Sunday, March 27, 2011

Double Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

I developed this recipe largely by accident. I went to see my cousin and decided to see what would happen if I added chocolate chips and raspberries to chocolate sponge cakes. She only had plain flour, however, and as I usually use self raising I completely forgot to add the baking powder. I suddenly realised this after we'd filled the cases and they'd been cooking 5 minutes. I cried disaster, but they were, in fact, better for the lack of baking powder. They were squidgy and chocolatey and generally amazing. So, here's the recipe. I plan on trying one where I whip the egg whites and fold them in, see what that does to the texture, but for now, here's my usual recipe. If you don't have any plain flour you can make them with self raising and they'll be lighter, but still tasty. 

The reason I make it with the raspberries frozen is that it means that you end up with whole raspberries in the cakes, but if you want a different texture then either smash them a bit when frozen or you could let them defrost. (Frozen raspberries also being the cheap way to buy nice fruit out of season!) I plan on doing some major raspberry picking in season this year and filling my freezer with fruit for baking!

6 oz marg
6 oz sugar
5 oz plain flour
1 oz cocoa
50 g choc melted (dark or milk)
6 oz raspberries, frozen
100 g choc, roughly chopped (dark or milk)
Splash of milk

1. Beat marg and sugar together until light and fluffy - ie wait until you see the colour change!
2. Add the melted chocolate (make sure it's relatively cool, so melt it before you start beating the butter and sugar).
3. Add the eggs one at a time, following each with a spoonful of flour
4. Fold in the flour and cocoa and then once that's mostly mixed in, add the raspberries and choc chips and fold them in. Make sure you fold them in well so there's lots of air in the mixture because there's no baking powder.
5. Add a splash of milk as the mix will be a bit dry. The mixture will go very cold because of the frozen rasps but that doesn't matter. 
6. Add to muffin or fairy cake cases, fill them fairly full as they won't rise much. 
7. Bake at 180C for 15-20 mins depending on your size of cake!



They don't really need anything on top. But you could either melt some chocolate and pour that on, or make some ganache:

100g dark choc
100ml double cream. 

Chop the chocolate up fairly finely and put into a bowl. 
Heat the cream in a saucepan until it boils
Pour cream over chocolate and stir until smooth and shiny. 

Then you can either pour it straight onto the cakes or leave to cool and then whip it up. 

Jen's Birthday Cake!

A friend at work told me that I had to watch Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets as he'd done a whole episode on cakes and pastries. So I duly went round to another friend's house and watched it. It's amazing! I'm now working through the recipes that he did - though the piece montee might have to wait a bit as I have no money and no man (man being required to roll out the nougat stuff as apparently it's very, very difficult to do!) I tried the lemon cake, which was yummy - it's almost fatless so has a much lighter texture than normal sponge. I'll have another go at it soon and give a proper account, complete with photos. 

The cake for this entry is more a pretty cake than anything else. My lovely friend Jen had her birthday last week and so I decided that yesterday was the day that her cake would get made. I had a baking session for a church thing today, we made plain cakes with pretty fondant icing and piping (should have photographed, didn't!), chocolate and raspberry sponge, mmmm tasty, will post the recipe, and that of the white chocolate mud cakes soon.

I decided to make her a flowerpot cake. I got the idea from www.cupcakeenvy.com, who almost make me want to fly to America, go to their doorstop and beg them to apprentice me. Anyway, back to flowerpots. I decided that chocolate cake was the only real option as it's the correct colour! Due to my oft-repeated frustrations with cakes curdling I decided to try the all-in-one method as detailed by Delia Smith. 

6oz marg
6oz sugar
5oz self raising flour
1oz cocoa
3 eggs

Sift the flour and cocoa into the bowl, add all the other ingredients and mix for about a minute until they all come together. 

Greaseproof a cake tin (I used a 6" round cake tin) and cook for about an hour. It's often worth checking after 45 mins depending on your oven, but generally an hour is the minimum time for a cake that deep

I got my Kenwood mixer from my parents house last week and it's lovely to have it back. Although I'm thinking I need some kind of cupboard in my bedroom to fit in all the stuff that won't fit in my kitchen. Sadly they don't make one bedroom flats with enormous kitchens!

