Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today was the last day of school at Markinch Primary.  It was therefore also my last day working there since I'm going back to university at the end of the summer holidays to study for my PGDE in Primary Education so I can be a teacher myself!  Feeling like you're making progress in your life is quite satisfying really.  Anyway, before I got official supply work there at the start of June I was just a volunteer classroom assistant and spent pretty much all my time there between January and June with P1b, who are a completely lovely bunch of children and I adore them (the two horrors included).  So I wanted to make them an end of year present, even though I'd not been working in their class for the last month, and I settled on chocolate chip cookies since they are easy to make in bulk and were more likely to be enjoyed by everyone.  I was determined to make fairly large ones though, because they would only be getting one each, and ideally a chewy one because as much as I like crunchy biscuits, I think chocolate chip cookies are delicious when they are soft.  Plus it'd be easy on the kids' teeth.

The other two cookie recipes I have made previously produce small and firmer cookies, rather than chewy.  Of course, I've learnt since the last time I attempted (and failed) to make chewy cookies that the chewiness comes from undercooking them slightly.  I still went looking for a different recipe from my other ones though, because I wanted one that produced bigger cookies.  However, I sort of ended up with something I could almost call my own but is heavily influenced by Baker Bettie.  Now she has lots of cookie recipes on her site (and I really want to try out her recipe for World's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies at some point to see if they live up to their title) but the one I ended up working with was one for making cookies from just five ingredients.  What I liked about it was that you could use any variation on the ingredients: so whatever flour and sugar and egg and butter you had on hand.  This was a fantastic base point because it meant I could work with what I had or what I knew produced yummy results and this would be my guide for ratios.  

My cookies didn't end up with only five ingredients though.  Mine have seven, since I used two types of sugar (and three in my second batch since I didn't have quite as much brown sugar as I thought and had to make up the rest with muscavado) and I added some vanilla because I like putting vanilla in biscuits.  Since I was making slightly bigger cookies than the original recipe I was very weary with spacing on the trays and started with four, one in each corner, so I could see how much they spread.  This also meant I had to monitor the first batch in terms of cooking time since they would need a bit longer than the original 7-9 minutes.  Turns out only a couple of minutes extra were needed.  And it took me a couple of tries to get the amount in the scoops right to get evenly sized cookies but I got into the swing of it eventually.  I made two batches of the cookies, since there were 25 in the class.

These cookies are delicious!  Lovely and chewy and there were so many chocolate chips that they were amazing!  I was so pleased.  I decided to dress them up for the kids and made little presentation envelopes from greaseproof paper, with homemade labels that say 'you're one smart cookie!' on them.  The end result was really quite cute, if I say so myself.  The kids were all super excited when I handed them out so yay!  I don't know if they liked them since they got them just as they were leaving.  Hopefully they will.  I know I did and I'm picky, as you know.

And I got presents too!  Which was a lovely surprise.  I got a huge bunch of flowers, which is now sitting on my dinner table, and a book full of photos of the kids doing various things across the time I've been there (and a few of me taken on the rare occasion I was not in charge of the camera) as well as individual drawings and messages from each one.  It's so lovely!  There's also spare pages at the back which I've decided I can stick all the pictures they given me over the last few months onto.  Plus the fiancé's Mum (who is their teacher) says she's got photos of me baking with them (we did bread and cake pops) which she didn't get developed in time so they can go in there too.  I'm seriously going to miss them.

Recipe - inspired by Baker Bettie

Makes 15 large-ish cookies 

• 115g/4oz butter
• 115g/4oz caster sugar
• 115g/4oz dark brown sugar (or 60g/2oz dark brown sugar and 60g/2oz dark muscavado sugar)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 155g/5.5oz plain flour
• 170g/6oz milk chocolate chips 

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
2. Beat the butter and sugars together in a bowl until smooth and creamy.
3. Add the vanilla and egg and beat until fully incorporated.
4. Stir in the flour until combined.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips until evenly mixed throughout the batter. 
6. Scoop heaped tablespoonfuls of mixture (I actually used an ice cream scoop) and place on the trays, spacing them well apart since they spread a lot. (I got 5-6 cookies per tray).
7. Bake for about 10 minutes.  The cookies should have spread, have golden edges but still look underdone in the centre.
8. Remove and allow them to rest on the tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

That's an A4 book, just so you know and can compare the cookie's size to it.

