Early Morning Sunshine

The glorious weather of late April has mostly vanished, unsurprisingly, in time for the bank holiday weekend. But I can let you into a little secret ... if you wake just before dawn - open your eyes as the birds are starting to stir and the sky begins to lighten - then by the time you are sat with that first coffee of the morning and are awake enough to appreciate it - the sun will be shining in a gloriously clear sky. Chances are it will be gone by 8am when most are rousing themselves for the start of the long weekend, but one of the compensations of waking so early every morning is seeing that early morning sun. No matter how wet and windy the recent days have turned out to be I have had some early alone time with the sun which goes a long way to lifting low spirits.

Another highlight of my day has been checking on my seeds. My previous attempts at 'gardening' usually extend only as far as placing bought pots of blooming hydrangeas around my garden, enjoying their mop-headed beauty before butchering them at the end of the season with the secateurs, a pruning from which they never quite recover. My small garden is littered with lopsided, near-corpses from previous years. To date the thing I am most proud of in my garden is not killing the poppy and christmas rose that were already established when I moved in ten years ago. I have, however, been seduced by the BBC2 series 'Edible Garden' something about the programme made growing my own veg, from seed, seem possible. Whilst part of the attraction of the half hour slot is coveting Alys Fowler's beautiful garden - and wondering why I can't manage to pull off the wearing of wellington boots in quite the same way - the big draw for me is the flexibility she conveys in how and what you can grow in a limited space. By choosing the right varieties, or just harvesting early, the smallest of spaces will hopefully provide some ingredients for my kitchen.

One thing I knew I wanted to grow was courgettes, I hope for a glut so I can bake with them, grate and add to my porridge, I'm also hoping for beetroot - again for the baking possibilities. There are radish which I hope to nibble on and I am hopeful for dwarf beans and kale. All have germinated so far, other than the beetroot which are being a little shy and the chili seeds. There's still time. It's all quite exciting.

So, early Saturday morning, with the earliest morning sun shining on my my seeds, me feeling so proud (and more than a little grateful that the cat hasn't watered the trays too) I aimed for the perfect morning by baking. I had bookmarked an Orange Marmalade Tea Cake back in February from Deeba's blog 'Passionate about Baking' which is one of my favourite sites. Her photo's are stunning and whilst I couldn't hope to recreate most of what she does in terms of presentation and styling I had all the ingredients for this cake.

I made made a few changes to the recipe Deeba lists, which she herself had adapted, I used half wholemeal flour and reduced the sugar as well as adding a little ginger. I also doubled the quantities listed for a loaf cake as I had plenty of courgettes and went with muffins for easier distribution (and less washing up). Deeba used some, no doubt stunning, homemade bitter orange marmalade and the run of the mill jar I had handy could've done with being a bit tarter, perhaps some additional zest would've added a bit more zing. If you're going to make this and buy marmalade specifically for it I would go for a sharper variety with decent chunks of orange rind, I might even make again with a smattering of stem ginger. As they are below they are so light, with each bite offering a slightly different taste or texture due to the distribution of the orange, walnuts and chocolate chips. In honour of the hour when these were baked I have rechristened them...

Sunshine Muffins

Makes 16 muffins or 2 5" x 9" Loaves

262g plain flour

262g wholemeal flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp vanilla extract

500g grated courgettes (approx 4 small)

1 cup / 375g marmalade (approx one jar)

250g caster sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 large eggs

1 cup toasted and chopped walnuts

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 175C and line muffin tins with papers

Mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt and spices.

Mix all the other ingredients, except the walnuts, in a large bowl until combined , making sure there are no large lumps of marmalade.

Sift the dry ingredients into the wet

Stir in the walnuts then fill the muffin cases to just over 3/4 full each (I used a 1/4 cup measure, the muffins don't rise that much)

Bake for 25 minutes until the tops are starting to brown and are firm to the touch, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Have Courgettes - Will Bake (and make breakfast)

I'm not a fan of courgettes, they were a staple of my student years, added to every stir fry, pasta sauce or bake that a limited student budget could conceive. There was also a scrumptuous courgette cake, sweet and moist from sultanas, filled with tart lemon curd and topped with cream cheese this was oft requested for special occaisions, but I'd stopped making it years ago.

A trip to the monthly Moseley Farmer's Market in late summer coincided with lots of inspiration from other blogs and I bought lots. Unfortunately having them in my fridge exerted some kind of pressure on my psyche and I couldn't bring myself to bake that weekend. However, I did discover a recipe for Zucchini Bread Oatmeal from Diet Dessert and Dogs and gave that a try the next morning - what a revelation! I have porridge every morning, I make up my own mix using Rude Health fruity date porridge as a base and adding my own mix of seeds, a bit of extra oat bran and germ , a little more cinnamon with a mixture of water and semi-skimmed milk. I didn't think some grated courgettes would add much to the flavour, but it really is delicious - go on, try it.

The addition of a bit of grated courgette in my breakfast wasn't going to make much of a dent in the enormous specimens occupying the drawer at the bottom of my fridge so I went through the recipes I'd flagged and came up with two that I thought would put them to good use.

The Chocolate Zucchini cake from Simply Recipes is one Elise adapted from the appropriately named Chocolate and Zucchini and I toggled between the two recipes and mine is an amalgam of the two. It's not the prettiest and is predominately a chocolate cake but with a lovely moistness that comes from all that veg. No one at work believed that there were courgettes in there, but all enjoyed it.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Adapted from Simply Recipes and Chocolate and Zucchini

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups of plain flour
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 1/2 Tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 Tsp bicarbinate of soda
• 1 Tsp salt
• 1 Tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup soft butter
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup soft brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 Tsp vanilla extract
• Grated zest of one orange
• 2 cups coarsely grated courgettes
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 100g chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

I didn't bother with a glaze but there's one should you wish to add it.

Method

• Heat Oven to 350F
• Mix the flours, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb, salt and cinnamon
• Beat the butter and sugars until smooth
• Add eggs to butter and sugar beating well
• Stir in vanilla, orange zest and courgettes
• Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk in three batches
• Spoon into a greased and flour coated bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean - if you don't have a bundt tin, firstly get one because they are great, secondly this mixture should make two loaf tins, check after 30 mins.
• Cool for about 15 mins in the tin before turning out to cool completely on a rack

To contrast the safe, hidden (but delicious) use of the courgettes in chocolate cake recipe enough I also made Special Zucchini Bread from 101 Cookbooks. I adored this, the combination of spices, citrus, nuts and ginger was just delicious, the texture too was so moreish, a little something different in each mouthful. I used soft brown sugar I left out the poppy seeds as I didn't have any but I did have a jar of Raz el Hanout so used that, as suggested, in place of the curry powder. The smells from the oven while this was baking were amazing, and whilst it was cooling I spent a fair amount of time picking off bits of toasted walnut to eat - just to check you inderstand. Pop over to the site for the recipe - you won't regret it.