Showing posts with label Sugar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sugar. Show all posts

Brownies...


So, brownies: overdone? maybe. Well I'm quite particular when it comes to brownies; not too soggy, not too dry, crispy edge etc. So, where better to turn than trusty Nigel Slater for a recipe. He gets this kind of thing. And I can safely say he gets it right again. This is where I'm going to turn for brownies from now on.

Ingredients:
• 300g Caster Sugar
• 250g Butter
• 250g Dark Chocolate
• 3 Eggs & 1 Yolk
• 60g Plain flour
• 60g Cocoa Powder
• Half teaspoon Baking Powder

Method:
• Preheat oven to 180°C and line a 22cm square tin.
• Beat butter and sugar together throughly.
• Break the chocolate up and melt 200g of it, set aside to cool slightly. Chop the remaining.
• Gradually beat in the eggs into the butter and sugar, then mix in all the chocolate.
• Fold in the sifted dry ingredients, then pour into the tin.
• Bake for 30 minutes until slightly risen and a skewer comes out slightly less than clean. Cool before cutting up.
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Welsh Cakes...

Well, St. David's day is approaching, so it seems a good time to put these on the blog.

I had always been told you couldn't make good Welsh Cakes without a cast iron griddle, but thought it was worth a go anyway. Turns out it was. I'm sure they could be slightly improved on a griddle but with some patience in the heaviest pan you've got it's worth a go.

In case you don't know, which if you don't live in Wales you might not, Welsh Cakes are similar to a fruit scone but rolled flatter and cooked on a griddle rather than in the oven. They tend to be a bit moister too, dusted with sugar and really moreish.

For something like this you can rely on Delia, so that's where I turned for a simple recipe.

Ingredients:
• 8oz Self-Raising Flour
• 4oz Butter
• 3oz Mixed Dried Fruit/Sultanas
• 3oz Caster Sugar
• 1 Egg
• half-teaspoon Mixed Spice

Method:
• Sift the flour, 2oz sugar and spice together and then mix in the fruit.
• Rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs.
• Beat the egg and slowly mix in, drawing the dry mix in to the centre, to form a smooth dough. You can add a small splash of milk if it's a bit crumbly, but not too much as you don't want it sticky.
• Roll out on a floured surface to about 5mm thick, cut into rounds.
• Heat a heavy frying pan (or griddle) on a medium heat, with a little oil rubbed over it to grease.
• When the pan's hot, put 3 or 4 of the rounds in and cook gently for about 3 minutes each side. They'll slightly puff up, but you'll barely notice it.
• Keep an eye on them as you don't want them charred (although some people prefer that in Wales), when they're done, pop them out, toss in the remaining sugar and cool on a rack.

(Makes at least 20. When you get on a roll, you can have some cooking, whilst you roll and cut the others)


Notes:
• Done-ness is up to you. I like to keep the centre still slightly moist, but some people will like it more thoroughly cooked. Whatever happens each will be a bit different as the pan will vary in temperature, their thicknesses will be different and you'll probably not time the cooking to the second.
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Peanut Butter & White Choc Brownies...

This is one of a few things that I made for my birthday. These mini brownies (or blondies) were ideal to take into work to share around. For us it was a given that we'd like them, peanut butter being something of a favourite. To me, the end result is not so much like a brownie, but is a very tasty, dense mini cake with the perfect contrast of salty and sweet from the peanut butter and white chocolate respectively. Moreish.

• Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugar together. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence.
• Sift the flour and baking powders and add to the mixture with the chocolate chipe to form a dough.
• Spread into a square tin and bake at 170°C for 25 minutes until golden brown.
• Cool in the tin before slicing.

Notes:
• Taken from
Rachel Allen's Bake
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Apple & Almond Cake...

I made this cake as we were desperate for some cake but had no butter in. So I started trawling recipes for something that could be baked without it and came across this recipe, then played about with it a bit. Mainly changing it from rhubarb to apple. The cake is light and tasty. The apples add a nice moist element and the crunchy topping finishes it off perfectly. I think there's plenty of scope here for development or customisation if you fancy. It's handy to have a tasty non-butter based cake recipe you can call on when needed.

• Beat the brown sugar, oil, egg and vanilla essence together.
• Gradually add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and milk to this mixture, until smooth.
• Stir in the apple, pour into a tin.
• Combine caster sugar with a tablespoon of melted butter (I used oil as obviously had no butter) and stir in the flaked almonds.
• Sprinkle this over the top of the cake then bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven (180°C).
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Soda Bread...