Strawberry Mousse Cake

Being a classroom assistant occasionally gives me the opportunity to do things I might not otherwise choose to do.  On Wednesday I was told I would be accompanying the P4/P5 trip to Cairnie Fruit Farm that was happening on Friday.  I will admit, I was dreading it.  I heard the word 'farm' and could only think of mud.  I hate mud.  I will avoid walking through it whenever I can, even in boots worn specifically for walking through mud.  If I do have to go through it, I do so on tiptoe and try and do it in the fewest steps possible.  I probably sound a bit mad, don't I, but I've been that way since I was a small child.  You would never have caught little me playing in the mud and I can't understand why any of the kids I work with can stand to.  It's just yucky.

When Friday rolled around, my dread had lessened slightly upon looking up exactly what the place we were going was and discovering that part of it would be fruit picking.  That sounded quite cool and I could come away with fresh fruit to bake with.  There didn't seem to be much else to be concerned about in terms of mud but due to paranoia I had the fiancé's Mum's wellington boots in a bag over my shoulder anyway.  Really I should try to be less paranoid because I ended up carrying them around in said bag all day.  Ah well.

Strawberry picking was fun!  And I learnt several things I didn't know about strawberries.  Like how the fruit grows from the flower on the plant.  So each flower you see on a strawberry plant turns into a strawberry.  They're also called strawberries because they grow best in straw, since it helps to insulate them.  And if they're not pollinated in the right way the strawberries will grow into funny shapes.  It was all really cool.  I came away with a punnet filled to the brim with beautiful red strawberries.  Sonata strawberries I believe they are, which are the second most popular kind in Britain after Elsanta.  They are the preferred strawberry for jam since they are apparently quite sweet.  Can't say that's a bad thing, especially when baking is concerned.  They were all so gorgeous and perfect and ripe and I got so many compared to what I would get at the supermarket.  Plus the punnet was built into the trip fee so I didn't even have to pay for it.  I did fork out for an extra punnet for the fiancé's Mum though, since she'd asked me to get her some.  I also bought raspberry jam for the fiancé and a lovely canvas bag for me (I like souvenirs that last and remind me of where I've been).

So I had a punnet of strawberries that I wanted to bake with but exactly what I should bake took a little bit of thinking.  As much as I love sweet things, I am very picky about them and hence I don't end up eating most of what I bake.  This time I really wanted to make something that I wanted to eat too.  I don't like fruit in cakes so just baking the strawberries into something was not really an option.  However, I like things that taste like fruit and I love strawberry flavoured things.  I figured I could probably think of something I could flavour with the strawberries and once I was on that line of thinking it didn't take long to decide on strawberry mousse.  I could certainly do with more practice with the stuff and mousse cakes can look so pretty. 

I've made chocolate mousse before but this would be my first time attempting it with fruit.  So my first instinct was to go looking for strawberry mousse cake recipes.  I found plenty but a number of them produced quite big cakes and required a lot of ingredients.  I only really wanted to make something small, around 6 inches in diameter since that would be a nice size for myself and the fiancé.  I was also slightly limited by what I had in my cupboard.  The shopping wasn't coming until later that day and I hadn't ordered anything special for baking anyway.  Really, reducing my favourite vanilla sponge cake recipe should provide plenty for the cake base.  So I changed tact in searching and just went looking for a simple mousse recipe instead; preferably one that used white chocolate in it because that sounded yummy.  And I did, though I halved it for my recipe and chose to leave out the chopped fruit. I also decided on a white chocolate border, since the chocolate border I made on the last mousse cake looked rather nice and I didn't have many other options for supporting the mousse.  At some point I will try the acetate ring thing.  The pink stripes were a last minute decision after I remembered I still had some strawberry chocolate buttons and thought a striped pattern would be pretty.  It did turn out to be quite effective so I was rather pleased.

