White Chocolate Cake Slice With Chocolate Chips

Okay, I have a confession.  These were supposed to be brownies.  However, the result I ended up with was much lighter; essentially like cake.  I'm pretty sure brownies are meant to be denser.  The pictures of the ones from the recipe certainly look denser.  But that's what I get for using the wrong flour.  Of course, if a recipe uses flour they should at least say what type.  There are lots out there you know!  If I just see flour, I guess, usually based on if there's baking powder or some other raising agent.  If there is a raising agent, then I go plain.  If not, I go self-raising.  Of course, it occurred to me after I added it that maybe I was wrong.  But oh well, too late by that point.  I know for next time.

Yes, it must be pretty obvious I've never made brownies before (well, except those brownie cupcakes from Hallowe'en I guess).  I've never had a desire to.  Especially as all the ones I've been made to try are chocolate ones and I do not really like chocolate flavoured anything.  It all tastes so bitter to me.  But then I stumbled across a recipe for white chocolate brownies.  Now they sounded appealing!  I love white chocolate, which I know is not strictly chocolate.  It's a shame it doesn't impart its flavour to cake the same way other chocolate does due to it not containing cocoa, but rather cocoa butter.  But it does give a extra nice bit of smooth sweetness to it which I like.  Add in chocolate chips and what basically sounds like vanilla sponge and really it was perfect.

And the end result is delicious.  It's just not a brownie.  It's a cake.  A delicious cake but a cake nonetheless and that's not what I was aiming for.  So yes, next time I'll make sure to use plain flour.  In the meantime, have the cake version of the recipe.

Recipe - adapted from Tartelette
Makes about 12

• 85g/3oz butter
• 225g/8oz white chocolate
• 60g/2oz caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
• 150g/5.3oz self-raising flour
• 45g/1.5oz milk chocolate chips
• 45g/1.5oz white chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease and flour a 20cm/8inch square tin.
2. Put half the chocolate in a glass bowl with the butter and place over a pan of simmering water to melt.
3. Once melted, add the rest of the chocolate and stir in until smooth.
4. Beat the eggs and sugar together into a bowl until pale and thick.
5. Add the butter-chocolate, vanilla extract and flour and mix until smooth.
6. Stir in the chocolate chips.
7. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Leave to cool in the tin.
9. Once cool, remove from the tin and cut into 12 pieces.

S'mores Cupcakes

I have been in a marshmallowy mood this week.  It did start with the desire to make marshmallow and chocolate stuffed chocolate chip cookies, but they didn't quite work out due to the cookie dough being too...spreadable and everything falling apart in the oven.  Very disappointing, but I'll go into that properly when I remake them successfully and do a write up.

Anyway!  S'mores cupcakes was what I decided I wanted to make for the fiancé to take on his weekly trip to Dundee.  So I found a recipe by browsing around the internet for which I had all the ingredients and that looked good.  I did have to make one change though, which was that I used McVities Digestives in place of Graham crackers.  We don't have those here in the UK and on the rare occasions I've made s'mores (mainly back when I was a Brownie), we used Digestives or Rich Teas for the base.  Yum yum!  Besides, the fiancé really likes Digestives and I happened to have a packet sitting in the cupboard.  I reduced the cocoa slightly, but only because I didn't have quite enough.  Didn't seem to make much of a difference.   I also ended up putting a little too much bicarbonate of soda in.  I picked up the wrong spoon!  I added less baking powder to compensate and again, nothing seemed amiss with the final result.

So the final product has a Digestive crumb base, topped with a little chocolate, then chocolate cake sprinkled with more biscuit and chocolate, and finished off with a swirl of toasted marshmallow fluff.  As usual, my marshmallow fluff is homemade rather than store bought.  I don't think you can get that over here either?  I've not seen it anyway.  I had to toast mine under the grill, since I don't own a blowtorch.  I had to watch them diligently and rotate them about to get an even toasting, since the flame for my grill runs down the centre of my oven.  The result was good though.  A slightly firm exterior with a squishy, soft interior.  The fiancé said it was perfect, having expected it to be a bit rubbery.

What can I say?  They were very well received.  The biscuit base proved to be popular with everyone, as was the marshmallow.  Again, it was a really moist cake due to it being a very wet batter.  And it's definitely reminiscent of s'mores.  Quite a nice alternative indeed!

