Just popping in to brush away the cobwebs, don't mind me.
I had a little plunder through my analytics today for the first time in months probably and I noticed that quite a few people find this little kitchen of mine by asking questions that I've yet to answer.
So I'll get right down to it...
"Why does my Victoria Sandwich Cake break at the edges"
The most likely reason is that it is sticking to the cake pan. I use a recipe I found on Recipezaar which is just one part solid vegetable fat or shortening, one part vegetable oil and two parts plain flour (you can replace the flour with cocoa for a chocolate cake). Beat these three ingredients together and store in an airtight container, it keeps for eons in the fridge so you can make big batches and you just use it to grease your cake pans. Superglue couldn't stick to this stuff.
The other thing that will cause a cake to crumble is not enough egg in the recipe. You really need egg to make a good cake and I always use this simple recipe to make sure that there is exactly the right amount of egg in my cakes every single time.
But in the end if your cake tastes great nobody is going to care if it looks a little shabby round the edges. Your going to eat your cake, not frame it.
"Boiling potatoes in their jackets"
Yes you can, in fact it's about the only fool proof way to boil floury potatoes like British Queens without ending up with a pot of potato soup. Don't prick them or anything like that, but do start them off in cold water and bring it up to the boil with the potatoes already in the pot. This way the potatoes cook evenly the whole way through and you don't wind up with perfectly cooked innards and watery edges. Invest in a good potato ricer and you can even make mashed potatoes and the ricer reserves all of the skins which you can just discard. All of the goodness and none of those icky brown bits that kids will wrinkle their noses at.
You'll also thank yourself for buying that potato ricer when you're making banana bread and wrist deep in 20 mashed bananas because "they were on sale".
"Cake overflow, will it ruin the cake"
Not a chance. I've done it often enough myself.
When it has happened to me and if it's a plain cake (purely for the sake of having a cake in the house) I tend to get it out of the pan and spread jam over the top while it's still warm and then sprinkle coconut over the jam. I remember it from school dinners when I was a kid and my love it when they get a slice of 'cake gone wrong' and a pouring of custard over the top.
If your plan was to decorate the cake, I've had some success in just trimming away what is overlapping the edges of the cake pan, the same way you would trim excess pastry away from a pie dish and leave the top of the cake as intact as possible. The more of the cake's crust you remove the more structural integrity it will lose and there's a good chance that the weight of any icing or frosting will make the cake collapse.
"Can I make a pavlova without an oven"
Now this I genuinely don't know. At least I've never heard of anyone making a pavlova without an oven.
What I know you can do without an oven is make Italian meringue. The ingredients are exactly the same as for normal meringue. The difference is that you start off with the four egg whites in you mixer or if you're using a handheld whisk have them ready to go and forming firm peaks before going any further.
What you then want to do is put 500g of white sugar and 100ml of water in a heavy based pot and boil the sugar until it reaches 115C (240F) it will just barely be changing colour at that stage and then all the while whisking the egg whites add the sugar to the egg whites in a thin steady stream and you have meringue. You can pile it up and colour the outside with a blow lamp for a brulee like crust or float a couple of spoonfuls on top of hot chocolate.
"if pavlova cools too quickly"
I'm about the least patient person I know and while a pavlova that is left in the oven until it is completely cold (even if it takes four incredibly long hours) is the best pavlova in my opinion, the only difference I've noticed in whipping it out of the oven after about 15 minutes cooling time is that it sometimes cracks a lot more (hey, its not like it's going where it's going completely unscathed any way) and the inside is more mallowy than the chewy almost toffee like centre that allowing it to cool in the oven gives you. Not a bad thing in my book. If you need it quickly, get it out of the oven.
"How to store pavlova"
Freeze it. Pavlova bases freeze perfectly. Well, actually that's something of a lie, they don't really freeze they just get very cold and sit there in the freezer and I swear you could lift it out and be eating it in 10 minutes. You can leave them in there for months as well, no harm will come to them and it means you can have a few sitting ready to go so that you don't have to worry about taking them out of the oven early and cooling too quickly.
