Jammy coconut mallows

It's no secret that I love baking and one of my favourite parts of baking is taking something old fashioned and easily bought in any shop and recreating it at home. For example I am always baking biscuits and lets be honest, unlike cakes and puddings, it is very easy to buy in good quality biscuits very cheaply, especially here in Britain, we love our biscuits here.
Custard creams, digestives and shortbread are firm family favourites and you can buy them in any corner shop but nothing compares to the real deal.

Flicking through this months Good food magazine I came across these mallow biscuits, a reworking on a old fashioned favourite. The original versions were a square shortbread biscuit covered in two rows of coconut dusted mini mallows with a row of raspberry jam running down the centre.
This recipe makes coconut biscuits sandwich together with jam and melted marshmallows, the biscuits are then rolled in jam and coconut, a new twist on a old favourite....a taste of my childhood.

Jammy coconut mallows

For the biscuits:
250g butter, softened
140g golden caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
300g plain flour
100g desiccated coconut
For the middles and coating:
about 175g raspberry jam
18 large pink and white marshmallows, cut in half across the middle
25g desiccated coconut

Heat oven to 190c/ gas 5.
Beat butter, sugar, egg and vanilla together with a pinch of salt until smooth. Fold in the flour and coconut to form a dough.

On a floured surface, shape the dough into a round, then roll to the thickness of a £1 coin. Cut into rounds using a 6cm cutter. Lift onto baking sheets, then bake for 14 minutes until light golden. Cool for a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

To sandwich the biscuits, lay half out on a baking sheet, under-side up. Put half a teaspoon of jam on each one, and top with a piece of marshmallow, then bake for 2 1/2 minutes or until just melted. Remove from oven, then quickly top with the other biscuits, pressing down so that the marshmallow sticks them together and just oozes out.
Cool for 10 minutes. Put the coconut and remaining jam onto plates, dip the edges in the jam, them roll in the coconut.

These really took me back and boy, were they popular, more so with the adults than the children. These biscuits will be a regular in my biscuit tin

Raisin and cinnamon milk loaf

I came to bake this bread by chance really, I set out to make the Cornish saffron bread from Rachel Allen's Bake.
This recipe intrigued me as it uses warm milk infused with saffron to give a lovely colour to the loaf. The only problem was that on eating this loaf I discovered that I have a intolerance (I don't like to use the term allergy here) to saffron.
Weeks ago I developed a ever so slight rash on my face (after eating paella) it faded quickly and I thought nothing of it, until now. As soon as the loaf was cooked and had cooled enough to eat I took a slice, withing minutes the same rash again developed on my face. Trying to convince myself that I do not have a saffron intolerance I later ate another slice, as you do, and the rash worsened. It covered my whole face, so saffron is now off the menu at my house.
However, apart from giving me a nasty rash we all thought the bread was very good, it had a different texture to regular bread, I put this down to the milk and my daughter commented that the crust was delicious, she hates homemade bread crusts. My only gripe with the recipe was it needed a extra something....cinnamon.
So, the following day I made the loaf again, I omitted the saffron, and instead infused the milk with a cinnamon stick, and added ground cinnamon to the flour. I also used a smaller tin than the one Rachel recommends. The loaf was perfect.


Raisin and cinnamon milk loaf

350g strong white flour, sifted
1 tsp ground cinnamon
50g caster sugar
100g butter, softened
75g raisins
1/2 cinnamon stick
200ml cold milk
1 x 7g sachet of fast acting yeast

1 lb loaf tin.



Grease and line the loaf tin.
Place flour, cinnamon and sugar in a bowl, mix well. Rub in the butter, until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the rasins.
In a small saucepan, bring the cinnamon stick and milk to the boil over a low heat. Remove from the heat, cool to body temperature, remove the cinnamon stick, then add the fast acting yeast.
Pour liquid into the dry ingredients, mix well then knead for 10 minutes.
Place in a large bowl, cover, and leave to rise until it had doubled in size.
Knock back the dough, knead again and place in the prepared tin. Cover again and leave to rise for another hour.
Preheat oven to 180c/ gas mark 4, when the dough has doubled in size bake it in the oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour.


I must admit I did prefer the second version of this bread and will make it again. I love the idea of using warm milk in the dough, the dough was fabulous to knead, in fact to look at, it reminded me of choux pastry, it had a lovely feel. The cooked bread had the texture, almost, of brioche, so, so light and fluffy. A perfect fruity loaf.

Half term baking - Valentine's cookies

It's half term here and with the weather looking decidedly bleak the obvious way to kill a few hours is with some home baking, Valentine's day is a obvious theme right now. Cut out cookies it was to be but the 'problem' with cut out cookies and children is that children love to 'play' with their piece of dough. It gets rolled, shaped, crumpled up, re-rolled, re-shaped and so on after a while it becomes tough and inedible - for the children - personally I don't eat the re-rolled creations, I simple admire the work of my little angels.
In my quest to find a good workable, child friendly dough I tried a much recommended one from Martha Stewart, her sugar cookies. This dough was great, I found it a little wet to start with and added a extra 3/4 cup of flour but apart from that it was a dream to work with. We started off with heart shaped cookies, moving onto champagne flutes - quite fitting for Valentine's day, before long my son was cutting out palm trees and flamingos - wishful thinking for a drab and dreary February.


