Dirty, Filthy, Non Practise Cakes

In my last post I wrote about the Cadbury Cream Egg cupcakes that I was planning to make.  Now I've made them, and eaten one (un-iced) and I think I want to die.  Without question they are one of the best and worst things I've ever made in my life and I am never, ever going to eat one ever again.  I am going to put one in the freezer for the very tolerant housemate, who gave up chocolate for lent, and has been looking like a kicked puppy since I started talking about making these.

To make these I froze 12 Cadbury Cream Eggs.  Then I made up the cake batter from The Hummingbird Bakery recipe.  I poured about half the usual quantity into the bottom of the cupcake cases.  Then I rested the frozen eggs upright in the batter and pushed them down well.



Unlike the picture I posted last time, my eggs did not uniformly stand up during the cooking and about half of them fell over.  The batter rose around the eggs however and the cakes came out of the oven looking fairly normal, but weighing twice as much as normal cakes should.

I am going to ice them tomorrow, but I had one after dinner.

 
It's a shocking picture.  It was an awful, awful thing to do to a cake.

I definitely have to run 5k tomorrow.  And I am never, ever doing this ever again.  No matter how good it tasted.

Practise Cakes

I've not made anything for a while, I've been manically busy with work, friends and being mean to the boys I've been dating.  Mainly work though.  I have a limit on how mean I can be before I start feeling bad about it.

I've been working on a couple of other projects recently, not cake related, hopefully I'll be able to write them up when they're finished soon.  However, in my travels round the Internet I stumbled across these beauties.  I do adore pinterest, it's my new guilty pleasure.

I'm not sure if they're a work of genius, the product of a disturbed mind or just a short cut to type two diabetes.

Anyway, I am going to make them for work.  As an Easter present.  Who doesn't want sugar poisoning for Easter?

Given my complete and utter fail at baking recently, I figured I should probably road test a chocolate cupcake recipe before starting in on these.  Otherwise it could be a very expensive cake mistake.

So I knocked up some Hummingbird Bakery chocolate cupcakes.

80g butter
280g caster sugar
200g plain flour
40g coco
1tbsp baking powder (yes really that much)
1/4 tsp salt
240ml whole milk
2 large eggs.

Beat the butter, sugar, flour, coco, baking powder and salt together until they are a sand like consistency.  Mix the milk and eggs together and combine to form the batter.  Bake for 18-20 minutes at 190 degrees.  I made 14 cakes from this mix.

FROSTING
400g icing sugar
100g coco
160g butter
50ml whole milk

Whisk together to make the icing, then pipe onto the cakes and decorate.

Do you know, I think I might actually have my baking mojo back.  They taste delicious and although the icing might not quite be up to my little sister's standard, it's still a hell of a lot better than the horror that was the liquid mess of the red velvet cakes.

I love it when a plan comes together

I've thought through all the possibilities and I'm fairly sure that I have made the right choice. The worst thing about this has been that the one person I really wanted to talk to, who would have given me the best advice, is the only person that I can't discuss it with.  However, I've been an adult (for once) and made the decision on my own.  I've decided to be grown-up about a couple of other things as well, I'm not convinced they'll pan out quite as well.


I've got a couple of weeks to see how things settle down before I can go shoe shopping.  I'm tentatively hopeful that a shiny new pair of Louboutins will be mine.

While I'm waiting I thought I would try some more baking, to see if I have managed to get my act back together in this arena as well.  Because it was the icing that let me down last time, I figured that I should take that element out of the equation and try some un-iced muffins.   

The first set is a bastardised version of Abi's goats cheese mini muffins. 

goats cheese and rosemary muffins (makes 12)
100g goats cheese

100g red onion, finely chopped
3 teaspoons rosemary leaves, finely chopped
25g butter, cut into small pieces
275g plain flour
1 heaped tablespoon baking powder
1 egg, beaten
225ml milk
a large pinch of salt
sprigs of rosemary for garnish
preheat the oven to 200c.

Place the goats cheese, onion (I like to fry off the onion first, so it's soft rather than cooked), chopped rosemary and butter in a bowl so it is ready when it needs to be added to the muffin mixture.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. add the egg and milk and lightly mix using as few folding movements as possible. the flour shouldn’t all be mixed in with the liquid. add the flavourings and mix lightly again – you should still have small amounts of flour not integrated – this rough and ready half-mixing approach ensures your muffins will be light and rise.  This is really important, not over mixing the ingredients is what makes this recipe work.

Place the mix into your muffin tray and top each with a sprig of rosemary then bake for 20 minutes, when they will be well-risen and golden.

Now these were meant to be blueberry muffins, but the supermarket had no frozen blueberries, so I opted for mixed Summer Fruits instead.  Unfortunately they turned the batter a rather alarming pink colour.

