everyone arrived! (I forgot to preheat as I'd prepped all of the dry and wet ingredients earlier in the day ready to mix!)

Ingredients:

175g Plain flour

50g Wholewheat flour

2 1/2 tsp Baking powder (I only used 2 as I could only find self-raising wholemeal flour)

1 tsp Fine salt

1 Medium egg

275ml Whole milk

100g cottage cheese (I only had fat free)

75g Unsalted butter, melted & cooled

50g Feta cheese, crumbled

2 tbsp Dill or (1 tbsp Chives, chopped, 1 tsp Thyme leaves, 1tbsp Basil, chopped)

1/2 tsp Wholegrain mustard (I added 2 tsp instead but next time I plan to add Dijon as well)

1 tsp Ground black pepper

8 Sun-dried tomatoes, chopped 

25g pumpkin seeds

Parmesan, finely grated (optional)

Method:

Prep 15 mins.  

Cook 20-25 mins.  

Can be frozen.

Preheat the oven to 200oC, fan 180oC, Gas 6.

Mix together the flours, salt and baking powder in a large bowl.

Add the milk, egg, cottage cheese, melted butter, feta cheese, mustard, herbs and black pepper.  (I also added half of the sun-dried tomatoes here.)  Mix it all together and spoon into muffin cases.  (I prefer not to use muffin cases so you get a nice golden edge, it works especially well if the muffins are cheesy!)

Top each muffin with a little chopped sun-dried tomato and sprinkle with the Pumpkin seeds and grated Parmesan.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  (I find this hard to judge when there's melted feta in them as that can leave a streak on the skewer.)

They are delicious when eaten hot & fresh from the oven!

There are so many ways you could adapt this recipe.  I decided that next time I would mix some Parmesan in to the mixture as well as putting it on top.  I would put all of the sun-dried tomatoes in rather than on top.  I'd use more mustard, maybe even some English as well for more of a kick.  Lynda also suggested sliced green olives which would also work well, or even just a few sliced black ones.

Nadiya says they are particularly nice when eaten sliced, with cream cheese and smoked salmon - I tried this for breakfast this morning with a couple of my leftover muffins and it's delicious!  The twins also enjoyed them for breakfast, ideal to have ready for a busy morning or even a picnic lunch.