Recipe - adapted from The Martha Stewart Show and Bake me I'm yours...Sweet Bitesize Bakes
Makes about 12


Cake:

• 200g/7oz caster sugar
• 140g/5oz plain flour
• 40g/1.5oz cocoa powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 large egg
• 125ml/4.5fl.oz milk
• 60ml/2fl.oz sunflower oil (or any other flavourless oil)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 125ml/4.5fl.oz boiling water

Digestive Base:

• 40g/1.5oz caster sugar
• 90g/3oz McVities Digestive biscuits - about 6 or 7 biscuits worth 
• 40g/1.5oz butter
• 125g/4.5oz milk chocolate

Marshmallow Fluff Topping

• 1 large egg white
• 125g/4.5oz caster sugar
• 25g/1oz golden syrup
• Pinch of salt
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tbsp water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin cases.
2. Sift the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt together into a large bowl.  Mix together with a spoon.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla extract until combined.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir in to combine.
5. Add the boiling water and stir until smooth, with the batter being even in colour and consistency.  Put to one side.
6. Melt the butter and in the meantime, crush the biscuits in a bowl until you get small crumbs.
7. Add the melted butter and sugar to the biscuit crumbs and mix together.
8. Chop up the chocolate into small pieces.
9. Put 1 tablespoon of biscuit crumb mix in the base of each muffin case and press down with the end of a rolling pin.
10. Sprinkle 2 teaspoons of chopped chocolate on top of each base.
11. Put them in the oven for about 5 minutes.
12. Remove and fill each case three quarters full with the cake batter.
13. Sprinkle the remaining biscuit mix and chocolate on top then put back in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes until the cakes are springy and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
14. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
15. Whilst the cakes cool, put a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
16. Place everything for the marshmallow fluff except the vanilla extract in the bowl.
17. Whilst it is heating, stir with an electric whisk for several minutes (about 10) until you get shiny peaks.
18. Remove from the heat and whisk for another two minutes to thicken it up.  
19. Add the vanilla and whisk in too.
20. Allow to cool.
21. Switch on the grill and spoon into a piping bag fitted with a large round nozzle and pipe swirls on top of each cake.
22. Place four cupcakes at a time on a tray and place under the grill.  Remove every 30 seconds to check how they are doing and rotate if necessary.  You want only a light brown toasting.

Butterbeer Cupcakes

I can't quite remember how these came about.  I think I was looking up what root beer was, and if it was the same as ginger beer.  There was something about the butterbeer served at Universal Studios being made with root beer and that got me interested.  If you could do a coca-cola cake, why couldn't you do one using butterbeer?  I figured I could use the Nigella recipe I discovered after my first attempt at cola cupcakes as a base and go from there.

Hence, more research was required.  What did butterbeer taste like anyway?  Well according to J.K Rowling, butterbeer tastes "a little bit like less-sickly butterscotch", so I knew I'd need to get butterscotch in there somewhere, probably in the topping.  Then, like I said before, people who make their own butterbeer use root beer, or cream soda as a base.  But those aren't so easy to find over here so I thought I'd find a recipe that used ginger beer instead, since it is a type of root beer.  Browsing around the internet yielded a lot of results, but I settled on the one I found on The Roaming Kitchen since it incorporated ginger beer, cream and butterscotch.  It certainly looked the best and used things I thought my tasters would like.

So I took that recipe and made the "beer" part to add to the Nigella recipe in place of Cola.  I chose to leave out the rum though, mainly because I'm not a drinker of alcohol and therefore don't keep anything like that in my house.  I switched the golden caster sugar to light brown sugar, since butterscotch cake usually uses that, and left out the cocoa powder in favour of some extra ground ginger.  Putting some of the butterscotch sauce into the cake batter just before baking was a last minute decision but seemed to pay off. 

I was rather pleased with the final result.  However, I discovered that the butterscotch sauce I put on top kinda vanished into the cream overnight in the fridge, and I had to make some more so it actually showed up in the photos and would be there for the people eating them.  So really, you want to add that bit just before you serve.

The cake was really moist, and tastes like ginger beer, which was good.  You even get the ginger beer after taste.  The cream is lovely, especially with the nutmeg and the butterscotch sauce just brings it together with a nice sweet edge.  The fiancé really liked them.