Summer fruit Muffins (makes 12)
85 g butter

280g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder 
pinch of salt
115g light brown sugar
150g mixed summer fruit (I use frozen)
2 eggs
250ml milk
1tspn vanilla extract
lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 200C

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.  Cream together the butter and sugar.  Beat the eggs, milk and vanilla in a separate bowl.  Add the lemon zest to this mixture.  Add the eggs/milk to the butter and sugar. Fold in the flour, but do not over mix.  Stir through the mixed fruit.

Spoon into cases and bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

Fortunately the unsettling pink/purple colour seems to have baked right out.  Almost.


Anyway - enough of this pissing around, I'm going to the pub.

Baking hiatus

There has been a noticeable lack of making things recently.  Partly because Christmas is over and I really needed a break after the extensive amounts of stuff that I made for Christmas presents, and partly because I have been busy; but mainly because I have been unhappy and nothing that I make when I am unhappy ever turns out well.  I tried baking lemonade cupcakes last weekend.  They ended up in the bin.  They didn't rise properly, I burnt half of them, I under cooked three (somehow), then I put too much milk in the frosting and it was far too liquidy.

I suspect that this is all psychosomatic and that I just need to man up and try harder.  So I am making Red Velvet Cupcakes for work on Monday.  When these work properly, they're amazing cakes.  Light, moist and a stunning deep colour.  They're also fairly easy to get wrong, so I'm actually going to have to concentrate not to cock them up.

FOR THE SPONGE
120g butter
300g caster sugar
2 large eggs
40ml red food colouring
1tsp vanilla essence
240ml buttermilk
1 tsp salt
1tblsp white wine vinegar (yes really)
1tsp bicarb of soda

FOR THE FROSTING
100g butter
600g icing sugar
250g full fat cream cheese

This recipe makes 12 cupcakes and I usually only make half quantities of the frosting.

• Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas mark five
• Cream together the butter and flour until pale and fluffy.  Then add one egg at a time.
• Separately mix together the colouring, coco and vanilla essence, into a paste.
• add the paste to the rest of the batter and mix thoroughly
• sift together the flour and salt, then add to the cake mix in two batches alternating with the buttermilk.  Mix well after each addition.
• Finally, in another bowl mix together the vinegar and bicarb and add to the cake mix.
• Spoon into cases and bake for 18-20 minutes. 

The actual cakes came out fine, but the frosting refused to thicken as it was meant to.  In the end I just stuck it on and slunk off to sulk, paint my nails and drool over Antonio Banderas in tight trousers with my housemate.

They taste fine, they just look a bit weird.

From this I concluded two things.  Firstly I need a new electric hand mixer.  Mine is definitely dead; and I'm ridiculous upset about this, for absolutely no good reason at all.  It was a cheap piece of rubbish when I bought it five years ago.  Secondly, it's not all psychosomatic, my baking mojo has definitely taken a holiday.

New Year, things to do.

Things that I need to do this year

• Teach myself SQL properly.  I got half way through this last year, then I got distracted by shiny things and wandered off after a pigeon.  But I strongly suspect that learning the ERP system I’m working with at the minute would be LOADS easier if my SQL was better. 
• Learn to make Roman blinds.  We’ll come back to this one later on.
• Finally get the tires changed on my bike so I can cycle to work when the weather gets better.
• Find a hedgehog water bottle that doesn’t leak.
• Finish the bathroom.  I need to repaint, change the light fitting, put up some pictures, touch up the sealant in the shower and put up a blind.  You see where the learning to make blinds comes in?
• Joing the WI.  Yes really.  The tolerant housemate has already been enlisted for this venture.
• Finish the kitchen. I need to finish a tiny little bit of tiling, make blinds (yes again) and also bribe my baby sister to make me a door curtain, fix the door between the kitchen and living room, put up some shelves for recipe books and think about some art.  I probably need to replace the fridge as well, but I am trying to ignore that at the minute.
• Go on holiday.  I didn’t get a proper holiday last year.  This year I am planning to spend some time in a gite in the Loire with my sister and the shiny new nephew before wandering down to Barcelona to see my favourite bald Frenchman and hang out on the beach for a week.
•  Buy some diamond earrings.  I’ve always wanted some.

Did I mention I got given a pet hedgehog for Christmas?

Technically she’s an African Pygmy Hedgehog and she’s very sweet, although a little bit stressful while I get into the swing of looking after something other than myself again.  And then there’s the feeding her live mealworms thing.

Starting to lose my mind

Last night my lovely, and very tolerant, housemate gave me a nice homemade Christmas card and some lovely homemade Christmas biscuits; and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't made her anything for Christmas.  I am a bad person.

I can't face making up more of anything that I have made already and she's seen all this year's produce anyway.

Fortunately I was saved by one of the lovely people on a forum I post on, who found this recipe for fabulous mini Christmas Puddings.  I've opted to make double quantities, so I can take some to work tomorrow as well.

