Tuesday 31 July 2012

White Chocolate Ice Cream


I am not a fan of chocolate ice cream.  It always tastes too bitter and not the right kind of chocolatey.  I think I have the same problem with chocolate cake.  In fact, I'm not really keen on anything chocolate flavoured, with the exception of chocolate sauce.  I think the problem might be the use of cocoa powder, which is too much like dark chocolate to me and I REALLY don't like dark chocolate.  It's milk or white for me every time.

But I was thinking, is there such a thing as white chocolate ice cream?  Turns out there is, which doesn't surprise me, but the idea intrigued me and I decided to try and make my own.  I didn't really take my recipe from any particular source this time.  I ended up using a combination of measurements for the various components, mainly what sounded like the right amount, and then went about making it using what I've learnt from previous ice cream making experiences.

This worked out rather well.  I did do one ridiculously stupid thing though.  Without thinking I melted my white chocolate, then added it to the cream and stirred it!  So of course, what happened?  It started to seize up.  I stopped pretty quickly but I got so worried that I'd ruined it and wasted a lot of ingredients. Thankfully the addition of the hot custard and a lot of whisking re-melted it all and everything was all right.  But having now looked around I should have melted the chocolate in the custard.  So foolish!  I KNOW that if you want to combine chocolate with a liquid you have to melt it with that liquid.  I was so glad I was able to salvage it though.  I will be posting the amended method in the recipe though.

I recommend using your favourite white chocolate for this.  I used Nestle Milky Bars because I think the taste is sublime!  But I think Lindt would work nicely too.  I'm now thinking I could make more ice creams using melted chocolate.  Like Cadbury Dairy Milk!  I may actually enjoy that chocolate ice cream.

Overall opinion of this recipe was that it was amazing!  You could taste the chocolate so well but it was also nice and creamy.  Will definitely be adding this one to my repertoire of ice creams.



Recipe - Makes about 1ltr
  • 300g/10.5oz white chocolate
  • 280ml/9.5fl.oz double cream
  • 500ml/19fl.oz milk
  • 100g/3.5oz caster sugar
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 5 egg yolks
  1. Pour the double cream into a large bowl and set a fine meshed sieve over it.
  2. Prepare the chocolate by breaking it into pieces. 
  3. Prepare an ice bath big enough to sit the bowl of cream in when it is time to use it.
  4. Put the milk and vanilla extract in a saucepan and heat until just starting to boil.
  5. In a different bowl, mix together the egg yolks and the caster sugar with a whisk.
  6. Still whisking, add the milk to the yolks and stir until combined.
  7. Return mixture to the saucepan and set over a low heat, stirring constantly until it starts to coat the back of the spoon.  DO NOT LET IT BOIL.
  8. Take off the heat and add the white chocolate to the custard, stirring until it has completely melted.
  9. Pour the chocolate custard through the sieve into the cream.
  10. Place bowl of creamy custard in the ice bath and stir the mixture continuously until it has cooled.
  11. Transfer to the fridge to chill for 2-3 hours.
  12. Pour into your ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. 
You may want to put it in the freezer to firm up a bit before serving if your ice cream maker is like mine and you get quite a soft ice cream.  Mine had to go in the freezer for about 3 hours.

When serving, you'll want to give it about 20 minutes to defrost first.

Monday 30 July 2012

Baby Bloomer


Ah, the baby bloomer.  So called because it is a bloomer, but a small one, since I only needed to feed two of us with it.  Today the boyfriend suggested he make soup for our dinner and because we usually buy a nice loaf of bread to have with it I figured I would make some for a change.  And I actually had time to do so today, so why not?

I decided to try a bloomer.  The recipe wasn't that different from the basic white bread I made the other day, except for the inclusion of milk, not using a tin and giving it an egg wash coat.  I got a bit confused with the rolling bit but it came together easy enough and whilst I was a bit concerned with its size, after the second rise and going in the oven, it beefed up a bit.  It made a nice accompaniment to the potato and leek soup.

