Brioche

Posted on August 13, 2011  

This loaf was thoroughly enjoyed and demolished one Saturday morning, fresh from the oven. Making brioche does take a while so I was so excited to actually be able to eat it, I forgot to take a photo of the whole loaf ha! Oops.

Anyway this is a nice recipe and I don’t think it’s too complicated, the only downside is you really need something with a dough hook to knead the mixture for you as it takes quite a long while and due to the amount of butter that goes in it’d be very, very sticky and messy to do by hand.

Brioche (original recipe from Rachel Allen’s Bake) printable version

25g caster sugar
30ml warm water
1 x 7g sachet fast acting yeast or 7g dried yeast or 13g fresh yeast
2 eggs, beaten
225g strong white flour, sifted
Pinch of salt
113g butter, softened & cubed
1 egg beaten for brushing

1 13x23cm/5x9in loaf tin. I used a slightly smaller loaf tin which will still work but you get a loaf that’s a little bigger at the top.

How-to

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sugar with the warm water and yeast and let stand for 5 mins until frothy. If using fast-acting yeast you don’t need to let the mixture stand.
  2. Add the 2 beaten eggs, flour and salt and mix to a stiff dough with a spoon and then your hands (or with a dough hook if using a mixer).
  3. This stage I’d say definitely requires some electrical assistance with a dough hook, but then I’m lazy. When the mixture is smooth, beat in the cubes of butter one at a time, making sure that each piece is completely absorbed before adding the next one. This kneading stage should take about 30 minutes and the finished doug should have a silky apperance, damp but not sticky tou the touch and coming away easily from the sides of the bowl.
  4. Cover the bowl with cling film or a plastic bag and place in the fridge to rest for 8-24 hours.
  5. Remove the dough from the fridge and knock back in the bowl by folding it in on itself. Work quickly at this stage so the dough doesn’t become too sticky to handle.
  6. Place the dough in a lightly oiled loaf tin. Brush the top of the dough with some of the beaten egg.
  7. Allow the brioche to prove in a warm place for 45 mins-1 hr until it has doubled in size. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
  8. Gently brush the brioche with the egg wash again and cook in the oven for around 40-50 minutes until risen and a rich golden brown. When fully cooked, the loaf should shold sound hollow when tapped on the base after being removed from the tins. Place on a wire rack to cool for a little then go wild.

Double Chocolate Macarons

Posted on July 25, 2011  

I made macarons for the first time on Saturday and they were a success! I was so exciting when I saw that they were forming feet in the oven. Next step: making them look a little more attractive. They did taste amazing though, so that’s something.

Recipe and some tips can be found over at food blog Form V Artisan (hers are a lot prettier than mine!) and chocolate ganache. (100g dark choc + 100ml double cream, put in bowl, microwave/heat gently and mix. Let it cool & thicken up a bit before using.)

If having to use egg whites puts you off making macarons (it used to always put me off making any recipes that call for extra/only egg whites) then check out Two Chicks which are egg whites in a carton. You can find Two Chicks in Sainsburys amongst other places.

Coconut Cupcakes

Posted on April 22, 2011  

Mini eggs make everything Eastery!

Today’s recipe is Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Cream Cheese Filling and Chocolate Butter Icing.

Bit of a mouthful there! I always seem to have failures with cream cheese icing. This time it thickened up but I didn’t beat the butter enough first and then I couldn’t get the lumps out. Then I added coconut to mask the lumps. Then I squeezed in too much lime juice. It’s so warm at the moment that eventually I think most of the lumps started melting but it tasted way too limey to add onto the cakes so I decided to fill the cakes with a little which proved to be nice. Obviously the filling is entirely optional, I was just making the most of a bad situation. I don’t like to waste things!

For the cakes (Recipe ‘Creamy Coconut Cupcakes’ from Cupcakes by Susannah Blake)

90g butter, softened
25g creamed coconut
115g caster sugar
2 eggs
100g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
25g desiccated coconut
grated zest of 1 lime
1-2 tbsp milk

  1. Preheat oven to 180C then line a muffin tin with paper cases.
  2. Beat the butter, creamed coconut (you may need to soften the creamed coconut slightly in a microwave first) and sugar together in a bowl until pale and fluffy, then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and fold in, then stir in the desiccated coconut and lime zest, followed by the milk.
  3. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases, then bake for about 17 minutes until risen and golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

For the filling

60g cream cheese
20g butter, softened
50g icing sugar, sifted
20g cocoa powder, sifted
1 tsp of lime
Handful or 2 of desiccated coconut

  1. Beat together the butter and cream cheese until combined and without lumps.
  2. Mix in the sifted icing sugar, cocoa powder and lime juice.
  3. To fill the cakes, using an icing bag with a small tip nozzle and squirt directly into the cake.