Continuing the slight takeover, I also did not lend my hand to this bread. This recipe is from Rachel Allen and is quick, simple and tatsy too. We tucked into this with a homemade soup, I think it ws leek & potato.

Ingredients:
450g Plain Flour
1 tsp Caster Sugar
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tsp Salt
350-425ml Buttermilk/Sour Milk (we used Sour cream, thinned with milk)

• Preheat the oven to 230°C.
• Sift the dry ingredients and make a well in the centre.
• Pour in the sour cream and mix together with your fingertips (don't knead) to form a soft dough.
• Turn out onto a surface, pat into a round and mark a deep cross on top.
• Place on a tray and bake for 15 minutes before turning down the heat to 200°C and cooking for a further 30 minutes.
• Cool on a rack.
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Nan Bread...

I didn't make these, but rather my lovely wife did as she embarked upon making bread for the first time. We topped with some toasted mustard and cumin seeds before baking (That's as much as I got involved) to complete the Indian flavour.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp Caster Sugar
200ml Warm Water
7g sachet fast acting Yeast
300g Strong White Flour
200g Plain Flour
1 tsp Salt
125ml Natural Yoghurt
40g Melted Ghee
Various Seeds

• Mix sugar, water and yeast together (leave to stand for 5 minutes if not fast-acting yeast)
• Mix the flour, salt and yeast mixture together in a separate bowl.
• Whisk the yoghurt and ghee together.
• Combine all ingredients together to form a dough.
• Knead for 10 minutes, place in a oiled bowl coating the dough in oil then cover and leave in a warm place for 1-3 hours.
• Place a tray in the oven and preheat for 15 minutes to 230°C.
• Punch down the risen dough, knead for 2 minutes more then leave aside for 15 minutes.
• Divide into 8 balls, shape/stretch into teardrops (leave the other balls covered when not working with them).
• Place on the baking try, dampen the top and sprinkle with seeds.
• Bake for 4-5 minutes. (optional - you can brush with melted ghee when cooked).
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Hazelnut Cake...

This cake is divine. I saw it and wanted it immediately. But... we didn't have enought hazelnuts so had to wait. It's taken directly from Rachel Allen's Bake, with no modification besides the decorating (although i found it more practical to do things in a different order). There's no flour, just ground hazelnuts so the end result is moist, whilst the whipped egg whites keep it light. Sorry this photo is so boring, it doesn't to the cake justice really (see it in a different guise) but believe me* it tastes good.

Ingredients:
• 200g Hazelnuts
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Cinnamon
• 100g Butter
• 5 Eggs, separated
• 175g Caster Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Method:
• Preheat oven to 170°C and line a tin with baking paper.
• Grind the hazelnuts on the food processor until finely ground; blend in the baking powder, cinnamon and butter to a coarse paste.
• In a bowl, whisk the egg whites thoroughly until you have stiff peaks.
• In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until moussey, then add the hazelnut mixture.
• Fold the whites into the hazelnut mix in 3 stages.
• Pour into the tin and bake for 55-60 minutes until the edges are coming away from the pan.
• It is suggested you don't open the oven during cooking until close to the end of the time.
• Cool for approximately 10 minutes in the tin before turning out to cool fully.
• Decorate with a little buttercream icing and chopped hazelnuts.

Notes:
* Don't take my word for it. I made this for a cake competition and came away with 'Best Tasting'.
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Grandma's Fruit Loaf...

This recipe of my Grandma's produces you a lovely moist, yet light fruit loaf with a subtle caramel/malt-y flavour. It's the ultimate fruit loaf. Well, if Grandma makes it that is. If anyone else tries you end up with something acceptable, but the magic isn't quite there. This is my latest attempt and was pretty decent considering I didn't have the 'secret' ingredient in.

The original recipe is for 2 loaves, which is why I accidentally photographed 2 eggs.

• Melt butter, sugar and half a cup of water in a pan over a medium heat.
• Add the fruit and leave to cool.
• Combine flour and nuts with 2 tablespoons of Horlicks (secret ingredient), then fold in the flour and the egg (beaten).
• Bake for about 1 hour at 150-160°C. You may want to cover the top half way so the fruit doesn't burn.

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Easter Pudding...

I spotted this idea in an M&S magazine that was lying around. We didn't make it for Easter, but rather the week after when they were selling Hot Cross Buns off cheaply. It is essentially a bread and butter pudding, with the addition of some chopped apple. At any other time of the year you could make this with fruit buns or fruit loaf of course, there's no reason for it to be Hot Cross Buns.