It is a delicious cake.  A nice sponge accompanied by a very light mousse with an obvious strawberry taste but nothing overpowering.  The chocolate is lovely with it.  It was quite enjoyable to eat something I'd baked and actually like the taste.  I've not done it in a long while.  I really wish I wasn't so fussy sometimes.

Recipe - makes a 6 inch cake

Cake - adapted from the Good Food Channel:

• 1 large egg
• Caster sugar - weight equal to that of the 1 egg in its shell
• Unsalted butter - weight equal to that of the 1 egg in its shell
• Self raising flour - weight equal to that of the 1 egg in its shell
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease and line one 15cm/6inch round cake tin.
2. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until fluffy and pale.
3. Separate the egg and whisk the yolk and vanilla together in a jug and add to the butter mix a little at a time, folding it in to add air to the mixture.
4. Sift in the flour and fold that in also.
5. Whisk the egg whites into soft peaks and then fold those into the batter until you cannot see any white in the mixture.
6. Spoon into the cake tin and smooth evenly.  Make a dip in the centre of the mixture with a spoon so the cake bakes flat.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until risen and springy and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Allow to cool in its tin before removing and plating it. 

Chocolate Collar:

• 60g/2oz white chocolate chips
• 20g/0.7oz strawberry chocolate buttons

1. Melt the chocolate in two heatproof bowls over saucepans of gently simmering water.
2. Meanwhile, use a piece of string or a measuring tape to measure the circumference of the cake (should be about 48cm/19inches).
3. Cut out a strip of greaseproof paper which is 1cm/0.5inches longer than the length you measured and 7.5cm/3inches tall.
4. Use pastry brushes to coat the paper with the chocolate, creating thick stripes with the white chocolate and thin ones with the strawberry, trying to space them evenly.  Be sure to make the coating as thick as possible and use all the chocolate.  Paint right to the edge of one short side and both long sides.  Leave 1cm/0.5inches uncoated on the other short side.
5. Allow to firm up slightly, so that the chocolate has thickened and is no longer runny.
6. Carefully place the strip around the cake.  Make sure the base of the strip touches the plate and the two short ends match up.  Press against the cake to make sure there are no gaps between it and the chocolate collar or the filling will escape.
7. Chill in the fridge. 

Strawberry mousse - adapted from Simon Rimmer, via BBC Food 

• 125g/4.5oz strawberries, plus 7 for decorating
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 115g/4oz white chocolate chips
• 1/2 tbsp gelatin
• 25ml/1fl.oz warm water
• 225ml/8fl.oz double cream
• 15g/0.5oz icing sugar 
• Pink food colouring (optional)

1. Cut the tops off the strawberries and then blend into a purée in a food processor or using a stick blender.
2. Pass the purée through a fine meshed sieve into a clean bowl to remove any excess pulp and seeds.
3. Add the lemon juice and mix in.
4. Melt the chocolate chips in a large, heatproof bowl placed over a pan of lightly simmering water.  Set aside.
5. Add the gelatin to the water and leave for a few minutes.
6. Put 65ml/2fl.oz into a saucepan with the icing sugar and sit over a gentle heat until it is warm.
7. Add the gelatin and stir continuously over the low heat for 5 minutes so the gelatin dissolves.  DO NOT LET IT BOIL.
8. Pour the cream/gelatin mix into the white chocolate and beat until it is smooth.
9. Add the purée and mix in.  At this stage you can add a couple of drops of pink colouring if you wish to brighten up the colour.
10. Whip the remaining cream into soft peaks and then fold into the chocolate mix until incorporated.
11. Pour on top of the cake.  If you want, drop five drops of food colouring at random points on the mousse and use a toothpick/skewer to swirl them into a pattern.
12. Return to the fridge and leave to set for about 3 hours.
13. Carefully remove the greaseproof paper from the chocolate collar.  It should come away easily if the chocolate is thick enough.
14. Cut the tops off the remaining strawberries.  Place six of them around the outside of the cake.  Cut the last one into six pieces lengthwise and arrange into a star pattern in the centre of the cake.

