(Brown) Red Velvet Cupcakes

Sometimes I get the impression that some people don’t actually try and make the recipes that they publish. I have made so many things over the years that come out completely wrong/different/taste odd that I have a set amount of times someone’s recipes can go wrong before I ditch them from my life. Normally I’d blame myself when things go wrong but I know I can bake so after two duff recipes I never let people darken my doors again.

One of my issues is with Dr Oetker red food colouring. I made Red Velvet Cupcakes a couple of years ago and they were beautiful. It takes a serious bit of baking to beat red velvet cake and these were immense. I then went around to a friend’s house to make them with her daughters but couldn’t find my usual food colouring – Langsdale. I’d read in the Hummingbird Bakery book that Dr Oetker made a good one so bought that. Now I should have been alerted to potential issues when I saw that it was syrupy and not watery and that it smelt of strawberries. Odd. Anyway they didn’t turn out well as the food colouring made the tops pink and that was about it. Seriously, why would anyone recommend it? It doesn’t work and makes the cakes smell disturbingly of strawberry! I’m sure that the Hummingbird Bakery probably use some professional brand so just say that. Anyway, I abandoned all hope of making them again, as everywhere stocks Dr Oetker and nothing else, until this weekend I saw that Waitrose were selling their own brand. Yay!

Now I had lost my previous recipe so went to a trusted source – Recipe Rifle. It’s an amazing blog so check it out. (I may also have a slight girl crush on the woman who writes it). It’s obvious that she cooks everything she writes about and I’ve had tons of success with her recipes in the past. She has a recipe for Red Velvet Cupcakes but I ignored her warning that it didn’t work out for her. On I ploughed, happily making the cupcakes until disaster struck. They were brown. So there is either too much cocoa powder, the food colouring is weird or a mixture of both. I think it's the food colouring as I'm guessing my old trusted brand has probably been banned by the EU for some reason or other. It's probably made from horse.

So no recipe this week as I just covered the brown cakes in chocolate frosting, gave them to my work colleagues and had a sulk in the corner. If you want to do as I did check the recipe out on Recipe Rifle, completely ignore her advice and make them anyway. I'll continue my hunt for red food colouring and revisit these again soon.

Victoria's Banana Bread

I've managed to inspire Victoria, my sister-in-law, to bake and she's sent me a picture of the banana bread she made from this recipe http://ibakeonmondays.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/banana-bread-with-rum-soaked-sultanas.html.

She's managed to present it in a much more beautiful way than me so I'd suggest garnishing it with fresh banana when serving.

Sultana Scones

When I decided to make these I realised I have no go to recipe for scones. I looked online but none seemed to be right as they all used self-raising flour so I went back to basics. My mum bought me a massive recipe book when I went to university. One of those 1,000 recipes ones but there is nothing I’ve ever looked for in there that I haven’t found. It didn’t fail me this time either so with a few tweaks here is the recipe.

So the main thing with scones is that you want a ridge around the middle which means that they rip in half ready to be slathered with jam and cream. These went down well but then anything that I tend to give my work colleagues tends to disappear fairly quickly. I think that the combination of thick dough and a fairly small cutter gives the best scones as you get great height but not a huge scone that makes you feel full just by looking at it! Plus they look like something you’d get at a posh afternoon tea.

Ingredients
450g plain flour
2 tbsp baking powder (yes tablespoon – you want the suckers to rise)
100g butter cubed
100g sultanas
4 tbsp caster sugar
2 large eggs (keep a little to one side to brush on top of the dough)
150ml milk

1.    Preheat oven to 220°/GM7.

2.    Mix the flour and baking powder and rub in the butter. Use tip of fingers – you know you’re doing it right if the palms of your hands stay clean. (I’m sure you could bung it in a food processor). You want it to go breakcrumby.

3.    Add the sultanas and sugar missing in.

4.    Make a well in the centre and add the eggs beating together in the well. You could beat them in a bowl but that’s just more washing up. Add about half the milk and then mix together. Start with a palette knife and then get your hands in. Add more milk if the dough needs it. You’ll probably not need it all.

5.    When it’s all come together turn out on a floured surface and knead until smooth. This is an important part so make sure you do it for 2 or 3 minutes.

6.    Roll the dough out until it’s about 2.5cm thick. Cut out with a 5cm cutter, rerolling when you run out of space. You should get 20-28 scones from it.

7.    Place on a baking tray – non-stick is best – but if not grease the tray. Brush the tops with eggs and cook for about 10 minutes (give it another couple if you think they need it). Make sure you scoff one down while hot and then think about serving the rest to other people.

This has to be dedicated to Jess who bought clotted cream for the ones I brought to work.