For the icing

100g butter
150g icing sugar
30g cocoa powder
1 – 2 tbsp milk
Squeeze of lime
Mini-eggs for decoration (optional)

  1. Beat the butter until creamy. Sift in the icing sugar bit by bit and beat into the butter. If the icing starts getting too hard to beat, add a tablespoon of the milk. Sift and beat in the cocoa powder.
  2. Add a squeeze of lime (around a tsp) and the remaining milk, if needed.
  3. When icing the cakes, spread a thin layer on the cake. Using a piping bag with a star nozzle attached, create the nests by piping around the cake 2-3 times, leaving room in the centre for mini eggs.

Royal Wedding Party

Posted on April 19, 2011  

I’ve decided that instead of not really caring about the Royal Wedding, I am going to embrace it. It’s going to be all I hear about that day so I may as well use it as an excuse to eat shit loads of cake, use my Royal Albert teacups and accompany it all with some gin while laughing at the hilarity that will ensue with the coverage.

So, here’s my guide to have a proper British afternoon for the Royal Wedding. (This is just a bit of fun and not intended to be entirely serious!)

Food:

Sandwiches

Some classic afternoon tea fillings are smoked salmon, cucumber (I’ve never understood just having cucumber in a sandwich) and cheese. Whatever you choose to put inside them, make sure to make them dinky, either by cutting them into triangles or little rectangle fingers. Don’t forget to cut the crusts off. Afternoon tea is a no-crust zone!

Victoria Sponge

You don’t get more traditional than a victoria sponge with lashings of cream & jam (or buttercream icing if you prefer, just as nice) and dusted with icing sugar. They are also ridiculously easy to make and if you are someone who enjoys baking, you probably already know how to make one. I’d just use a 6/6/6 mix (6 oz sugar, 6 oz butter, 6 oz flour) with 3 eggs and a tsp of vanilla extract. Split into two sandwich tins & bake at 180C for about 20 mins. Spread jam and whipped double cream between the layers. If you are wondering what the hell I’m talking about and are more comfortable using a recipe, check the goodfood website.

Want to get a little more twee? Make mini versions:

source

Scones

Another traditional part of the classic Afternoon tea. Go classic or wholemeal and serve with lashings of clotted cream and jam. You could also make some savoury cheddar scones but it’s not afternoon tea if it’s not creamy and jammy.

Bea's of Bloomsbury
source

Other eats
If you are having lots of people around or just like food (like me), you may want to make more. One of my favourite places for afternoon tea in London is Bea’s of Bloomsbury because it is an actual cakefest. They don’t even give you sandwiches. Sod the sandwiches! With their afternoon tea they serve cupcakes, mini macarons, mini brownies, mini blondies and mini meringues so whatever you want to make, go for it – just make it mini, apparently!

DRINKS

Tea

Start the afternoon off with sophistication by sipping on some nice tea with ones pinky in the air.

Gin & tonic

Being realistic, to make watching the Royal Wedding entertaining you need to put some G&T in your teacups and drink away. Plus, it’s a bank holiday so it’d be wrong not to. Feel free to play along with the Royal Wedding drinking game.

Pimms & lemonade

If it’s sunny, crack out the pimms. Make a jugful with ice, chop in some cucumber, strawberry, lemon and mint, pour into glasses and enjoy. You don’t get more British than good old pimms but it’d be weird drinking if the weather isn’t warm and sunny.

DINING & DECORATIONS

Tableware
Cakes and sandwiches should be displayed on cake stands. Jam & cream should be served in ramekins. All beverages should be drunk from teacups, including the gin. Teacups must be accompanied by a saucer and individual plate. Patterns should be twee and floral or tacky and Union Jack-ified. Unless you own this (and why wouldn’t you?):

Table decorations

If you’re going all out, dress your table with a cute runner or tablecloth. If you are making loads of sandwiches, avoid the inevitable ‘WHICH ONES ARE THESE?’ questions and make buffet labels:

As I am super helpful (and am currently procrastinating uni work) I have provided a blank one for you as well as a one that can be placed as a card (fold in half) rather than a flag. If actually making the flags, leave excess paper to wrap around a cocktail stick.

Other decorations (for serious participants only)

For those of you willing to take it to the extreme, you can further decorate your entire home/garden with Union Flag bunting, Union Flags in windows and possibly a gazebo with a Union Flag draped over it. Only advisable if you are fine with looking slightly mental.

