Baked Potatoes

 

I've been wanting to make another batch of baked potatoes.  I was at my local weekly market and spotted this bargain; 4 Mahoosive potatoes for £1!  Average weight 640g.  That is a hefty load to lug home.

Give them a proper good scrub.  You can be all fancy and buy a potato brush.  I just use a washing up brush solely for the use of food.  Rinse them and pat dry with a tea towel or kitchen towel.

Get a sturdy fork and prick all over.

Rub them all over with olive oil.  I only have Extra Virgin Olive Oil (which is best used uncooked in salad dressings but that's all I had).  I didn't fancy greasing my hands so I just brushed with my silicone pastry brush, salted one side.  Turned them over, brush and then salted again.

When you're done, they should look like this:

Bake in the preheated oven 200C for at least an hour (turn them over every 20mins).
When you get to the one hour mark, check them.  Ideally you would use a long metal skewer to check but I don't so I made do with a wooden chopstick that was slightly tapered towards the end.

As these were huuuuuumongous I had to bake them for another 20mins at 200C.  They were cooked after 1hr 20 but the skin wasn't quite crispy baked potatoey so I cranked the heat to max (230C?) for 10mins.

Each baked potato was double the size of a normal potato so double the portion size. 


Serving suggestions:

They make lovely potato skins.  Serve with mint yoghurt dip or garlic and herb dip.

Mash the flesh (add things like cheese and onion) or just plain mash.

Classic baked potato with cheese and beans.

I made a potato salad with yoghurt, mint sauce and cucumber.

The best bit is definitely the skins!

Lemon and Blueberry Muffins

 

2nd batch using Waitrose blueberries!

 

So good I made them twice in one week!

I bought 2 packets of 99p 125g blueberries from Lidl for the first batch on Sunday.  They were sold out on Tuesday so I went to Waitrose and got a £2.50 210g pack (bought some nectarines to get 2 for £4)
Lidl was better value but Waitrose had bigger blueberries!  They're both from Spain.  I didn't put the whole lot in the muffin mix, I ate a few depending on how many "extra" I had.

I actually used the last of the self raising flour from the 1st batch of muffins so just looked up changing plain flour into self raising by adding extra baking powder.

Not to forget, these are LEMON and blueberry muffins!  Lemon zest and then a lemon syrup glaze on top. Zing a ling ling!  I looked up Lemon Drizzle Cake recipes and adapted accordingly.  You could make in a saucepan but I just microwaved for ease.

Lemon Glaze inspiration

Ingredients:

300g Plain Flour
3tsp Baking Powder

100g Caster Sugar
Pinch of Salt

175ml Soy Milk (I used Waitrose unsweetened UHT this time) 

125ml Corn Oil

1 Egg
The peel (zest) of 1 Lemon, grated
150g - 200g Fresh Blueberries (put 12 to one side for decorating)

Lemon Glaze:
Juice of 1 lemon (after it's been zested)
4tsp of caster sugar (more if too sour)

Method:

1.  Grate a lemon and finely chop the zest.

2.  Sift the flour into a large bowl.  Sift in the baking powder.  Add sugar and salt.  Stir thoroughly!

 

3.  Wash the blueberries.  Use your sieve to drain them.

4.  Measure the milk and oil into a measuring jug.  Break an egg into another bowl (if you're worried about shell)  add egg to milk/oil mixture and beat together.  Add the lemon zest.

5.  Fan oven on, heat to 170c.  (I can do tin lining and mixing in the time it takes to preheat the fan oven but if unsure, wait until oven is hot enough before you mix the wet and dry ingredients together as you want them in the oven as the baking powder will start working.)

6.  Line the muffin tin with a paper case for each hole.  In the dry ingredients bowl, add the blueberries.

When the oven is hot enough, you can mix the wet and dry ingredients together.  I did this by putting the liquid into a bowl and then tipping the dry ingredients.  Combine until just mixed, do not over-stir.

6.  Spoon evenly between cases.  Apply a blueberry on top.  Bake for 20-25mins.

 

 

7.  Whilst the muffins are cooling, make the lemon glaze.

 

In a bowl, squeeze the juice out of the lemon you zested.  You can sieve out the pips and any lemon flesh.  Add sugar.

Microwave for 30seconds and stir.  Then for 10sec intervals until the sugar has dissolved.  Taste the syrup and if it's too sharp, add more sugar.

 

8.  Whilst still in tin, glaze the muffins.  I used a silicone pastry brush.  I brushed twice and had leftover syrup.

 

 

 

Review:

I think these are the best blueberry muffins I have made!  Let's not forget that these were made from soy milk.  My parents liked them, they said it wasn't too sweet.  I'm very happy with the glaze as it made them moist and zingy. Slightly disappointed with the lack of rise (I want a bigger dome!)  but the texture was good.