The Bake Off!

Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our normally planned schedule to bring you The Bake Off *queue Rocky theme music*. In the red corner we have your noble writer Sulandra; a plucky newcomer, unfamiliar with the territory but with plenty of promise, she will be defending herself with that traditional weapon of choice; the mighty cupcake. In the blue corner we have Rush, seasoned defender who knows this territory well and comes with a fearsome reputation in this battlefield. He will be defending himself with ... "oh wait ... I forgot ... my oven hasn't worked in two months... I couldn't bring anything". Wait, did he just ... *screech as the Rocky theme music is unceremoniously brought to a halt* ... yes I think he did, he whimped out.

*ahem* Yes, well that's enough of that. I somehow got myself involved in a bake off at work (somehow, in this case can be loosely translated to; I stupidly challenged him because I am an idiot). I decided I wanted to do a cupcake quartet, an idea which swiftly went out the window when I couldn't find buttermilk in my local tesco for the red velvet cupcakes. So the quartet became a trio and, stretching the music analogy just a tad, the melody was sweet. I did a remake of my ferrero rocher cupcakes, carrot cupcakes with a maple syrup cream icing and lemon meringue pie cupcakes. My personal favourite were the carrot cupcakes which were surprisingly moist and light, the icing worked but I would like to test other flavours of icing as I felt that mix of flavours could have worked better. The lemon meringue pie cupcakes seemed to be the favourite amongst those at the office, they did look rather impressive and I found that the cupcakes themselves were surprisingly fragrant. Most disappointing for me was the lack of feedback on the ferrero rocher cupcakes, Ax was unable to taste the new icing before I used it and the only feedback I received from those at the office was along the lines of "yes, they're very nice". Which is always nice to hear but entirely unhelpful when its a new recipe that one is unable to taste. I never thought a cupcake would make me miss my Newcastle boys quite so much. With quality of feedback as low as that, I suspect I may have to find a new testing ground for my recipes.

*a word on the photographs - the quality is surprisingly poor, even for me, as I forgot to photograph the one's I took to the office and was left only with the rejects which had a face only a mother could love. Please don't judge their prettier brothers and sisters by their unfortunate disfigurements.*

Lemon Meringue Pie Cupcakes (taken from here)

Ingredients
For the lemon curd

• 70ml (1/3 cup) fresh lemon juice
• 3 large eggs
• 1 large egg yolk
• 95g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
• 115g unsalted butter, cut into chunks
• 1 teaspoon fresh grated lemon zest

For the cupcake batter

• 200g (2 cups) Plain Flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tablespoon fresh grated lemon zest (this worked out to be almost a whole lemon)
  
• 200g (1 cup) granulated sugar
• 85g (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 240ml (1 cup) milk

For the meringue

• 3 large egg whites
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 95g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar

Directions

To make the lemon curd

In a heat-proof bowl, whisk lemon juice, eggs, egg yolk and sugar until smooth. Add butter and place bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisking gently, cook mixture until it thickens and leaves a ribbon when whisk is lifted - this can take anywhere from 8 to 20 minutes depending on how high the heat is set and how cold the ingredients were. Remove from heat and push through a fine mesh strainer. Fold in lemon zest, cover with plastic wrap and thoroughly chill before using.

To make the cupcakes

Preheat oven to 190°C. In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, rub together the lemon zest and sugar with your fingers until the zest is evenly distributed and the sugar takes on a light yellow hue. Add butter and cream together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture alternately with the milk - beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Evenly divide batter between 24 paper-lined muffin cups - they should be roughly half full.

Bake until cake springs back when lightly touched in the centre and is just beginning to get a golden hue- about 16 to 20 minutes. Remove and place cupcakes on a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the meringue

In a large mixing bowl, whip egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy. Slowly add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, and continue whipping until egg whites hold stiff peaks when beaters are lifted.