It tasted lovely.  Once again we polished off the entire loaf.  Possibly the only complaint was that the crust was overdone.  Not inedible but it certainly took a bit of extra effort to cut it.  I think I had my oven slightly higher than I meant to for the first stage of baking.  Oops.  Definitely need to get that oven thermometer.


Recipe - adapted from The Big Book Bread
Makes 1 small-ish loaf
  • 350g/12.5oz strong white flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp caster sugar
  • 3/4 tsp dried yeast
  • 12.5g/0.5oz butter
  • 75ml/2.5fl.oz warm milk
  • About 150ml/5fl.oz warm water
  • 1 egg
  1. Grease a baking tray and set to one side.
  2. Sift the flour and the salt into a large bowl.
  3. Add the sugar and yeast and mix together.
  4. Rub in the butter.
  5. Make a well in the centre of the mix and pour in the milk and half the water.  Mix.
  6. Keep adding the water a bit at a time and mixing together until you get a soft dough.  If 150ml of water isn't enough then add more but only tablespoonfuls at a time.
  7. On a lightly floured surface, or in your bowl if it is big enough, knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic.  This is about 10 minutes of kneading.
  8. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl.  Cover with clingfilm and put in a warm place to rise until it has doubled in size.
  9. Once it is risen, punch the dough in the centre to deflate it and knead for another 5 or so minutes.
  10. Roll the dough out into a rectangle with a rolling pin until it is about 2.5cm/1 inch thick.
  11. Start from a shorter side and start to roll the dough up like a swiss roll.  After you make each roll of the dough, pinch it together along the seam.
  12. When the dough is fully rolled up, pinch the final seam together, tuck the edges of the loaf underneath it and place on the baking tray with the seam at the bottom.
  13. Cover and leave to rise until doubled in size.  Again, I switched my oven on to preheat at this stage and sat the bread on top covered in a tea towel to let it rise.  So turn on your oven to 230°C/450°F/Gas Mark 8.
  14. Once risen, beat the egg in a small bowl with a couple of tablespoons of water and brush over the top of the loaf with a pastry brush.
  15. Use a sharp knife to cut 4 diagonal slits into the top of the loaf and then coat the insides of them with more egg wash.
  16. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes then turn the oven down to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6 and cook for another 25-35 minutes.  The bread should be golden brown and sound hollow when tapped underneath.
  17. Remove and let cool on a cooling rack for a few minutes before serving.

Toffee Cupcakes with Dulce de Leche Buttercream


This idea came about from looking at a recipe for banoffee cupcakes.  I do not like banoffee, because I don't like bananas.  But the idea of having toffee in cakes and then using some dulce de leche somewhere on top sounded quite nice.  Then I found a recipe for dulce de leche buttercream, which looked terribly pretty and seemed quite popular, so why not do that to top my cupcakes.  All good in theory.  Not so much in practice.

The cakes themselves are fine.  They came out lovely, since I was working off my usual cupcake recipe, but replaced caster sugar with brown and added bits of toffee to them.  The buttercream though...just didn't work.  It tastes very nice but it was far too runny despite following the recipe.  I even tried adding some icing sugar and putting it in the fridge for a while.  It did firm it up a bit but not enough.  So instead of pretty swirls I got flat tops.  I was very disappointed.

And just to complain about the recipe some more, I only made a half batch of the buttercream and it was still far, far too much!  I honestly don't know what the rest of the buttercream would have been used for with the full amount since the original recipe only made 16 cakes!  I have also decided I don't like American measurements.  Cups I can just about deal with since I have a set if I really need to use them, but 'sticks' of butter just annoys me.  I had to go and find out what a 'stick' is because I don't have sticks, I have a giant tub.  Bah.

You may be able to tell I am a bit annoyed with the buttercream.  It's not really the recipe's fault.  This is the second time I've made a buttercream that has egg whites in it and both times they came out much runnier than I think is intended.  Up until I added the butter it was fine and terribly pretty.  Very, very glossy.  Maybe there should be less butter?  And I may have overdone it with adding nearly all my dulce de leche, but I was struggling to taste it in the buttercream.

