Summer Fruit Crumble Cake Thursday, 25th June, 2009

I’ve been so busy doing my college assessment piece that I haven’t had any time to bake anything at home. So, in a kind of compromise, I’ve decided to post a recipe that we made in college. Mannnn, this was gorgeous! Crumble cake is one of my favourite things and it is just SO nice in the summer. The other great thing about it is that you can make it using only frozen fruit, so this recipe is suitable all year round. Score! Eat this cake with caution, it’s pretty heavy &you’re going to get full if you attempt to eat an eighth of it like I did. Serve it cold, hot, with ice cream, with clotted cream, with whipped cream, with fresh berries… just do whatever you like with it. I love it.

Cake Ingredients:

• 150g butter, softened
• 150g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 210g self-raising cake flour
• 4 tablespoons orange juice

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Grease a 9″/23cm loose-bottomed cake tin.

Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time. If the mixture curdles or appears to be split then don’t worry. Sift the flour into the mix and stir until smooth. Fold in the orange juice at the last minute, being careful not to overmix.

Spoon the mixture into the tin, smooth the surface out, then bake in the oven for about half an hour. In the meantime, make the crumble.

Crumble Ingredients:

• 75g butter, diced
• 75g caster sugar
• 75g plain white flour
• 75g ground almonds
• 200g mixed summer fruit (either fresh or frozen)

In a bowl, combine the butter, sugar and flour and rub together gently until a crumbly texture is formed. Gently fold in the fruit until fairly well mixed – try to keep the fruit as whole as possible. This will obviously require a softer touch if you are using fresh berries than with frozen.

Tip the crumble on the top of the cake as soon as you take it out the oven, and spread it out evenly. Work as quickly as possible to prevent the cake from sinking. Return to the oven and bake for another twenty minutes. The crumble should be golden.

Leave to cool, remove from the tin &dust generously with icing sugar

Carrot Cake Cupcakes Monday, 15th June, 2009

Ew, I don’t like carrot cake. I made these because we made some carrot cakes in college and my mum was very disappointed when she found out because I hadn’t brought her any home. Those carrot cakes wouldn’t have met with her approval anyway, they had sultanas in instead of walnuts and the topping used wasn’t fresh. I think she would have preferred these anyway. When I gave her one of them and asked her what she thought, she said, “I think I might have to have two or three more before I can decide, really.” I think they’re a hit.

Ingredients:

• 200g granulated sugar
• 145ml vegetable oil
• teaspoon vanilla extract
• tablespoon orange juice
• 2 eggs
• 125g flour
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice
• 175g carrot, grated
• 100g walnuts, roughly chopped.

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4. Line cupcake trays with cases.

Beat together the sugar, oil, vanilla and orange juice in a large bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, then fold in the flour and spice. When the batter is well-mixed, stir in the nuts and grated carrot. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until the tops of the cakes are golden and a skewer pushed into the centre of the cakes comes out clean.

Turn the cakes out onto a cooling wire and leave until completely cooled.

Top with half the recipe of cream cheese frosting. If, like me, you have the urge to pipe really bad carrots on to the tops of your cakes, then leave aside about a quarter of the frosting to be coloured into green and orange.

I’d also like to point out my new vanilla extract. It just looks gorgeous, right? I got it from Lakeland because they have a store in Liverpool One and I’d gone in to kill some time while I was in town waiting for a lift. I’d wanted this extract for a while because it looks beautiful – the bottle is made of glass and that, along with its cream and brown label, makes it look like it’s fallen through from another era. It’s a little pricey, it did cost me over a fiver, but if you read my tip on vanilla you’ll already be aware how I feel about compromising with these things. Madagascar Bourbon might be the most common kind of vanilla, but that doesn’t make it any less gorgeous. I’ve been using it for a few things, since I bought it, and I’m not going to be buying any other kinds of vanilla extract for a while, I love this one.

Oh, &another thing… if any of you lurkers out there would like to leave me a comment at some point, I would be very grateful. Srsly, I’m DYING for a comment here. I see all the views and they’re very encouraging, but I’d appreciate one every once in a while. Even if you’re saying nothing relevant and it just says hi!