***

Let’s just hope they all arrive like this. Down the bottle of gin if so:

Whatever you are doing on the Royal Wedding bank holiday, whether you are watching it or not, let’s hope it’s sunny and make the most of it.

x

It’s Friday, Friday, Gettin’ Down on Friday

Posted on March 25, 2011  

Yeah, I sinned and used Rebecca Black lyrics for a post title. I’m not even gonna lie, I kind of LOVE ‘Friday’ in all its horrific glory and if I was going out tonight, I would probably listen to it while getting ready. In fact, I just listened to it now. It’s safe to say I probably need to close my laptop and get away from the internet fast before it destroys whatever taste I used to have.

Top: Primark
Skirt: American Apparel

I got dressed and went outside today (in semi-doss-wear), hooray! I have to be honest, I’ve been feeling quite unhappy for a while now. It mostly stems from the fact that I’m skint and don’t seem to do anything fun anymore but has generally lead to a great big grey cloud building up over me and I’ve been sitting here with only my increasingly negative thoughts to entertain me. It’s very annoying how being positive seems to take ages to build upon but it’s so easy to quickly fall back into being angry. Being angry is easy.

Anyway, some googling, some worrying and some writing down later and I weirdly felt a bit better. I’ve decided to give myself little goals so I feel less like I’m having a crisis if I have something personal to aim for weekly rather than feeling aimless or like everything I do is for uni.

I made these coffee cupcakes yesterday and have been gorging on them since. Seriously, it’s been a pity week.

Apart from today, I will probably summarise my goals on Sundays.

Goals

  • Drink 8 glasses of water a day
  • Get to the gym at least twice next week, but preferably 3 times.
  • Leave the flat every day, even if it’s just to go and buy milk or something.
  • Eat dinner and make it healthy!
  • Organise clothes into the things you want and don’t want.
  • Finish actionscript assignment by the weekend.
  • Every day, write down something I am thankful for.
  • Make a list of fun things to do that cost no money. Have you noticed that any list of ideas for fun things to do that are ‘free’ all involve money in some way? I literally don’t have cash to spare.

Blogosphere, I turn to you. What makes you happy? What gives you a spring in your step?

x

Mini Apple Pies

Posted on March 22, 2011  

I needed to use up some bramley apples so today I made mini apple pies. This recipe has been lying around in my documents for an AGE and I finally got around to making them for the first time a couple of weeks ago and they were lovely, plus much appreciated by my flatmates! I am ill and have been wanting to go home for a while but the next best thing today was a nice comforting bit of pie and custard!

So, here’s how to make them!

You’ll need…

For the crust

  • 220g (1 cup) butter
  • 75g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tbsp cognac (optional – I am a student, I can’t afford this, ha!)
  • 375g (3 cups) plain flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

For the filling

  • 3 bramley apples (2 if large)
  • 15g (1 tbsp) butter
  • 2 tbsp sugar (caster or light brown)
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

How-to


Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well, then add the cognac (if using) and the baking powder. Add the flour bit by bit (about a third at a time) and mix well until a smooth dough is formed. You may need more flour at this point – you want the dough to be soft, not sticky. It should unstick from the bowl and your fingers easily.

For those of you familiar with pastry you may notice this isn’t really a typical pastry recipe. The recipe makes a lovely cakey pastry, crusted on the outside but cakey and crumbly on the inside and it’s so nice.

Grease a muffin pan and divide the dough between the cups. Make sure you keep a little for the top. Press the dough evenly onto bottom and sides of the muffin cups.

I find the easiest way to do this is to pat a ball out into a large circle and then put it into the cup, pressing it to the sides with my fingers or a rolling pin. It helps to keep the dough even in the cups rather than pressing it around loads in the cups. Don’t worry about excess at the top yet.

To prepare the filling, peel and core the apples and cut in small pieces. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then add the apple pieces and sprinkle with the sugar and cinnamon. Stir. Keep cooking on medium heat until the apples are tender. Take the pan off the heat and spoon the filling into the muffin cups. Make sure to pour the syrup that has formed over the filling.

Roll small pieces of the dough you kept aside into strips with your fingers, place them over the filling and press the edges to glue them to the crust. You can then trim away any excess dough on the cups.

Bake at 180C/350F for around 30 minutes or until golden brown on top. Enjoy hot with whatever takes your fancy; custard, cream, ice cream… Nom. These pies are at their best on the day they’re made but do keep for a few days.

If you’d like this recipe without all the photos to easily print, I’ve uploaded a pdf version.