Speaking of dulce de leche, this was my first time making it.  I intended just to buy it but couldn't see it in the supermarket.  I only learnt upon returning home that Carnation calls their dulce de leche 'Caramel'.  Not wanting to go out again, I just made my own by cooking condensed milk.

Taste wise, they got a big thumbs up.  The boyfriend ranked them quite high on the lists all the other cakes I've made him try.  The buttercream is very, very sweet, though probably would taste better if it was the right consistency.  It was a bit of a shame a lot of the toffee sank to the bottom so I'll try and make amendments to the recipe to fix that.


Recipe - Makes 12 Cupcakes:
  • 100g/4oz butter
  • 100g/4oz light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 100g/4oz self-raising flour
  • About 70g chewy toffees
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 12 hole cupcake tin with 12 cases. 
  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
  3. Beat the eggs together in a separate bowl or jug and then add to the butter mix a little at a time.  Mix in after each addition.
  4. Sift the flour into the mixture and fold it all in.
  5. Spoon a teaspoon of mixture into each of the cake cases.
  6. Cut the toffees up into small pieces, put 12 pieces aside.
  7. Add the toffee to the remaining cake mix and fold in.
  8. Spoon into the cake cases.
  9. Place one of the reserved pieces of toffee on top of each cake.
  10. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.
  11. Cool on a rack before adding the buttercream.

Dulce de Leche Buttercream - adapted from Bakers Royale
I can't guarantee this will make 'stiff' buttercream.  I honestly don't know what I did wrong when I did it. 
  • 1 egg white
  • 60g/1.5oz caster sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • Pinch of salt 
  • 75g/3oz butter
  • 4 - 8 tbsp dulce de leche (tips for making it if you can't find any found here
  • Chocolate sprinkles
  1. Combine the egg white with the sugar in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water.
  2. Whisk the mixture continuously until it reaches 65°C/150°F (this does take a while).
  3. Remove from the heat and using an electric whisk, whisk until the mixture has cooled and doubled in size.  It should form stiff peaks when you remove the whisk from it and will be REALLY glossy.
  4. Add the butter a little bit at a time, beating until incorporated.
  5. Add the salt and vanilla and mix.
  6. Add the dulce de leche a bit at a time and mix.  Add as much or as little as you like until you get the taste to your satisfaction. (I had to use quite a bit to taste it.)
  7. Cover the cakes in the buttercream.  If you have a stiff enough buttercream, pipe swirls on with a closed star icing tip (that's what I wanted to do).
  8. Decorate with chocolate sprinkles.

Saturday 28 July 2012

Vanilla Frozen Yoghurt with Homemade Wafer Biscuits


So this was my other project yesterday: make frozen yoghurt, because I've never made it before, and make wafers to serve with them.  Both turned out okay.  I think the wafers ended up being too thick because the photo on the recipe they have holes in but they were still quite yummy.  I've been eating them on their own.  It's a shame I apparently don't like frozen yoghurt.  It's too tangy for me, but that may be the Greek yoghurt.  I like vanilla yoghurts and strawberry yoghurts, and Muller corners but not Greek.  Ah well.  The boyfriend liked it so he can eat the rest.

There was one slight problem with making the wafers, and that was that they stuck to the baking parchment.  It's so frustrating when they do that because what's the point of putting the paper down if the thing you're baking sticks to it?  So I sat for about half an hour with a sharp knife scraping it off.  Irritating but it meant they didn't go to waste.