Ingredients:
• 12 Hot Cross Buns
• 400ml Double Cream/Single Cream/Milk blend (depending on how rich you want it)
• 2 or 3 Eggs
• 50g Demerara Sugar
• 3 small dessert Apples
• Butter

Method:
• Slice and butter the buns, arrange in a greased tray so the tops are showing.
• Chop the apples into cubes and spread liberally amongst the buns.
• Beat the eggs and stir in the milk/cream. Pour over the buns.
• Sprinkle sugar generously over the top.
• Bake for 30 minutes at 170°C until the custard is set.

(Serves 12)

Notes:
• The original recipe added pears, we only had apples in at the time.
• I added some vanilla syrup (the stuff you'd add to coffee) drizzled over then buns. I can't prove this made it tastier, but it seemed a good idea if you have somehting like that around.
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Crumble Topped Fruit Muffins...

I seem to make so many cupcake/muffins at the moment. Well, unfortunately here's another. In my defence I started out intending to make this in tray cake format, then at the last minute decided I'd rather portion it up.

The idea is simple, based upon a classic fruit crumble dessert, but turned into a cake. You can try any tasty fruit you like, just make sure there's plenty of them. Having made these with 4 or 5 blackberries per cake I'd say it could easily handle twice that number, or maybe even some cubed apple too. Chunks of rhubarb would be nice.

I put a nice sprinkling of crumble on top of each cake before baking, which, once the cake mixture had risen around it, turned out to be barely noticeable. Next time I'll thoroughly top it off with crumble.

• Make a basic sponge muffin mixture by creaming butter and sugar, adding eggs and folding in self raising four (150g of each and 3 eggs).
• Spoon this into muffin cases, about two-thirds full.
• Drop several blackberries/fruit chunks on top and press into the batter.
• Make a crumble mix with the plain and wholemeal flour blend, remaining sugar, oats and cinnamon (other spices are good too). Blend in the butter gradually; you need it to just begin coming together and form lumps, but not quite become dough.
• Sprinkle generously on top of muffins.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180°C

(Makes 12)

Notes:
• You might need more butter than the 50g in the ingredients for crumble, I didn't weigh it out so took a guess.
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Peaches & Cream Cupcakes...

These are taken from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. They're quite a moist cake, with sweet mouthfulls of peach.

Ingredients:
120g Plain Flour
140g Caster Sugar
1 tsp Baking Powder
40g Butter
120ml Milk
1 Egg
Vanilla Extract
400g Peach slices

• Beat the flour, sugar, baking powder and butter together in a mixer until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
• Beat the egg and milk together with a little vanilla essence, then pour in gradually, mixing until smooth.
• Fill paper cases two-thirds full and top with a couple of peach slices in each.
• Bake in a preheated oven (170°C) for 20 minutes.
• Cool and decorate with buttercream icing, sprinkled with a little brown sugar.

Notes:
• Icing: 250g Icing Sugar, 80g Butter, 25ml Milk, vanilla essence
• Makes 12


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Banana, Honey & Oat Muffins...

I think this was defintiely one of those 'inspired' cooking moments. We had the obligatory blackening bananas hanging around waiting to be 'caked', but I didn't fancy the usual go-to banana cake this time. So, I thought muffins would be a good idea. Somehow I came up with oats and honey; the result was a moist, yet light, incredibly tasty muffin with a hint of coarse oaty texture. Perfect any time of day.

Ingredients:
5oz Butter
4oz Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Bananas
2 tsp Honey
7oz Flour
Handful of Oats

• Cream butter and sugar in a food processor.
• Mash the banana, honey and eggs together in a bowl to make your wet mixture.
• Add to the food processor.
• Quickly combine the oats and flour to the mixture.
• Place into muffin cases, sprinkle a few extra oats on top and bake for 20-25 mins until golden brown and spongy to touch.
• Turn out onto a cooling rack and whilst cooling drizzle a little warmed honey (10 seconds in microwave) on top of each muffin.

(Makes 12)
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Flapjacks...

Butter. Sugar. Oats. Syrup. So simple, yet so good. Flapjacks have always been quite legendary in my family. We tend to know this as ‘Dad’s Flapjacks’ recipe, though I’m not entirely sure why. It could be because Dad likes them just like this or maybe it’s his recipe. Best if it remains a mystery.

• Melt butter, sugar and syrup in a large saucepan over a low heat.
• Stir in the oats thoroughly.
• Press into a large tin lined with baking paper.
• Bake for 10-15 minutes at 160°C.
• Cool in the tin, before turning out and cutting into slices.