 

Feta and Spinach Scones

I’m over making decisions. It’s not to say I don’t make them but I’m finding them a real chore. This is a difficulty as an adult as there are a lot to make and in my job I have to make a ton of them – ALL THE TIME! My Creative Director (well the one I work with not one I have to direct creativity in my daily life, not that I have one of those) says that Obama believes that people can only make a limited number of effective decisions in a day. So he minimises the smaller ones he has to make by only having a couple of different suits, eating whatever he is given for lunch, etc. Now I pointed out that he also has a whole legion of people to serve him breakfast, buy presents for his friends and tell him how he likes his coffee. I could make less decisions with an army of people making them for me. Also what the hell that does say about the whole world of people who have to make what he considers too many decisions!

Anyway it did make me think about it and I realised that I have been doing things to allow me to make less mundane decisions. I’ve fallen into the rut of eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch during the week and making most of the dinners for the week at the weekend. Plus I go to the gym in the morning more days than not so having pre-packed outfits just means I don’t have to think about it. I’m not sure if this has made my subsequent decisions better but it has meant that I can spend more time at my desk making more decisions. Badly - according to Obama.

Anyway last week I couldn’t be bothered to think of something to bake so I took suggestions from my bank of desks. As my baking has basically meant that everyone I work with starts baying at cake tins on a Tuesday morning I thought I should make something that was requested. I took on the suggestion of cheese and spinach scones but thought that I should ensure that in case they bombed then I should make some more traditional ones as well. The fruit one came out very well and the savoury ones less so. They were a little dry and didn’t rise but as I’d cobbled together three recipes I think that with a few tweaks I’ll get there. The flavours worked well, with the cayenne pepper and mustard adding a little spice, so I’ll put my recipe down with suggestions and update when I try them out again. I’ll post the fruit scone recipe separately.

Ingredients

100g Feta chopped into small cubes (keep 20g to one side)

30-50g steamed spinach drained (really squish the water out)

175g self raising flour

25g wholemeal flour (ignore if you don’t have it and make up with self raising)

¼ tsp baking powder (put in 1 tsp)

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

¼ tsp mustard powder

3 tbsp olive oil or anything half decent (try 4-5 tbsp)

1 tsp dried oregano

1 large egg

2 tbsp milk

1.    Preheat oven to 220°/GM7.

2.    Put the flours and baking powder into a bowl with the cayenne pepper and mustard powder. Then add the oil and mix it with a palette knife. It will look like chunky breadcrumbs. Get your hands in there if you want.

3.    Add the feta, spinach and oregano mixing well.

4.    Beat the egg into the milk and add half to the mixture mixing well. Use your hands as its the best way and to be honest you feel like you have baked with batter caked onto your finger nails! Keep adding the egg mix until the dough comes together. You don’t want it sticky but soft.

5.    Now roll it out to about 2.5cm thick on a floured surface. Using a 5cm cutter stamp out the scones. You want them lovely and plump (I went a bit think but couldn’t be bothered to re-roll). Brush the top with milk.

6.    Now bake for about 15 minutes until golden on top.

This makes between 12 and 16 depending on how thick they are. I think they’d be good with soup.

Florentines

Never go to the gym before baking! Seriously. If you do arm exercises before whisking the crap out of something it’s going to hurt. It’s a long boring story but I now go to the same gym as my husband. The Thew is very serious about keeping fit and has a few fairly intense challenges to complete this year so I’m in supportive wife mode; joining him for some training runs and now going to the gym with him. He seems to like the company and is actually very good at being motivating as long as he thinks you’re working hard. Anyway this Monday morning there were some medicine ball lifts and my arms now hurt – a lot.

To be honest I didn’t really think about the work involved in making the Florentines I had decided to try out this week. It's only baking after all. I’d asked around my office what I should make and someone mentioned them. I remembered that someone else who had missed out on my mega baking last week liked them so it made sense to give them a go. Florentines are one of those things that I'm surprised that I like. Candied peel and glace cherries aren’t general the ingredients in these days of cupcakes that do it for people but when you bake them in a caramel type sauce ... well it’s just a thing of beauty.

If you’re going to make these – and I do recommend it, even after the pain – then maybe prepare some of the ingredients beforehand. There is some chopping which is fairly boring. I did mine the night before watching ‘Man vs Food’. Also the sauce needs to be smooth which is where the whisking comes in – quite a bit in my case! I'm not sure an electric one would work, you just need to whisk the heck out of it with a balloon whisk. If I’m honest I think this is one of those recipes you’ve got to make a few times but the bonus is that I think regardless of how it goes you’ll enjoy what you end up with. Sadly The Thew wasn’t in supportive husband mode as he declared they looked like little puddles of cat sick when they came out of the oven. He did amend that later once they were finished but quite frankly the damage was done as far as I was concerned!