Red Velvet Cupcakes Monday, 15th June, 2009

Ok so I don’t think that my life is really very normal. The first time I ever ate red velvet cake, I was in Toronto. The second time I was in Liverpool, eating one a friend made that had no cocoa powder in it. The third time, though, is the one that got me hooked. I was in Florida, and regardless of ambiguous Southern US definitions (please, how you categorise areas makes NO sense), I was a lot closer to the right kind of area for it than I was up in Ontario. It was only after that time that I decided to try it out for myself at home. I’ve tried a few times now and none of them had ever really been right. Some of my cupcakes went rock hard the second they cooled, others REFUSED to bake through… these, though, are just about there I think. But hey, what do I know? As far as these cakes are concerned, I’m a foreigner.

This recipe will make about 18 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 85g butter
• 250g granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• red food colouring
• teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1885ml buttermilk
• 240g self-rasing cake flour
• 25g cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4. Line cupcake trays with cases.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla extract. Add enough red food colouring to prodice a deep colour and beat until well-combined.In another bowl, sift together the flour and cocoa powder. Add the buttermilk to the batter int thirds, alternating between adding that and adding the flour mixture. After each addition, stir enough for the ingredients to be mixed together well, but take care not to over-mix the batter.

Spoon the cake mix into the cupcake cases and bake for about 20 minutes, until the cakes are well-risen and slightly springy to the touch. Turn the cakes out onto a wire rack and leave to cool.

Top with half of the recipe for cream cheese frosting, either by palette knife or using a star tip on a piping bag to create a swirl of frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting Monday, 15th June, 2009

Ok, I am a sucker for this stuff, seriously, just ask my mum. She lovvvves carrot cake and she used to make it a lot when I was little. Me, well, I could never ever stand the stuff, personally. That didn’t stop me scraping the icing off the top with my finger and licking it all up in huge mouthfuls. My mum would come out to cut the cake and share it out, and there’d be lines of icing missing off the top because I’d been out in the kitchen eating it, haha. This is a good basic recipe for cream cheese frosting and it’s one that I use frequently, perhaps with minor changes here or there.

Ingredients:

• 125g cream cheese
• 250g icing sugar
• 70g butter
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

The method for making this stuff is SO easy. It goes a lot like this: throw all of the ingredients together in a large bowl and beat them together by hand or with an electric whisk until it’s not lumpy any more. Use the icing fresh when you make it, or keep the bowl covered with a damp cloth, beause if you leave it for too long then a crust will form.

Blueberry Pancakes Monday, 15th June, 2009

I made these this afternoon for my “brunch”, because there were blueberries in the fridge and from the second I saw them I was thinking about pancakes. I enjoyed them a lot! My nanna managed to poach one of the four I ended up with off me, and ate hers plain. Me? Well I ate them with about nine gallons of fake maple syrup, of course. Fake because it was Tate&Lyle maple-flavoured GOLDEN syrup. Would it be wrong to admit that I prefer that to 100% genuine Canadian tree sap? Of course it would, so I’m not going to. All this talking about syrup has put me in the mood to make a treacle tart, though. I’ll add it to my to-do list.

For me, this recipe made four pancakes. I would say they were about 4-5″ in diameter. How many this makes for you will depend on how big the pancakes are and how thick you let the batter get. I would suggest that unless you’re making these for just one or two people, you should at least double the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 125g self-raising flour
• 25g sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 245ml buttermilk OR milk OR a combination of both (I used half milk, half buttermilk)
• 25g butter, melted
• 100g fresh or thawed blueberries

Sift the flour into a bowl and add the sugar and salt. In another bowl, or measuring jug, mix together the butter, egg and buttermilk/milk.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and gradually beat in the liquid until well combined. Be careful not to overmix, as this will produce a heavier pancake. The batter will look slightly lumpy. Stir in the blueberries, carefully to make sure they don’t break apart.

Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan on a high to medium heat. Add ladelfuls of batter and fry for a couple of minutes until the underside is golden brown. Turn the pancake over using a spatula or fish slice and cook for another minute or so, unil that side is also golden. Turn the pancake out onto a plate and cover it with kitchen paper to keep it warm while the other pancakes are cooking. Repeat until you’ve used up all the batter.

Serve however you like =]

Dried Fruit Cookies Thursday, 11th June, 2009

These cookies are vegan! Ok, here’s the deal: I’m not vegan, the people that live in my house aren’t either. I actually only know two vegans personally (i.e, in real life) – one is Tom, the boyfriend of my cousin &the other is Caz, a good friend of mine. But I just don’t see why specialised baking has to be an issue, which means I’m all up for experiments in vegan, egg-free, coeliac or diabetic baking. This is the first recipe that I’ve made for this blog that I consciously tried to make vegan. Maybe the next time me and Caz hang out in the day-time, I’ll take him some of these cookies. You could make these with any kind of dried fruit, but I went for cranberries and blackcurrants because that’s what I had in the house.

Oh, please make sure the margarine that you’re using is deffo vegan, because there’s some confusion about this. If you don’t need them to be vegan, though, this isn’t so important, obviously =D

This recipe will make about a dozen medium-sized cookies.

Ingredients:

• 115g margarine
• 45g white granulated sugar
• 120g demerara sugar
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon orange extract
• tablespoon water
• tablespoon golden syrup
• 35g self-raising flour
• 65g rolled oats
• 45g dried cranberries
• 35g dried blackcurrants

Preheat oven to 170°C/325°F/gas mark 3. Line a baking sheet or two regular baking trays.

Beat together the margarine, sugars and extracts until fluffy. Add the water and syrup, then beat until combined.

Stir in the flour and oats, then fold in the dried fruit. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking sheet or trays, leaving a gaps of a couple of inches between each one.

Bake for about 10-15 minutes, until the cookies are golden and the edges of each cookie is beginning to darken. The cookies should look quite runny when you first take them out, but they will set to a lovely chewy texture when left to cool.

Pitta Thursday, 11th June, 2009

This bread turned out really, really nice. Make it, slice into it and fill it with tasty food… I may have just gone for garlic-y chicken but YOU can be much more imaginitive than that, can’t you, hmm? Yes, I thought so =]

Ingredients:

• 350g strong white bread flour
• 1½ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon instant/easy-blend/active dried yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for oiling
• 210ml tepid water

Sift together the flour and salt into a warmed bowl, then stir in the yeast and sugar. Make a well in the centre and add the water with the olive oil. Mix together until a dough is formed, then turn the dough out onto a work surface.

Knead the dough for about 5-10 minutes, until it’s smooth and elastic, flouring the surface lightly if the dough sticks too much.

Roll the dough into a ball and put it into an oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave it in a warm place for about an hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Oil a baking sheet.Turn out the dough again and knead it lightly, cut it into equal pieces (the recipe calls for 6 but I went for 4) and then shape each piece into a ball. Move the dough balls to the baking sheet, cover them with oiled cling film and leave the sheet in a warm place to prove for about ten minutes.

Put two oiled baking sheets or trays into the oven and preheat to 230°C/450°F/gas mark 8.

Flatten each of the dough balls and roll each into a round. Sprinkle with flour and cover with cling film, then leave to rest for ten minutes.

Transfer the rounds to the heated baking sheets and bake in the oven for five minutes, until well risen and golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

(NOTE: These things really do rise. They puff up a lot in the oven, so don’t worry if they come up a little more than you were expecting, it’s that layer of air that lets you put lots of tasty things inside)

Bakewell Cupcakes Tuesday, 9th June, 2009

Ok so I bought a new book. I really can’t help it. I see shiny new baking-related books in Waterstone’s or Borders and I really need to bring them home with me. Of course, some are better than others – but the one I’m talking about right now is a keeper. It’s simply called “Cupcakes” and it’s by Sue McMahon. I can assure you that I’m not going to be posting all of the recipes out of this book but these ones were so nice (and they look so pretty) I just couldn’t help myself. Of course I want to try out all of the recipes but looking through them has also given me a lot of ideas of my own, so expect to see them!