Raspberry and Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Cupcakes

Due to the the new sports institute in town finally being ready to open, the fiancé will no longer be being sent off to other places for work with erratic shift patterns and will be settling in to a set schedule.  Unfortunately, this schedule has him working mainly in the evenings or late afternoon, which means he will no longer be able to make his weekly jaunt to Dundee (though hopefully they'll still be able to run their game over the Internet and he might be able to go up on the occasional Saturday).  Last night was meant to be his last night so I was determined to dish out one last batch of cakes to take with him.  Turns out his shifts are still going to be erratic for the next couple of weeks so he will at least be able to go next week.  After that it's all a bit nebulous really.

As has been the case lately, I did not think about what I wanted to do until after I'd gotten the weekly shop.  I really need to stop doing that.  My base idea came about on Saturday when the fiance had popped out to town and I was flicking through an old issue of one of my cake magazines.  The cakes that caught my eye were banana and chocolate fudge.  I was dubious about the fudge but decided that since I'd wanted to try baking with banana for ages why not do it now?  Besides, the local shop was bound to have bananas.  After some thinking I was originally planning to pair it with toffee and make banoffee cakes, but then discovered that I did not have any condensed milk in my cupboard like I thought I did.  I also knew that was something the local shop didn't sell.  So I had to rethink.  Then I remembered way back in February when I was looking for ideas for Valentine's Day that I had seen a recipe for a banana bread loaf that had raspberries and chocolate chips in it too.  I'd made a note to try doing it at some point since I know the fiancé loves banana bread and he also likes raspberries.  Plus I had a bag of frozen raspberries in the freezer, which was handy since the shop doesn't sell them either.  I thought a raspberry buttercream would make a nice finish and it was a great excuse to make more buttercream with jelly powder.

When I explained my idea to fiancé he pulled a bit of a face.  See, he's a little adverse to change.  If he really likes something, he's reluctant to alter it in any way.  That's not to say he doesn't like trying new things, he does.  He's just less keen on changing an established thing.  I pointed out though that part of the reason I make cakes for him to take is to experiment so I get to go wild with what I make.  He also didn't have any suggestions for what I could do instead.  So banana bread cupcakes it was!

Since I was working off a recipe for a loaf, I wasn't entirely sure how many cakes I would get.  My guess was 12 because there were two eggs but obviously the banana adds extra moisture and there was a lot of flour and turns out I got 18 instead.  Ah well, one can never have too much cake.  I was bound to find someone else to foist them off on since my carry case can't hold more than 14 at most.  I really need to get a bigger one sometime in the future.  I also had to alter the cooking time, since obviously smaller cakes take less time to cook.  Part of me is really glad I've gotten the hang of this.  I barely have to rely on recipe book times any more, which is great when something doesn't end up taking the time it should to bake for some reason.  Everything I bake out of Cake Days for example often needs about 5 minutes longer in my oven even though it's the right temperature (according to the oven thermometer).

I was really quite pleased with these when they were finished.  I've had a few bakes recently that feel sub par.  Plus there's been a complete disaster in trying to make baked doughnuts again.  Since they never made it to the blog you can probably guess they were bad.  Oh well, got to keep trying there.  But these were good!  I was happy.