"Using chocolate chips in baking"
Don't!!!!! I mean it, don't even go there. I mean what are we talking about really to be able to use lovely, good chocolate that you've chopped yourself? Two minutes. Two minutes and you don't have to use icky chocolate that's full of stabilisers and rarely tastes anything like real chocolate, big bags of chocolate chips wouldn't look too much like chocolate chips if it weren't for all the additives.
And then you can kiss goodbye to the two minutes you saved on making the cookies when you have to spend ten scraping the kids off the ceiling or coaxing them off the top of a wardrobe where they're rocking back and forth going "fehumana humana humana".
The less additives the better if you ask me.
Showing posts with label Chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chocolate. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Monday, 3 August 2009
Coffee Cupcakes
This is my daughter's favourite cake in the whole world. When the weather is miserable, as it is today we make cake and these are her first choice each and every time.
I should start off by explaining that I recently realised that in the US a coffee cake is a cake eaten with coffee and that it could be a plain sponge cake, a flavoured cake such as cinnamon flop or even something like crumb cake whereas here in the UK a coffee cake is a cake flavoured with coffee traditionally a sandwich cake with coffee flavoured butter cream and topped with chocolate vermicelli.
These cupcakes are a variation of that recipe
Preheat oven to 180C (350F) and gather your ingredients;
Start off with a two egg simple sponge recipe, weigh the eggs and add the same weight of sugar, butter and self raising flour. Add to that 1 tbls espresso or any strong coffee and 1/2 tsp baking powder.
Put all of the ingredients together in a large bowl and beat for a few minutes until pale and fluffy.
Line a muffin tin and divide the batter between 12 liners then bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes.
Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack and leave to cool completely before frosting.
Place 3 oz butter and 6 oz icing sugar in a large bowl and beat until creamy, add to that 1 tsp strong coffee and beat again until well combined.
Top the cupcakes with the frosting in which ever way you find easiest. I tend to put it in a bag and pipe it on, or if you prefer you can spoon it on or turn the cupcakes upside down and dip them in the frosting.
I topped these cupcakes with chocolate curls instead of the chocolate vermicelli because I just like the look of the little curls on top.
And this would be a 4 year old sized bite, rather than a mummy sized bite.
I should start off by explaining that I recently realised that in the US a coffee cake is a cake eaten with coffee and that it could be a plain sponge cake, a flavoured cake such as cinnamon flop or even something like crumb cake whereas here in the UK a coffee cake is a cake flavoured with coffee traditionally a sandwich cake with coffee flavoured butter cream and topped with chocolate vermicelli.
These cupcakes are a variation of that recipe
Preheat oven to 180C (350F) and gather your ingredients;
Start off with a two egg simple sponge recipe, weigh the eggs and add the same weight of sugar, butter and self raising flour. Add to that 1 tbls espresso or any strong coffee and 1/2 tsp baking powder.
Put all of the ingredients together in a large bowl and beat for a few minutes until pale and fluffy.
Line a muffin tin and divide the batter between 12 liners then bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes.
Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack and leave to cool completely before frosting.
Place 3 oz butter and 6 oz icing sugar in a large bowl and beat until creamy, add to that 1 tsp strong coffee and beat again until well combined.
Top the cupcakes with the frosting in which ever way you find easiest. I tend to put it in a bag and pipe it on, or if you prefer you can spoon it on or turn the cupcakes upside down and dip them in the frosting.
I topped these cupcakes with chocolate curls instead of the chocolate vermicelli because I just like the look of the little curls on top.
And this would be a 4 year old sized bite, rather than a mummy sized bite.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
The Ultimate Chocolate Brownies
No frills, spills, faff or frosting just deep, dark, fudgy, chocolate goodness.
Now, I'm not actually allowed to make brownies any more unless I make enough to go around so this recipe makes a lot of brownies but its pretty easy to cut the recipe down if you're trying to be good. Honestly though, I would and probably could eat this entire batch myself. I'm not saying I'm going, just that I could. Besides if you're going to fall off the wagon anyway, sure you might as well jump.
