Chocolate Cake in a Mug

This should have been a photo of the cake but it all went rather quickly at work

Yes you read that right. Cake you make in a mug. It’s not a new thing but I’ve finally tried it and it’s a success. The main thing is eating it when it’s warm as it doesn’t cool down well. You’ll also need a really big mug as it does rise up and can spill over or instead just divide the mixture between two mugs. 

This obviously isn’t going to be the best chocolate cake in the world but it isn’t half bad for something that comes out of the microwave.  You could also make it in a bowl and spoon it out to have with ice cream.

Ingredients

4 tbsp self-raising flour

4 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1 egg

3 tbsp vegetable oil

3 tbsp chocolate hazelnut spread (basically Nutella)

3 tbsp milk

Optional – squirty cream 

1.    Put all the ingredient in a mug and whisk together with a fork. Be sure the get everything mixed well.

2.    If making one mug put into the microwave on a plate and nuke for 2-3 minutes on your highest setting.

3.    If making two then pour half the mixture into another mug and nuke each one individually for 1 ½ - 2 minutes.

4.    Top with cream if you want.

Bacon and Chocolate Chip Cookies (Primal/Gluten Free/Dairy Free)

Primal – sounds fairly basic and maybe a little bit cool huh? It’s apparently a diet. Not a ‘less not eat anything until we need to pass out and then have a small piece of cheese’ diet but one that looks at what we evolved to eat. Or something like that. It’s probably like the Paleo diet and the Caveman diet and anything else that basically doesn’t let you eat anything fun or anything that was invented in France – French bread, pastries, macaroons, croissants (some of these things may not have been invented in France but I can’t be bothered to research in this for the sake of this). 

I’m slightly suspicious of these kinds of restrictions on what you eat, mainly because it stops me eating chocolate and bread. The Thew follows a Paleo-esque diet. He eats an incredibly healthy diet so he can drink lots of alcohol and maintain fitness. Currently he is spending most evenings upside down in a handstand position against one of our walls. Hey – whatever works for you! 

My good friend Claire shared this recipe with me and, while I’m not sure about trying to recreate recipes using paleo/primal ingredients in place of good old butter and sugar, it was intriguing enough for me to give them a try. The original method I read is a bit lacking on details and the one thing you need to do with these kind of recipes is a good methodology if you have any hope in hell of making something that looks like the ‘real’ thing. Many people at work liked these, and they are ok, but I’d just rather eat a chocolate chip cookie made with brown sugar and wheat flour. I’m not sure what the bacon adds, other than a bit of salty taste, but I guess it’s to add protein. Anyway, if this is your thing, go knock yourself out! 

Ingredients

5 rashers of streaky bacon (I used M&S)

60ml of maple syrup (plus 125ml – see below)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

125ml coconut oil (make sure it’s fairly well melted so room temp or melt it first)

125ml maple syrup

1 tsp bicarb of soda

1 tsp salt

300g ground almonds

200g dark chocolate chips 

1.    Preheat the oven the 190°C/GM 5.

2.    Dip the bacon in the maple syrup and bake for about 25 minutes. It may need longer. Put them on foil to save mess. Turn half way through and ignore how burnt the foil gets from the run off maple syrup. Cool, ideally on fresh foil or greaseproof paper. They are very sticky! Chop into bits.

3.    Whisk the eggs, vanilla, coconut oil and 125ml maple syrup together in a bowl. You want to goof frothy mixture as the eggs will add air to the mixture and help keep them light.

4.    In a large bowl mix the bicarb, salt and almonds. Add the egg mixture and whisk together.

5.    Add the chocolate chips and bacon bits stirring to incorporate.

6.    The put heaped teaspoons of mixture on a baking tray, leaving space between them. Flatten them out with the back of a spoon or spatula so they resemble a cookie shape.

7.    Bake for 11-12 minutes – you want them turning golden brown. Cool completely before serving.

Makes about 30.

N.B. I made these afterwards without the bacon and they worked well. The bacon definitely gives a good savoury/salty edge but it's not necessary.

