Gingerbread Biscuits

Before Christmas I went on an epic baking spree. My standard Porter Cake featured but I also made some gingerbread stars because a) gingerbread is super simple to make and b) I have some lovely star shaped cutters that my friend gave me. Stars are pretty much my favourite thing – second are fireworks and then balloons. However, enough about my love of fun things and on to the recipe.

Ingredients

250g butter

200g dark muscovado sugar (regular dark brown sugar can work)

4 tbsp golden syrup (buy the new squeeze bottle they do – it make it to easy)

4 tbsp maple syrup

600g plain flour

2tsp bicarb of soda

4 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

Zest and juice of 1 orange

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/GM6.
2. Put the butter, sugar, golden and maple syrup into a saucepan and melt together. You want it to boil and then turn off the heat.
3. In another bowl mix all the dry ingredients – flour, bicarb, spices and zest – and then stir in the butter mixture. If it’s too stiff then you can use some orange juice to bring it together.
4. Lightly flour a surface and roll out the dough to about 5mm. Then start cutting. I used stars but any shape will work. Gingerbread hold their shape really well so suit being cut into shapes.
5. Ideally put the shapes in the fridge for about 20 minutes before baking for 8-10 minutes. You want them to be going a little brown. They’ll harden outside of the oven as they cool.
6. You can decorate these if you like but I tend to just want to eat them.

Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes

Well it’s been a while since I posted but that hasn’t been because I haven’t been baking (I write this as if I think there are loads of people waiting with baited breath for my next post). Anyway I’m going to churn through the recipes I have done mainly because I use my blog as an online recipe book to consult if I’m food shopping.

So for something recent. I’m attempting to give up gluten. Mainly because I suspect I’m mildly allergic (yay for someone who likes baking). Now, I don’t really like recipes that attempt to do something with an alternative ingredient when really only wheat based flour will do. I think – you’ve given up gluten, just live without it. However I suspect that if you haven’t eaten gluten for years a cauliflower pizza base could start to be attractive. I’m not there yet. So I’m hunting around for things that work in their own right.

So on to breakfast. I’m been making overnight porridge with chia seeds during the week but at the weekend you want something a bit special. The Thew has been away doing various athletic endeavours so I’ve been left to my own devices. These have involved dancing round the flat to Uptown Funk, going out for pub lunches with my Kindle for company and making these.

Ingredients

120g buckwheat flour

Sprinkle of cinnamon (as much or little as you like)

Pinch of salt

½ tsp baking powder

1 egg

140ml milk

Blueberries - optional (or any berry)

Streaky bacon (cooked up and crispy)

Maple syrup

1. Mix the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking powder together.
2. Mix the egg into the mix.
3. Using a fork slowly mix the wet into the dry to create a batter. The mix in the blueberries (as there is no sugar in the batter these add sweetness).
4. Melt so butter (or oil) in a frying pan and dollop tablespoons of the mixture in. This makes about six of that size so I make half and keep the batter. (It is quite happy in the fridge for up to a week – leave the blueberries out if doing this).
5. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side – the blueberries will hiss and pop but ignore them.
6. Serve in a stack with the bacon on top and pour on that maple syrup.

Marshmallows (with no sugar thermometer)

So I'm writing this while waiting to run up and down a hill. It's The Thew's fault as he signed up for a race up and down three hills (hilariously called The 3 Molehills) and of course his family followed suit. My sister-in-law asked if I'd do one of the stages, so she could do only two, and for some reason I said yes.

Outside its pouring with rain and fairly cold. I'm surrounded by people waiting for their stage who seem genuinely excited about running and it's not helping my mood. I don't enjoy running and somehow I seem to do so much of it. I suppose it keeps me fit and gives me a focus for the monotony of the gym but it's annoying I don't enjoy it. Seriously it would make my life easier if I was super thrilled to run around all day, get muddy and sweat in public.

However the place where I'm waiting has a little Christmas shop so it's better than a tent in a field. It's getting all festive and before Christmas hits we have Thanksgiving to do first. If you know Americans, or anyone who has lived there for a while, try and celebrate it with them. There is all the good food and marshmallows play a large part. I mean they put them on top of sweet potatoes!!!! However, these ones are destined to be put on top of a chocolate pie. I thought I should try making them and sugar thermometer be damned. These are sufficiently good and I did it based on time rather than temperature. You can flavour and colour them however you like but I kept these white and vanilla to complement the dark richness of chocolate.