Start off by preheating your oven to 180C (350F) or 160C if your oven is fan assisted, then gather together your ingredients.
375g dark chocolate
375g butter (unsalted if you have it but if you don't just omit the salt in this recipe)
500g caster sugar
6 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon of salt (only if using unsalted butter)
Start by putting the butter and chocolate into a heavy based pan and put over a low heat to start melting.
Like so...
While that gets going put the sugar, eggs and vanilla into a large bowl (bigger than the one I started with).
Beat the sugar, eggs and vanilla until combined but you don't need to go light and fluffy with brownies just make sure its all mixed together.
Your chocolate and butter should be pretty much melted by now. I tend to turn off the heat when there are still a few lumps and just swirl it in the pan until they melt. Allow the chocolate and butter to cool slightly, it doesn't exactly need to be cold or even room temperature, just bear in mind that if its too hot you will cook the eggs and you don't want to do that.
Once the chocolate has cooled a little start by drizzling the melted chocolate mixture into the egg mixture whilst whisking the eggs, once you've added about half the chocolate this way you can start to just glug it in there, but still keep whisking.
Next add your flour and salt (if using) and use the whisk again to get it mixed in. Brownies aren't like muffins you do need to make sure the mixture is smooth.
Now for the pan. We like our brownies tall around here so I use a 10 x10 inch pan for them, although for regular depth brownies stick to the 13 x 9 inch pan. Line the pan first with foil or parchment paper and then pour the brownie batter into the pan.
brownies and 40 minutes for If you use the 10 x 13 inch pan bake the brownies for 25 - 40 minutes. I know that sounds like a huge gap in times but 25 minutes will give you gooey brownies, 30-35 minutes for fudgycakey brownies, to each there own and all that.
Because I used the 10 x 10 my brownies took 1 hr 10 mins for fudgy, shave about 10-15 off this for gooey and add the same amount of time for cakey ones. See, simple as!
Let the brownies cool in the pan (I know) for about half an hour before turning them out. If you went for gooey brownies I would suggest leaving them to cool completely in the pan as there's a certain amount of "setting" involved in the really gooey ones and you don't want to risk them falling apart, or worse still a steam burn while trying to get them out of the pan.
Once the brownies have cooled, cut them into as many pieces as you like, bite sized pieces, big flat slabs whatever takes your fancy.
Dust them with a little icing sugar to get across the idea of the craggy surface on top in the photographs although the icing sugar is completely unnecessary:)
Open mouth, cram in entire brownie, lather, rinse, repeat.
Enjoy!
Now, I'm not actually allowed to make brownies any more unless I make enough to go around so this recipe makes a lot of brownies but its pretty easy to cut the recipe down if you're trying to be good. Honestly though, I would and probably could eat this entire batch myself. I'm not saying I'm going, just that I could. Besides if you're going to fall off the wagon anyway, sure you might as well jump.
Start off by preheating your oven to 180C (350F) or 160C if your oven is fan assisted, then gather together your ingredients.
375g dark chocolate
375g butter (unsalted if you have it but if you don't just omit the salt in this recipe)
500g caster sugar
6 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon of salt (only if using unsalted butter)
Start by putting the butter and chocolate into a heavy based pan and put over a low heat to start melting.
Like so...
While that gets going put the sugar, eggs and vanilla into a large bowl (bigger than the one I started with).
Beat the sugar, eggs and vanilla until combined but you don't need to go light and fluffy with brownies just make sure its all mixed together.
Your chocolate and butter should be pretty much melted by now. I tend to turn off the heat when there are still a few lumps and just swirl it in the pan until they melt. Allow the chocolate and butter to cool slightly, it doesn't exactly need to be cold or even room temperature, just bear in mind that if its too hot you will cook the eggs and you don't want to do that.
Once the chocolate has cooled a little start by drizzling the melted chocolate mixture into the egg mixture whilst whisking the eggs, once you've added about half the chocolate this way you can start to just glug it in there, but still keep whisking.