Sugar cookies
from The Martha Stewart cookbook
Makes approx. 2 dozen cookies

2 cups of all purpose flour (I needed a extra 3/4 cup)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 pound butter, softened
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp brandy - I swapped for milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Sift together the dry ingredients. In a electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light; add the egg, brandy and vanilla and beat well. Add the dry ingredients a little at a time and mix until well blended
Wrap and chill the dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling.
Preheat the oven to 400f. On a lightly floured board, roll out one third of the dough at a time. Roll to about 1/8inch thick and cut out with cookie cutters. Put shaped on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Do not allow to burn. Cool on racks.

Decorate as your children choose to do so.

This dough was incredible, very robust but still came out of the oven light and crisp, they went down a storm, a great recipe.

As promised here is a little taster of some of the goodies we ate over the holidays, I decided not to show the pile of selection boxes, Quality street and Toblerone's we scoffed, baked goodies only, it was only as I uploaded the pics I noticed they were all recipes from Nigella's books, all very good and I recommend you try them all.
I apologise for the dodgy photography, not my strong point at the best of times but I think these pictures are proof that I hit the Eggnog a bit heavily.


Seasonally spiced nuts, from Nigella Christmas....fabulous!




Star topped mince pies from HTBADG, I made Delia's mincemeat, it is wonderful.

Chocolate Christmas cake from Feast/ Nigella Christmas. As a Christmas cake lover I was wary of this cake, I needn't have been, it is delicious, although I couldn't taste the chocolate in it...and I'd added extra.

Chilli jam from Nigella Christmas....Like a thick set sweet chilli dipping sauce, wonderful! I am adding it to allsorts. Fantastic addition to any sandwich, I will up the chilli ratio next time though, I like to have a small fire in my mouth, this needs more fire.

Christmas pudding bonbons....what a carry on, lol. Thanks to 'Rhyley's granny' for supplying me with the elusive green glace cherries, I cheated and instead of making pudding bonbons I made dark chocolate truffle versions of them. Kitsch, yes, a pain in the backside to decorate...Oh YES!

Christmas cupcakes from Nigella Christmas. My son baked these when he was home sick, child's play to make and eat.

Marshmallow squares from Nigella Express. I made these twice in one weekend, we all couldn't get enough of them, they looked so pretty covered in glitter that hasn't shown up in pics but believe me they were cool.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon, I can't wait to get back to blogging and back to normal.

Sparkly gingerbread

I came to gingerbread quite late in life, gingersnaps, yes, fresh ginger, yes, gingerbread, no, not for me. That changed earlier this year when once again I was baking a cake I didn't like (i.e gingerbread), so I wouldn't eat it. I know, I know, I need to stop doing that as I always give in and find, yes, actually I do like that particular cake.

Anyway, in January I made Nigella's stem ginger gingerbread from How to Eat and I was converted, it is a wonderful cake and I will blog it one day, I just try not to bake it as I know I will eat it (I know, I know). Since then I have tried many gingerbread recipes but I always go back to Nigella's recipes.


These gingerbread muffins are Nigella's Christmas morning muffins, mine too now, but I make them often, not just for Christmas, as they are always welcomed by my family. This recipe is very easy and very, very tasty. Looking in Feast this week I noticed that Nigella suggests rubbing some edible gold leaf on these muffins as soon as they come out of the oven, and when my gold disco glitter arrived this week I knew it would be perfect on top of these muffins.


I am a magpie for anything sparkly, glittery or shiny, I love it and at Christmas I have a excuse to have glitter everywhere...even on my food.


Gingerbread muffins, from Feast

250g plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 egg

50g dark muscovado sugar

50g light muscovado sugar

150ml full fat milk

1/4 ts balsamic vinegar

6 tablespoons vegetable or corn oil

4 tablespoon golden syrup

4 tablespoon black treacle

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/ 200c. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin papers. Combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and spices in a large bowl. Whisk the egg in a large measuring jug then add the sugars, breaking up any lumps. Add the milk and vinegar then measure in the oil with a tablespoon. Use the same oily spoon to add the syrup and treacle so they don't stick to it. Whisk the mixture to combine and add to the flour and spices.

Stir until mixed but still fairly lumpy - the mixture may be more runny than you expect for muffins - but you need the dense stickiness of gingerbread, rather than a cakey crumb.

Spoon or pour the mixture into the muffin papers and bake for about 20minutes until the tops are dry; the muffins will still feel squidgy when you take them out of the tins to cool on a rack.

Sprinkle lightly with gold glitter.

These fabulous muffins keep very well, unlike regular muffins, in fact like most gingerbread they get better the longer you keep them. I am rather surprised the glitter shows up in the photo, although it looks like a rather subtle dusting of it I actually drenched them with it.

Daring bakers

Caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting

(and optional caramels)








This months challenge was co-hosted by Dolores from Culinary curiosity, Alex from Blondie and brownie and Jenny from Foray into food.

The recipe this month was caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting, this recipe comes from Shuna Fish Lydon from Eggbeater.

This recipe involved making a caramel syrup, cake and frosting and to be honest I felt it was sugar overload but I went with it. The Caramel syrup freaked me out a little, it involved making a syrup with sugar and water and when the syrup was ready adding cold water to it, I was surprised actually that the syrup was a success, I imagined it seizing and setting in a big candy ball.