Recipe:
Vanilla Frozen Yoghurt - adapted from 101 Cookbooks 
Makes a bit less than 1ltr
  • 500g/1lb Greek yoghurt
  • 100g/3.5oz caster sugar
  • 2/3 tsp vanilla extract
  1. Mix the yoghurt, sugar and vanilla together in a bowl until the sugar dissolves and everything is really well combined.
  2. Put in the fridge for about an hour.
  3. Put in your ice cream maker and freeze according to model's instructions. (I have to mix mine in my ice cream maker for about half an hour, which produces a soft frozen yoghurt.  Then I transfer it to a container and freeze in the freezer for about 2 hours before serving.)
Wafers - adapted from Good Food Channel
Makes 8
  • 40g/1.4oz butter
  • 50g/1.7oz icing sugar
  • 1 egg white
  • 40g/1.4oz plain flour
  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper.  If you want to be extra cautious, grease the paper with some butter.
  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
  3. Add the egg white and beat until smooth.
  4. Sift the flour and fold into the mixture.
  5. Spread teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking tray, pressing them into flat ovals with the back of the spoon.  Make sure to leave a little space between all.
  6. Bake for about 4-5 minutes until they are golden with slightly brown edges.
  7. Remove from the oven and then transfer to a cooling rack.
  8. If you want to shape them, drape them over a rolling pin whilst they are still soft.  If hardening, just put them back in the oven for a couple of minutes to soften them up again.

Friday 27 July 2012

Basic White Bread


What's this?  Bread?  That's certainly something that's not cropped up on here before.  Which is strange really, because I love making bread.  I just don't seem to have made any since starting this blog.  I used to make it a fair bit at university, and made some when I was living with my boyfriend's parents.  My cheesy loaf was very popular there.  

So today I decided I wanted to make bread (and a couple of other things to come later) so I grabbed the bread book which was among the first birthday presents my boyfriend ever got me and thumbed through.  Whilst I have found a lot of recipes I now want to make in the near future, I decided it was best to start with a basic loaf because the two of us would both enjoy it.  And enjoy it we did!  My GOD was this bread good.  It's not a very big loaf and we devoured it over lunch.  It's all gone already.  And I have to say, it is amazing served warm.  So if you can serve it that way then do.

 
Recipe - adapted from The Big Book Of Bread
Makes 1 small-ish loaf
  • 350g/12.3oz strong white flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp caster sugar
  • 3/4 tsp dried yeast
  • 12.5g/0.5oz butter, diced
  • About 225ml/8fl.oz warm water
  1. Grease a 9.5x4inch / 25x10cm loaf tin and set to one side.
  2. Sift the flour and the salt into a large bowl.
  3. Add the sugar and yeast and mix together.
  4. Rub in the butter.
  5. Make a well in the centre of the mix and pour in about half the water.  Mix.
  6. Keep adding the water a bit at a time and mixing together until you get a soft dough.  You probably won't need all the water.  If you put too much water in and make the dough too sticky, add a little flour to balance it out.
  7. On a lightly floured surface, or in your bowl if it is big enough, knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic.  This is about 10 minutes of kneading.
  8. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl.  Cover with clingfilm and put in a warm place to rise until it has doubled in size.
  9. Once it is risen, punch the dough in the centre to deflate it and knead for another 2-3 minutes.
  10. Shape into an oblong and press into the loaf tin.  Cover and sit on top of your oven.
  11. Preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F/Gas Mark 8 and leave the tin sitting on top for about 30 minutes to let it rise to double its size again.
  12. Bake the loaf for 15 minutes.
  13. Turn down the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6 and bake for another 15-20 minutes.  After this the bread should be risen, golden brown and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
  14. Turn out onto a rack to cool for a few minutes before serving.

Wednesday 25 July 2012

Failed Experiment: Doboz Torte

No photos for this one.  Considering it doesn't look very good cosmetically, I don't think fancy pictures would have helped.  Ah well.

So this is a Doboz Torte, which is a cake with six very thin layers of sponge, sandwiched together with chocolate buttercream with a caramel top.  The top should have been 16 pieces, not 8, but I burnt my hand on the caramel and had trouble cutting it.  Consequently I think the pieces were too heavy for the buttercream and ended up being rather flat rather than having the cool fan effect they were supposed to.  All my layers were uneven too so trying to coat the outside in buttercream really didn't work, and my caramel was hardening too fast for me to get an even coat on the top.  Lots of disappointments really but our guests were very nice and said they enjoyed it, one taking the remaining cake home with her so that was nice.