Ingredients
175ml water
300g granulated sugar
100ml golden syrup
5 sheets (about 9g) gelatine sheets
1/2tsp vanilla extract
Optional food colouring
Icing sugar
Oil
Cornflour

1. Put the water, sugar and syrup in a pan. Dissolve everything together on a medium heat and them put on medium/high. Once boiling set your timer for 9 minutes.
2. Put the gelatine sheets in a bowl of cold water. Once soft transfer to a large bowl and add the vanilla.
3. Get a loaf tin and lightly grease with vegetable oil. Then coat with cornflour. This is going to help you get the marshmallow out. It will be a pain still but at least you're ahead of the game.
4. Once the timer goes off slowly pour the sugar syrup into the bowl while whisking. I did it with hand held but a free standing with balloon whisk would be easier. Once all the syrup is in mix for 10 minutes. Yep - 10 minutes. This will transform the golden liquid into white fluffy sticky mallow.
5. Pour into tin and let set for a few hours.
6. To get it out I recommend having a pile of icing sugar on hand. Cover your fingers in it and gently prise one end away from the shortest side with the tin as upside down as you can. Then keep re-covering your fingers in icing sugar and slowly ease it from the tin onto a surface covered in icing sugar.
7. Cut with a sharp knife dipped in icing sugar and seal any sticky edges with some. There done!



Honeycomb (or Cinder Toffee)

 

I’m incredibly busy at the moment with various birthdays, events, baking requirements, not to mention work, so this is a brilliant and superfast way of making something that looks fairly epic. It’s also tons of fun – well for the few seconds where it foams up with the addition of bicarb. 

Ideally you’d make this with a sugar thermometer but I don’t have one so this method assumes that you don’t. It’s not that hard and there is a degree of error that the final product allows so that’s ok.  

Ingredients

165g caster sugar

165g Demerara sugar

60g golden syrup

15g butter (plus extra for greasing)

60ml (4 tbsp) water

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp bicarb of soda (have close by with a spoon in it ready to go) 

1.   Put everything, apart from the bicarb, in a saucepan and gently heat until everything is melted together.

2.   Then turn the heat up to keep it on a boil. It shouldn’t be escaping the pan but all you should see are bubbles. Put a timer on for 10 minutes.

3.   While that is going on grease the living hell out of a tray (20 x 20 square is a good size but it can be bigger – just not too big as the honeycomb will get too thin) with a decent side on it. When I say grease the hell I mean it. You want to see some actual butter left on the tray and not a thin film of grease. (Or use a silicon tray and ignore having to grease it).

4.   Once the 10 minutes are up put a teaspoon in the mixture, let excess drip off and put it in a cup of cold water. Leave for about 20-30 seconds. If, when you take the spoon out, the sugar mixture is hard to touch then it’s done. If it has some give then it needs a bit more time. It shouldn’t need more than 15 minutes so check every minute or so. (Who needs a sugar thermometer?)

5.   When the sugar is hard on the spoon put the bicarb in and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon. At this stage the mixture with bubble up and looks fairly brilliant. Don’t mix too long and then pour it all into the tray.

6.   It will bubble away for a few minutes and after about 20-30 minutes will be cool enough to turn out and smash up.

N.B. Store somewhere dry. Damp kills it. Also don’t worry about it sticking together in a massive mass when you put it in a tin. It will be ok.

 

So much fun to smash up!

 

Dalek Cake

I’m not the biggest fan of moulds for cakes that are a weird shape as the cake never comes out evenly baked but this one called out to be made. It was an important birthday for someone at work and he is a Dr. Who fan. I accepted early on that this cake would be style over substance but who can resist something that requires painting in metallic edible paint!!! 

I decided to make a mainly red Dalek as it meant I could use red food colouring in the mix and have a good base of colour for the majority of the cake. I highly recommend this site (Cakes, Cookies and Crafts) for the paint. I used metallic red and gold paint with the silver being done with metallic powder. I also had gold metallic powder, because I bought everything (!) having not done this before, which worked very well but was messier than the paint so you had to be more careful. The powder has the bonus of being dry immediately but I’m not sure getting powder over everything was worth that.  

There weren’t instructions with it but on the Lakeland site, where I bought the mould, they recommended an eight egg cake mix. I did that but it wasn’t enough and I think that if you’re trying to fill every nook and cranny ram it with more cake mix than you need. It meant I missed out on some detail so below is the recipe I recommend using 10 eggs! (They also suggested putting a thin layer of frosting on the cake and covering with royal icing before painting. Seriously! What kind of sadists are they? Can you imagine everything that could go wrong?! If you’re brave do it that way but I’m happy with the painting on cake method). 