Notes:
• All sorts can be added to the mixture as you wish. Particularly good is Cornflakes.

• If I use cheap (value) oats I up the quantity to 14oz.

• Do not overcook or they will be dry and hard. Stop cooking as soon as the edges are golden brown, the centre will firm up once it is taken out of the oven.
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Lemon Sponge Fingers...

I've been featuring a lot of cakes recently, so hopefully you have a sweet tooth. These don't need a lot saying about them, it's just a simple lemon cake cut into small pieces.

• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs, gradually with a little flour if necessary
• Fold in the flour and 1 lemon's juice.
• Pour into a 20 x 20cm tin and bake at 170°C for 25 minutes.
• Turn out and cool on a rack.
• Meanwhile, mix your icing with the other lemon's juice and the icing sugar to a consistency that will spread easily, but not run off the cake.
• Ice the cooled cake and sprinkle the top with zest from your lemons.
• Cut into 'finger' slices.
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Bakewell Slices...

A classic cake slice, so much nicer when you make it yourself with the hint of real almonds, rather than the fake strong almond essence flavouring.


Pastry base:
(Requires 150g flour and 75g butter)
• Blend the butter and flour to the breadcrumb stage, then bind with a little cold water, milk or beaten egg, whichever you prefer. You can sweeten the pastry a little with some icing sugar if you like but it's not necessary.
• To keep things simple I pressed this dough mixture into 2 greased 20cm sandwich tins to approx 3mm thickness. You can of course roll it out and line the tin that way for slightly better results!
• Spread jam over the pastry and bake at 170°C for 5-10 minutes until it is beginning to harden slightly.
• Remove from the oven and cool in the tins.

Cake:
• Beat butter and sugar until creamed and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs and fold in the flour and ground almonds.
• Pour/spread over the jam tarts to no more than 1cm deep.
• Sprinkle flaked almonds over the top then bake at 170°C for 20-30 minutes until golden on top.
• Cool in the tins slightly then remove and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
• Mix the icing sugar with a little water until the consistency is just runny enough to drizzle over the tarts.

Notes:
• Makes 2 x 20cm tarts, 8-10 slices per tart. Could use a 22cm square tin or individual tarts.
• Raspberry or blackcurrant jam is best
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Black Bottom Cupcakes...

We received the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook for Christmas, and so with a friend's birthday on 1st January it seemed the ideal occasion to try something out. I chose these Black Bottom Cupcakes. The idea is simple, chocolate cake topped with a blob of cheesecake. They look tasty and are tasty... although I think I will make some modifications next time to make them even tastier!

Cake:
190g Plain Flour
120g Caster Sugar
2 tbsp Cocoa
½ tsp Bicarbonate of soda
40ml Sunflower Oil
125ml Water
½ tsp Vanilla Extract
(the recipe also lists 1½ tsp White vinegar, but I can't remember using that so am guessing I didn't!)

Cheesecake:
250g Cream cheese
60g Caster Sugar
1 Egg
½tsp Vanilla Extract
100g Milk Chocolate Chips

Icing:
250g Icing Sugar
80g Butter
25ml Milk
Drop of Vanilla Extract

• Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa and bicarb together, then add the oil, vinegar, vanilla and water.
• Spoon the mixture into muffin cases to about 2/3 full.
• To make the cheesecake bit, beat all the ingredients except the chocolate in a bowl with an electric whisk on a medium speed until light and fluffy (roughly the consistency of loose whipped cream). Stir in the chocolate chips gently.
• Spoon on top of the cake mixture and bake in a preheated oven (170°C) for about 20 minutes (until the cheesecake topping is slightly golden at the edges.
• Whilst the cakes cool, beat the icing ingredients together until pale and fluffy.
• Decorate the cakes and dust with cocoa or chocolate shavings.

•Notes:
• Officially this mixture makes 12. For me the cake mix made 9 and the cheescake about 18, so next time I shoudl probably have a bit less cake and a bit more cheesecake per muffin and it'll be about 12!
• Also, the recipe calls for 140g cream cheese, I couldn't get this to thicken up without the extra 100g.
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Mince Pies (from scratch)...

Mince Pies are Christmas essentials. There's loads of choice out there in the shops; deep fill, luxury, shortcrust, puff, lattice, big, small... However, they just aren't ever quite the same as ones you make yourself. This year I felt inspired to give homemade mincemeat a go, and turned to Delia for a recipe.