 

Enthusiasm Flapjacks

Sometimes I need to clear out stuff from my baking shelves so flapjacks are an ideal way to use up ingredients. The quantities below are a guide so feel free to experiment. 

The name comes from the most wonderful Lorna who, when I lived with her, used to make Enthusiasm Soup. So called because you put everything you've got into it.   

Ingredients

250g butter

200g brown sugar (or any sugar)

Good dollop of golden syrup or honey

200-300g mixture of dried fruit, nuts, seeds
400-500g oats 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Melt the butter in a large saucepan. While melting add the sugar and syrup/honey. Mix it all together.

3.    Take off the heat and add the fruit/nut/seed mixture and stir well. Then add the oats, stirring again. You don't want a wet mixture at the end just enough to coat everything to create a sticky mess.

4.    Line a large tin and tip the mixture in, smoothing out before putting in the oven for 20 minutes.

5.    Cool and cut into desired sized pieces. Let it cool properly as the butter need to solidify a bit at bind it all together.

 

Rainbow Cake or Why Lorna Rocks

So a couple of weekends ago I walked 100km in just under 28 hours. The main reason for this is that my friend Lorna asked me to. I’ve explained before that she rallied a team together to collect money for Cancer Research after one of her friends at work was diagnosed with cancer. We have raised over £6,300 which is amazing and is testament to how kind hearted and supportive people can be of crazy physical challenges. It’s also testament to the fact that everyone needs Lorna as a friend. Or at least someone like her as she’s already a very busy lady and might break if she had to be friends with the world (she is already a friend of all animals which is fairly epic in itself). Who else would think of doing such a random thing and actually convince six more people to do it with her? Because of her Cancer Research has an extra 6k to get on with doing what they do best - pretty cool.

So this week I went a bit random. It’s not exactly a true rainbow cake, as I’m missing three colour layers (I need a bigger cake box to transport something taller), but this will give you a good enough guide. There is something satisfying about constructing a truly fun cake with no real purpose other to look pretty and get people hyper on the E numbers (someone in my office had to have a walk to get rid of the excess energy after her slice!)  

The sponge is really easy and robust as you don’t want to have to faff with lots of ingredients and breakages when doing multiple layers. Don’t worry though – it’s a nice sponge and tastes well. It also keeps so you can make the sponges a couple of days in advance. Maybe I should start getting sponsored for the tallest cake I can make?! 

Ingredients

Cake

Each layer uses the following (you can mix in big batches and divide into bowls to add the food colouring. Each layer will need 415g of batter).

100g softened butter

100g caster sugar

2 large eggs

100g self-raising flour

10ml or 10g of bake safe food colouring 

Icing

You can obviously just buy Betty Crocker ready mixed frosting or:

200g softened butter

900g icing sugar

400g full fat cream cheese

Decorations 

1.    Preheat the oven to 180°/GM4.

2.    Grease and line two sandwich tins. I did two sponges at a time as I only have two tins and my oven only fits two at a time!

3.    Cream the butter and sugar together, add the eggs one at a time and then mix in the flour. See – easy!

4.    If dividing the mixture do it now into about 415g a layer then add the food colouring and mix.

5.    Put into a tin and bake for 25 minutes. If you are cooking two at a time and have a gas oven then you’ll need to swap the shelf they are on half way through.

6.    Cool and turn out until ready to construct.

7.    If making frosting then then ideally use a food processor as icing sugar is messy! The quantities pack it to the max but you can of course use a hand held whisk or free standing . So put the butter in with the sugar and mix until combined through. Add the cream cheese and you're done.

8.    Then even out the top of the layers (you can always leave the top one domed if you like). Use the height of the sides as a guide and use a bread knife to saw through.

9.    Sandwich the layers with a thin layer of frosting and then finish off by covering the whole thing in it! I used hundreds and thousands on the top but you can use whatever you like. 

N.B. You can get some crumbs in the frosting when you do the whole cake. I’d advise to do a thin layer around the whole cake not worrying about crumbs running the lovely frosting. Pop into the fridge for 30 minutes and then finish off with a thicker layer that should stay lovely and clear of crumbs.

