The devil makes work for idle hands ...

Yesterday I was bored, no other word for it. So I decided to bake- its a bad look for me when I have nothing better to do on a Saturday. I end up getting up late, sitting around in my pj's with the cats and watching really bad TV for far too long. Before I realise it, the day has gone by and I've achieved nothing except drank lots of tea, looked at lots of nonsense on the internet and hugged the cats. This vicious cycle has to stop
So I baked, at least that way I'm achieving something. Apple cake with maple syrup icing. It's a comforting cake with soft fruit that isn't just another fruit cake. The outside is ever so slightly crunch while the inside is soft and fluffy.

Apple Cake with Maple Syrup Icing
(taken from the Ottolenghi cookbook)

Ingredients
Cake
80g sultanas
4 tbsp water
280g plain flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking power
1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
120ml olive oil
160g Caster sugar
Vanilla pod
2 eggs
3 bramley apples
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 egg whites

Icing
100g butter (room temp)
100g light brown sugar
85ml maple syrup
220g cream cheese

Directions
Grease 2 8inch tins and line with greaseproof paper.
Put the sultanas and water in a small pan and simmer over a low heat until the water has been absorbed by the sultanas. Put aside to cool.
Preheat the oven to 170C. Sift together all the dry ingredients except the sugar. In a separate bowl, beat the oil, sugar and vanilla together until light and fluffy then gradually add the eggs. Mix in the fruit and lemon zest then fold in the dry ingredients.
Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold them into the batter in 2 additions, trying to loose as little air as possible
Split the batter evenly between the two tins and smooth them out with a palette knife before sliding into the oven for about an hour (or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
To make the icing, beat together to butter, sugar and maple syrup until light and airy. Add the cream cheese and best until smooth.
Assemble the cake when completely cold.

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 - The Croissant

Croissants have become so synonymous with breakfast that they have almost transcended their French origins. They can be found in any hotel from the five star to the unclassified and even our local Tesco sells some mass-produced, hydrogenated stuffed croissant like things. They have been used and abused, fiddled with and taken for granted. And yet ... and yet, we still love them. Fluffy and buttery with yet more butter smeared over them with a liberal helping of jam, there's nothing quite like it.

Now anyone reading this may be thinking; "Gosh, isn't that fiddly? Wouldn’t that take ages? My word, what patience she must have!" and of course you'd be right - about it being fiddly of course. I, however, do not have the patience to embark on such a crusade. Besides, it wasn't my turn this week, it was Ax's. As the fully trained chief in the house and myself a mere amateur, I leave the really complicated stuff for her cut and bruised, artistic hands.

The recipe came from a book I was lucky enough to buy last week when we visited the Taste Festival (lots of fun btw - I now have this great desire to visit Le Gavroche as we enjoyed their food so much). In honour of our breakfast traditions I bought a copy of "Breakfast at the Wolseley" by Mr. A.A. Gill. Expect a lot of the breakfast series to be taken from the book, I would certainly recommend reading what he says about the bastardisation of our illustrious friend the croissant by a multitude of cultures. But I digress ... rather a lot really ... so let’s get on to our breakfast and Ax's Croissants.

Ax spent the entire week working on a multitude of batches for this one, the first batch she wasn’t happy with as she didn’t allow the yeast to fully dissolve but the second got her approval. That is until we discovered just how fragile the dough was. A little tip, when the dough is going through its final rise it is so sensitive that even the barest hint of the weight of a tea towel will traumatise them so much that they will retreat in terror and stubbornly shrink to the thickness of a pancake. However, I was much impressed with the end result of the final batch; they were fluffy, buttery, ever so slightly creamy and a tad of crisp resistance that succumbs to your first bite to release a pillow of buttery yummyness.
(... I apologise for the ramble-ness of this post- old woman that I am, it was getting a tad late for me)

The Breakfast Series - Baked Doughnuts

So we have a tradition in our house (we may have only lived here for three weeks but yes we already have traditions!) that on Sunday mornings we take turns making a proper breakfast. So far we've done French toast, blueberry pancakes and now Doughnuts.

Ah, Doughnuts. Those little bouncy, fatty, sugary pillows of heaven. There's nothing like a fresh doughnut or 5 to bring a smile to even the most depressed little face. Whether jam, cream or sugar, all doughnuts are my friends. (But not glazed, never glazed. Keep those overly sugary, sickly American monstrosities to yourself. Oh and we all know how chocolate and I feel about each other so none of that either.) If you have never had a still steaming hot, freshly deep fried doughnut then I pity you. Deeply. Once you have tasted them truly fresh then you will begin to see how much of a pale imitation your average supermarket bought doughnut is.

