Some people say it’s wool, others it’s copper. Well, yesterday was the 7th anniversary of Aroma Di Cannella. Wow, I am getting old.
Over the years I have always tried to make a little celebration around this day by either baking or cooking something special to share with the readers. It’s funny because every year it’s sort of a double celebration. On one hand, there is the actual ‘birthday’ on March 7th, which is the date of the first blogpost published back in 2014. On the other hand, Fat Tuesday is the more symbolic or iconic ‘birthday’ as my first post was about what I baked on Fat Tuesday of that year, which happened a couple of days earlier than March 7th. The two dates (birthday and Fat Tuesday) rarely coincide as the same day because, as you probably know, Fat Tuesday changes every year according to the Catholic calendar.
Anyway, for some reasons, I tend to remember Fat Tuesday more than March 7th. In fact, over the years, it often turned out that I completely forgot about the real anniversary. The last time when I did remember about it was back in 2018, when I was living in LA during my #PhDlife. After that, I did forget for two years in a row. What can I say? 2019 and 2020 were very hectic around this time of the year. Apparently, the beginning of March has been a moment of big happenings.
Well, this year, for once, nothing big has happened. It’s been quite a few quiet days. Not that we can do much in these days, anyway. So, this time I did remember March 7th. Hence, yesterday I thought about a nice recipe to celebrate that could also fit well with today as the International Women’s Day.
I have to say, I’ve never celebrated much this occurrence. Yet, in Italy we have this tradition since the mid-40s to give women Mimosa flowers as a symbol of women’s contribution to society and a sign of respect and support. When I lived at my parents’, my dad used to give us (my mum, sis and I) Mimosas every year, until he decided to directly plant a tree in our garden.
Next to Mimosa flowers, Italians – obviously – also celebrate with typical food delicacies. All Mimosa-themed, of course. Among all, the Mimosa cake is one of the most common ways to revisit the flower into a (sponge) cake. The trick is baking some extra cake, turn it into crumbles and place them on the top of the cake so it looks like a yellow Mimosa flower.
As it was a few days that I really wanted to bake some lemon muffins, I thought: what a better way to turn them into lemon Mimosa muffins?
MIMOSA MUFFINS
Ingredients (for 12 muffins)
For the muffins
250 gr baking flour
30 gr almond flour
15 gr baking powder
2 egg
100 gr brown sugar
8 gr vanilla sugar (or 1 tbsp vanilla extract)
90 ml sunflower oil
1 lemon juice
100 gr almond milk
For the lemon cream (you might have a little extra left)
2 egg yolks
40 gr corn starch
60 gr sugar
5 gr vanilla sugar
220 ml almond milk
1 lemon zest
Prepare the lemon cream
Start with preparing the lemon cream like I did here. Once ready, pour the cream in a bowl and cover immediately with transparent film. Store in the fridge to cool down until it’s time for assembling the muffins.
Prepare the muffins
Prepare and bake the lemon muffins like I did here without adding the poppy seeds. Let them cool down completely.
Assembling the muffins
Cut the top of the muffins with a knife. Using a teaspoon, make a hole in the muffin by removing the dough so to make space for the cream (you might need to do the same also in the tops). Save all the muffin crumbles in a bowl and store aside. Pour 1 tsp of cream in each muffin and cover with the tops. Spread a thin layer of cream on the tops and sprinkle some of the crumble leftovers over the tops so that they stick on them.
Enjoy!
Enjoy these delicious and delicate-taste muffins with a nice cup of tea or coffee. Store them in the fridge for a couple of days if you don’t finish them all in one day…
Aroma di cannella 