  It looks fairly simple, so I reckon I can knock it together whilst having a large glass of wine and celebrating that tomorrow is my last day in my current job.  I fail to see anyway that this plan can go wrong.

Mini Christmas Puddings
75g unsalted butter
100g plain chocolate
75g raisins
2tbspn brandy, port or orange juice
1x300g ready made ginger cake
To decorate:
150g ready to roll icing The picture in that link does NOT look like ready roll icing, so I'm going to melt white chocolate over the top instead.
Green and red food colouring I've bought icing pens instead, with my amazing art skillz this can't go far wrong...
Method:

• Soak the raisins in all of the brandy/port/orange juice; whichever one you chose, for a half an hour I'm soaking the raisins in Christmas Pudding Vodka, for that extra Christmassy taste.
• Melt the butter and chocolate together either over a pan of simmering water or in a microwave
• Stir in the raisins and crumble in the ginger cake At this stage I realise that I have bought Golden Syrup cake rather than ginger cake.  Because I am half way through a bucket of wine and NOTHING on god's earth is entice me back to the Supermarket now, I throw in the cake and teaspoon of ground ginger and try to pretend that nothing has happened.
• Mix well and leave to cool slightly
• Place in Fridge for an hour to firm and then roll into bite sized balls 

 Ok, at this stage they look slightly like a giant rabbit has crapped on the baking tray, but they taste amazing.  The Christmas Vodka really adds an excellent depth to the cake mix.

• Colour 1/3 of the icing green and roll it out on a worktop dusted with icing sugar
• Cut into holly leaves (use a cutter/knife)
• Colour 10g of the icing red and roll into berries
• Roll out remainder of white icing and cut out 10 circles and place these on the top of each of the puddings.
• Add the leaves and berries...and Serve!!!!! 

I ignored all the rest of the steps and instead I melted some white chocolate and left it to cool.  Then I dropped some of the still liquid chocolate on the top and let it dribble down the sides, to create an icing effect. Then I used the icing pens to squiggle on some green holly leaves and dot on some red berries.
 

Now these may not be the most artistic things that I've ever made in my life.

But they taste amazing.

And for a Wednesday night in a bit of a panic and half drunk, they're not that bad.

Hopefully they'll keep my lovely housemate from feeling abandoned as well.

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon.

I've had a lovely weekend.  Yesterday I was taken to the Gainsborough exhibition at the Holburne Museum in Bath, the pictures were gorgeous and it's well worth a visit.  Just as exciting, Bruce Munro's Field of Lights is in the grounds at the minute.  We were there just as it turned dark, and it's really spectacular.  It makes me wish I were better at photography.  I must try and persuade Simon and Charlie to come back with me before it closes on 8th January and take some pictures.

Today however, I had nothing on and so I spent the afternoon in the kitchen, cooking two of my favourite things, finishing off a few bits and pieces and wrapping up some Christmas presents.

This is one of the very best things that you can do with a leg of lamb; it's totally simple and hassle free, there's no measuring or weighing or worrying and takes care of itself once it's in the oven.  All you need is some time.

Take your leg of lamb, run it under the tap and wash it well, then place in a heavy bottomed casserole dish with some olive oil and brown.  I say "place", my leg of lamb was on the large side so it was more a case of "force it in the best you can".

Brown the meat all over and then drain off any excess oil.

Then take a bottle of white wine, six cloves of garlic, a large handful of black olives and a good bunch of rosemary.  Fling all of these in the casserole dish (yes the WHOLE bottle of wine), put the lid on and stick it in the oven.  Cook for an hour at 160 and then reduce the temperature to 140 for another three hours.

Once it's done the lamb should fall apart.  The lamb's meltingly tender.  I usually serve it with new potatoes roasted in olive oil and sea salt and some broccoli steamed in soy sauce.  Anything works though.

While I was in the kitchen, and because the lamb is hardly labour intensive, I knocked together a batch of brownies.  Good brownies seem to be really hard to find at the minute.  They're either too dry or seem to involve melting large quantities of chocolate in a bain marie.  Yawn.  This recipe is awesome and idiot proof.  I've been making it for years and it always goes down well.


Chocolate Brownies

•  75 g flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 1/2 teasp baking powder
• 125g butter
• 225g brown sugar
• 1 teasp vanilla essence
• 2 large eggs beaten

Sift together the flour cocoa powder and baking powder.  Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy, then beat in vanilla essence and eggs.  fold in flour mixture and add to a lined tine (20cm/8inch square)  put into a pre-heated oven at 180 c bake for 30 min or until firm.

I made double quantities, so I could take some to work tomorrow.  I also threw in a large handful of frozen raspberries and white chocolate chips.   This is brilliant combination, but it also works well with mini marshmallows or fudge pieces.