Recipe - adapted from The Roaming Kitchen and How to be a Domestic Goddess
Makes about 12


Butterscotch Sauce:
Makes about 180ml/6fl.oz

• 55g/2oz butter
• 85g/3oz dark brown sugar
• 125ml/4.5fl.oz double cream
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract

1. Put the butter in a saucepan and melt over a gentle heat.
2. Add the sugar, cream and salt and whisk together.
3. Bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes, whisking the whole time.
4. Bring off the heat when the butterscotch has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon.
5. Add vanilla extract and stir in.

Butterbeer:

• 1/2 tbsp butter
• 3/4 tbsp light brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 175ml/6fl.oz ginger beer

1. Put the butter in a saucepan and melt over a medium heat.
2. Add the sugar, nutmeg, ginger and vanilla and mix together.
3. When the mixture is starts bubbling, add in the ginger beer, lower the heat and stir.
4. Remove from heat after the ginger beer has heated through (about 2 minutes).

 
Cupcakes:

• 125ml/4.5fl.oz milk
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 250g/9oz light brown sugar
• 200g/7oz plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 125g/4.5oz butter
• 175ml/6fl.oz butterbeer
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Butterscotch sauce
• 250ml/9fl.oz double cream
• Ground nutmeg for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin cases. 
2. Put the lemon juice and milk in a jug and leave for 10 minutes.
3. Mix the sugar, flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt together in a large bowl.
4. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat with the butterbeer and ground ginger.
5. Add butterbeer mixture to the dry ingredients and mix in. 
6. Add the egg and vanilla extract to the lemon milk and beat together.
7. Add to the other ingredients, mixing until smooth.
8. Divide the mixture amongst the cases, filling them about 2/3 of the way up.
9. Add a small spoonful of butterscotch to the centre of each case of mixture.
10. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until the butterscotch is bubbling and the rest of the cake is risen and springy to the touch.
11. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
12. Whip the cream until it holds its shape in stiff peaks.  
13. Put the cream into a piping bag fitted with a closed star nozzle and pipe a spiral on top of each cake, starting at the centre and moving outwards so you get something that looks like a rose.
14. Sprinkle each cake with a little nutmeg.
15. Just before serving, put the remaining butterscotch sauce into a piping bag fitted with a small, round nozzle and pipe a zigzag pattern across the top of each cake. (If the butterscotch has firmed up a bit too much, place back over a low heat and whisk until it becomes runnier again).

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whoops, I meant to get this up last week, since I made them on Thursday.  Time keeps getting away from me at the moment.  Anyway, chocolate chip cookies were one of the few things I would bake a lot during my time at university because they were quick, simple and inexpensive.  Seems strange I've not made them in such a long time because they are yummy.  I have two recipes I alternate between when I make them.  The one used for these was the second one I acquired.  I got it out of a book belonging to someone else and now can't remember which book.  I like looking at other people's cookbooks and I write down recipes I like.  Nowadays if I do that, I make a note of the source too, in case I want it to go up here.  But alas, not this one.  If I find it I'll credit it.  For now I've just been working on the version written in my notebook.

So I decided to make these due to having an egg yolk left over from making the almond paste for the Semla cupcakes, as well as chocolate chips sitting in the cupboard.  No point letting a perfectly good yolk go to waste.  My other cookie recipe doesn't use egg, so I'll have to post that one at some point in the future too.

I do really enjoy these cookies.  When you first bite into them, you may think they don't taste that impressive.  But then you'll find yourself eating another, and another.  They are surprisingly more-ish.  And rather scrummy with ice cream.  They're meant to be a slightly soft biscuit.  You may think they need longer in the oven than they do, but if you leave them too long, they end up really hard because they firm up after they come out.  So they will be soft when they come out but don't worry.

