Continuing with the vitamin C theme from yesterday, this morning’s breakfast was lemon poppy seed muffins with lemon curd.

Lemon curd is one of my favourite excesses. On muffins, scones, cake, or even my morning granola, it is a marvellous burst of flavour that sparkles.

Joy of Cooking (the 1997 edition), has two lemon curd recipes, one of which is reduced-fat lemon curd. I ignored the reduced-fat recipe for years, but one day I didn’t have enough eggs to make the regular recipe, so I tried the reduced-fat one.

Much to my surprise, the entire family preferred the low-fat recipe. I don’t pretend it’s any better for us. Indeed, it’s almost certainly less healthy, as it has twice the sugar (to compensate for the reduced fat). But less butter and more lemon juice make it even tangier than the full-fat recipe.

So for perhaps the first time in my life, I prefer a low-fat version of something! Now I’m working on the recipe, notching back the sugar (because the low-fat version really does taste a bit too sweet), to get the perfect balance of sweet/fat/sour.

Of course, that means I’ve got to make lemon curd regularly…just for scientific purposes, of course. 😉

I love PB & J sandwiches. So why not a PB & J cupcake? I’ve never tried this before, and I was a little worried it wouldn’t work, so when I made peanut butter cupcakes last night, I only put jam in half of them (chocolate buttons on the other half). But next time, I’ll do them all with jam!

Just make a little well at the top of the cupcake batter and put a teaspoon of your favourite jam (I used strawberry) into the well before baking. The gooey, jammy centre is delicious inside the nutty exterior!

Yesterday, I came across a lovely looking chocolate bread online that used the technique of cutting and twisting the dough to create pretty patterns.

I thought it would work in biscuit dough, too, so this morning I gave it a try.

I made my usual rolled biscuit dough, then divided the dough into quarters. I rolled out one quarter into a round about 20 cm (8 in) in diameter and 1 cm (1/2 in) thick and placed it on an ungreased baking sheet. Then I spread jam generously over the entire round, and topped it with another quarter of dough rolled out to the same size, pressing gently to bind them together. With a knife, I cut the stacked round into 10 wedges, leaving the centre uncut. Then I gently flipped each wedge over, to give it a twist.

Then I did the same with the other two quarters of dough. For the round on the left, I flipped each wedge in the same direction. For the round on the right, I flipped adjacent wedges toward each other.

I baked them at 190°C (375°F) for about 20 minutes.

The results were pretty and yummy, too!

Driving home today with a kilo of mushrooms in the car, I devised the following mushroom and egg tart for dinner.

It was delicious!

Approx. 1 kg fresh mushrooms, sliced (I used buttons and portabellas)

10-15 g dried porcini, soaked 30 min in hot water

4 small leeks, sliced

small handful dried tomato, chopped roughly

Fresh thyme, rosemary, and parsley to taste

½ c. grated parmesan cheese

8 med eggs

salt and pepper to taste

Sauté leeks, mushrooms, tomatoes, rosemary and thyme over medium heat until well-cooked, and the mushroom liquid has evaporated. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Make pastry for a double crust pie. Roll it out in one large sheet and line a jelly roll pan with it.

Sprinkle half the cheese over the crust. Then spread the mushroom mixture evenly over the cheese. Top with the remaining cheese.

Crack the eggs onto the tart, one at a time, arranging them neatly across the tart.*

Bake 20 minutes at 190°C (375°F). Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

*If I made this again, I’d bake the tart for 10 minutes, then add the eggs—20 minutes is a bit too long for the eggs.