To assemble the cupcakes

Place cupcakes on a large baking sheet. Use a paring knife to cut out a small cone out of the centre of each cupcake. Pipe about 1 to 2 tablespoons of the lemon curd into each cupcake. Spoon dollops of meringue over the curd on each cupcake. Using a cooking blow torch, very carefully colour the cupcakes to lightly brown them. If you don't have a blow torch then pre-heat the oven to 220°C and bake until the tops of the meringues brown - about 4 to 6 minutes.

Makes 24 cupcakes.

Ferrero Rocher Cupcake Recipe

(The cupcake recipe came from here and subsequently modified. It makes aprox 24 cupcakes, it not-surprisingly halves easily so I made 12.)

• 120ml (1/2 cup) boiling water
• 45g (6 tbsp) unsweetened cocoa powder
• 60ml (1/4 cup) milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp hazelnut extract
• 115g (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 125g (10 tbsp) dark brown sugar
• 75g (6 tbsp) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 100g (1 cup) Plain flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
  
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions

In a bowl, whisk the boiling water into cocoa until smooth and whisk in milk, vanilla, and hazelnut extracts. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes, and beat in eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Into another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda,

and salt and add to egg mixture in batches alternately with cocoa mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture, and beating well after each addition. Fill each wrapper slightly more than 1/2 way. They will rise a lot. Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 18 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

The Gooey Chocolate Hazelnut Filling Recipe

• 240ml (1 cup) Thick double cream
• 180g (1 cup) milk chocolate, broken off
• 2 tsp hazelnut extract
• 3 tbsp toasted chopped hazelnuts
  

Bring heavy cream to a boil. Pour over chocolate chips to melt them. Add extract. Mix until fluffy. Put into the fridge to cool. When its solidified, mix in the chopped hazelnuts, making sure they're fully combined. Cut a cone in each cupcake and put a teaspoon or two of the filling in. Replace the cone.

The Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache Recipe

I modified the ganache recipe as I found last time I made it that the corn syrup it suggested was not sweet enough.

• 120ml (1/2 cup) Thick Double cream
• 230g (8 oz ) good quality milk chocolate chunks
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• 2 tbsp honey
  
• 2 t hazelnut extract

Heat the cream on the stove until it boils. Pour over the chocolate and stir to melt, adding the honey, maple syrup and hazelnut extract. When thoroughly mixed, use to ice the cupcakes.

Carrot Cupcake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting (from here)

• 100g (1 cup) plain flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 60g (1/3 Cup) granulated sugar
• 60g (1/3 Cup) packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 240ml (1/2 Cup) vegetable oil
• aprox. 230g (1 1/2 Cup) lightly packed finely shredded carrots (I used 2 carrots)

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

• 115g (4 oz) cream cheese
• 115ml thick double cream
  
• 60ml (1/4 Cup) maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Shred your carrots on a box grater (be careful, mind your knuckles) or in a food processor with a shredding disc, set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt together. In a bowl, blend the granulated and brown sugar with the eggs until thoroughly combined. Whilst stir mixing, slowly pour in the oil and continue to mix until the mixture has lightened in colour and is somewhat thicker, about 30 seconds. Pour it into the dry ingredients, add the shredded carrots and mix until no streaks of flour remain. Divide the batter into 12 paper cups. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake in the centre of the cupcakes comes out clean. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and cool on a rack to room temperature. As the cakes are cooling, take out the cream cheese and let it soften a little. To make the frosting, simply whisk the cream until stiff, then mix in with cream cheese and the maple syrup until smooth. Put the icing into the fridge to stiffen a little before use to make it easier. Frost the cupcakes when they have cooled. Makes 12 cupcakes

*I'm afraid the breakfast challenge has been put on hold for a few weeks whilst Ax jets around exotic places like Paris and south west England*

The Breakfast Series - Muffins

Yes, I am well aware that my last post was about muffins. However, I hasten to point out that they were English Muffins (created to be part of Eggs Benedict, even if that was not to be), whilst today's post is about muffins; a difficult distinction to be sure. Given that we had a guest for breakfast this week who is allergic to nuts, I admit I did struggle with this most recent challenge. But then I do enjoy a challenge.