Recipe - makes about 20

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp water
• 75g/2.6oz butter
• 50g/1.7oz icing sugar
• 150g/5.3oz plain flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 100g/3.5oz chocolate chips 

1. Mix the egg yolk, vanilla extract and water together in a jug.
2. In a large bowl, blend together the icing sugar and butter until it is pale and fluffy.
3. Add the egg mixture to the sugar butter a little at a time, mixing in after each addition.
4. Sift in the flour, salt and baking powder, add the chocolate chips and stir together until just incorporated.  You should end up with a somewhat soft and sticky dough.
5. Shape the dough into a cylinder that's about 30cm/12 inches long and wrap in clingfilm.  Refrigerate for at least an hour.
6. Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F/Gas Mark 2 and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.
7. Remove the dough from the fridge and cut into 20 even slices.  If the cookies get squashed when cutting, shape them into circles with your fingers.  Place on the tray, an even amount of distance apart.
8. Bake for about 15 minutes.  They will seem too soft but they do firm up.
9. Leave to cool on the tray for about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Chocolate and Raspberry Truffles

This was the second Valentine's Day sweet I made for the fiancé: chocolate and raspberry truffles.  I stumbled across these when looking for things to do with raspberries and thought it sounded interesting.  I want to make more sweets and truffles are in the slightly easier category I believe.  They sound easy in theory anyway.  I have always struggled a bit with them.  Usually the dipping stage.

I actually made two batches of these.  The first used a half batch of the recipe ingredients.  I didn't really encounter any major problems with them.  Things seemed to be going as the recipe dictated...until I got to the second chilling stage.  The ganache balls are supposed to be firm enough to dip after about 2 hours in the freezer.  Mine weren't.  Even after being left overnight they still weren't right.  It actually took them until the end of the following day, but I'd already made a second set by then, since I had decided it was down to my choice of cream.  As I often do, I was using Elmlea, which is actually a cream substitute (I only learnt that about a month ago) and made with vegetable oil and buttermilk.  Oil does not freeze, which is why cakes made with it freeze better than those made with butter.  The oil stays liquid and keeps the cake moist.  Not so good when you need something to firm up though.  So I started over, using real cream.

I thought the ganache certainly came out better.  I admit, I tampered with the amounts a little because I didn't think the raspberry flavour was coming through in the first batch.  To deal with this, I used some more raspberries and cut out a little of the chocolate.  The taste was definitely better in my opinion.  However, when it came to firming up, I encountered the same problem.  They still seemed too soft.  I kept my hands cold (to the point that they hurt) so my hands wouldn't melt them, but I couldn't dip them cleanly.  I could dip and remove them, but with difficulty and the final result is a bit messy.  Not dreadful, but not lovely, neat spheres.  Ah well.  I was still pretty happy with how they turned out.  The fiancé's Mum thought they looked impressive: "Like something you expect in Harrods", which was nice to hear.  She also approved of the taste and wants some for her birthday.

The fiancé likes them too, though not as much as the raspberry cremes.  I will say, the truffle centre is quite a soft truffle.  I did try the ganache when I made it, and you get a lovely mix of creamy milk chocolate and a burst of raspberry.  The fiancé says the ones coated in milk chocolate are better than the white chocolate ones, but each to their own.  Really, they would all have been coated in milk chocolate but I ran out due to starting over.  I personally like the contrast of colour though, even if the filling is the same.

Recipe - adapted from About.com

Makes about 25 

I recommend leaving the balls of ganache to set overnight, so start preparation the day before you need them.

Ganache:

• 170g/6oz thawed frozen raspberries
• 15g/0.5oz icing sugar
• 185g/6.5oz milk chocolate
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 100ml/3.5fl.oz double cream

Coating:

• 255g/9oz milk chocolate (or 125g/4.5oz each of milk and white chocolate)
• 40g/1.5oz white chocolate (for decoration)
• Red blossom tint 

1. Blend the raspberries into a liquid then strain into a saucepan through a sieve or cheese cloth to remove the seeds.
2. Add the icing sugar then stir over a gentle heat until it has reduced by about half and is thick and syrupy.  Set aside.
3. Chop the chocolate into very small pieces and place in a bowl.
4. Put the cream in a saucepan and heat until bubbles appear around the edges but do not bring to a full boil.
5. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and leave for a couple of minutes to melt.
6. Whisk the chocolate cream until smooth, then add the golden syrup and raspberry purée and whisk that altogether too.
7. Cover the bowl in clingfilm and put in the fridge to firm up.  This will take about 3 hours.
8. Prepare a tray by covering it with greaseproof paper and make sure your hands are cold (you may have to keep cooling them down again as you make the balls as the ganache may start sticking to them).
9. Remove the bowl of ganache from the fridge and shape 1/2 tablespoonfuls of it into balls.  Place on the tray.
10. Put the tray in the freezer and leave overnight to firm up.
11. The following day, melt the chocolate for dipping in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.
12. Prepare a new tray by covering it with greaseproof paper.
13. Remove the ganache balls from the freezer and coat in chocolate.  (I resorted to dropping mine in the chocolate, quickly rolling them in it and scooping them out with a spoon).  Place on the new tray to set.
14. Melt the white chocolate for decorating in the same manner as the dipping chocolate.
15. Add the blossom tint to colour it then pour into a piping bag fitted with a small, round nozzle.
16. Pipe zigzags or spirals onto the truffles once their coating has set, then leave to dry.
17. Keep refrigerated in an airtight container for up to two weeks.