 

Olive Oil Bread

I’ve been a bit quiet recently on the blog. I have been baking but it all got a bit busy and emotional, so the writing got left behind. My Uncle died suddenly at the end of April and it’s been very difficult to drum up energy for anything outside of work and prior commitments.  

However the baking goes on and very excitingly I managed to arrange a ‘Sausage Roll Day’ at work where we had about eight people baking around 10 different types of sausage roll. It was epic! It’s exciting to see people get worked up about baking (or it is for me) and as someone who is seen to ‘know’ about baking I get lots of questions and enthusiasm from people when they see that it’s not actually that hard. 

My neighbour, knowing I bake, gave me some fresh yeast so I decided to make bread. I’ve never used fresh yeast before but I highly recommend it. Very easy to use and the bread was great. The method below looks a bit long winded, and it does have more steps, but you’ll spend less time fiddling with the dough. Rather than 2 x 5-7 minutes of kneading your total time is more like 2 minutes. I believe it’s the method Dan Lepard (?) uses, or my bastardised version, as I read it on a Guardian baking blog and thought it sounded interesting. It is and I recommend it whole heartedly. I hate kneading so this is bliss. 

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flour

15g fresh yeast (I have no idea where you get this unless you live near my neighbour who had some)

300ml warm water (100ml boiling to 200ml cold)

2 tbsp olive oil 

1.    Crumble the fresh yeast into the flour and use your finger tips to distribute it throughout the flour. Much like you would mix butter into the pastry.

2.    Add the oil to the water and pour into the centre of the flour mixture. Mix until it comes together as a dough.

3.    Then knead for 15 seconds vigorously in the bowl. Then cover with a tea towel and leave for 15 minutes. Then do another 15 seconds. Leave for 15 minutes and then a final 15 seconds of kneading before covering again and leaving for an hour or so somewhere warm.

4.    Once it’s puffed up and doubled in size turn it out onto a floured surface. Stretch the dough out into a big square (random I know but stick with me). It’s best if you start this from the middle underneath, stretching to the sides before pulling the sides out. It doesn’t need to be perfect as all you need to be able to do with it is this: fold the bottom third into the middle, then the top third over the bit you just folded. Then repeat long ways. Just watch the video below! (Sorry it's using a paper towel and not dough).

5.    Once this is done pop into the bowl, cover and leave for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes do the same again, leave for 20 minutes in a covered bowl and then do it again. After this final third folding shape and place on a baking tray. Cover the dough and leave in a warm place for an hour or so to double in size. Oiled cling film is best I find.

6.    Preheat the oven to 190°C/GM5. Once the dough has risen, uncover, slash some cuts in the top if you like and pop in the oven for about 30 minutes. You might need another 5 and if a gas oven then turn half way through to get an even colour on top.

7.    Eat warm, ideally, with lashings of butter. Or bring into work and see it demolished. Or make two smaller loaves, rather than one big one and give one to the neighbour who gave you the yeast.

 

 

Upside Down Nectarine Cake

I’m in great pain. My legs hurt but not as much as The Thew’s – probably because he runs faster than me and is officially the fastest Woodrow. I’m the slowest but it’s a role I fill bravely and with style! The Brentwood half marathon felt like a good idea at the time but I did have a couple of glasses of champagne inside me along with a glass of wine when I agreed to do it. Most things start to seem like a good idea at that point. The worrying thing is that I have a harder half marathon in less than two weeks when I go to Ireland to see my family. Once again it seemed like a good idea at the time to combine a boozy family trip to Connemara with a race. Thinking back I was probably drunk. 

However alcohol cannot explain why on Sunday evening, in pain from the half marathon I just ran, I signed up for a 100km walk. That’s explained by friendship which is a much better reason. My good friend Lorna has a friend who has cancer and she’s doing the walk to raise money for research into cancer. Lorna is one of those amazing people who will fight any battle to the maximum that she believes is worth fighting – she’s like a super hero on the side of all that is right and just. If she could shrink into a space ship, like Dennis Quaid in Innerspace, and fight cancer head on inside bodies she’d be doing it. Because she can’t, and because she’s one lady who won’t sit idly by, she’s going to walk 100km. Because she’s my friend, and it’s important to her, I’m walking it too.  

