Triple Chocolate Muffins

This is super easy a delivers a ridiculous chocolate kick. It’s a twist on a Hummingbird Bakery recipe but I added more chocolate and thought to hell with frosting. It’s Monday night and I have Hot Cross Scones to make – more about those in another post. So here we go. 

Ingredients

80g soft butter (I mean it – let that stuff get warmed up)

280g caster sugar

200g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

40g cocoa powder

240ml whole milk

2 large eggs

50g milk chocolate cut into chunks

50g white chocolate cut into chunks

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/GM 5.
2. Put the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder in a bowl and mix until like fine sand. I was almost tempted to use a food processor but you need to mix the next bit and who wants that much washing up.
3. Whisk the eggs into the milk and add ¾ of it to the flour mixture. Then mix until smooth. Add the last bit and do the same. Then fold in the chunks.
4. Divide the mixture into 12 large muffin cases. Mine had high sides so if you have the regular sized ones maybe go for making 16 or stick with 12 and let the muffins fall over the top of the cases. That always looks generous when giving someone a muffin.
5. Bake for 20- 25 minutes if making 12 – if more than  17-20.

Told you it was easy!



Chocolate Chip Cookies

The fear of electrocution finally became too great. I decided to buy a new electric hand whisk as my current one requires me to jam a knife in the top to start it (do not tell The Thew that is what I have been doing). Not the greatest way to start a baking project. I hate shopping but took myself along to John Lewis where the cheapest, and lightest, hand whisk wasn't available (why is it on the shelf then?!) but one 2 ½ times more expensive and about eight times as heavy was. I left. I mean who (Kenwood) makes a really heavy hand whisk? Yes it was very pretty but I have to hold the thing and cream butter and sugar together. Luckily my local Tesco had a nice cheap and light hand whisk so I was saved from electrocution. 

I decided to celebrate by finding a recipe that required a lot if whisking. However while looking for this I found my chocolate chip cookie recipe I thought I had lost. It’s brilliant and simple, making a crunchy, yet chewy, cookie. You can freeze it and cook from frozen as well as make giant cookies if you have a pizza pan to bake it in. The recipe makes a lot of dough but that was fine by me as I had need of a lot of baked goods. I’m on film shoots (not as glamorous as it sounds) all this week and I like to bring baked goods with me. I’m bad with names and faces and on shoots I meet so many new people, forget all their names and rely on being the provider of tasty treats to smooth things over.

Apologies for not converting into grams. It’s based on a US recipe and there is something about using cups and basically shoving all the ingredients in together that is so wonderfully easy that I think the experience should be preserved. I also realised, while typing this up, that I used baking powder, not bicarb, which explains why they didn’t come out chewy. They still taste good so have added an option here to pretend that I meant to do it. 

Ingredients

1 ½ cups of butter at room temperature (important!)

1 ¼ cups of granulated sugar

1 ¼ cups of soft dark brown sugar, firmly packed (if you have light then fine but the dark given them a caramel edge)

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

4 cups of flour

2 tsp bicarb of soda (or 2 tsp baking powder if you want them crisper and more biscuit like)

1 tsp salt

300g chocolate chips (whatever you like best – I did a mix of dark and milk) 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM 4.

2.    Put the butter, both sugars, vanilla and eggs in a big bowl. Whisk together. This is why room temperature butter is important as you need it soft otherwise dough will start flying.

3.    Stir the bicarb of soda and salt into the flour.

4.    Alternate adding the flour mixture and chocolate chips until it’s all used up (do about thirds).

5.    Take a rounded tsp of mixture and roll into a ball. Do this for all the mixture – yes it takes a while but watch something on TV.

6.    Cook what you want for 9-12 minutes on a cookie tray and freeze the rest in bags. They cook from frozen in about 18 minutes.  

Makes about 60-80!

Millionaire’s Shortbread

There was very little drama this week in the picking of a recipe. I just did what I’d planned to do last week as I remembered to buy the ingredients I needed. This does not help me with a blog post at all. Therefore I’m not going to waffle on and get straight to the recipe. However I’ll use this space to recommend a couple of plays to read that I've read lately. I get that they won’t be everybody’s cup of tea but then what is?