Raspberry Cremes

Valentine's Day is not really something the fiancé and I make a big thing of.  It's pretty much a normal day for the two of us, except that we make each other an edible present.  The last few years the fiancé has been trying to make me fudge because I love fudge.  He's not quite perfected it yet but he is determined to.  The fact that I now own a sugar thermometer did help in this year's attempt.  Definitely his best batch yet.  Me, on the other hand, I vary it up each year.  The first year I tried to make chilli chocolate.  I put far too much chilli powder in without realising, since whenever I tasted it, I didn't feel any heat.  But he liked them regardless.  I've also made him oatcakes and little tiny chocolate covered cakes in previous years.  This year though, I found two things that I couldn't choose between and so decided to do both.  The first of those is raspberry cremes.

Now this came from looking at a recipe for peppermint cremes on the Carnation website.  I thought it would be an easy enough idea to adapt into a raspberry creme.  I've had success flavouring fondant with raspberry jam so figured I could do the same here.  Originally I just planned to cover them in milk chocolate but a few days beforehand, I had an idea!  The fiancé and I are big fans of Pokémon and within the Pokémon universe, there is one called Luvdisc, which look like heart shaped fish.  The entry for the pokédex for this Pokémon reads:
"It is said that a couple finding this Pokémon will be blessed with eternal love."
So I figured I could go extra geeky on this present and decorate the cremes to look like Luvdisc.  So I swapped the milk chocolate out for white chocolate (which was probably a better idea anyway since white chocolate goes much better with raspberry) which I then tinted with blossom tint, and used a little writing icing to finish them off.  The overall look was actually quite effective.

The fiancé really likes them.  He says they are really, REALLY sweet, with nice creamy chocolate and lovely raspberry tang coming through.  There was visible trembling of pleasure too.

Recipe - adapted from Carnation
Makes about 24

• 255g/9oz icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
• 115g/4oz Carnation Condensed Milk
• Pink food colouring
• 4 tbsp seedless raspberry jam
• 150g/5.3oz white chocolate
• Dusty pink blossom tint 
• Pink and brown writing icing (optional)

1. Heat the jam in a small saucepan over a gentle heat until liquefied.
2. Put the condensed milk in a bowl and gradually sift in the icing sugar, stirring as you do so.
3. Add the jam and food colouring and knead gently.  If the dough is too sticky, add more icing sugar.
4. Roll out on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar to about 5mm/0.25inch thick. 
5. Use a 6.5cm/2.5inch heart shaped cutter to cut out the cremes and set them on a tray or wire rack.  Leave to dry in a cool place for about 2-3 hours.
6. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water and then tint with the blossom powder to turn it pink.
7. Prepare a tray by covering it in greaseproof paper.
8. Use a fork to dip the top side of each creme in the chocolate and then place chocolate side up on the tray to set.
9. (Optional) When all cremes have set, use the writing icing to draw an eye, cheek and lips on each so they resemble Luvdisc.

Semla Cupcakes

Something a bit different for Shrove Tuesday.  Rather than the traditional pancakes, I made cupcakes based on a Scandinavian treat called semla, specifically the Swedish-Finnish version, which consists of a cardamom spiced wheat bun, filled with almond paste and whipped cream.  I'd seen cupcake versions of it a few weeks ago and went investigating as to what they were.  When I discovered they were associated with today, I knew I would have to give them a shot.  However, the original ones that inspired me were made with boxed cake mix.  I am not a fan of using cake mix.  I prefer doing things myself.  So I decided to find a recipe that did it from scratch.   And I found one.  In Swedish.  Luckily, Google translate did a pretty good job on changing it over to English and I could work out what I needed to do easily enough from it.  Admittedly some areas omitted amounts, namely for the decorative fillings, so I had to guess those myself but otherwise it was fine.