And so, gentle reader, let us consider the muffin. Gaze at it in all of its fruity, cake-y-ness. Inhale that unique scent of baking woven with blueberries, strawberries and a faint aroma of caramel. Incorrectly or not, I have always thought of muffins to be the American version of cupcakes. They're like cupcakes but supersized - bigger, heavier and a good muffin should have moist slabs of fruit or chocolate, that ooze from the shell, almost willing you to eat them.

My first memory of eating a muffin is whilst at High School - it was one of those foods that we all agreed they did rather well. There was always a scramble to get the first of the freshly baked muffins, still warm, with either chocolate or blueberries winking at you from the paper wrapping. The tops had mushroomed out of their restrictive paper shells in the baker's miniature version of a nuclear cloud and become crunchy, whilst the insides were soft, moist and fluffy. My experiences of the humble muffin since then mainly come from the bakeries of Starbucks and from thence they have varied greatly from the dry-sahara-esque impresionistas to the deeply fragrant and moist muffins I can smell as I walk through the door interlaced with the cloyingly persistent aroma of coffee. As you can no doubt tell, I have found my muffin journeys to be rather pot luck, and it was about time I ventured into discovering just how difficult it is to make a decent muffin.


The most salient point I have gleaned in my research, is the importance of not over stirring. You want to mix it enough so that there are no deep pockets of flour but (and here is the key bit) it does not want to be smooth. It will be lumpy and every carefully honed baker's sense will be screaming at you to keep stirring but be strong, resist and your mixture will thank you. I was rather happy with this recipe but if I do it again I think I may add more strawberries, they did seem to disappear in the cooking a little. However, they came out moist, fragrant, springy and generally a baked good that I was happy to share with a guest.

Presidential Muffins (modified from here)

Ingredients

• 270g (3 Cups) Plain Flour
• 145g (¾ Cup) Sugar
• 1 Tbsp. Baking Powder
• 115g (½ Cup) Butter, Melted
• 225g (8oz) Cream Cheese, Softened
• 240ml (1 Cup) Milk
• 1 Tsp Vanilla
• 2 Eggs
• 115g (¾ Cup) Blueberries, halved
  
• 75g (½ cup) Strawberries, chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 180°C.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, and baking powder then set them aside to get to know each other better.

In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, cream cheese, milk, vanilla, and eggs. Mix them until smooth, I used an electric whisk as I lack the arm muscles to do this by hand effectively. Pour liquid into dry ingredients, and - put down that electric whisk! I see that - no, just put it down! - This is the moment where you reach for your trusted and ill-forgotten spoon, or the fashionable alternative, the spatula. Fold the mix carefully a few times, until only just combined. It will be lumpy, stay strong young grasshopper, all will be well.

Scoop batter into muffin cups, I think you can risk filling them up to about 3/4 to result in that classic muffin-spread (in the good food sense, not the vomit-inducing clothing sense). Lightly sprinkle tops with brown sugar and bake for about 30 minutes or until muffins spring back when lightly pressed. Try to exercise patience when they come out the oven and leave them be for a few minutes. Let them cool and recover from the trauma of cooking, and in return the blueberries won't scald your mouth into oblivion. Enjoy.

The Breakfast Series - English Muffins

So ... well ... yes, I am well aware that English muffins on their own are not typically a breakfast dish. They are really more a part of that fundamentally English meal, afternoon tea. Unless, that is, they are a part of that classic breakfast dish; Eggs Benedict. Such was my plan.

During the week, Ax tutored me in the secrets of the perfect Hollandaise sauce and I in turn spent hours baking the English muffins. It did certainly seem that I was fully prepared for the breakfast challenge. However, a normal sensible person would not have reached that conclusion. Allow me to explain. On Friday I noticed I was developing a slight sore throat, I thought nothing of it. On Saturday I was irritable, out of sorts, felt generally achy and despite my throat now feeling like I had been gargling broken glass; I failed to put two and two together. Sunday morning I was ill. I knew very well that I was ill. My throat hurt, I had a temperature, I was tired and everything ached. Now the most relevant point of this rather rambling description of my general health is this - every time I get a cold I feel like someone has opened up my head, stirred my brain round with a wooden spoon and then closed it up again. Naturally, this is not conducive to coherent thought processes.