• August: Osage County by Tracy Letts – excellent play about a family coming together after a death. Lots of different relationships at play, interlinking and exploring what family is. It’s being made into a film so quite excited to see it. 
• A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (free on Kindle) – I randomly came across this on a link to a reading list F. Scott Fitzgerald had given to someone. It explores a woman’s role in marriage and her identity within it. I didn’t realise until I had read it that it was highly controversial at the time of publishing in 1879. The writer had the belief that "a woman cannot be herself in modern society," since it is "an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint." The thought is still sadly relevant over 100 years after first being published so worth a free download and read.  

Ingredients

55g butter, melted

250g shortbread, smashed (either whizz in a food processor or put in a sturdy sandwich bag and whack it with a rolling pin)

150g soft dark brown sugar

150g butter

1 x tin condensed milk (397g)

200g dark chocolate (you can use milk if you prefer)

1 x packet white chocolate buttons (if you want pretty patterns on the top)

1.    I highly recommend using a silicon baking tray thing if you have one. Mine is 20cm square and you'll need to rest it on a chopping board, as you need a solid base when using silicon baking things. If not line a 20cm square tin (or of similar size), making sure you have plenty of grease proof paper over the edges so you can lift the finished product out.

2.    Mix the biscuit crumb into the melted butter. Once mixed press into the bottom of the tray, even out and let set for an hour.

3.    The caramel takes about 10 minutes to get ready. Put the butter and sugar in a saucepan. Melt and mix together on a low heat. Then add the condensed milk, turn up the heat and stir sluggishly while it comes to a rapid boil. This will take about 3-4 minutes. Once boiling keep stirring vigorously for about 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir until it stops bubbling when you stop stirring. I know that doesn't quite make sense but stir a bit, see if it bubbles, stir etc etc. You want to cool it a bit.

4.    Pour the caramel over the set base and then let set for another hour or so. I know this seems like a long time to make something that is a pimped up Twix but most of it is leaving it to set and you can make it over a whole day if you have places to be.

5.    Once the caramel is set melt the chocolate in separate bowls. Pour the dark chocolate on first and spread evenly. If using the white chocolate put dollops of it on top and swirl it using the tip of a sharp knife to make pretty patterns. Let set in the fridge.

6.    Now to cut. If using silicon turn it out on a board and if not lift it out using the paper. Then take a long sharp knife and a kettle of boiled water. Pour hot water over the blade of your knife. Wipe off excess water and then rest the blade where you want to cut. The chocolate will melt allowing you to cut through so it doesn't splinter. Repeat after each slice, cleaning the blade. A bit long winded but it works! Makes about 20-25 depending on how many slices you can be bothered to cut up.

Banana Bread with Chocolate Chunks

Now this recipe was inspired by having four very ripe bananas at home the The Thew never got around to eating. I didn’t have any rum or bourbon to make my usual version so thought I’d kind of make it up as I went along. It came out well and got demolished at work. It’s very dense but I believe all good banana bread it. One of my work colleagues took up my suggestion to see what happened when you toasted it and spread it with butter. It worked well. I’d avoid the toaster though and fry or griddle in butter for an immense dessert. 

Ingredients 

100g butter

4 ripe bananas (about 350-400g with the skin off)

200g soft brown sugar (I had light but dark would work)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract (as I type this I realise I forgot to put it in!)

1 tsp bicarb of soda

1 pinch of salt

175g self-raising flour

Chunks of chocolate (optional) 

1.    Preheat the oven to 170°C/GM 3. Line a loaf tin. I get the ones from Lakeland that come in the right shape already as it saves so much time.

2.    Melt the butter in a largish saucepan and add the bananas. I break them in and then smash them up with an electric whisk.

3.    Add the sugar, eggs, vanilla, bicarb and salt. Whisk again. Then add the flour and mix well.

4.    Pour into the lined tin and just put the chocolate on top. You can push it in if you like, use more than one type of chocolate – whatever you fancy. Bake for about 1 – ½ hours. Test after an hour and see what it’s like.