It looked like maple syrup and was tooth achingly sweet.

I decided to make cupcakes instead of a individual cake. The cake was a doddle to make, pretty much a regular cake recipe but with some of the caramel syrup added to the mix. The uncooked batter tasted divine.

The cooked cake was more like a sweet bread than a cake, very dense, but delicious.

When the cupcakes were cooked and cooled I prepared my frosting. I've done a caramelized butter frosting before and loved it. First you need to cook your butter until it is brown, pour it through a sieve and leave to cool. The cooled butter is then used to make a butter icing with icing sugar and the caramel syrup, a little salt is added and believe me this icing is so sweet you need that salt.

It was a dream to work with and made a pretty cupcake but anymore than one of these and I'd be in trouble with my dentist.

Optional caramels:

Golden vanilla bean caramels recipe from Alice Medrichs.

This was a optional extra and I wasn't going to do it, I've made caramels very successfully before and I can't leave them alone, for the sake of my waist I was going to leave this recipe out. Then I had a brainwave and although it is this worse for my waist I still gave it a go.

Caramel hokey pokey ice cream, yum.

I followed the recipe provided, but I didn't take it so far so that it would set into caramel, I made the syrup and let it cool, basically I made caramel sauce. It was delicious, I ate a lot of it straight from the pan, so creamy and, well, caramell-y, lol.

Usually when doing something like this I would make my own ice cream, today I cheated and did something Dorie Greenspan suggests in her book, dressing up shop bought ice cream. I bought some very good quality vanilla ice cream and let it go softish, I mixed some crushed cinder toffee through and swirled with the caramel. The caramel went to toffee as it froze but melts again as the ice cream comes out of the freezer.

Very quick, such a cheat but so, so delicious. Any ice cream lover has to try this, I have hidden it in the depths of the deep freeze for Christmas.

The original recipes can be found on the hosts blogs. Thanks to this months hosts Dolores, Alex and Jenny, don't forget to check out their blogs and the other Daring bakers blogs on the blog roll.

Finnish rye bread

It seems I spend a awful lot of time baking bread these days, who can blame me, it is so therapeutic, but I mainly keep it up as I prefer to know what is in my food rather than buying ready sliced shop bread full of preservatives to ensure a long shelf life. I usually have three or four different loafs sliced and well wrapped in the freezer ready to use at any time.

I eventually stumbled across rye flour which it seems is scarily hard to find around here....well it was, funnily enough as soon as I tracked it down in a health food store I noticed that Asda had stocked it all along.

I prefer to make healthier loafs using wholemeal flours and adding seeds or grains, every little helps after all. As soon as I spotted the rye flour I knew what I was going to bake, Finnish rye bread from Nigella's How to be a domestic goddess. Nigella describes this bread as dense, dark and aromatic in a extraordinarily comforting way, she isn't wrong. I couldn't stop myself from eating this rustic bread, it is wonderful, I served it along side ham and pea soup, it is perfect for mopping up soup.

Finnish rye bread from How to be a domestic goddess.

225g rye flour

300g strong white flour

7g easy-blend yeast or 15g fresh yeast

1 tbsp dark muscovado sugar

2 tsp salt

300ml warm water

45g unsalted butter, melted

1 baking sheet.

Put the flours, yeast, sugar and salt into a large bowl and slowly add the water, mixing with your hands or a wooden spoon, until you've got a messy but vaguely cohesive lump of dough. Add a tablespoon of the melted butter and mix just to incorporate it. Start kneading, either by hand or with a dough hook, until the dough comes together smoothly to form a dense ball, adding more water or flour as necessary.

Use some more of the melted butter to grease a bowl and turn the dough ball in it so that the top is oily (and won't therefore dry out), then cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave to rise in a warm place for a hour or so.

When the dough's doubled in size, punch it down. Give a good few kneads, and then form into a round loaf. Sit the loaf on the baking sheet, cover it with a tea towel and leave to get puffy for about 30 minutes, during which time preheat the oven to 190c/ gas mark 5. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until the loaf is cooked through.

Brush with the remaining tablespoon of melted butter and leave on a wire rack to cool.

I forgot to brush the remaining butter over the top of the cooked loaf, I found the melted butter on top of the microwave a hour after I had cut into the bread. I don't think it suffered for it. This bread kept very well, it made great toast the next day.

I used leftover bread we had to make croutons. I cut the bread into cubes, drizzled with olive oil

and salt and pepper and baked for 10 minutes,they were the best croutons ever.

Date and walnut flapjacks

I am always looking out for ways to boost my fibre intake and like most people would like the fibre filled food to taste good. As far as a snacks go "healthy" doesn't always equal tasty. Everyone knows that flapjacks, full of oats, are better than a bar of chocolate for a quick sweet fix but I still find most flapjacks just too sweet, most are made with sugar and added golden syrup, soon your healthy snack is turning into another fat filled treat.
Looking for healthier flapjack recipes I came across lots using dried dates, I was intrigued as in baking dates can give a lovely fudgy, softness such as in sticky toffee pudding.
The original couple of recipes I looked at didn't do it for me mainly because of unusual measuring method i.e teacups (?) and 'half tubs' of stuff....so I combined a everyday flapjack recipe with a inspired date and walnut flavouring. It worked.