Due to the face he'd given me when I mentioned the idea to him, I watched anxiously when the fiancé took his first bite.  It feels like ages since I heard that really satisfied 'Mmmmmm!' noise (but that's more likely to be down to not having baked a lot recently).  He approved, though he did say he could take or leave the chocolate chips.  Banana and raspberry goes really nicely together though apparently, and once again the jelly powder enhanced buttercream went down a treat!  His friends really enjoyed them too and actually jumped the fiancé when he arrived with them and ate some before dinner (according to him: they might just have been starving?).  So hurrah!  I'll definitely be baking with banana again in future.  I still want to make banoffee cupcakes.

Recipe - makes 18

Cakes - adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

• 280g/10oz plain flour
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 170g/6oz caster sugar
• 55g/2oz butter
• 2 large eggs
• 3-4 medium sized bananas
• 80ml/3fl.oz low fat natural yoghurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g/3.5oz milk chocolate chips
• 115g/4oz raspberries (you can use frozen ones that have been thawed)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 18 holes of two 12 hole muffin tins with muffin cases.
2. In a medium sized bowl, sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
3. In a separate, larger bowl beat together the butter and sugar until it is smooth and creamy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating in after each addition until the mixture is smooth.
5. Mash the bananas into a pulp with a fork and then add to the batter, along with the yoghurt and vanilla extract.  Beat until well incorporated.
6. Fold in the flour mix into the rest of the batter until just combined, being careful not to over mix.
7. Fold in the chocolate chips.
8. Halve the raspberries and toss them in a little bit of plain flour (if you're using thawed and they a bit mushy, don't worry too much.  Just dry them off as much as you can and don't bother trying to cut them.  That's what I did).  Add them to the batter and carefully mix them into the batter until they are fairly evenly distributed.
9. Spoon the batter into the cases, filling about three quarters full.
10. Bake for 25-30 minutes until risen and the tops are springy.  A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean.
11. Allow to sit in their tins for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Raspberry Buttercream:

• 225g/8oz butter
• 450g/1lb icing sugar
• 1 x 23g packet of raspberry jelly powder
• 1-2 bananas
• 2 tbsp lemon juice

1. Beat the butter until smooth and creamy.
2. Sift in the icing sugar and beat until smooth.
3. Mix in the raspberry jelly powder fully incorporated.
4. Slice the bananas into 18 slices and use a pastry brush to cover each side in lemon juice to stop them browning.
5. Put the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe a swirl on top of each cake.
6. Push a slice of banana into each buttercream swirl. 

Jaffa Cupcakes

I am thinking I need to make myself a schedule as to when I put together my blog updates.  I've had a few occasions recently where I have let entries I intend to post build up.  Admittedly only two or three at a time, and usually when I do a lot of baking in a short space of time, but that's still not really an excuse.  Being busy with work might count, since I've gotten full time hours at the school until the summer, but my evenings are rather empty.  They have been spent stressing about all manner of things though and that tends to put a damper on me doing anything.  So yes, schedule.  Maybe if I set myself arbitrary deadlines it will help me keep on top of things.  We'll see.  Of course, it would only follow a bake, which currently are few and far between.

Anyway, jaffa cupcakes.  This was a bake for the Dundee group and one that was requested.  I'd seen plenty of jaffa cupcakes, most of which had some sort of marmalade filling and a chocolate buttercream.  However, I remembered seeing one that put orange jelly (as in gelatin, not jam for you Americans) on top and then melted chocolate.  That's the one I wanted to do, though I did check with the fiancé first.  I guess it is actually a jaffa cake itself.  An added request to this cake was to have a jaffa cake in the base of each one.  So it's a jaffa cake topped with another larger jaffa cake (since the term 'jaffa cake' is not trademarked by McVitie's).