So these cakes are cardamom spiced with their tops cut off, almond paste in the centre, and topped with some sweetened whipped cream.

Well this one was a venture into some new territory for me, since I was using some ingredients that I've never used before.  The first was cardamom and the second was almond paste.  Now cardamom, I expected to find ground up in the spice section of the supermarket but no: I could only find it in pods.  You can apparently get ground but apparently most people grind up the seeds inside the pods themselves for baking.  This is probably quite easy if you have a pestle and mortar or a spice grinder (which I'm thinking I will invest in somewhere down the line) but I don't, so I had to settle for trying to smash them with a rolling pin.  Not entirely effective but not a complete failure either. 

As for almond paste, I've not worked with anything like it, including marzipan, since I don't like it.  However, I wasn't just using it, I was making it.  As far as I understood, marzipan and almond paste are not quite the same?  I could be wrong but a number of places seemed to imply you could buy almond paste in tubes.  I could find no such thing, only marzipan.  So I decided I would make my own, since it didn't look too hard.  And it really wasn't.  Seemed to come out how it was supposed to, though I made more than I needed.  Possibly the only concern for some people is the use of raw egg white.  There are a few no egg recipes out there, but otherwise I believe you could substitute in pasteurised egg white instead.  That's what another site was saying anyway.  You should be able to find that in the supermarket too, though I wasn't able to.

So what was the verdict from the tasters  Well according to the fiancé they were all devoured quite rapidly.  He says they have a slightly tangy flavour and that all the individual elements work really nicely together, which was nice to hear because he hadn't been to keen on the almond paste when he tried it on its own. 

Recipe:


Almond Paste - adapted from BBC Food

• 55g/2oz icing sugar
• 55g/2oz caster sugar
• 100g/3.5oz ground almonds
• 1/2 egg white (or pasteurised egg white)
• 1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1. Put the caster sugar into a medium bowl, and sift the icing sugar into it.  Add the ground almonds and mix together.
2. Add the lemon juice and mix in.
3. Lightly beat the egg white.
4. Add the egg white a little at a time to the dry ingredients and mix together until you get a stiff dough.  You may not need all the egg white.
5. Roll into a ball and knead gently.  If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more icing sugar.
6. Put in a plastic bag until ready to use.

Cakes - adapted from Kelly Biddle 
Makes 12 

• 2 eggs
• 340g/12oz caster sugar
• 50g/1.7oz butter
• 1 tsp ground cardamom seeds
• 125ml/4.5oz milk
• 1.25 tsp baking powder
• 280g/10oz plain flour
• 225g/8oz almond paste
• 4 tbsp double cream
• 1 tsp almond extract (optional)
• 175ml/6fl.oz double cream
• 30g/1oz icing sugar, plus extra for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin cases.
2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat.
3. Beat the eggs and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
4. Add in the melted butter, cardamom, milk, baking powder and flour and mix everything together until you get a smooth batter.
5. Spoon the batter into the cases, filling them 2/3 full and then bake for 15-20 minutes until the cakes are risen, golden and springy to the touch.  A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean.
6. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
7. In the meantime, first mix the 4 tbsp cream into the almond paste.  You can add the almond extract here too if you want to enhance the flavour.  You're aiming for a fairly smooth paste.
8. Whip the 175ml/6fl.oz cream with the icing sugar until you get stiff peaks.  Put into a piping bag fitted with a large, closed star nozzle.
9. Cut the top off of each cake to make a 'lid' and scoop a little of the middle out of the cake with a small spoon.
10. Fill the scooped out part with almond paste and then pipe a swirl of cream on top.
11. Place the lids back on the cakes and then dust with icing sugar.

Strawberry Milkshake Cupcakes

Once again I've gone about trying to find a good way to flavour my cupcakes with strawberry, since we don't seem to get strawberry extract over here in the UK.  This week's attempt was inspired by the hot-chocolate cupcakes I made a couple of weeks ago.  I was lying in bed, thinking about cake, when I suddenly thought I could get a similar effect adding milkshake powder in place of the drinking chocolate powder.  So that's how the idea was conceived.  I decided I also wanted to make a strawberry milkshake flavoured buttercream to go on top, rather than have whipped cream, because when I think of milkshakes they usually come topped with foam, not cream.  And what else comes with milkshakes?  Straws!  So I was determined to try and make edible straws too, just to complete the look.