Date and walnut flapjacks

125g butter
1 tbsp runny honey
100g dried dates, soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes, drained well and chopped
50g broken walnuts
50g caster sugar
a handful of raisins (optional)
125g oats

Heat oven to 180c, grease a 8in square baking tin.
Put honey, butter, dates and walnuts into a pan, heat until the butter melts. The dates will turn fudgy and almost melt into the butter.
Stir in the caster sugar and raisins if using.
Stir in oats and mix well.
Bake for 20minutes, cut into bars as soon as you take them from the oven but don't try to remove them from the tray until cooled.


I have to say I adored these flapjacks and will bake them for myself again and again, my daughter, flapjack queen, wasn't impressed so we'll stick to usual flapjacks for her.
The dates did give a lovely fudgy, toffee flavour to the flapjacks and were complimented beautifully by the walnuts. They weren't however chewy flapjacks I suppose that is down to the lack of refined sugar, so they had a more cakey texture, either way they were delicious.
Although dried fruit itself is quite high in sugar I feel better about eating these flapjacks than a everyday one, plus the dates go toward your 5-a-day.....well, you might have to eat a few flapjacks to reach that but I'm willing.

Teacakes

Fruited teacakes, not the marshmallow-y Tunnocks variety, always remind me of home. My Grandma always had teacakes in the house, and she was very pernickety about them, they had to be bought from the post office at the end of her street and they had to be that mornings batch, she didn't want them to have sat around. We would slice them open, toast them on the open fire, smear them with butter (always salted in my Granny's house) then we would 'write' our names on then by drizzling golden syrup off the end of a spoon over the hot, toasted teacake.

It took longer to toast and drizzle them than it took to eat them but it was fun, and they never tasted the same in anyone elses house.

I must admit I'd forgotten all about teacakes, instead I settle for a bought cinnamon and raisin loaf from the supermarket...oh the shame...in fact it is really delicious and my kids instead on a slice of it, toasted before bed.

Then we ran out of raisin bread.......tears before bedtime indeed.

After the kids went to bed I thought about replicating their favourite fruit loaf and that's when I remembered teacakes. I knew my kids would love them.

I found this recipe on my bookshelf, I should really look through books after I buy them. It comes from the 'Big book of bread' by Anne Sheasby, mentioned on the Focaccia thread. I tweaked it slightly by adding some much needed spice.

Fruited teacakes:

450g strong, plain white bread flour

1 tsp salt

25g butter, diced

1 1/2 tsp easy blend yeast

25g caster sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp mixed spice

115g currants/ raisins

about 250ml warm milk, plus extra for glazing.

Grease 2 baking sheets and set aside. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl,then lightly run in the butter. Stir in the yeast, sugar, spices and dried fruit.

Make a well in the centre, then stir in enough milk, mixing to form a soft dough.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Shape into a round, then place in a oiled bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Knock back the dough on a floured surface, then divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll and shape each piece into a round teacake and prick each one twice on top with a fork. Place on the baking sheets, cover and leave to rise for about 30 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 200c/ gas mark 6. Brush the teacakes with a little milk, then bake for 20-25 minutes, or until risen and golden brown. The teacakes will have a lovely soft top.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To serve, split each teacake in half, toast lightly on a roaring open fire (a grill would suffice though) spread generously with butter and write you name on the top with golden syrup.

Chocolate chestnut muffins

Chocolate chestnut muffins.

I was in the mood for something sweet after dinner tonight, but not sickly sweet, definitely chocolate but dark and sophisticated. I came up with these 'grown-up' muffins, grown up as in more for adults than regular muffins that easily please masses of children. I am the first to admit that I love everyday chocolate muffins but for a little luxury this recipe really hits the spot.

I combined two cake making method to make these muffins, the usual muffins method of wet ingrediants into dry, and the chocolate brownie 'melting' method. I melted very dark, good quality chocolate into butter and stirred in sweet chestnut puree, after cooling slightly I stirred in beaten eggs and a little sugar, then folded in flour and very good quality cocoa, to give the muffins a little depth of colour. As a extra special treat I poured in a glug of Tia Maria, I recently fell in love with Tia Maria and am now finding uses for it all over the shop.



Chocolate chestnut muffins:

100g best quality dark chocolate

100g butter

250g tin of vanilla sweetened chestnut puree

2 eggs, beaten

75g caster sugar

125g self raising flour

25g good quality cocoa

a glug of Tia Maria

Preheat the oven to 180c.

In a large heavy bottomed pan melt together the chocolate and butter, remove from the heat and stir in chestnut puree.

Cool slightly and stir in eggs and caster sugar.

Sift together the flour and cocoa and fold into the chocolate chestnut mixture, spoon into muffin cases and bake for 20 minutes.

Now, I did say that this recipe was intended for grown-ups, however my two children loved these and polished off two each before I hid the remaining muffins. They are very light, but a little goes a long way, they are very intensively chocolatey. I do think they would be very good as 'pudding' with coffee, or Tia Maria, after dinner with friends. The first thing that hits you is the chocolate, they are extremely chocolatey, and you can really taste it, I can't stand chocolate muffins that are just brown cakes with no hint of chocolate to the flavour.

Then the chestnut hits you, chocolate and chestnut, a great combination.

The liquor really gives a adult kick, it doesn't alter the flavour of the cakes, just adds a little depth to it.