This cake was not easy.  As I already said, I burnt myself on the caramel, which left me with an unusable left hand for the rest of the day since not having it on ice until about 3am was ridiculously painful.  I now have a lovely, squishy blister for my troubles.  I also lost 2 of my original cake layers, one to burning and one to being so thin that it was hard and cracked when trying to separate it from the parchment.  I had to quickly redo those.  Then I burnt my first batch of caramel, which was annoying.  It all took a very long time and was quite frustrating.  I wish it had turned out better for my troubles, at least looks wise.  Taste was fine.

I would quite like to do something similar to this again one day.  I might have some thicker layers though because you really lost the cake in the buttercream.  I would also change the way I do some of the things in the method since I found it easier to do things a bit differently.  Mostly to do with making the sponge layers in tins rather than on sheets, and arresting the caramel after cooking it.  I didn't the first time and it continued cooking in the pan after it came off the heat, resulting in burnt caramel.

Saturday 21 July 2012

Marbled Millionaire Shortbread


I've been wanting to make this since the middle of last week.  I was just reading recipes and suddenly had a craving for it.  Unfortunately I had no condensed milk and had to wait until I got a chance to go to the big supermarket to get some.  I also did not have the right type or size of tray and didn't get a trip to Lakeland in Edinburgh until Tuesday.  Admittedly, I had specifically chosen Tuesday myself the week before since one of my favourite authors was signing books in the Waterstone's on Princes Street that day, so it's my own fault I had to wait.  Then there was finding a time to make it.  Yesterday my boyfriend had work so it seemed a perfect time because it would keep me amused and distract me from being lonely.

For the most part it turned out okay.  The underside of the shortbread got burnt in some places.  My oven temperature is clearly uneven.  I'm going to need to get an oven thermometer.  I really wasn't sure if the caramel was right.  I did everything it said and it thickened up but I didn't know what colour it ought to be and I thought it was a bit pale.  I'm also a bit undecided on the taste of it myself.  My boyfriend says it's fine, if a bit gooey.  It is ridiculously gooey.  The chocolate came out fab.  The marbling effect looked so cool!  Here's a shot of it before I cut it up:


I have discovered a love of marbling it seems.  So a mixed bag of results really.  I personally do not like it because of the caramel.  My boyfriend says they taste fine, even the slightly burnt pieces.  I'll be offering some up to his friends tomorrow so we'll see how it goes.  As long as someone likes it and it gets eaten, I'll be happy.


Recipe - adapted from Mary Berry's Baking Bible


For the shortbread:
  • 250g/9oz plain flour
  • 75g/3oz caster sugar
  • 175g/6oz butter
 For the caramel
  • 100g/4oz butter
  • 100g/4oz light muscovado sugar
  • 2 x 397g/14oz cans of condensed milk
For the topping:
  • 100g/4oz milk chocolate
  • 100g/4oz white chocolate
  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 then grease and line a 33 x 23cm/13 x 19inch swiss roll tin.
  2.  Mix the flour and the sugar together in a large bowl.
  3. Add the butter and rub it into the sugar and flour with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
  4. Knead the mixture together into a dough then press into the tin.  You might think you don't have enough but you will be able to fill the tin with a fairly thin layer of shortbread.
  5. Prick the dough all over with a fork and then put in the oven to bake for about 20 minutes.  The shortbread should be firm to the touch after this time.
  6. Remove and cool in the tin.
  7. Make the caramel by putting all its ingredients in a saucepan and heating gently until the sugar dissolves.
  8. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly, before reducing to a simmer for about 5 minutes.  You must keep stirring and make sure your spoon scrapes the bottom of the pan or the caramel will catch and burn.  The mixture will darken as you cook it and should take on a thicker consistency.
  9. When ready, remove from the heat and pour over the shortbread.  Leave it to cool.
  10. Melt the chocolate in two separate bowls over saucepans of hot water.
  11. When melted, spoon each type onto the cooled caramel in an alternating pattern.
  12. Run a skewer gently through the chocolate, particularly over the edges where the two chocolate types meet, to create the marble pattern.
  13. Leave to set.
  14. Cut the shortbread into squares or blocks.  I did this whilst it was still in the tin but you can take it out to cut if you want.