1. Before shaping the cake I put it in the freezer for an hour or so, otherwise it'll just fall apart, especially as mine was still very slightly warm!) Then, I cut the bottom half of the cake into a pot shape, leaving the domed bit of the cake for covering in flowers
2. Then I warmed up the fondant, I coloured it brown so had to work it a lot anyway, which meant it didn't crack when I put it on the cake :)
3. I made some butter icing and added a little water to make it quite thin and easily spreadable. I turned the cake upside down (it didn't sit flat on its top, but it wasn't too difficult to work it) and bottom (now the top!) and sides with butter icing to make the fondant stick
4. Then I brushed the butter icing with water as it had got set and rolled out the fondant to 5mm
5. I picked up the fondant and laid it over the cake, smoothed it down with my hands and then with an icing smoother. Made sure it was all stuck nicely and then turned it the right way up (onto a piece of greaseproof so that icing on the bottom didn't stick to the side)
6. Then I trimmed the edges to about the right height around the cake, and stuck another strip of icing on using more butter icing. 



Then I just needed to make more flowers. I'd made some earlier with my friend but I needed loads!!! I used a daisy cutter. For the small ones I just cut them out and then rolled the petals a bit with a cocktail stick so they had a nice curved shape. Then got some yellow icing, rolled it into a ball and pushed it down into the middle and then poked it with the cocktail stick for a textured look!

For the bigger flowers you really need sugar paste as fondant will just break! I used a larger daisy cutter then cut each petal in half with a sharp knife and rolled each of them out with a cocktail stick before doing the same thing for the middle. I used leftover royal icing for sticking the flowers onto the cake, but you can mix a bit of fondant icing with water which works just as well. I started round the edge with the fondant daisies as they were still floppy and helped cover up the cake. My mate had made some pretty red flowers earlier as well using smaller cutters and they added a bit of exciting colour!




My ability to do such mind numbing things as rolling out petals always amazes me. I guess I just like cake a LOT ;) I'm considering making some baby baby ones using the leftover brown fondant, but we'll see what else I do this week! Caramel and apple buns also look to be appearing on the horizon. 

Yours ever, 

the ever-baking Hannah

Friday, March 11, 2011

Lemon Biscuits

The aforementioned housewarming was a success, with many people coming and a very impressive quantity of cake was eaten. Thankfully I had help in creating much of the cake on Friday night (though I didn't go to bed until 3am finishing off the macaroons!) and some very lovely people did an awful lot of washing up during, and after the event!

Recipes! I made lots of things - scones, rock cakes, chocolate cake (an excellent squidgy Mary Berry recipe), macaroons, ginger/golden syrup cake, lemon biscuits and other things I can't quite remember….

For the macaroons I used a recipe I got off someone else's brilliant blog. This can be found if you google 'power to the bauer, chocolate macaroons'. Her blog gives all the tips you need, and they are extremely scrumptious. They also improve over 24 hours, and you can even freeze them if you want (though freeze them before you fill them). 

I have since watched Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets this week and decided to have a go at making his version of chocolate macaroons - it requires me to make Italian meringue though (where you add egg whites to hot sugar/water mix) so I need a sugar thermometer! I'll let you know how it goes!

So, I thought in this one I'd give you the recipe for the lemon biscuits that I made, because they were yummy - kinda like lemon shortbread, but there were a few things I didn't get quite right.

Lemon Biscuits, BBC Good Food

325g plain flour
200g butter, chilled
125g golden caster sugar
1 lemon - zest and juice
2 egg yolks
200g icing sugar. 

1. Sift flour and add butter, rub together to produce breadcrumb-like mix
2. Add sugar, lemon zest and yolks and process together
Roll out to 5mm thick
Bake for 15-20 mins at 180C

Use the lemon juice to mix with the icing sugar and drizzle over biscuits artistically after they've cooled. 

Tips: 
Mine ended up a little funny and quite brown around the edges. I think the key is to process it better at the second stage. I found that there was a lot of breadcrumbs to egg yolks, but you need to try and mix it all together. I rolled it out too soon and it kept falling apart, but next time I'd mix it together better and make it into more of a dough. The second set that I cut out came out better because it had come together more as a dough. 

Also, check after 10 mins as some of mine were a little too brown and they should only just start going pale brown around the edges,

Anyway, pretty easy and really nice, light, shortbread-y biscuit. Also, it has the advantage that you don't need to chill it half way through making it like normal biscuits!