Do give this recipe a try, and don't be put off by using chestnuts before Christmas, this is how I came to use the chestnut puree tonight, it had been sitting around in my cupboard since last Christmas as it didn't feel 'right' to use it any other time.

I recently heard of baby born born in the height if summer, who had been named Holly.

"you can't call a summer baby Holly" I declared, and so had a number of other people, as babies Grandad was very determined when he said, "It's not just a Christmas name!" So on that reasoning I decided if Holly wasn't just for Christmas then neither are chestnuts. Although these would be very good to leave out for Santa.....

Stem ginger fruit cake

This is another of those cakes that I lovingly make for others when I don't want to eat cake, I'm not one of those people who can make cake and leave it alone. So rather than gave up baking for a while I simply bake cakes that I don't like. It's logical really.


I am not that keen on fruited cakes, although they are growing on me rather rapidly. However fruit cakes are very popular with my loved ones, this cake is sort of made up on the spot, I started off looking at my regular fruit cake recipe (Bara birth), bored I decided to tweak it, I threw in a bag of mixed red berries (cranberries, cherries etc...) a dredge of cinnamon, mixed spice and nutmeg then the stem ginger hanging round the back of the cupboard caught my eye, I chucked in a couple of stems (grated) and a spoonful of the syrup from the jar.


The recipe (as I remember it) is


Stem ginger fruit cake:
300g s/r flour
300g dried fruit (I used raisins, currants and a berry mix)
2-3 stumps of stem ginger, grated.
100g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
grating of nutmeg
pinch of salt
1 egg, beaten
100ml milk
2 tbsp stem ginger syrup.


Preheat oven to 180c/ gas mark 4. Grease and line a 8in loaf tin.
Mix the dried fruit, stem ginger, sugar, spices and salt in a bowl.
Beat in the egg.
Gently heat the milk, stir in ginger syrup. Pour into cake mixture and stir well.
Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 1-1/4 --- 1-1/2 hours.
Cool, slice and spread thickly with the best butter you can find.




The aroma coming from the oven when this cake was baking was delicious, and reminded me of my Granny's house, ginger, cinnamon, mixed spices, perfect scent for autumn.


Maybe I got carried away with the cake, as for someone who didn't want to like it, I found it a little too delicious. It was moister than a lot of fruit cakes, probably because of the syrup, but as there was no fat in the cake it was hugely complimented by a thick smearing of butter.

Cloud cakes

These little cakes are a firm favourite with my children, they are Nigella's Love buns from Feast, in which Nigella suggests these Mr Whippy-esque cakes as part of a romantic valentine's day meal.

The first time I made them my daughter renamed them Cloud cakes, as the soft gooey meringue topping looks like clouds. The name has since stuck and they will always be cloud cakes in my house.



The recipe is very straight forward, basic cupcakes topped in the most dreamy cloud like topping, a soft meringue cooked on a double boiler. A word of warning though, these cakes don't like heat, they wilt very quickly in the heat of my kitchen, note the landslip starting in the pictures, so I store them in the fridge, yes the cake does suffer a little for it but I prefer the topping straight from the fridge, the texture changes slightly once it's been chilled going a little more marshmallowy, in fact just like a Tunnocks teacake. Heaven!










Love buns (more aptly named Cloud cakes) from Feast.


For the buns:
125g soft butter
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
125g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 tbsp milk

for the topping:
2 egg whites
4 tbsp golden syrup
100g caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1tsp vanilla extract
(heart shaped sprinkles to decorate - if using on Valentines day.)

Take everything you need out of the fridge in time to bring it to room temperature - this makes a huge difference to the lightness of the buns later - and preheat the oven to gas mark 6/ 200c.
Put all of the ingrediants for the buns, except for the milk, into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Pulse while adding the milk down the funnel, to make a smooth dropping consistency.
Divide the mixture into a 12-bun muffin tin lined with papers or heart patterned cases, and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. They should have risen and be golden on top; you want a little peak if possible.
Let them cool in their tin on a rack, and then take them carefully out of the tin to cool in their papers, still on the wire rack.

Topping:
This is a topping that has a kind of meringue base, by which you whisk egg whites over heat until they are stiff and gleaming. Think Mr Whippy. So make a double boiler with a bowl that will fit snugly over a saucepan of barely simmering water, and put all the ingredients for the icing, except for the vanilla and sprinkles, into the bowl. Whisk everything with a electric beater until the icing becomes thick and holds peaks like a meringue. This will take about 5 minutes, so be patient.
Take the bowl off the saucepan and onto a cool surface and keep whisking while you add the vanilla. Then keep whisking until the mixture cools a little. You want a proper peaked and whipped covering here, so spoon some icing over each bun, and then dollop another spoonful over in a swirly fashion. Cover with sprinkles if using.

Do try this recipe, it would be perfect as Nigella suggests for a Valentine's dessert but even better for kids to get in a mess with, just keep some baby wipes handy as the topping gets everywhere, around mouths, in hair, oh the joy of having children.

The best chocolate chunk cookies

These are my favourite cookies, crisp on the outside, soft, chewy and melting in the middle, I love them.

The recipe comes from Phil Vickery's 'A passion for puddings' this is a great book done in conjunction with Carnation milk to raise money for the charity 'Shelter'. Every recipe in the book contains Carnation condensed milk but the variety of recipes is great.