The above has very little to do with my baking this week apart from forgetting about baking because of the run, then realising I had some nectarines to use up and that I had the ingredients for a sponge. I’m awful at turning out upside down cakes so was happy this one worked! You can use any soft fruit here really but I think it’s worth the extra time to do a nice pattern in the top. 

Ingredients

Topping

50g butter

75g caster sugar

5 nectarines, chopped (I did slices – 6 per nectarine – but you could just half them if you prefer) 

Cake

150g butter

150g caster sugar

3 large eggs

60 ml milk

1 tsp vanilla

150g self-raising flour 

1.    Preheat an oven to 180°C/GM4.

2.    Use the 50g of butter to coat the bottom of a tin – I used 23” but you can use any size really. Make sure it’s kind of evenly spread and grease the sides lightly. Sprinkle the 75g of sugar over the butter. Then arrange your fruit on it.

3.    Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs one at a time mixing well.

4.    Put in half the flour, mix, then mix in the milk and vanilla, then mix in the last of the flour.

5.    Cover the fruit with the batter and bake for about 35 minutes, testing to check it’s cooked. If you’ve used a smaller sized tin you may need another few minutes.

6.    You can serve this hot or cold so either cool completely, or if serving hot, leave for about 10 minutes before turning the tin upside down on a plate and hoping it comes out well!

Shamrock Fairy Cakes

Stupid picture won't rotate!

Things are fairly hectic at the moment. I'm having my bathroom redone which means the flat is in a constant mess and everything is covered in dust. Work is busy and I've managed to stall mid introduction to a creative pitch because I've suddenly worried about the delivery of my toilet. Sadly I then went on to talk about the reason I stalled and can only be thankful that it's was a client that knows me and doesn't think random tangents of my thinking are standard.  

Anyway I baked on Sunday as it was St. Patrick's Day and I wanted to bring some baking into work on Monday for it. This was made more interesting because I was hung over from attending a brilliant wedding the day before so had to battle through that and tiredness. Added to the intensity was the fact that I'd been inspired by a link my friend Claire had sent me to make shamrock shaped fairy cakes. This meant that I had to think a bit, which was the one skill I was having difficulty with. Oh well.  

Now you'll need some ceramic baking beads to make these which you may not already have. These are vital but you can use the when making pastry cases etc so good to have. Make sure you have bake safe food colouring - I used Wilton's icing paste stuff in Leaf Green. The recipe is fairly basic and I cheated on the frosting but when you're making luminous green cakes I think that's ok as they're more novelty item than something that will win Bake Off. 

Ingredients 

Cakes

100g caster sugar

100g butter

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

100g self-raising flour

1/2 tsp green food colouring 

Icing

1/2 tub of frosting (I used Betty Crocker vanilla icing)

Slightly less than 1/2 tsp green food colouring 

1.    Line a deep muffin tin with paper cases. A fairy cake, shallow tin, won’t work. Place three ceramic beads between the tin and case - spaced equally around the edge. This will push the case into a shamrock shape. Don't worry if it's not exact - people will get the general idea! (See below for how you need them to look before baking).

2.    Preheat an oven to 180°C/GM4.

3.    Cream the butter and sugar together.

4.    Add the eggs and vanilla mixing well. Then mix in the flour followed by the green food colouring. 

5.    Divide the batter between the cases. This will make 12. Don't worry if you don't get batter fully into each leaf shape as it will spread while cooking.

6.    Bake for about 15-20 minutes testing that they are cooked with a skewer. They're done if it comes out clean.

7.    Cool them completely and remove the paper cases.

8.    Mix the green food colouring into the icing and using a piping bag (I know, I'm sorry, it's fiddly but you need to distinguish between the leaves) squirt some on each of the three leaves so people understand what you've created! Then they're done. Serve with Cidona or red lemonade.