Multi-coloured Sponge Cake with Double Frosting

Thanks to Barty for the photo as I forgot my phone!

A sense of relief has occurred. I feel like all the emotions of the year culminated during last week, crescendoing around the weekend and dissipated while eating Chinese on Sunday night. I shan't bore you with the details as most is referenced in other blog posts but two massive events are over that I now realise I expended a lot of my mental reserve on. When you're in it you don't really feel it, however once it’s gone you are struck by a feeling of lightness and calm.

Actually I'm more knackered than anything else but nothing some sleep won't fix. I managed to feel good enough to give blood on Monday morning (which I think everyone who is able should do http://www.blood.co.uk/) as I'm part of a study on the frequency of donation so need to stick to a schedule. I love how after donating there is an excuse to eat crisps before 9am - "I probably need salt" - and that I can leave with a snack pack of biscuits to 'sustain' me for the ten minute walk to the office. Anyway all this left me stuck for something to bake this Monday and fairly bored with the whole idea of doing anything other than sitting when I got home. 

Then, while looking for ideas around a Thai chicken sausage roll that I'd discussed with my desk at work, I found the gem of an idea take shape. Nothing to do with chicken but all to do with multi-coloured cakes. I have no idea of the connection and can only put it down to tiredness, randomness and other such things that occur when your brain unwinds. So here is a multi-coloured layer cake with double chocolate frosting. I completely cheated and bought the chocolate fudge frosting (and would have bought vanilla to sandwich it but it wasn't in the shop). You can make your own but I think that when this much food colouring goes into a cake you may as well just say to hell with it and get dirty (in a good way) pre made frosting.

Ingredients

400g butter (bring to room temperature as it will be a nightmare to mix otherwise)

400g sugar
8 large eggs
400g self-raising flour
Food colouring - I had red, blue, yellow and green liquid which didn’t come out as vivid as I would like. I’d suggest gels or pastes but will try them out and report back.
1 tub chocolate fudge frosting
1 tub vanilla frosting (I made one which can be foundhere as I had the ingredients at home but I'm going to be honest and admit I didn't weight anything out. Just guessed and went on taste!)

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM 4 and butter and line two sandwich tins. I think it’s always worth lining sandwich tins as it makes getting the cakes out so much easier.

2.    Cream together the butter and sugar and then add the eggs two at a time. The mixture will curdle as I’ve never made one that doesn’t but it never seems to matter. Some people get every concerned about it but I think stuff it.

3.    Then fold in the flour. I know it will be tempting to just mix (and I normally would) but as you need to mix in the food colouring you need to respect the air in the mixture a little bit. The batter will be thick so never fear.

4.    Then divide the mixture up into as many bowls as food colours you have. Add an amount – start small and add more if you need – and mix in. You’ll need to be bold with it and I used about a tbsp for each of my four bowls.

5.    Add the individual coloured batter to the sandwich tins. I attempted rings of colour (see below – without piping bags because who has the time!) but you can just dollop it in. It’s a robust batter so it won’t spread that much.

6.    Bake for 35-40 minutes and then leave to cool. Or accelerate the cooling in the fridge once turned out, as I did, as I was tired and wanted to go to sleep.

7.    Then sandwich the two cakes together with the vanilla and cover with the chocolate. You could sandwich them with jam and then cover with buttercream if you prefer. Really whatever if easiest. Done.

 

Tip: when frosting a cake you normally do it on the plate or board that you serve on. As it can go everywhere slip thick slips of baking paper around the bottom of the cake, once on the board, and frost away. Once done carefully remove the strips of paper and you’ll get a clean finish.

Daisy Cake Pops

The Thew is currently running across the Sahara so I'm at a bit of a loose end. I do like having my own space but when I'm doing nothing I have realised that I like to have someone to do nothing with. As Carrie Fisher says about couples in 'When Harry met Sally' - "You had a date on national holidays." I suppose I miss having The Thew around to just hang out with and randomly bug. Maybe that's how you know you've found the person you want to marry. You've found the person you just want to hang out with above and beyond anyone else.
 