The recipe found here http://www.nestle.co.uk/OurBrands/Recipes/OldFavourites/HazelnutandChocolateCookie.htm

is the recipe Phil used for his petits fours in a hotel, they are so good, I have passed this recipe on many times and it always gets rave reviews.

I ommitted the hazelnuts and used belgium and white chocolate, the uncooked cookie dough keeps very well, infact it gets better if kept in the fridge for a few days. I must admit my version never looks like Phil's, his always look crisp, like biscuits, mine have never turned out like that but I still love them. They are especially good slightly underdone.

Chocolate orange cake

I rarely bake for myself, meaning for my own benefit. I bake for my loved ones, what they like to eat. I bake for other people, most people that come to my house end up eating cake and I like that, it is homely, welcoming and comforting.

It was a bit of treat to bake something just for me, to be truthful the reason I decided to do this was, after a disagreement with my OH I decided to annoy him and please myself by baking a favourite of mine, that he just happens to hate, chocolate orange cake. Revenge is sweet, even more so when it's sugar sweet.

I find it so strange that anyone can not like the combination of chocolate and orange, the flavours merge together brilliantly but my OH can't stand the two together.

Baking is my ME time, I love nothing more than pottering around the kitchen rustling up delicious goodies, but it was more pleasurable when the sole purpose of this was for my own pleasure.

Looking through my books I found only a couple recipes for chocolate orange cake, both from Nigella but neither did it for me, one was a store cupboard cake using a jar of marmalade and the other was based on Nigella's famous clementine cake, I didn't like the clementine cake last time and to be honest the idea of boiling oranges for hours on end didn't interest me. So I went it alone, I decided on a plain loaf cake, the best, darkest cocoa I could find and for the orange I used freshly squeezed orange juice and orange zest.

Chocolate orange cake

250g self raising flour

225g butter

175g caster sugar

50g good quality cocoa

3 large eggs, beaten

juice and zest of 3 large oranges

juice of 1 lime

Preheat the oven to 180c

Line a 2lb loaf tin.

In a mixer combine the flour, butter, sugar, cocoa and eggs.

Stir in the freshly grated orange zest.

Pour in the orange and lime juice. Mix well.

Pour into the prepared tin, bake for 1, 1/4 - 1, 1/2 hours.

A very simple recipe, and a very simple but delicious cake. Super moist, this cake was perfect with a cup of tea.

The orange flavour however wasn't as strong as I would have liked, it was very subtle, I thought adding the lime juice would have helped bring out the orange flavour, next time I think I would add a splash of cointreau or maybe a drop of orange oil...but still a wonderful treat for myself.

Sourdough

Sourdough is bread with a natural leaven i.e no yeast. Dating back to 1500BC, it is the more than likely to be the original leavening available for bread baking. This is biblical bread.

As sourdough uses no yeast you need to create your own leaven or 'starter' of flour and water, and feed it for several days in the hope of catching the natural yeasts in the air and breeding them, as they breed they give off carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide produces a bubbly mix which (hopefully) will help your bread rise.
I cheated a little by making my starter on my bread baking day, hoping that the yeast in my dough (and therefore in the air in my kitchen) would encourage the natural yeasts in my sourdough to breed.

I used Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's recipe from 'The family cookbook'

day one

Measure 3 heaped tablespoons of organic strong white flour into a large mixing bowl. Add a tablespoon of organic wholemeal flour. Tip in the juice of half a orange and enough lukewarm still mineral water or rain water (I used boiled and cooled tap water but Hugh says not too) to make a thick stir-able dough - about 4 tablespoons.

Stir this mixture and then beat it with a wooden spoon or a whisk for a few minutes to drive air into it. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and set it aside in a warm place.

day two

Day two:

Check for frothy bubbles- signs that your mixture is 'breeding' and therefore producing carbon dioxide gas.

Beat in another 4 tbsp of white and wholemeal flour just as before, plus 4 tbsp of water.

Cover with more clingfilm and leave overnight.

day three

Day three:

Hopefully the dough will be quite active - bubbling furiously and rising up the bowl.

Beat in another 4 tbsp of flour and 4 of water.

Cover and leave overnight.
day four

Day four:
Tip in 6 tbsp of organic flour - 5 of white and 1 of wholemeal. Stir well and allow the dough to rise again but just for 2-3 hours this time.



final stage

The dough will look puffy.

Take out 2 tbsp of dough mix and put in a small bowl and put to the side. (This is now your starter for your next loaf.)

Tip in 125ml water and 300g organic strong white flour, plus 2tsp of salt and enough warm water to make a smooth dough.

Mix, knead, prove and bake (200c for 25 - 30 Min's) as you would any other loaf. This loaf will take much longer to rise than a regular loaf and won't rise as much either.

unbaked dough

fresh from the oven

Although this was a lengthy process it wasn't hard work, in fact it was rater fun to keep checking in hope of finding your starter had worked and started breeding.

The starter had a slightly sour smell to it, not unpleasant, rather like beer (unsurprisingly)
The dough was great to work with too, the finished bread was delicious, it wasn't as heavy as I'd expected it had a lovely texture and chewy crust....with a slight sour tang, delicious!

Daring bakers

Chocolate eclairs

Daring bakers time again, my first challenge last month, was extremely challenging and although delicious the finished cake was not as attractive as I would have liked. I was so looking forward to this months challenge but slightly apprehensive at the same time, however when I discovered what this months challenge was any apprehension I had melted away.