I was considering making the cakes in dariole moulds, rather than in cupcake cases, since they have a more glass-like shape to them, which would look nice for the overall effect.  It would have taken me longer though, since I only have four moulds, and would have made them a bit unstable due to being top heavy.  Not that that would have been a problem, except they needed to make it to Dundee via a train so that didn't seem like a good idea in that case.  Next time I may make them in the darioles.

The cakes and buttercream were pretty simple.  I got worried briefly when doing the buttercream, because I didn't have as much icing sugar as I thought, and was worried I wouldn't have enough buttercream to decorate all 14 cakes.  But I managed it!  Just!  I literally had enough to ice them.  I couldn't have done any more.  So that was a relief.  It was the straws that gave me the most problems, since I wasn't sure how to go about them.  Ideally, I would have wanted them to be hollow, but I didn't have anything strong enough to do that with.  Really I need something like acetate.  I did try with foil but it didn't work.  So I resorted to filling plastic straws with chocolate instead.  This meant they wouldn't be hollow but solid straws was better than none at all.  Getting it to work took a bit of trial and error, especially when it came to getting them out of their cases, but I got there in the end and am overall quite pleased with the result.

The taste testers enjoyed them.  The fiance really liked them, putting them in the higher bracket of his ranking.  He described them as tasting "like the foam on top of a strawberry milkshake, only with more strawberry flavour and cake!" I personally think the buttercream is divine!  It has such a wonderful taste which reminds me of something strawberry flavoured I used to have as a kid.  I think it's strawberry Mini Milk ice lollies, but I'm not sure.  Possibly even strawberry ice cream.  Whatever it is, it is so yummy that I want to use it on other things.

Recipe - makes about 12

Cakes:

• 240ml/8.5fl.oz full fat milk
• 60g/2.1oz Nesquik strawberry milkshake powder
• 80g/3oz unsalted butter
• 280g/10oz caster sugar
• 240g/8.5oz plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• Pink food colouring

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line a 12 hole muffin tray with muffin cases.
2. Put the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and use an electric mixer to slowly whisk them together until you get something resembling fine breadcrumbs.  You can probably get this result with a spoon but it will take a long time.
3. Put the strawberry milkshake powder in a jug with the milk and mix in until dissolved, then add the eggs and beat together.
4. Add three quarters of the mixture to the dry ingredients and mix together until well incorporated and smooth.
5. Add the rest of the strawberry milk, as well as enough food colouring to produce a very pink mixture, beating until smooth.
6. Divide the mixture across the muffin cases, filling each about two thirds of the way up.  You may have excess mixture, so just put it into spare muffin cases and bake those too.
7. Bake for about 20-30 minutes, until the cakes are risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Buttercream:

• 30ml/1fl.oz full fat milk
• 40g/1.4oz Nesquik strawberry milkshake powder
• 375g/13.2oz icing sugar
• 130g/4.5oz butter
• Pink food colouring

1. Dissolve the milkshake powder in the milk.
2. Beat the butter and icing sugar together in a bowl until they are smooth.
3. Add the milkshake and food colouring and mix in until you get the desired colour.
4. Fit a piping bag with a large, round tipped nozzle and prepare a small bowl of cold water.
5. Pipe 'bubbles' onto the top of the cake.  Do this by holding the nozzle perpendicular to the surface of the cake, squeeze out a small, round blob of buttercream and pull away.  You will get a point left over but don't worry.  Repeat until the whole cake is covered.  You can vary the size as you go.  When the cake is covered, dip your finger in the water and press the points on each blob down so you get a rounded finish.

Chocolate straws:

• 55g/1oz white chocolate
• 4-5 plastic drinking straws
• Bamboo skewer

1. Melt the white chocolate in a bowl placed over a pan of simmering water.
2. Cut each drinking straw into 3 or 4 pieces of equal length so you have enough for each of your cupcakes.
3. Fit a piping bag with a small, round tipped nozzle and fill with the melting chocolate.
4. Put the nozzle in one end of a straw piece and squeeze the bag, filling the straw with chocolate.  Be careful not to let any come out the other side.  Set on a plate and repeat with the rest.
5. Freeze the straws for about 1 hour so they set.
6. Remove from the freezer.
7. Take one of the straws and place the blunt end of the skewer against one of the entrances.  Run your fingers down the straw to loosen the chocolate a bit, and push up with the skewer.  The chocolate straw should come out the top of the straw.  Place it back on the plate.
8. Repeat with all the straws then put them into the fridge for about 10 minutes to firm up again.
9. Stick into the buttercream at a slight angle.