Currently The Thew is making me think he misheard the marriage vows and thought it was 'in fitness and in health'. My respect for couples who had to be apart before modern communication has jumped up measurable (alongside my respect for couples who have to be apart these days). The Thew is in the middle of the desert with no phone but I can track his progress online via the chip in his shoe and watch him finish a stage of the race via a webcam. He can get messages of support printed out and given to him so he knows people are cheering him on. Just amazing.  How couples coped when they were separated for months without any form of communication is beyond me. Anyway I’m just a little bored (and obviously very proud and excited about The Thew doing well on his run) so baking was a good distraction this week.
 
I'm stretching the word 'baking' with this one as there is no baking involved. However there is some cake and chocolate melting so it’s part of the way there. Lots of cake pop tins have started to appear everywhere but they seem like a pain to use. Therefore this one just mushes together some stuff to create the same sort of thing. Cake pops give you the perfect opportunity to raid the home baking section of the supermarket for all those wonderful glittery and sprinkly bits that make baking fun so bonus! I'd say this is the perfect recipe to do with kids as its easy, a bit messy and involves lots of colourful decorations. I was a little concerned about how you keep them upright but solved it by getting a flower oasis and sticking them in that. I think most florists do them and mine only cost a £1. Yay!
 
Ingredients

Pops
200g pre made Maderia cake
150g dark chocolate
100g white chocolate drops

Decoration

150g white chocolate
24 lollipop sticks

Sprinkles
24 edible daisies (I used Dr. Oetker ones as they were cheap and I decided to forget the episode with the red food colouring that ruined by Red Velvet Cupcakes)
 

1.    Melt the dark chocolate by your preferred method. I don't have a microwave so I have to use the old bowl over boiling water way.

2.    Whizz up the cake into crumbs in a food processor and add to the melted dark chocolate. Let it cool a bit and then mix in the white chocolate drops.

3.    Make 24 round ‘pop tops’ out of mixture, putting them on a plate and chilling them in the fridge for 20 minutes or so.

4.    Melt the white chocolate and dip in the top of each of the lollipop sticks before pushing into each of the pops. Then let this set as it ensures that the two stay attached during the next stage.

5.    Dip each pop into the white chocolate until thickly covered. Then spin the pop around upside down to get the excess chocolate off. Repeat again before dipping one side into sprinkles (an egg cup works best for keeping the sprinkles), standing upright by your preferred method and sticking a daisy on. Then let everything set.

If you can’t get a flower oasis then a glass with sugar in can work or maybe get a paper bowl, turn upside down and punch holes in the top.

Chocolate, Banana and Walnut Cupcakes

The Thew is flying to Morocco in about 2 ½ weeks to take part in the Marathon des Sables. For anyone not familiar, and why would you be!, it’s a 155 mile run in the Sahara carrying everything you need for the 6 days you’re toiling away in the oppressive heat. They do give you a basic tent and rationed water on the way around so it’s not all bad! He likes to physically challenge himself and it seems to keep him out of trouble. If he’s not around he’s probably midway through a 6 hour run while carrying an 8kg pack and he’ll soon be home needing to be fed and watered. Something I excel at so we’re both playing to our strengths with this one.

To ensure he is at optimum fitness he does regulate what he eats. His diet is one without starchy carbs and is gluten free. He avoids refined sugar, overly sweet fruit (so green bananas are good, but ripe ones are bad) and anything processed. It’s fairly impressive and I have no idea how he does it. He loves bread and is mental for chocolate (although he does indulge in the 85% cocoa one) but over the years he has weaned himself off wanting them. I suppose still consuming alcohol helps, although no beer because of gluten. He is the most self-motivated and determined person that I know and his changes of diet over the years have proved a constant cooking challenge to me which I’ve enjoyed overcoming.  It also means that I eat much better than I naturally would and I’m much fitter as I tend to get scooped along with things he is doing. Although flying over the handle bar of a mountain bike speeding downhill isn’t something I wish to repeat.