This months challenge was hosted by Tony Tahhan and MeetaK from 'whats for lunch honey?' - they choose Pierre Herme's Chocolate eclairs from 'Chocolate desserts' (Pierre Herme & Dorie Greenspan) I was so excited by this recipe choice, I love Pierre Herme's recipes and I adore chocolate eclairs.

The challenge consisted of three elements, pate a choux (choux pastry), chocolate pastry cream
and a chocolate glaze.

Modifications: The hosts stipulated that the choux pastry dough used must be the Pierre Herme recipe, however we could veer away from the filling and glaze recipes as long as one of the original chocolate elements remained. I chose to keep the original chocolate glaze but substituted the pastry cream filling for regular whipped cream - while I like pastry cream, for me a eclair needs whipped cream.

The choux pastry was relatively straight forward, bring milk, water, butter sugar and salt to a boil, add flour and stir vigorously until the dough comes together, stir a little longer so the dough can dry out a little.

In a mixer, add the eggs to the dough, the dough is ready when it is thick and shiny. While the dough is still warm it needs to be shaped, this is the fun part, using a 2cm plain tip nozzle pipe the dough onto baking sheets in 4 inch long eclair shapes.

I found the cooking instructions a little odd, Pierre's recipe instructed to bake the eclairs for 7 minutes, then slip the handle of a wooden spoon into the oven door to keep it ajar. After the eclairs have cooked for a total of 12 minutes the baking sheets need to be rotated from front to back then cooked for a further 8 minutes. They should emerge from the oven golden and firm.

I am not sure why the spoon is inserted in the door, maybe to moderate the heat, maybe to let out steam (although I was always told eclairs need steam) and I am not sure if it was completely necessary but I did as I was told. I did veer from the recipe at one point by slitting the eclairs with a sharp knife as they came out of the oven - Pierre's recipe did not stipulate this but if hot air is trapped inside a eclair it will go soggy and no one wants a soggy bun.

When the eclairs were cool I sliced them in half and lay the top half on a wire rack to be glazed. Pierre Herme's chocolate glaze is absolutely wonderful, I will use this again for other cakes, totally delicious and very simple too.

In a saucepan bring heavy cream to a boil, remove from the heat and add chopped chocolate. Stir in butter and Pierre's chocolate sauce (dark chocolate,water, double cream and sugar,boiled together in a small saucepan,then cooked gently until thickened). This makes the most delicious chocolate glaze.

I piped the chocolate glaze over the 'tops' of the eclairs, I found piping it gave me more control over where the glaze went and allowed a thick covering. Once the glaze had set I filled the bottoms with very softly whipped double cream and placed the lids on top.

This recipe was delicious and I really enjoyed this one, especially compared to the stress my first challenge caused last month. I will definitely makes these eclairs again.

Thank you to this months hosts, Tony Tahhan and MeetaK the recipe for these eclairs can be found on their blogs, don't forget to check out other Daring baker's challenges on the Daring bakers blogroll.

My first Daring bakers challenge

The Daring bakers are a Internet baking group with around 1000 members, founded and organised by Lis of La mia cucina and Ivonne from Cream puffs in Venice. Once a month a Daring baker member sets a challenge for the group who then bake and blog it.

I have followed the Daring bakers for almost a year now, I love reading different views on each challenge, what worked for some and didn't for others, I finally took the plunge and joined the group, stepping out of my comfort zone and into new challenges I never would have usually attempted.

This months challenge was a Filbert gateau with praline butter cream set by Chris at Melecotte, you'll find the recipe by clicking on the link.

Now I know the point of joining the Daring bakers was to be challenged but when I looked at this recipe, I nearly fainted :) after reading all 6 pages of it a few times I realised it wasn't so bad, just a lot of steps. This cake, from Carol Walter's 'Great cakes', consists of a filbert genoise, laced with syrup sponge, layered with praline buttercream and whipped cream, covered in a delicious chocolate ganache then decorated with more butter cream.

Once I'd separated the different recipes I set about baking this cake.

The cake itself was a breeze to make, Processed hazelnuts were mixed into a mixture of beaten egg yolks and egg whites, baked and split into three layers, I loved splitting the cake, I have never attempted this before and tackled this by making out the layers with cocktail sticks and sawing threw the cake with a serrated knife.

Things started to get difficult when it came to the buttercream, unlike usual buttercream (butter and icing sugar) this recipe called for egg whites whisked over a bain marie so the sugar dissolved, then blending the butter into the mixture. The praline paste, made by covering hazelnuts in a sugar caramel, setting it, then pulverising it in the food processor, is , at the last minute, mixed into the buttercream.

My buttercream was a nightmare it would not come together at all, I tried everything to resurrect it but that probably just made matters worse, lol. In the end I gave up and stuck the very liquid buttercream in the fridge to firm itself up.

The cake is assembled by layering it up with sponge, sugar syrup, buttercream, whipped cream, sponge and so on , the top is covered with a apricot glaze then adorned with the most heavenly, glossy chocolate ganache. After it's stint in the fridge the buttercream looked a lot firmer, it was fine for layering the cake, although as it was quite liquid it was absorbed into the cake making it a little less photogenic, it tasted absolutley divine, but would it stand the piping for the final stage of the cake.....in a word, no! It did firm up but as soon as I piped the butter cream onto my perfect ganache it flopped, and slid off the cake, here my darling OH stepped in and marbled the buttercream through my ganache in a very artistic manner, it looked very pretty actually.