Ingredients

100g blanched almonds, chopped into a variety of sizes (I’m going to try this with flaked almonds next time)
100g chopped candied peel (you could find whole stuff and chop it yourself but I have no idea where you would buy it in the normal world)
40g glace cherries, chopped
25g butter
90g caster sugar
15g plain flour
150ml double cream
Melted chocolate – white, milk and/or dark (about 200 - 225g in total)

1.    Preheat the oven to 190°/GM5. Find a non-stick baking tray. I’d tell you to grease a regular one but who has time? Just use a non-stick and it will be fine.

2.    Put the butter and sugar into a saucepan and melt them. It will be a fairly robust melt that foams and stays fairly solid when mixed (or maybe I did it wrong!) Add the flour and mix like a white sauce. It made a sandy sort of mixture but I think it’s meant to go into a ball. I don’t think it matters much but I will be trying these again as you don't want the sugar/butter to burn but you need to leave it on long enough to melt.

3.    Take off the heat and add the cream whisking to make a smooth sauce. This is where the mega whisking comes in. As the cream hits the hot mixture it cools it and it goes lumpy. Just chuck back on a low heat and whisk like crazy. Or be less impatient and put a little cream in at a time so it doesn't make it cold quickly.

4.    Once smooth put the fruit and almonds in and mix together. See not that bad really!

5.    Then put heaped teaspoon fulls on the tray leaving a healthy gap as these suckers spread. Flatten them out a little bit. Bake for 9-11 minutes – it depends on your oven but you want the edges to go golden brown.

6.    Take out and leave to cool for about 5 minutes before taking off the tray and cooling completely.

7.    Now melt whatever chocolate you want. Once melted use a pastry brush to add layers of chocolate to the flat side until it’s nice and thick. I put them in the fridge in between layers as I’m impatient. Some would finish the chocolate with a squiggly pattern but my hands were so covered in chocolate I just gave up.

This makes 25 - 30. When I try these again I'll refine the recipe if I learn anything new.

Cute Little Welsh Cakes

I did all the baking at the weekend and am now baked out. No baking happened this Monday as I did it all yesterday. I, maybe foolishly, bribed everyone in the agency I work in with baking if they filled in some training diaries we need to do every year. It hopefully softened the annoyance of me harassing them on a daily basis to fill them in. In the end it got done and I found myself with having to fulfil the promise.

Luckily I found myself with a quiet weekend as The Thew was off running 66 miles as part of his training for taking on the Sahara (another story completely). I used Saturday to get out and about, run, go to museums, eat burgers and drink wine – as you do. That left Sunday for weekend chores and generally slobbing around. I do feel slightly guilty (of the Irish kind) if I don’t do much and am at home, so baking means that I have something productive to show for it. As baking really doesn’t take a huge amount of time, or there are things you can do in front of the TV while watching ‘Romancing the Stone’, it allows for slobbing and productivity. Bonus.

So among the various things I made were Welsh Cakes. I’d forgotten how much I like them and remembered them when I realised I had run out of sultanas – one of the weird associations I have with ingredients. So I decided to make those as I hadn’t yet for my colleagues and I could make quite a lot in a short period of time. They are like mini scones but not at the same time - try them.

Ingredients

230g self raising flour

110g cold butter (cut into chunks)

85g sugar

60g sultanas (you could probably use currants if you prefer)

Grating of nutmeg

1 beaten egg

1.     Put the flour in a bowl and add the butter. Rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. (I did this while watching ‘Romancing the Stone’ which is just epic – that white outfit Michael Douglas wears? A-mazing!) You just want to use the tips of your fingers when doing this to keep the butter from melting too much and it becoming mush. My mum always said that you want to finish with clean palms!

2.    Add the sugar, sultanas and nutmeg. You don’t want much nutmeg – about ¼ teaspoon. Mix well.

3.    Then add the egg and make a dough. Knead it for a while to make sure it’s mixed well. (I didn’t do this once and it didn’t work out well, so do it!)

4.    Roll out on a floured surface until about 1cm thick. Now I use quite a small cutter but you can use up to 6cm one. The amount you get out depends on the size of each one.

5.    Wipe vegetable oil on a frying pan and put on a very low heat. Make sure the pan is hot before putting your first cakes in. Leave a gap between them and do them in batches. Keep wiping a little more oil on for each batch with a kitchen paper towel.

6.    You’ll need to keep an eye on time. I do about 2 minutes a side and I use a palette knife to flip them over. Basically the butter in the dough browns up quickly so you don’t want to burn them. Flip one over to see how it’s doing it you are worried. You’ll see them start to puff up while cooking which is just so cute.

7.    Remove and cool as they tend to keep cooking a bit once out of the pan. They are very delicate when hot so be careful. I would recommending eating one warm but be careful not to devour the lot.