I was pleasanty surprised how simple it is, and so tasty too! Everyone should give it a go, you'll never look back.

Mincemeat: I followed Delia's recipe, except using pre-ground nutmeg as I couldn't get hold of fresh. Can't see this being a problem.
I've got some thoughts for variation below though.
This recipe makes LOADS of mince pies, so you'll have them coming out of your ears.

Pastry:
200g Plain Flour
100g Butter
1 Egg
2tbsp Icing Sugar

• Blend (by hand or mixer) the flour, icing sugar and butter to the breadcrumb stage.
• Add the egg to bind it together.
• Chill for an hour or so then roll out, cut into rounds and line a tart tin.
• Fill with a small teaspoon of mincemeat and top with smaller circles or christmassy shapes.
• Bake in a preheated oven (180°C) for 15-20 mins until golden brown.
• Cool on a rack and dust with icing sugar.
(makes at least 20)

Notes:
Potential variation ideas for the mincemeat...
• Add cranberries, should sharpen it up a bit.
• Add chopped dried apricot and use Amaretto liquer instead of brandy.
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Courgette & Lime Cake...

This is a bit different. It's moist like a carrot cake (due to the courgette) and has a lovely tangy lime icing.

• Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 20x20 square tin.
• Soak the sultanas in a little water and grate the courgette.
• Beat the eggs, oil and sugar until frothy.
• Sieve in the flour and bicarbonate of soda, stir to combine.
• Stir in courgette and drained sultanas.
• Pour into the tin and bake for around half an hour.

Icing:
• Beat the butter until soft.
• Gradually beat in the icing sugar occasionally ading some of the lime juice to keep loose.
• Add lime juice to taste.
• Spread on cooled cake and sprinkle with grated lime zest.

Notes:
• Sultanas optional.
• Adapted from
this recipe
• Makes at least 12 slices.
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Chocolate & Chilli Fudgey Cake...

A colleague of mine brought this cake in to work a few weeks back. A few of our more conservative colleagues were not convinced, but I loved it and had a good few portions.
Naturally, I wanted to recreate it so got the recipe from her.

Ingredients:
300g Caster Sugar/Light Brown Sugar
250g Butter
3 Eggs
100g Plain Flour
100g Self-raising Flour
500g Dark Chocolate
1 or 2 medium-sized Chillies
200ml Double Cream

• Preheat oven to 150°C and line a 20cm cake tin.
• Beat the butter and sugar together until creamed.
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
• Melt 300g of chocolate, cool slightly and add to the mixture.
• Stir in the flour and finely chopped chilli.
• Bake for around 1¼ hours, leave to cool for 10 minutes in the tin.

Icing:
• Melt the remaining chocolate and mix into the cream. Cool slightly to thicken.
• When the cake is fully cooled, spread the icing on top.

Notes:
• It’s hard to define how much chilli to put in. Chocolate masks chilli quite well, so I added finely chopped chilli to the mixture until I could taste it. The resulting cake has only a hint and a very slight tingle on the tongue. It also takes away the sweetness of the chocolate leaving just the rich flavour.
• Adapted from
this recipe
• Makes at least 12 slices.
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Pavlova...

Great summery dish, with a bit of a ‘wow’ factor too. It’s something of a family favourite, with my mum’s having a very good reputation! I can remember more than a few rows over who’d had the biggest piece or got to finish the extra slice…
That said, I’ve never quite succeeded in replicating the mallow fluffiness of my mum’s, but the results are still pretty good and taste amazing.

• Preheat oven to 150°C and line a large baking sheet

Meringue
• Whisk the egg whites until they are really stiff, then whisk in half the sugar until shiny and stiff
• Fold in the remaining sugar with cornflour, a teaspoon of lemon juice and few drops of vanilla essence
• Spread thickly onto the baking sheet and place in oven for 1¼-1½hours
• Allow to cool for a good hour before topping

Topping
• Whip the cream and fold in a couple of table spoons of crème fraiche.
• Spread over the meringue and top with fruit.

Notes:
• Serves 8-10.
• To whip egg white successfully, you need a totally clean bowl with no drops of water in it and no egg yolk contaminating the whites.
• The addition of crème fraiche tones down the richness of the cream, but it’s optional.
• All summer fruits are excellent additions. You’ll notice I added some kiwi in the final picture.
• As a variation to the usual theme, I've been wondering about trying a kind of banoffee pie/pavlova blend, topping the pavlova with bananas, toffee sauce, crushed biscuit and flaked chocolate. Will let you know if I do.
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