My first challenge exhausted me, starting off very positive, I was nearly in tears by the buttercream stage, but I think I pulled it off, and my, the finished cake was more than worth it, this cake was delicious, moist, creamy, the ganache was gorgeous and the nightmare praline butter cream made the cake for me, absolutely divine. I will definitely incorporate the praline in to a safer buttecream recipe another time, and a family member asked for the recipe, which always proves it's a winner.

Thank you to Chris at Melecotte for hosting this months challenge, check out her blog for the recipe and her cake, and check out the Daring baker blog roll for more Filbert gateaux.

Roll on next month!

Eccles cakes

Dried fruit has seemed to take over my cakes recently as you'd see from my latest posts, for someone not keen on fruited cakes I seem to be eating a lot of them. I came across this recipe for Eccles cakes in Delia Smith's Book of cakes, if I'm honest the only reason I baked them was, bear with me, because I don't like Eccles cakes, so therefore I wouldn't eat any of them (the bikini holiday is nearing closer and closer), so my logic was, bake something you don't like and then I wont eat them, genius :)

Oh how wrong I was, these little cakes, easy and enjoyable to bake, are totally delicious and moreish, I ate one, the one cut in half in the picture (the steamy and blurry picture :)....and loved it, them ate two more. I had to physically be removed from the tin.

This is Delia's Mum's recipe for her delicious Eccles cakes.

Quick flaky pastry:

225g plain flour

175g margarine

a good pinch of salt

For the filling:

75g butter

150g soft brown sugar

150g currants

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

the grated rind of 1 large orange

50g finely chopped mixed peel

To finish off:

To make the pastry, weigh the margarine (hard from the refrigerator) then wrap it in a piece of foil and place it in freezer for half an hour.

Meanwhile sift the flour and salt into a bowl, then when you take the margarine out of the freezer, hold it with the foil, dip it into the flour, then grate it on a coarse grater placed in a bowl over the flour. Carry on dipping the margarine into the flour to make it easier to grate. When you have finished you will have a lump of grated margarine sitting in the middle of the flour.

Then take a palette knife and start to cut the fat into the flour (don't use your hands) until the mixture is crumbly.

Now add enough water so that it forms a dough that leaves the bowl clean (you can use your hands for the dough), then place it in a polythene bag and chill in the refrigerator for half an hour.

Meanwhile prepare the filling by first melting the butter in a small saucepan. Then take it off the heat and stir in all the filling ingrediants, stir thoroughly and leave to cool.

Next turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll it out to 3mm thick, then , using a plain 8cm cutter, cut the pastry into rounds.

Put a teaspoon of the filling on to each round, then brush the edge of half the circle of pastry with water, bring the other side up and seal it. Bring the corners up to the centre and pinch to seal well.

Turn the sealed pastry parcel over, so that the seam is underneath, then gently roll the whole thing to flatten it to about 1/2 cm thick and pat into a round shape.

Place them all on a greased baking sheet and gash each cake diagonally across three times.

Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with caster sugar.

Bake them in the oven (gas mark 7/220c) for 15 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack.

These little parcels of deliciousness, are kind of the wrong shape, when I flattened them I should have rounded them off I didnt, not that that affects the taste in any way.

The pastry is light and flaky, I will use this pastry method again, but overall as much as I love these cakes I am a little dispaointed...I didnt want to like them. I don't need bikini stress.

Golden syrup fruit cake

Although I am not a huge fruit cake fan I do love the aroma a fruit cake baking in the oven gives off, luckily the others in my house do love fruit cakes so I spent quite a lot of time baking them.

I find fruit cakes can be tricky they often can be too dry, sometimes a bit too Christmas cake-y and lets face it they have 'old people' stamped all over them, lol.

I found this recipe on The Guardian website you'll find the article (and the science bit) here.

The golden syrup adds a lovely flavour and colour to the cake and I am converted to the idea the Guardian suggest of using strong bread flour in the cake in place of plain flour, it really did help 'hold the fruit up' IE the fruit didn't sink to the bottom of the cake as it often can do.

The blurb above the recipe in the link gives you all the science bit about the syrup and bread flour, very interesting.

I used raisins, and a dried berry mixes consisting of blueberries, cranberries, cherries and strawberries (I didn't add the strawberries as they were my cooks treat)

this recipe is a keeper and I shall be baking this one again.

Golden syrup fruit cake

50g light soft brown sugar

125g unsalted butter

100g golden syrup, plus an extra tbsp for the top

2 large eggs

450 - 500g chopped dried fruit

200g strong white flour

1 level tsp baking powder

2 level tsp mixed spice

75g ground almonds

50ml milk50ml whisky, plus an extra tbsp for the top.

Beat the butter, brown sugar and syrup until light and fluffy.

Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, until combined, then stir in the fruit.

Sift the flour, baking powder and spice together, then stir with the almond, milk and whisky into the fruit mixture.

Line a 2lb loaf tin, spoon the mixture into the tin, smooth the top, cover the to with a sheet of foil and scrunch it secure at the sides., then bake at 180c for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes. In a cup, stir together the remaining syrup and whisky. Prick the surface of the cake, spoon over the syrup and leave to cool.