Next add your flour and salt (if using) and use the whisk again to get it mixed in. Brownies aren't like muffins you do need to make sure the mixture is smooth.
Now for the pan. We like our brownies tall around here so I use a 10 x10 inch pan for them, although for regular depth brownies stick to the 13 x 9 inch pan. Line the pan first with foil or parchment paper and then pour the brownie batter into the pan.
brownies and 40 minutes for If you use the 10 x 13 inch pan bake the brownies for 25 - 40 minutes. I know that sounds like a huge gap in times but 25 minutes will give you gooey brownies, 30-35 minutes for fudgycakey brownies, to each there own and all that.
Because I used the 10 x 10 my brownies took 1 hr 10 mins for fudgy, shave about 10-15 off this for gooey and add the same amount of time for cakey ones. See, simple as!
Let the brownies cool in the pan (I know) for about half an hour before turning them out. If you went for gooey brownies I would suggest leaving them to cool completely in the pan as there's a certain amount of "setting" involved in the really gooey ones and you don't want to risk them falling apart, or worse still a steam burn while trying to get them out of the pan.
Once the brownies have cooled, cut them into as many pieces as you like, bite sized pieces, big flat slabs whatever takes your fancy.
Dust them with a little icing sugar to get across the idea of the craggy surface on top in the photographs although the icing sugar is completely unnecessary:)
Open mouth, cram in entire brownie, lather, rinse, repeat.
Enjoy!
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Chocolate Cupcakes
Seriously, who doesn't like chocolate.
I love chocolate.
No. I really love chocolate. And I love cupcakes, so these little babies rock my world.
They're a bit different because they contain buttermilk (or vinegar and milk combined if you can't get buttermilk) so I wouldn't recommend licking the spoon. The batter just tastes weird.
Chocolate Cupcakes
1 1/4 cups plain (all purpose) flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda (bicarb)
1/2 cup (4oz) butter
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla essence
Preheat oven to 180C (350F)
Cream Butter and sugar, add egg and vanilla and beat well.
Alternate adding buttermilk and flour until all is combined.
Line a 12 cup muffin pan and divide batter evenly.
Bake for 20-25 minutes a skewer comes out clean.
Remove to a cooling rack and once cool frost with;
Chocolate buttercream
4oz icing sugar
2oz butter
4 oz dark chocolate melted
(a little milk)
Cream butter and sugar together to make buttercream, add melted chocolate and beat again to combine. Add a little milk if the buttercream seems a little dry or you prefer a messier (nothing wrong with that) frosting.
Thursday, 1 January 2009
Chocolate Bundt Cake
I didn't bake a lot over Christmas this year which is something I regretted because I love to bake, even more so at Christmas. Something about always having homebaked cakes, buns, bread and cookies around the house just makes it seem more like the holidays.
My Dad always made fun of my pathetic attempts at baking and cooking when I was younger and for good reason. Coconut ice anyone? Even I couldn't force down a piece of that anymore.
But in the last five years or so, he's had a complete change of heart. Something about me actually being a pretty good cook when I put my mind to it. Nothing like blowing your own horn eh?
Still it seems once I got past the idea that food had to be expensive, elaborate and slaved over I started to cook well and more importantly, bake well.
My Dad is a baker. He works in a bakery. So he has really started to enjoy the things I make. I tend to make far too much as there are only three of us in the house so at least half of everything makes its way to his house.
My Dad has made a point the last few years to give me kitcheny items for birthday and Christmas presents. This year was no exception. He gave me a very large (I get the hint dad) cake tin. It's 28cm across and comes with two bases, one decorative ring mould base and one plain flat base. It would be about the size of the bottom layer of a pretty big wedding cake if I used the flat layer, so I didn't.
I've never baked in a decorative tin before, apart from Toots little teddy bear and butterfly silcone moulds, but nothing this size and I wanted to make sure the cake would come out of the tin in one piece.
It did.
My Dad always made fun of my pathetic attempts at baking and cooking when I was younger and for good reason. Coconut ice anyone? Even I couldn't force down a piece of that anymore.