Do you make pies? I’m so keen to start making pies and tarts!

x

Carrot Cupcakes

Posted on February 24, 2011  

So, I went on a ‘housewife’ blitz at the weekend. I baked, I cleaned, I baked, I cleaned, I cooked. Amongst what appeared to be a mission to make enough cakes to last me month, I made these amazingily moist, moreish carrot cupcakes. I am seriously in love with these bad boys. There is very little, if anything that I would do to change these.

Now here is where I admit these didn’t go perfectly. I was a bit of a tit and peeled the carrots instead of grating them but that little baking faux pas/sudden loss of common sense isn’t actually what I’m referring to… no. I intended these to have cream cheese icing but my icing just did this:

Poop. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me with cream cheese icing either. I added more icing sugar to try thicken it up a bit. It got a little less sloppy but not by much so I gave up. I wasn’t just going to chuck this in the bin though! What a waste of money!

OH YEAH. A little bit of icing fail won’t stop me! I filled a ‘trial’ cake with a bit and topped it then tested it on my flatmate who said it was good and not too runny or anything so I proceeded to cut holes in the cakes with a knife, filling them and then replacing the cutout.

Carrot Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food. Makes 12 cupcakes

  • 90 grams caster sugar
  • 90 grams light brown sugar
  • 200 grams self-raising flour
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 2 tsp mixed spice
  • Zest & juice of 1 orange
  • 2 eggs
  • 150ml sunflower oil
  • 200g carrots, grated

How-to:

  1. Heat oven to 180C/170C fan oven/gas 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with cases. In a large bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients together (sugar, flours, bicard, mixed spice and orange zest).
  2. Whisl together the eggs, oil and orange juice and then stir into the dry ingredients, along with the grated carrot.
  3. Divide the mixture between cases and bake for 20-22 minutes until a skewer poked in comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack before icing.

Notes: If you want to ice these properly with cream cheese icing or vanilla buttercream, fill the cases about halfway, otherwise fill them to about 2/3. I made these with one medium egg and one large egg, until I try with just medium eggs I’m not sure what effect this had on the moistness or texture of the cake. This is only very slightly adapted from the Good Food recipe, mostly because of the ingredients I had available.

For the Icing:

  • 100g butter, softened
  • 300g soft cheese
  • 100g icing sugar, sifted
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

The good food instructions on making this icing:

  1. For the icing, beat the butter until really soft, then beat in the soft cheese, icing sugar and vanilla. Use a palette or cutlery knife to swirl the icing on top of the cakes, then sprinkle with decorations.

The completely unproven, unscientific Michelle way of ‘messing it up’/making cream cheese filling:

  1. Use low fat cream cheese. Mix that and some unsoftened baking butter together, microwave for 30 seconds, add the icing sugar, add the vanilla extract, mix it up, wonder why the hell it’s completely messed up, realise you didn’t follow the instructions, add some more icing sugar.
  2. Use a sharp knife to cut a round disc in the top of the cupcakes, about 1.5 cm deep. Fill the space with the icing and replace the top. Keep the cakes chilled.

I’d actually say this was quite a happy accident as the icing was very sweet (especially when I added more sugar) and the filling just adds a really nice, sweet bite to a moist cake. These cakes were very much enjoyed by the people I am working in a group with for the D&AD awards when I turned up to one of our library sessions with them and the feedback was very positive so definitely make these to share!

This was a bit rambly, sorry! Let me know if you make these. :)

x


Cocoa Brownies

Posted on February 20, 2011  

I’m not ashamed to admit that I am a brownie snob. Infact, I am a cake snob in general. However, being a student means I can’t go out and buy lovely, dark chocolate (or any chocolate really) to bake with. I’ve been craving brownies though! When I read this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, she sold me by saying that she was the same as me with thinking cocoa brownies just aren’t as good as ones with melted chocolate in so I gave it a go anyway.

I didn’t really change anything about the recipe except rounding up some of the ingredients as I have these awful mechanical scales to work with:

Look at this! Look at where 200 grams is! These are not scales for precision baking at all and it doesn’t help that the pointer just seems to spin of it’s own accord anyway. I refuse to spend a tenner on digital scales just for uni though so…these shall do. Haven’t had any disasters yet! This was definitely a mish-mash baking attempt as my tin was too big but I didn’t know by how much because I couldn’t find a ruler. I’m guessing it was 9×9 inches so I stuffed one end with a bit of greaseproof paper to make it smaller and came out with brownies with funny corners. No biggy. I promise when I run my dream bakery I won’t be baking the student way.

Recipe can be found at Smitten Kitchen. I cooked these at 170ºC for around 20 mins.