Thursday 19 July 2012

Chocolate Marble Cake Squares


Wednesday seems to have become 'make cakes for boyfriend's friends' day.  Completely voluntarily of course.  I don't need much of an excuse to bake and this way I can experiment with a whole bunch of things I probably wouldn't try otherwise.  Having willing guinea pigs is fun.

I have never made marble cake before and thought it was about time that I tried.  It just looks so cool.  So I decided to make a big square cake, then cut it up into smaller ones.  I intended to dip them in chocolate but I ended up with much less time on Wednesday than originally planned so I just made a quick chocolate icing instead.  Hence the slightly unimaginative photos too.

Again they went down well and all the leftovers were taken home by people so the boyfriend returned with empty boxes.  So yay!  They're all coming over this weekend to see our flat so I shall be attempting something else that has caught my eye in one of my books.  As well as making cake pops because they were specially requested.

The recipe for the cake comes from Cake Decorating magazine.  I flicked through a few recipes before settling on this one, though I created the marbled effect a bit differently, because I wanted it to look very marbled.


Recipe - adapted from Cake Decorating issue 4
Makes 16 squares
  • 225g/8oz butter
  • 225g/8oz caster sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 275g/10oz self-raising flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 1.5 tsp cocoa powder
  • 2 tbsp hot water
  • 150g/5oz milk chocolate
  • 100g/4oz butter
  • 2 tbsp water 
  1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3 then grease and line a 23cm/9inch square cake tin.
  2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale and creamy.
  3. Add the eggs one at a time and mix in.
  4. Add the vanilla extract and mix.
  5. Fold the flour and the baking powder into the mixture until smooth.
  6. Add the milk and stir thoroughly.
  7. Put half the mixture into a different bowl.
  8. In a small bowl mix together the cocoa powder and the hot water until completely smooth.  Allow to cool slightly.
  9. Add the cocoa mix to one of the bowls of cake batter and mix well until evenly combined.
  10. Put alternating spoonfuls of each mixture into the cake tin until you use it all up.
  11. Take a fork and swirl it through the mixture to create the marble effect.  Don't stir or overdo it or you'll just get a watered down chocolate cake.
  12. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour.  The cake is ready when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
  13. Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.  Cake must be completely cooled before adding the icing.
  14. Using a serrated knife, cut the cake into 16 squares.
  15. To make the icing, break the chocolate into pieces and put in a glass bowl along with the water and the butter.
  16. Put the bowl over a saucepan of hot water to melt the contents, stirring occasionally until you get a smooth icing.
  17. Put a baking tray covered in greaseproof paper under the cooling rack and then pour the icing over the top of each cake, easing it over the edges so it runs down the sides.
  18. Leave to set.

Friday 13 July 2012

Treacle Sponges


This was something that I just wanted to try.  I wanted to bake today but didn't know what, and so flicked through the Mary Berry Baking Bible and came across these (amongst other things).  I had pretty much everything I needed and it was a great excuse to finally use my mini casserole dishes for something.  It was also the first time using my bamboo steamer and it worked well.  I want to steam more things!  The recipe is actually for four sponges, but I only made two, one each for me and my boyfriend as a little evening dessert.

Anyway, this was mostly successful.  I steamed for as long as recommended but unfortunately this wasn't enough and the first one I turned out just collapsed into goop.  So they went back in the steamer for another 10 minutes or so and turned out fine.  I think I may have been steaming on too low a heat.