The construction is fairly simple.  First there is a McVitie's Jaffa Cake placed in the base of each cupcake case.  It occurred to me after I had bought the jaffa cakes that I should have gotten the mini ones.  They would have fit in the cases perfectly.  Ah well.  I made do with my regular sized ones and used a cookie cutter to make them the right size for the cases.  Next is a pretty basic vanilla fairy cake.  This is topped with a two discs of orange jelly mixed with marmalade.  I made them by chilling the jelly mix in a baking tray and then cutting out the discs with two cookie cutters.  I did two sizes of discs to stack in the hopes of getting the kind of bump you see in the middle of jaffa cakes.  The fiancé thinks that may have been too much jelly though so it's up to you if you want to do that too.  Finally, each cake is covered in melted dark chocolate and left to set.  Admittedly, I really should have let my jelly come to room temperature and let my chocolate cool slightly before I poured it on.  Once it was set it started to develop condensation, which isn't an issue taste wise but is not the most attractive thing to see.

 

As you may know by now, I do like to try and get a nice, overall aesthetic by using cases that match the cakes.  For Jaffa Cakes, I really wanted orange cases.  However, I do not have any in my cupboard, despite my ridiculously large collection of cupcake cases.  I considered blue, but didn't think it would look right.  Then I had an idea!  I remembered seeing somewhere (probably Pinterest) that I could use food colouring to dye white cases.  So that's what I did.  I made up a bit of orange colouring then dipped the rims of white cases in it and left them to dry.  The final result was quite nice.  Certainly much better looking than having just white cases.  I'll be doing it again I think, when I require other colours that I don't own.

Final verdict?  Well, on his initial tasting the fiancé thought there was too much jelly, and a bit too much marmalade mixed into that jelly.  Not that it was bad but he said a jaffa cake has a fairly compressed layer so a slightly thicker, squishier layer was a bit weird.  However, on the way to Dundee the chocolate and jelly melted somewhat in the heat and then reset.  This apparently condensed the jelly down into a layer more akin to that of the McVitie's Jaffa Cakes.  Otherwise, general opinion was that they were yummy and did indeed taste like jaffa cakes.  I still think I would change things a little next time, like using less marmalade and making sure the temperature of the jelly and the chocolate are not too different when I put the chocolate on the cake.

Recipe - makes 14 

Cakes - adapted from Delicious Cupcakes Made Easy14 mini Jaffa Cakes

• 14 mini jaffa cakes (or regular ones cut to size with a circular cutter)
• 125g/4oz butter
• 125g/4oz golden caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150g/5oz self-raising flour
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 14 compartments of muffin tins with buffin or muffin cases.
2. Put a jaffa cake in the bottom of each case, chocolate side up.
3. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat together until smooth and creamy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating in after each addition.
5. Fold in the milk, flour and vanilla extract until smooth.
6. Split the mixture evenly between the cases, filling about two thirds full.  Make a dip in the centre of mixture in each case with a spoon so that the final cakes should be flat.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes until risen and the tops are slightly springy.
8. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Jelly Topping - inspired by Ella Valentine via Baking Heaven Volume 2

• 1 x 135g/4.75oz packet of orange jelly cubes (gelatin)
• 2 tbsp marmalade
• 300ml/10.5fl.oz boiling water

1. Line a 33x23cm/13x9inch tray with aluminium foil.
2. Mix the jelly cubes with the marmalade and boiling water until dissolved.
3. Pour into the lined tray and make sure it spreads evenly.
4. Put in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours.

Assembly:

• 150g/5oz dark chocolate 

1. Remove the jelly from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature.
2. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl placed over a pan of gently simmering water, taking care not to let the water touch the bowl.  Make sure you stir it occasionally.  When melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool somewhat.
3. Use a circular cookie cutter that has a slightly smaller diameter than the top of the cake and cut out circles of jelly.  Use a spatula to transfer them over to each cake, laying them on top.
4. If you want two layers of jelly, use a smaller circular cutter to cut out more jelly circles and place them on top of the first ones.
5. When the chocolate has cooled but is still runny, use a spoon to pour it over the top of the jelly on each cake.  You want to cover all the jelly so you may need to coax it gently into the corners.
6. Leave to set.