Verdict? If you follow me on twitter, you may know that when I made these I was unimpressed with these brownies. It has to be said I didn’t use the best quality cocoa powder (it wasn’t even Cadburys, it was Nestle, oh dear) so I guess that could be partially to blame for a flavour I thought wasn’t chocolatey enough. They were fudgy though!

The next day however, YES PLEASE. The flavour is better and they really are a good texture. Nice cakey top and fudgy, sticks-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth middle. While they aren’t about to take the top spot of Michelle’s Favourite Brownie Recipe (an honour currently belonging to Nigel Slater), I do think they are pretty good for something with no melted chocolate in. I wonder what these would be like with a better cocoa powder.

They are a good alternative if you crave a brownie and don’t have dark chocolate in the house or can’t justify spending the money on some good quality chocolate.

Do you bake? If so, do you have a favourite brownie recipe?

x

Satisfying my cravings

Posted on February 15, 2011  

I have a ridiculously sweet tooth but being a student too far into her overdraft I generally have to ignore my cravings. Infact, I should definitely do this anyway and go to the gym more but I lack willpower!

Lately I’ve been having lots of cravings for all things sweet. Luckily I have lots of baking ingredients in a box in my room. I could have made cupcakes but I didn’t really fancy a vanilla cupcake so had a little browse on the goodfood website for these. I went for oats because I have them and it made me feel less guilty about eating cookies.

I’m going to be honest… they aren’t the greatest cookie I’ve ever eaten and I’d much rather have a chocolate chip cookie but for a quick make and for satisfying a sweet craving they did the job.

You can find the recipe for these oat cookies on the good food website.

Cake post

Posted on September 7, 2010  

Something that I love to do is bake. I love it so much I often thinking about throwing in my degree and opening a cake and tea shop, or at least starting one after I graduate. This was my first time piping writing and piping on something that wasn’t a cupcake so I don’t think I did a bad job. (I definitely need to get a palette knife for smoother icing, a butter knife doesn’t quite cut it!)

I made this cake for my friend’s 21st (obviously) and it’s just a simple but really moist sponge cake with white chocolate icing. Her birthday party was pink and white themed so I made and decorated it to match.

The original recipe was from BBC GoodFood but I had problems with their cooking times/temperatures and I found their syrup step pointless and just makes the cake soggy. It’s not dry without this step. Still haven’t worked out the proper cooking temperature but below is my modified but not perfected version.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • 250g pack unsalted butter , softened, plus extra for greasing
  • 250g golden caster sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 5 large eggs , cracked into a jug
  • 85g plain flour, sifted
  • 100g full-fat Greek yogurt
  • 250g self-raising flour, sifted
  • 3 tbsp semi-skimmed milk

The original recipe asks for vanilla pods/paste but I didn’t want to splash on out vanilla pods so just used 1 tsp of vanilla extract which was fine.

Method

  1. Heat oven to 160C/gas 3. Grease a round, deep 20cm tin, then line the base and sides with non-stick baking paper.
  2. Using electric beaters or a tabletop mixer, beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and the salt together until pale and fluffy, then pour in the eggs, one at a time, giving the mix a really good beating before adding the next. Add 1 tbsp of the plain flour if the mix starts to look slimy rather than fluffy. Beat in the yogurt.
  3. Mix the flours; then, using a large metal spoon, fold them into the batter, followed by the milk.
  4. Spoon the mix into the tin. The original recipe states a 1hr 20 minute cooking time but I found it needed a whole 20 minutes longer than that and added 10 degrees to the heat at the point. If you see the top browning too much, cover with a piece of foil or parchment paper. A skewer inserted into the cake should come out clean, with no bits of sticky mixture on it.
  5. Leave the cake to cool completely and then either cut into layers and fill or just ice the cake as is.

I cut my cake into layers using one of these (mine was from Ikea!) and filled the bottom layer with white chocolate buttercream and raspberry jam and the top layer just with the jam.

(this photo was the test cake, not the one at the top of the page! I was a little bit inebriated by the time the birthday cake was cut, haha!)

To make the white chocolate butter icing you’ll need:

  • 100g white chocolate
  • 100g butter
  • 225g icing sugar
  • 1 tbsp milk
  1. Melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of water and then leave to cool. Beat the butter until soft and creamy and then beat in the icing sugar until the mix is pale and fluffy. Mix the milk into the white chocolate and then add to the butter and sugar. Beat until smooth.

The above will make enough to do one layer, cover the cake with a crumb coat and second layer AND do some piping stars around the bottom. Instead of the stars, you could probably fill the layer I chose to just fill with jam.

I increased the icing by half for the pink and white cake and had plenty left over so it depends how you are planning on decorating the cake, if at all!