Ingredients

Lurpak Cooking Mist (seriously this is necessary and amazing)

500g butter, softened

500g sugar

10 large eggs

500g self-raising flour

40g red food colouring (bake safe)

1 x pot of metallic red edible food paint

1 x pot of metallic gold edible food paint

1 x tube of metallic silver edible food powder

1 x pack of Matchsticks (you only need 1 ½ but you can scoff the rest) 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Grease your mould well. This is key to using any mould as you need to get the sucker out afterwards. This cooking mist allows you to just spray every part. Make sure you don’t have too many puddles but the cake batter will mix with it and it should be fine.

3.    Cream the butter and sugar. Add 2 eggs, then 100g of flour mixing well. Repeat with the rest of the eggs and the flour. Then add the food colouring and mix really well.

4.    Put the mould on a baking tray to keep it steady and allow you to move it around. Pour the batter into the mould. It should fill it almost to the top. Then pick the tray up a few cm above the work surface and drop. The aim of this is to get the batter into every part of the mould so do it two or three times.

5.    Put the mould, on the baking tray, into the oven. Cook for about an hour and a half – the batter may spill over the top but it will only go on the tray. If the top is burnt it shouldn’t matter as you’ll be cutting it off once it’s out of the oven because it’s probably outside the top of the mould. You can check with a skewer if it’s cooked but it could need longer. Err on the side of caution and over cook if in doubt.

6.    Once cooked leave the cool in the mould. This is important as you’ll have more chance of getting it out in one piece (saying that I always get impatient and do it when it’s warm!)

7.    Before you turn out cut any cake that is over the top of the mould off so you have a smooth back to the cake.

8.    Turn out and paint! I started with red, and then did the gold detail, ending with the silver. Make sure each layer/colour if dry before putting more on top. I did two layers of each and that seemed to do the trick. Finish by shoving half lengths of Matchsticks in the three points where Dalek’s have sticky out things (or you can fashion them out of black icing but after all that painting who has time for that?) 

N.B. This cake is going to be a bit dry, as you’ve probably overcooked, so maybe have cream or frosting on the side for people to add.

 

Ok so the painting part was lots of fun

Rhubarb and Custard Macarons

I’m not going to put up the recipe for these as they didn’t work out perfectly. I was experimenting with powdered egg white (because I find it a pain to have to make something with left over yolks) but I don’t think it works on these as the consistency of the whisked egg is so important to the overall recipe. I’m going to see if I can find pasteurised egg whites in a supermarket as I’m sure they must exist.

Macarons are fundamentally easy to make but fiddly to make look flawless. I will say that the texture of these were brilliant and I got that little lip on them that is so vital. So while they weren’t as beautiful as shop bought ones the end result in the mouth was spot on. It just goes to show that baking doesn’t need to look perfect to taste good.

One thing that was a success was the flavourings. I picked up some concentrated rhubarb and custard food flavourings and they worked out really well in these. Subtle and very realistic – I’m going to try it out on cupcakes next. 

Chocolate Malt Biscuits

A couple of weekends ago some good friends of mine got married. The night before one of the Bride's friends, who I met on the hen, stayed over at mine as we were decorating a boat together on the wedding day (I know - random). Anyway she brought many lovely gifts with her, one of which being a jar of caramel biscuit spread (the others alcohol based) which we had discussed in length on the hen do. It’s basically the caramel biscuits you sometimes get with tea or coffee in the little wrapper mushed up to make a spread. I know!!! 

She proceeded to reveal a packet of malted milk biscuits from her bag as these are the structure she had found best to spread this on. It was immense.  

So that got me thinking about malt and biscuits. I’m a fan of malt. I’ll have a malt shake over a pure milkshake but I’ve never been a fan of malt loaf or malt drinks. However the malted milk biscuits were good and so I investigated. I found a recipe and they worked out very well. I made 2 ½ times this amount as my work eat biscuits like the world is ending and I needed lots! 

Ingredients

150g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

100g butter (soft)

75g granular sugar

60g Ovaltine

2 large egg yolks (you can whisk up the whites, add 120g caster sugar to make 2 large meringues. Bake on the lowest heat you have for about 1 hour, turn off the oven and leave to cool in the oven).

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Leave to one side for the moment.

3.    Cream the butter and sugar together until it’s got pale. Everyone goes for this fluffy thing but unless you have a free standing whisk thing then about3 or 4 minutes will do.

4.    Then add the Ovaltine, egg yolks and vanilla. Mix well.

5.    Add the flour mixture and you’re done. You may need to use your hands to bring the mixture together as it will just look like wet sand.

6.    Then divide into 16 balls.

7.    Space them out on a baking tray – no more than 8 on a large cookie sheet – and press them down until they are about 1cm thick. Bake for 11 minutes. No more, no less!

8.    Cool and eat with a glass of milk.

 

Look - spread on biscuits!!! Oh and wine.