However, as much as I love a freshly fried doughnut, I did not relish the thought of leaving the flat smelling of a chip shop and I am sure my fellow tube passengers wouldn't have thanked me for it either. Hence the baked doughnut. Its a wonderful little recipe I picked up via tastespotting.com (which has sadly recently ceased to function - EDIT tastespotting hath returned! I rejoice and my manager probably despairs at my loss in productivity). Axy tells me these are better than the fried version as they are lighter and lack the claggy fatty taste.

Baked Doughnuts

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups warm milk
• 1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
• 29g butter
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• A pinch or two of nutmeg, freshly grated
• 1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Directions

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in to a bowl and stir in the yeast, set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt - just until the flour is incorporated. Now turn the dough out onto the side and begin to knead it (see the post about english muffins for guidance on this).

This is where you are going to need to make adjustments - if your dough is overly sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. If it’s too dry then add more milk a bit at a time. You want the dough to eventually become supple and smooth. Knead and pull the dough a few more times then shape into a ball.

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover, put in a warm place, and let rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.

Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on your floured counter top. Use a 2-3 inch cookie cutter to stamp out circles. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet and stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. If you cut the inner holes out any earlier, they become distorted when you attempt to move them. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes. (If making the night before then put them in the fridge at this stage, take them out in the morning and let them rise.)

Bake in a 190°C oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes - start checking around 8. While the doughnuts are baking, place the butter in a medium bowl. Place the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Dip each one in the melted butter and a quick toss in the sugar bowl. Eat immediately if not sooner.

Makes 1 1/2 - 2 dozen medium doughnuts.

(We had some left over home-made bonfire toffee so melted it, mixed with cream and used that as a dip - as seen above on the half eaten doughnut and all over the plate; it worked surprisingly well.)

It was Elle’s birthday recently and since I couldn’t make it to the main celebration, the girls decided we should get together beforehand (lovely people that they are). The main meal was a simple chicken roast but it’s the desert that I’m most proud of; a huge Red Velvet Cake, a dramatic and show-stopping cake for an equally show-stopping gal.

OK OK I know - I’m so totally out of food fashion right now. Red Velvet cake got so popular, so 'blogged' that everyone just got little tired of it. I can’t help it - it’s my back up cake - the one I’ll always make when I don’t know what else to make, simply because people seem to fall about in a rapture whenever I make it. I'm told it tastes wonderful, not too sweet, fluffy yet moist - the chocolate cake that even those who dislike chocolate ask for again and again. At some point it would be great if i could get some feedback on how mine stands up against the traditional deep-south Red Velvet Cake.

I've heard Red Velvet cake described as the Dolly Parton of the cake world - over the top, in your face, that you love almost because it’s so tacky and with its shocking red interior against the bright white icing its obvious to see why. However, I like to bring a little class to my cakes and to be honest; I just don’t have the patience or the icing skills to do much more than some classy minimalism. I tend to aim for a nice mahogany red in my Red Velvet, still unashamedly red but not the screaming-violent-fluorescent-alarm-red that so many red velvet cakes seem to attain. As such, it’s a little hard to see the red on the pictures and I tend to find you get most of the effect when you cut it open. Dramatic and ever so slightly ever the top – you know you love it.







(Note; i have no idea where i got this recipe since its been hanging around on bits of paper in my study for years)

Red Velvet Cake

Ingredients

• 14g (½ oz) unsalted butter
• 390g Plain Flour (preferably good quality and strong)
• 60g unsweetened cocoa (not Dutch process)
• 1½ teaspoons salt
• 475ml rapeseed oil
• 505g granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 6 tablespoons red food colouring
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla
• 300ml buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons bicarbinate soda
• 2½ teaspoons white vinegar.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place teaspoon of butter in each of 3 round 9-inch layer cake pans and place pans in oven for a few minutes until butter melts. Remove pans from oven, brush interior bottom and sides of each with butter and line bottoms with parchment.

2. Whisk cake flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl.

3. Place oil and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed until well-blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. With machine on low, very slowly add red food coloring. (Take care: it may splash.) Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in two batches. Scrape down bowl and beat just long enough to combine.

4. Place baking soda in a small dish, stir in vinegar and add to batter with machine running. Beat for 10 seconds.

5. Divide batter among pans, place in oven and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in pans 20 minutes. Then remove from pans, flip layers over and peel off parchment. Cool completely before frosting.

Yield: 3 cake layers.

Red Velvet cake icing

Ingredients

• 482ml heavy cream, cold
• 12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 12 ounces mascarpone
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• 170g confectioners’ sugar, sifted.

Directions

1. Softly whip cream by hand, in electric mixer or in food processor. Cover in bowl and refrigerate.

2. Blend cream cheese and mascarpone in food processor or electric mixer until smooth. Add vanilla, pulse briefly, and add confectioners’ sugar. Blend well.

3. Transfer cream cheese mixture to bowl; fold in whipped cream. Refrigerate until needed.

Yield: Icing for top and sides of 3-layer cake.