But in the last five years or so, he's had a complete change of heart. Something about me actually being a pretty good cook when I put my mind to it. Nothing like blowing your own horn eh?
Still it seems once I got past the idea that food had to be expensive, elaborate and slaved over I started to cook well and more importantly, bake well.
My Dad is a baker. He works in a bakery. So he has really started to enjoy the things I make. I tend to make far too much as there are only three of us in the house so at least half of everything makes its way to his house.
My Dad has made a point the last few years to give me kitcheny items for birthday and Christmas presents. This year was no exception. He gave me a very large (I get the hint dad) cake tin. It's 28cm across and comes with two bases, one decorative ring mould base and one plain flat base. It would be about the size of the bottom layer of a pretty big wedding cake if I used the flat layer, so I didn't.
I've never baked in a decorative tin before, apart from Toots little teddy bear and butterfly silcone moulds, but nothing this size and I wanted to make sure the cake would come out of the tin in one piece.
It did.
Doesn't that just look (almost) too good to eat. Notice the huge slice taken out of it before I could even take the photo.
It's the simplest recipe to make as well.
One Bowl Chocolate Cake
Taken from a recipe on zaar called The Absolute Best Moist One-Bowl Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake. I can say that it definitely more than lives up to its name.
2/3 cup cocoa, sifted (I didn't bother)
2 1/4 cups plain flour
2 cups sugar (I used about 1 1/2)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt (I didn't use any)
1 1/2 tsp instant coffee granules
1 1/2 cups unsweetened orange juice (I only had sweetened and thats why i reduced the sugar and I used half orange and half water)
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil. (Actually you could probably replace some of this with apple sauce if the thought of all that oil puts you off)
Pre-heat oven to 180C (350F)
Generousy grease a bundt pan. (I would say this recipe would do three 8 inch cake tins or a 13 x 9 inch tin)
Put all ingredients in one large bowl and beat until well conbined. Pour into cake tin and bake for approximately 1 hour until done. Mine took just a little less than one hour, so probably best to test from about 45 minutes onwards.
If your using a 13 x 9 pan I would test from about 35-45 minutes and for the smaller 8 inch tins from about 25 minutes onwards.
Its best if you have moist crumbs left on the toothpick when testing for doneness, like brownie crumbs.
The recipe on zaar also includes a recipe for a struesal, half fill the pan, sprinkle over the streusal and pour the rest of the batter over, but I didn't use it.
The glaze I used was just a simple ganache, equal quantities of double cream and dark chocolate. Heat the cream in a pan until just before boiling, add the chopped chocolate, let it sit for a minute or two and then stir until combined.
I should really have let the glaze cool a bit more before pouring it over but I just couldn't wait to try it so most of it wound up puddled on the plate.
Still good though.
Chocolate Cupcakes
Seriously, who doesn't like chocolate.
I love chocolate.
No. I really love chocolate. And I love cupcakes, so these little babies rock my world.
They're a bit different because they contain buttermilk (or vinegar and milk combined if you can't get buttermilk) so I wouldn't recommend licking the spoon. The batter just tastes weird.
Chocolate Cupcakes
1 1/4 cups plain (all purpose) flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda (bicarb)
1/2 cup (4oz) butter
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla essence
Preheat oven to 180C (350F)
Cream Butter and sugar, add egg and vanilla and beat well.
Alternate adding buttermilk and flour until all is combined.
Line a 12 cup muffin pan and divide batter evenly.
Bake for 20-25 minutes a skewer comes out clean.
Remove to a cooling rack and once cool frost with;
Chocolate buttercream
4oz icing sugar
2oz butter
4 oz dark chocolate melted
(a little milk)
Cream butter and sugar together to make buttercream, add melted chocolate and beat again to combine. Add a little milk if the buttercream seems a little dry or you prefer a messier (nothing wrong with that) frosting.
Chocolate cupcakes definitely work for me. For more great WFMW ideas head on over to Rocks in my Dryer.
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