Chocolate Topped Orange Shortbread Hearts

Since the honey wheat bread had annoyed me with its refusal to turn out right the first two times, I was determined to bake something else alongside the third attempt that really ought to turn out fine.  So I decided on biscuits because I really like homemade biscuits and feel I've gotten much better at them over the last year.

I've been wanting to do an orange flavoured biscuits coated in chocolate for a while now.  The idea just sounds heavenly.  The recipe I chose was actually one I'd stumbled across a while ago but had forgotten about.  I just happened to chance upon it again whilst browsing for a good biscuit that was a bit crunchy.

I will admit, I intended to cover the entire biscuit in chocolate.  Unfortunately, I did a silly thing and left the chocolate unattended whilst I was melting it and it got a bit too hot, and so started seizing up.  I managed to rescue it with some whisking, which got it smooth again, but it was too thick for dipping properly and I just could not get it to thin out.  So I had to settle for just covering the tops.  The fiancé thinks this is a better idea though because otherwise you'd get chocolate over your hands when trying to eat it.  I did make sure to watch the white chocolate though, so it was runny enough to drizzle.  I've still not got the hang of drizzling.  It always looks messy.  I've opted for quickly shaking the spoon back and forth over the biscuit I'm decorating.  Maybe I should have used the old standby of putting it in a piping bag?  Oh well, they were just for me and the fiancé to enjoy anyway.  No need to be overly neat in that case.

I made one slight change to the recipe, which was I used orange extract rather than zest.  I don't keep oranges in my house and buying one for the sake of the zest seems wasteful, especially as I have extract just sitting in my cupboard.  I also like the flavour my extract gives things.  So lovely and orangey.  I don't think it hurt that it meant I added a tiny bit of liquid to the dough, helping it form together better.  I also found the commenters on the original recipe were right about the baking time being longer than suggested, so will be making that amendment in my write-up.

What can I say about the taste, other than they are so GOOD!  Honestly, they are just delicious.  You get a lovely burst of orange when you bite into the crunchy biscuit, and then it's quickly followed by the lovely creamy chocolate and it blends nicely together.  I loved them, as did the fiancé and they're pretty much gone now.  They barely lasted two days, and that's because we were being fairly restrained.  I will definitely be making these again at some point.

Recipe - adapted from Rachel Allen via 4Food

Makes about 24 biscuits

• 100g/3.5oz butter, softened and diced, plus extra for greasing
• 150g/5.3oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 50g/1.7oz caster sugar
• 1 tsp orange extract (or zest of 1 orange)
• 85g/3oz milk chocolate
• 40g/1.4oz white chocolate
• Orange blossom tint powder (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease two baking trays with butter.
2. Sift the flour into a large bowl.
3. Dice up the butter and add to the flour, rubbing it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs and there are no large lumps of butter.
4. Add the sugar and the orange extract and mix together until you get a stiff dough (you may need to use your hands).  Do not add any additional liquid.
5. Lightly dust a worktop and rolling pin with flour and roll out the dough until about 5mm/0.25inch thick.
6. Use a 6.5cm/2.5inch heart shaped cutter to cut out biscuits from the dough, transferring them to the greased trays with a palette knife or spatula.  Be sure to space them evenly apart.  I got 12 on each tray.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the edges are golden.
8. Remove and leave on the trays for one minute, before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
9. Whilst the biscuits cool, melt the milk chocolate by breaking it into pieces and placing in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.
10. Dip the top side of the biscuits in the chocolate, shaking to removed the excess.  If you want, you can use a knife to smooth it out.  Place back on the wire rack to set. 
11. Melt the white chocolate in the same way as the milk chocolate.  If using, stir in the orange blossom tint.
12. Place a sheet of baking parchment beneath the wire rack to catch any drips, and then drizzle the white chocolate over the top of the biscuits.  Leave to set.