Mini mazance

After the last week's Easter holiday, I felt like I haven't baked a proper thing in a long long time. I mean, sure, muffins are great and everything, but I missed the challenge of the more advanced baked goods. As I looked for some inspiration on the internet (and all I got were fruit cakes), I remembered that I saw this cooking show on TV where they were making these tiny mazance. Mazanec (that's sg., pl. is mazance) is according to Wikipedia hot cross bun, the sweet bread that's eaten on Easter but I can imagine that being the only thing hot cross buns and mazanec have in common..

Mazanec has a cross on its top that is made with scissors, not frosting. It tends to be large, a loaf of bread large, while hot cross buns are... well... buns. The mazanec is traditionally made with raisins and almonds. As far as I know, there are no substitutes but I guess the raisins could be omitted if you for some reason don't like them.

Now, as I said, mazanec is normally much bigger. I guess this recipe could be used for one standard mazanec but mini mazance are so cute and everything's getting smaller and smaller nowadays anyway. These guys are fragrant, stay yummy for a long time and they are great with butter or simply on their own.

Apricot and ginger muffins

For my newest muffin experiment, I chose dried apricots to be the primary flavour. I also wanted to use biscuits somehow. I remember I used crushed biscuits for the bottom of the nanaimo bars once but muffins don't have bases really so I used the biscuits on the top. In the end it didn't have the effect I had had in my but it did give it a nice chocolate-y hint.

I used the ginger just because I found a root lying in my kitchen. Honey covered its sharp flavour, toned it down and it's almost unnoticeable in the final product, yet still there. I must say that I am very pleased with that outcome :3