Recipe - adapted from Mary Berry's Baking Bible
Makes 2 
  • 4 tbsp golden syrup
  • 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
  • Grated rind of 1 lemon
  • 50g/2oz butter
  • 50g/2oz caster sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 50g/2oz self-raising flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder 
  1. Grease two 175ml/6fl.oz pudding basins or mini casserole dishes.
  2. Mix the syrup and lemon juice together and then spoon half into one basin and half into the other.
  3. Put all the other ingredients into a bowl and mix together until well combined.
  4. Split the mixture between the two basins and level it out.
  5. Make a lid of pleated greaseproof paper to sit on top of each basin and then cover with foil.  Don't seal too tightly.
  6. Steam the puddings for about 45 minutes.  You can do this in a steamer or using a large pan filled with boiling water.  If you are using the pan of water, invert two saucers and sit the basins on top of them to stop them being in contact with the base of the saucepan.  Fill the saucepan with boiling water until it reaches halfway up the basins.
  7. Test the sponges with a skewer to make sure they are cooked all the way through.
  8. When done, turn out onto plates and serve.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Chocolate and Marshmallow Cupcakes


And I'm back.  Lack of updates was due to being on holiday in Italy.  I have to admit, halfway through the week I was going a bit mad and wanting to bake.  And I did bake pretty much as soon as I got home, but I made Florentines again for a present and since I've already posted about them I didn't see the point in posting again.

Anyway, my boyfriend asked me if I would make cakes for him weekly visit to see his friends.  I gladly agreed because I love any excuse to bake.  This was something I thought up whilst I was away and then researched the best way to do things when I returned.  Having a reason to make them was great.  So these are chocolate cupcakes, with a marshmallow centre and topped with marshmallow fluff and drizzled chocolate.  

According to my boyfriend they are really yummy.  Apparently the marshmallow compliments the chocolate well and balances everything out.  So yay!  A success!

I ended up using a couple of different recipes for this, one for the chocolate cakes and one for the marshmallow fluff on top.  Reading around made me decide to add the marshmallow centres after cooking rather than putting a marshmallow in when it was baking.  I admit, the method was tricky because the marshmallow is so sticky but I got there in the end.

 

Chocolate Cupcakes (with added marshmallow filling) Recipe: - adapted from Cupcakes and Muffins
Makes 12/13
  • 200g/7oz butter
  • 140g/5oz caster sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 eggs
  • 150g/5.5oz self-raising flower
  • 55g/2oz cocoa powder
  • 120-150 mini marshmallows 
  • Small knob of butter
  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.
  2. Put large-ish cupcake cases in a cupcake tray.
  3. Cream together the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy.
  4. Add the vanilla and beat.
  5. Lightly beat the eggs in a separate bowl and then gradually add to the sugar/butter mix, stirring in after each addition.
  6. Sift together the flour and cocoa powder and fold into the rest of the mixture.
  7. Spoon the mixture into the cases and then bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
  8. Allow to cool on a cooling rack.
  9. Put the marshmallows in a glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water along with the knob of butter.
  10. Once they start melting, stir until smooth.  Leave over the water.
  11. Use a knife to carve a hole out of each cake.  Place the cake from the hole to one side because you're going to put it back on top.
  12. Spoon the melted marshmallow into the holes.  You may need to reheat the marshmallow as you do this because it gets stickier as it cools and is difficult to get off the spoon.
  13. Put the cake 'stopper' back into the cake on top of the marshmallow.
  14. Leave to cool while you make the topping (see below).
Marshmallow Fluff Topping (with drizzled chocolate) - adapted from Bake me I'm yours...Sweet Bitesize Bakes
 
  • 1 large egg white
  • 125g/4.5oz caster sugar
  • 25g/0.75oz golden syrup
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1 tbsp water
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • About 40g milk chocolate
  1. Put a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
  2. Place everything except the vanilla extract in the bowl.
  3. Whilst it is heating, stir with an electric whisk for several minutes (about 10) until you get shiny peaks.
  4. Remove from the heat and whisk for another two minutes to thicken it up.  
  5. Add the vanilla and whisk in too.
  6. Allow to cool.
  7. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe large swirls on top of each cake.
  8. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water.
  9. Spoon the chocolate into a piping bag fitted with a small, round nozzle.  Pipe spirals on top of the marshmallow fluff.