So this week’s recipe owes much to the rejection of some bananas for being too ripe for him. I’ve let them continue to ripen as the browner the skin the better the fruit is inside for baking. It’s hard to do banana recipes on the spur of the moment because you need them ripe and everywhere sells green ones. Therefore I’ve taken advantage of the ones I have to do this and paired it with the blonde icing I did for the birthday cake I made last week (as I had left over white chocolate and crème fraiche). These are so simple to make, with the walnuts dampening down the sweetness from the chocolate, letting the bananas shine through.

If you’re feeling generous check out The Thew’s Just Giving page as he’s raising money for a great cause.

Ingredients

Cupcakes

125g unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas

4 tbsp sour cream

2 large eggs

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

300g plain flour (if you discover you only have s-r, like I did last night, then just half the bicarb and baking powder. It seemed to work!)

50g walnuts, chopped

80g milk chocolate, chopped (you can use dark if you prefer)

 

Frosting

100g white chocolate (good quality)

25g butter

100ml crème fraiche

100g icing sugar

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Get a largest saucepan as you can do everything in on. Melt the butter and then take off the heat.

3.    Add the sugar, vanilla and bananas mushing the bananas in with a fork. You can do all the mixing with a fork.

4.    Stir in the sour cream and eggs and beat to a mix. Then add the bicarb, baking powder and flour. Mix well.

5.    Then add the milk chocolate and walnuts and mix again.

6.    Put into cupcake cases and cook for about 20/25 minutes. I made small cupcakes (filling the cases about 2/3rds) as I wanted to frost them but if you fill to the top then you’ll get more muffin sized ones. Either way works just test that a skewer comes out clean.

7.    Then to make the frosting melt the butter and white chocolate together. Beat in the crème fraiche off the heat and then stir in sifted icing sugar.

8.    Once cupcakes are cooled simple frost and serve!

Makes 24 cupcake sized ones and about 18 big muffins sized ones.

Coffee and Walnut Cake with White Chocolate Frosting

I was asked to make a birthday cake for a friend this week and I was more than happy to do so - especially as I was being given dinner as part of the deal. The brief was chocolate or coffee and walnut. I went one better and made a cake using all three! This is a 'proper' cake - grown up, not too sweet and perfect in civilised company. We ate it with wine while watching dubious Harlem Shake videos but it could be grown up if you wanted it to be.

The icing and filling is amazing. Nigella's blonde icing is truly a thing of amazingness. Just make sure you use a very good white chocolate as the cheaper stuff can be too sweet. Tesco have just brought out a cooks chocolate range which I think it very good.

Ingredients
450g butter
225g caster sugar
4 large eggs
200ml strong fresh coffee, cooled
4 tsp cocoa powder
225g self-raising flour
175g chopped walnuts (plus extra to decorate)
200g white chocolate (good quality)
50g butter
200ml crème fraiche (the original recipe says 220ml but it comes in 200ml tubs so that's what went in)
100g icing sugar

1.    Preheat the oven to 190°/GM5.

2.    Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs in one at a time making sure you whisk well each time.

3.    Add the coffee and then the flour with the cocoa sifted in on top. Whisk well but don’t panic if it looks a little bit like scrambled eggs as this may curdle but it won’t matter once it’s baked.

4.    Fold in the walnuts and divide the mixture between two shallow tins that have been well greased – ideally put some baking paper on the bottom.

5.    Bake for 25 minutes. Now this makes quite a delicate cake so I’d suggest cooling completely in the tins. I made mine the day before they were needed and by the time I turned them out it made become more robust and didn’t break when turning out or sandwiching together. However you’re going to cover this in frosting so if it breaks just weld it together with that.

6.    Melt the chocolate with the butter in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.

7.    Cool a little once melted, mix in the crème fraiche and the sift the icing sugar on top and mix in as well.

8.    Leave in the fridge for about 20 minutes and then use half to sandwich the two cakes together and use the other half to ice the top (you could do the sides but I was in a rush due to coming home late because the Central line was on the blink). Decorate with walnuts if you like and serve.