How to make Bake Off star Hermine Dossou’s mug cake and fruity chocolate muffins 

The Benin-born cook is all about frugal food

Hermine Dossou’s coconut, raspberry and chocolate muffins and speculoos mug cake

As a trained accountant and a long-time baking enthusiast, Hermine Dossou knows a thing or two about saving money in the kitchen.

“My first breadmaker was from Panasonic — I bought it from Gumtree,” the former Great British Bake Off contestant says.

“It was basically somebody’s wedding present that they didn’t want and they sold it half price.”

A devotee of Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert website, the 42-year-old, who was born in Benin, West Africa, and moved to the UK for university aged 20, tries to avoid ever paying full price for a big ticket item.

“If I wanted to buy, let’s say, a mixer, I would go online, and type ‘Kenwood discount vouchers’ and then something always comes up,” says Dossou, who lives in Kettering and came fourth on the 2020 series of Bake Off.

Hermine Dossou. Picture: Patricia Niven/PA. 

But the mum-of-one — whose son Steven is 13 — wasn’t always such a frugal foodie.

“That came from that period where I became a single mum on a reduced income,” she says.

“I couldn’t work full-time because I had to look after my son, and also I didn’t want him to have the processed kind of bakes.” Whipping up cakes and cookies filled her “empty afternoons” as a new mum and was a lot cheaper than buying ready-made baked goods.

“I would cook from scratch and prep my vegetables when I could get them on offer,” she continues.

“Same for fruits — they are often very discounted when they become a bit soft, and that’s the best time to make jam.” 

Even post-Bake Off and her book deal (she works full-time as an accountant), Dossou remains a savvy shopper, knowing that a higher price doesn’t always mean a better product.

“Like a bar of chocolate, if it’s the same quantity of cocoa, why are you paying three times the price? Especially if you’re going to bake with it.

“Wonky onions at half the price is the same… they all come from the same farm.”

Her accountancy skills came in handy, too, and she still uses a spreadsheet to track her income and outgoings every month.

“I think generally in life it is important to budget and know where your money goes, because I think it allows you to achieve a lot more than if you were just living freestyle,” Dossou says.

“It’s a nightmare trying to get on the housing ladder here in the UK — that’s something I’ve been able to do through being thrifty in every area of my life.” 

That’s why she decided to call her first cookbook The Thrifty Baker.

“I just really wanted to bring that awareness of how we choose what we eat, and how we can save through making little changes here and there.”

The Thrifty Baker by Hermine Dossou. Picture: Patricia Niven/PA. 

“Now, more than ever, when people are struggling with the cost of living, I think it’s even more important to go back to those values of cooking from scratch, trying to cook at home, and making meals from, you know, not much.”

With lots of advice for beginners, the book focuses on affordable dishes, from basic breads and simple biscuits to special occasion puds and impressive-looking desserts.

There’s a distinct Gallic influence (Benin, where Dossou learned to bake as a child, is a former French colony) felt with recipes such as pain de campagne, orange and brown butter madeleinesm and pear frangipane tart.

The author points out when a recipe can be cooked in an air fryer — a recent Black Friday bargain she loves because it allows her to enjoy fried Benin delicacies using less oil and without turning on the oven.

“Because we have a really small family, just me and my son, you don’t always want to put the oven on just to bake something for two.

“With an oven you’ll need to preheat it for a good 15 to 20 minutes before you can even bake in it. With the air fryer you just put the cake in and 15 minutes later it’s out – easy and convenient.”

There’s also a section devoted to microwaveable mug cakes, with peanut butter and jam, speculoos (aka Biscoff) and chocolate hazelnut flavours of the cheap and easy-to-make single-serve puds.

“In the microwave you can make a cake in five minutes from weighing, mixing and baking,” says Dossou, who loves how kid-friendly they are.

“With my son I feel more inclined to let him make a mug cake than maybe something bigger.

“Even if it goes wrong he’s not wasting a lot of ingredients and, you know, he’s not turning the kitchen into a bonfire.”

Hermine Dossou’s speculoos mug cake

recipe by:Hermine Dossou

Microwaved in minutes, this is a perfectly portioned dessert for one.

Servings

1

Preparation Time

 3 mins

Cooking Time

 1 mins

Total Time

 4 mins

Course

 Dessert

Ingredients

• 30g salted butter

• 1tsp speculoos spread

• 40g sugar

• 25g whole milk

• 1 small egg

• 40g self-raising flour

• 1tsp vanilla extract

• For the topping:

• 1tbsp speculoos spread

• 1 scoop vanilla ice cream

• 1 speculoos or other biscuit, for crumbling

Method

1. Put the butter and speculoos spread in a large mug and microwave on medium–high power (600 watts) for 10–20 seconds. Stir until smooth.

2. Add the sugar and milk and stir until combined. Then add the egg and mix vigorously with a whisk or small spatula to avoid streaks of egg white in your cake.

3. Finally, add the flour and vanilla, mixing thoroughly to ensure there are no lumps.

4. Microwave on medium–high (600 watts) for one minute. Keep an eye on the cake as each microwave cooks differently. You want the batter to be only just cooked; when you lightly touch the top, it should feel slightly sticky. If it feels completely dry, you have overcooked your cake. Remove from the microwave and allow to cool.

5. To serve, melt the one tablespoon of speculoos spread in the microwave for about 10 seconds. Top the cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, drizzle with the melted speculoos spread and sprinkle with the crumbled biscuit. Enjoy.

Hermine Dossou’s coconut, raspberry and chocolate muffins

recipe by:Hermine Dossou

Bake a batch of these thrifty and fruity sweet treats.

Servings

12

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 30 mins

Total Time

 40 mins

Course

 Baking

Ingredients

• 180g milk

• 2 large eggs

• 60g vegetable oil

• 60g unsalted butter, melted

• 230g sugar

• 1tsp vanilla extract

• ½tsp ground cinnamon

• ½tsp ground nutmeg

• 5g salt

• 250g plain (all-purpose) flour (gf plus ½tsp xanthan gum)

• 80g desiccated (dried shredded) coconut

• 10g baking powder (gf)

• 150g raspberries

• 150g milk chocolate, chopped into chunks

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F/Gas 6 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.

2. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the milk, eggs, oil, butter, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt for about a minute, until well combined. Add the flour, coconut and baking powder and stir until fully incorporated. Fold in half the raspberries and all the chocolate chunks.

3. Divide the batter equally between the muffin cases. Top each muffin with a couple of the remaining raspberries. Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until the muffins have risen and are golden brown.

4. You can keep these for a few days in an airtight container, or, once cooled, freeze them for up to 3 months. They are lovely served warm – either out the oven or reheated for a few seconds in the microwave.

• The Thrifty Baker by Hermine Dossou is published by White Lion. Photography by Patricia Niven. Available now.