Saturday's Brunch and Lemon Basil muffins

I love Saturdays. Don't you? 
Today 6 of my lovely girlfriends came over for brunch.  
On the menu : Bacon and eggs, Cherry and Vanilla jam + ricotta tartines, Lemon Basil muffins
If you ever do a brunch you should include these Lemon Basil muffins on your table. My girlfriends asked to take home the ones we didn't eat. They are that good.

Don't be put off by the ingredients. It's not everyday you put basil, yes basil the green herb, in your sweet muffins, but trust me - it works.
They are themselves a reason to put on a brunch chez toi. So gather some girlfriends and enjoy a lazy Saturday brunch. 

Saturday morning Lemon Poppy seed loaf

Our week looked a little like this :

That would be more than one week's worth of ironing not done! No time. Too many other things to do.

So Saturday morning merited a little 'bonheur'.  We had our lovely friends over for dinner on Friday night and while the oven was on, cooking the most delicious leg of lamb greek style, I whipped up this little treat for breakfast on Saturday morning. 

Much appreciated by my handsome husband who is used to seeing baking come out of the oven and walk straight out the door to someone else's grateful stomach. He was very pleased that this cake was all for him (to share with me of course!).

The comfort of Rum and Raisins

I made this cake for my husband who has a particular weakness for anything rum and raisin flavoured. He stops at nothing - ice cream, rice pudding, semoule au lait and we discovered Les Petits Muffins raisin au rhum from Bonne Maman the other day. What a treat!

It inspired a baking session after work one day not long after. I started with a recipe for a date, ginger and honey cake and ended up with the most popular cake in our house so far this year. It fills the house with the most wonderful warming smells that you will want to make it again just to make your place smell good.

We are two, and we ate this cake within 3 days. It featured in every meal including breakfast. I can testify that it is terrifically good with a cup of tea.

Rum and Raisin Cake

250g self raising flour

150g butter

90g sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 tablespoons honey

3 eggs

125g raisins

100mls approx. rum

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Pour the rum over the raisins, and microwave for 1 minute to encourage the raisins to soak up the rum (that's where the flavour is). Cover and leave to macerate while you make the rest of the cake.

Beat the butter and the sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each egg. Add the vanilla essence. Add the flour and honey and mix well. Check that your raisins are nice and plump. If not, zap them in the microwave to hurry them up. Drain the rum into your cake mixture. Shake 1 tablespoon of flour over your raisins so that the raisins are covered in flour. This stops them sinking to the bottom of the cake while it cooks. The raisins may look lumpy covered with flour but it will all disappear once cooked. Now add the raisins to your mixture and stir well.

Grease and flour (or line with paper) a loaf tin. Pour in your cake mix and cook in the oven for 20 minutes. As usual, the cooking times vary with each oven. It's cooked when you poke knife in and it comes out clean.

Cool the cake in the tin before tipping it out and enjoying it - but I reckon you won't be able to wait that long!