Soooo, these cupcakes are based on the bakewell pudding/tart/cake/whatever else you want to call it… the original recipe called for ground almonds but I forgot to buy any thought it would be nicer without… I convinced you there, right? My mum decided that they were the first ones from the book that I’d be making and since she pays for a lot of my ingredients, she DOES get to choose most times. It was a good choice, though. I may have used half a jar of jam but I think it was worth it. These are also really quick to make.

Ingredients:

• 125g butter, softened
• 125g white sugar
• 1½ teaspoons almond extract
• 2 medium eggs
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 130g self-raising flour
• 50g flaked almonds, approx
• Raspberry jam (the amount depends on how generous you are with it)
• Icing sugar, to dust

Preheat oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Line a cupcake tin with twelve cases.

Beat the butter, sugar and almond extract together in a large bowl until the mixture appears fluffy. Add the eggs, milk and flour and mix with a wooden spoon until smooth and well-combined.

Divide the mixture equally between the cupcake cases and then top with a few flaked almonds. Bake the cakes in the centre of the oven for about fifteen minutes, until the cakes have risen well and are slightly firm to the touch. Leave the cakes to cool.

When cooled, slice the tops off the cakes and spread with jam. Replace the tops, add a few extra flaked almonds if they look a bit bare, then dust thoroughly with icing sugar.

Glazed Lime Cookies Monday, 25th May, 2009

These cookies don’t look like much. Today I made these along with the oat cookies that have chocolate chips in them (here). When I saw the two lots next to each other on the cooling rack I didn’t even think about trying one of these first. But mannn these are great.. don’t let their looks decieve you, people. These are crumbly and melt in the mouth, with a great lime flavour.

Ingredients:

• 225 g butter
• 60g icing sugar
• 220g flour
• 30g cornflour (cornstartch, Americans!)
• 1 tablespoon lime peel, grated
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons lime juice
• granulated sugar (to dip)

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4. Line trays with greaseproof/baking/silicone paper.

Cream together the butter and icing sugar.

Add the flour, cornflour, peel, juice and vanilla. Beat all the ingredients together well until a smooth, well-mixed dough is formed.

Roll the dough into small balls (you might want to flour up your hands for this, like I didn’t – it gets messy). Spread some granulated sugar out onto a plate. Place each ball of dough into the centre of the sugar and then press down until the cookies are about a quarter of an inch thick.

Place the cookies onto the lined trays, sugar-side up. Leave a small gap between each one. Bake for about fifteen minutes – the edges should be lightly browned when they’re done. Leave them to cool for a while before you remove them from the paper, then cool completely before glazing.

For the Glaze:

• 60g icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon lime peel, grated
• 2 tablespoons lime juice

Miz all of the ingredients together until smooth. Brush a little of the glaze over each of the cookies. Some of the glaze should be absorbed, but the top of the cookie will remain pretty sticky.

Chewy oat&chocolate Cookies Monday, 25th May, 2009

This is my new favourite cookie recipe evah. These cookies are chewy and tasty &I love them. They’re pretty straightforward and quick to make and smell gorgeous when they come out of the oven. I know they’re tempting hot, guys, but they’re honestly nicer once they’ve cooled. I know, I know, that’s not normally how these things work at all. Just trust me on this one, yeah?

Ingredients:

• 250g butter or margarine, softened
• 200g demerara sugar
• 75g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 150g flour
• 260g porridge oats
• 200g chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 170°C/325°F/gas mark 3. Line baking trays with greaseproof/baking/silicone paper.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter/margarine and the two kinds of sugar until it looks fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and then stir in the vanilla.

Lightly stir in the flour, then add the oats and chocolate chips and stir it all up until the dough is well mixed.

Drop the cookie dough onto the tray by heaped tablespoons, leaving enough of a gap for the cookies to spread slightly. Bake for 10-20 minutes (depending on the size of cookies and their position in your oven if you’re baking more than one tray at a time), until the cookies are no longer pale and the edges are slightly browned.