Without me realising, the effects of this had set in on Saturday resulting in me forgetting to buy the ham or even enough eggs to do both the Hollandaise and the poached eggs. By the time I realised this, it was already Sunday morning and I had just finished separating the eggs for the sauce. I felt like a right ejit and got rather annoyed with myself. Ax, being the saint that she is, patiently suggested that we could just have the muffins with some of the jam left over from the croissants. We did, they were lovely, I am still ill. As I have said on my facebook status; "I'm melting .... meeeeelting"

I would like to dedicate this post to Ax - My brilliant flatmate, who has had to cope with me this past week. I am fully aware of how irritable, idiotic and pathetic I am when ill and she's been an absolute trouper.

Now English muffins, as I am sure you know, are a bread based product. I heartily recommend getting yourself a copy of either "Crust; bread to get your teeth into" or "dough" both by Richard Bertinet. Preferably one of the versions which come with the free DVD on how to mix and kneed your basic dough mix. I found it very helpful; if somewhat different from the method I had been taught. I used his method for kneading/mixing the dough for a good 10 minutes, when I then got bored and then finished off by using the more traditional method my mother taught me. It resulted in one of the smoothest and finest dough’s that I have ever made.

Traditional English Muffins

Ingredients

• 400ml (1 1/2 cups) milk
• 14g Unsalted butter
• 1 Extra Large Egg
• 2 tsp dried yeast
• 400g (4 cups) Plain Flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 60ml (1/4 cup) fresh orange juice

Directions

In a pan, very gently heat the milk and butter until the butter melts and stirs into the milk. Were looking for tepid milk here people so when I say gently, I mean gently - you'll see why in a moment. Take off the heat, whisk in the egg until combined and then sprinkle over the yeast to dissolve. This is why we were aiming for tepid milk - too hot and you'll kill the yeast and get some sort of flat bread relation, too cold and the yeast won't ferment and you'll get pretty much the same thing. I like to sprinkle a touch of flour over the yeast mix just so that it’s easier to see when the bubbles start appearing. The yeast will take about 5 minutes to start blowing bubbles in your milk so leave it alone and let it do its thing.

Measure out your flour and salt, and sift them together. Make a little well in the centre. When the yeast mix is foamy, pour it into the well along with the orange juice (in case you were wondering, your muffins will not even hint of orange - this is just to help with the rising process). Loosely mix until the liquid is no longer runny and you have a sticky, glutinous mass. Now turn it out on to the side - leftover flour et al - and begin to knead it, Bertinet-stylee. It will, initially, stick to your fingers making you look like you've contracted some horrible disease - cope. If you add more flour then you'll end up with a very dry muffin, which is never pleasant to eat. As you knead it, the left over flour will gradually mix in, making it less sticky and slowly removing most of the dough that clung to your fingers. I started traditionally kneading when the dough was smoother, about 10 minutes or so in.

I cannot emphasis this next point enough - you need patience when kneading, give the dough all the time it needs. You want a smooth, springy, elastic, lump-free mix that almost has the texture of satin. From tipping mine out of the bowl, to stopping, I believe I was kneading for a good 15 minutes.

Now oil a bowl (I just used the same one I had recently tipped the dough out of) and put your dough into it, covered with Clingfilm. Leave it for about 2 hours in a warmish or room temperature space, allowing it to double in size.

Punch down the dough and very briefly knead it, then roll it into a sausage-like-shape. Using a very sharp knife, divide the dough into 16 equal chunks. Now, between your hands, smoothly shape each chunk into a nice round ball then place onto an oiled tray. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for yet another two hours, or until the dough has just about doubled in size again.

Now put a small amount of oil into a frying pan and warm on a low to medium heat. Add the muffins to the pan and cook on each side for about 5-7 minutes, or until light brown.

The typical way to eat muffins is to split them and then toast them before eating. After toasting, I spread mine with a touch of butter and a generous helping of some pomegranate jam. We did freeze the majority of them and I discovered this morning that they work very well frozen then toasted to bring them back.