Gingerbread Muffins with a Swiss Meringue Buttercream and a Gingerbread Caramel

It’s December 2020 and this has been a wild year. A lot of baking has taken place but I love that, it’s given me a chance to re-do some of my favourite recipes and this is one of them. It’s quite a complicated recipe in that it’s time consuming BUT it’s worth it.

The caramel can be made in advance and the swiss meringue can be made when your muffins are in the oven. Brilliantly fun project.

Ingredients for Muffins

• 150g butter (I use Flora)

• 150g Golden Caster Sugar

• 80g Black Treacle

• 30g Golden Syrup

• 200ml Oat Drink (I use Oatly)

• 4 Organic eggs (2 whole, 2 yolk - I use Clarence Court)

• 270g Plain Flour

• 2 tsp Baking Powder

• Spices: 1.5tsp cinnamon, 1tsp ground ginger, 1/2tsp nutmeg, 1/4tsp cloves

• 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180c and line a muffin tray with your muffin cases.

2. In a bowl or a stand mixer, beat your butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then beat in your treacle, syrup and eggs. The mix should be lovely and combined.

3. In another bowl, sift the flour with your spices and baking powder then slowly add in your flour to the mix, stopping occasionally to add some milk so it doesn’t become too thick.

4. Using a tbsp, pop your mixture in your muffin cases 2/4 of the way and then bake for 25 minutes.

Ingredients for Vegan Gingerbread Caramel

• 250g granulated sugar

• 50g mollasses Sugar

• 2 tbsp water

• 100ml alpro cream

• 3 tbsp butter from Flora

• 1½ tsp ground cinnamon

• 2 tsp ginger

• ¼ tsp ground cloves

Method

1. In a large saucepan combine the sugar and water and stir until the sugar is dissolved and amber in colour. At this point, lower your heat to the minimum and add in your cream and butter. Be careful at this stage as it will bubble.

2. Stir in your spices and leave to cool before pouring into your glass jars. You can keep this in the fridge for up to. a couple of months.

Ingredients for Swiss Meringue

• 6 egg whites (I use the Clarence Court egg whites from Waitrose)

• 300g granulated sugar

• 300g unsalted vegan butter, softened but not too warm (should be cool to touch)

• 1 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method

1. In a glass bowl, place over a small amount of boiling water but don’t let the glass touch the water. Pour in your egg whites with your sugar and whisk until the sugar is dissolved. If you use your finger and thumb to rub some of the liquid together, if you can feel any granulated sugar then it’s not ready yet.

2. Pour your mix straight into a stand mixer and put immediately on to a medium - fast speed This can take up to 15 minutes and will become very thick and glossy.

3. Switch the stand mixer to the paddle attachment and place in your butter 1 tbsp at a time, slowly and beat on a very high speed. Keep going with this as your meringue will look a bit wet but then it’ll stiffen up the more butter you put in. You must put this on a high speed and you can stop and start to give your mixer a break.

4. Add in your vanilla extract after all your butter has been combined and give one last whizz and then your buttercream will be ready.