I'm afraid that once again I failed to take photos, I must start doing that more! Hope you enjoy making them though :)

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

New things are afoot

Exciting things have been happening. Well, I think they're quite exciting. I have a new phone!!! not only is this a vast improvement as the last one had stopped working properly, but this is a proper, swish, goes on the internet, android phone. Everyone say 'oooh'! So, hopefully I will now be able to update this more frequently. Not least because I have just discovered (a little late perhaps) how bluetooth works. So now, I can write an entry on my computer, send it to my phone and update this from there. How wonderful is technology when it wishes to work for us!

As for this last post, I am sitting using wi-fi while in my car... hopefully no one will think I'm stalking anyone. I should probably get home. Not least as I'm planning on making scones tonight. I'm having a housewarming party on Saturday. More correctly termed a gathering though, as there won't be any alcohol and it the whole event will be carefully organised around tea and cake. I have just borrowed a cafetiere off my brother though, with the intent to serve 'proper coffee'.

So, here's the next phase on my more technologically updated life. Having spent a week or two not really baking much I'm sure that the new three days are going to be full of it :) Happy days are mine. Also I wait with anxiously crossed fingers over a job that I've applied for..... one that would reinstate back to my natural habitat of a library :)

Farewell!

Lemon Meringue Tarts

I haven't been doing so much sleeping this week. Lying in bed attempting to sleep I've done a lot of, but not so much managing to actually sleep. I did have a cunning thought though, what about lemon meringue tarts. There's a cupcake book I've borrowed from my cousin which suggest lemon meringue cupcakes, and I was pondering whether or not it was going to spoil the cupcakes. Anyway, resultantly, I decided to try and make lemon meringue tarts!

So, pastry. I just made normal boring shortcrust pastry as it seems to work fairly well.
8oz plain flour
4oz butter (definitely not marg or it's not very tasty)
2 tbsp of water or whatever brings it together. 

Make breadcrumbs of flour and butter, using a knife to start with and then fingertips. Then bring it together using tablespoons of water, added bit by bit to make it a dough, then wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least an hour. Roll it out, cut into circles and line a patty tin. 

Lemon filling.

I actually made lemon curd, I'm quite proud. I might do it again, as it tastes really yummy. 

I used Delia's recipe this time as her recipes always work! (I might use another next time though, as there are some that use just yolks so can use the whites for the meringue!) 

Grated rind and juice of 1 large, juicy lemon (I used 3/4 of a small lemon and halved the rest of the ingredients as I lacked enough large lemons)
3oz caster sugar
2 large eggs
2oz unsalted butter

Place lemon rind and sugar in a bowl. In another bowl whisk the lemon juice  together with the eggs, then pour this mixture over the sugar. Add the butter cut into little pieces, and place the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir frequently until thickened - about 20 minutes. (If you want to keep it put it into a clean, dry screw-top jar.)

For orange curd - replace the lemon with 1 large orange. 

It worked well, it just takes a while - I might try making it in a saucepan apparently it's faster, and if you're careful it won't go wrong. I'll let you know once I've tried

Meringue
I only made a little bit, but for that amount of lemon curd you'll need around!
2 egg whites (left over from ginger biscuits yesterday!)
4oz caster sugar

Whisk the egg whites until thick and can turn the bowl upside down. Not too much or they'll collapse. Then add the sugar bit by bit until goes all white and shiny and pretty. 

Spoon a teaspoonful of lemon curd into the unbaked pastry rounds, I put a nice big tsp in but it's just according to taste! Then spoon a little meringue on top - remember it will rise up so don't make sure it's below the rim of the pastry or it'll just lift off once it's cooked (I discovered this from my first mini batch attempt!). Also if you swirl it a bit and put it to a point it'll look prettier than mine ;)

Cook for 15 mins at 180C. It seems to work anyway, I was just taking a massive guess, but they taste rather yummy. I much prefer the home made lemon curd as it's much more lemony and a little sharper than the shop bought stuff, though there wasn't quite enough so I had the fill the last few with lemon curd. 

I made 12 in total with meringue made from 1 egg white (so half the recipe above) and half the quantity of lemon curd topped up with shop bought for the last 3. So, I'd say for 12 you need 1 1/2 quantities of the lemon curd and 2 egg white meringue. Plus, if like me you like lemon curd, you can make as much as you like and keep it for another time and another eating. 

The taste testing of all my friends was fully in favour, and I'm definitely going to make them again. Here's photos of before and after the cooking - demonstrating the rising of the meringue!