Tag Archives: baking

EAT THE OLYMPICS RECIPE – Slovenian Kolacky

22 Mar

First published on Eat the Olympics on Thursday 22nd March

Sour cream Kolacky (Slovenia)

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter
40g sour cream
Jam (or your own choice) for filling
Icing sugar, to dust

Method:

1. In a large bowl, rub butter and flour together until it resembled crumbs. Stir in sour cream and mix well

2. Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for 2 hours

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C

3. Roll on lightly floured surface to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut with a large round cookie cutter

4. Fill center with filling, bring the sides up to the middle and pinch at the top

5. Bake 12-15 minutes, or until bottom of cookie is just beginning to brown

6. Remove from the baking tray and cool on wire racks. When cooled, dust with icing sugar to serve

Score: BRONZE

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Royal wedding lemon curd cake

2 May

So, the Royal Wedding. I have to say that I wasn’t overly excited and I didn’t have any plans until a couple of days before. I still wanted to watch it though – mostly to see what Kate would be wearing!

I switched the TV on and something odd happened. As soon as I saw Kate climb into the car to take her to Westminster Abbey, I started balling whilst laughing at the same time. She looked beautiful and I couldn’t comprehend how she must have been feeling.

We had a few friends over for a curry (not typically British I know) and I baked a Victoria sponge with a difference. Instead of jam and strawberries, I lathered on the lemon curd – I have a picky other half that won’t touch jam. I added an extra vanilla pod, which worked really well and the whole cake was demolished in a matter of minutes.

Ingredients

225g butter, softened
225g golden caster sugar
4 Burford Brown eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 vanilla pod, desseded
225g self raising flour
Drop of milk, to loosen
170ml double cream
4 tbsp lemon curd (or however thick you want to spread it!)

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180degrees

1. Grease and line two sandwich tins with butter and baking parchment

2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl

3. Add the eggs and mix well

4. Add the vanilla essence and vanilla pod and mix

5. Sift in the flour and fold with a metal spoon

6. Add the drop of milk to loosen slightly. The mixture should not be too stiff

7. Spoon the mixture into the lined tins and place in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean

8. Whilst the cake is baking, whip the cream. This is best done with an electric whisk. Turn the whisk on a high speed and whisk until the cream starts to stiffen. Do not let it get too stiff as you need to be able to spread it

9. Leave the cakes to cook on a wire rack once out of the oven. Wait until cooled completely before spreading the bottom layer with lemon curd and your whipped cream. Place the top layer on top of the lemon curd and whipped cream and dust with icing sugar.

10. Enjoy!

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Rhubarb cinnamon polenta cake

14 Apr

Ok, it’s official. I’m now in LOVE with polenta cakes. My recent visit to Petersham Nurseries and an impulse rhubarb purchase from the supermarket spurred me on to try Nigel Slater’s rhubarb cinnamon polenta cake recipe, which I got from The Guardian online. I normally play around with recipes but wanted this to be the same, even keeping in the orange zest that I might have omitted before.

The cake was a bit of a nightmare – the batter is very sticky and I used the wrong size cake tin at first. So definitely make sure you use a 20cm tin, no bigger. I also worried because I didn’t drain the rhubarb in a colander after taking it out of the roasting dish but it didn’t matter. I ended up with a delicious, moist, crunchy, course, sweet delight.

Ingredients

For the filling:

500g rhubarb
50g golden caster sugar
4 tbsp water

For the crust:
125g coarse polenta
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of ground cinnamon
150g golden caster sugar
grated zest of a small orange
150g butter
1 large egg
2-4 tbsp milk
1 tbsp light muscovado sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 180C/gas mark 4.

1. Cut each rhubarb stem into two or three pieces and put them in a baking dish
2. Scatter over the sugar and water, and bake for 30-40 minutes until the rhubarb is soft but still retains its shape
3. Put the polenta, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and caster sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Add the grated zest and the butter, cut into smallish pieces, then blitz for a few seconds till you have something that resembles breadcrumbs
4. Beat egg and milk in a small bowl and add to the crumb mixture. Blitz until just combined
5. Press about two-thirds of the mixture into the cake tin, pushing it a couple of centimeters up the sides with a floured spoon
6. Place the rhubarb on top, leaving a small rim around the edge uncovered and cover with the remaining batter
7. Scatter over the light muscovado sugar
8. Bake on the hot baking sheet for 45 minutes
9. Leave to cool before removing from tin and serve with the juice left over from the rhubarb
10. ENJOY!!!

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Sticky Black Gingerbread

22 Mar

Another day, another recipe.

A girl that I used to work with made a fantastic batch of gingerbread for a Macmillan coffee morning competition that we held in the office last year. She took the recipe from the Leiths School Baking Bible and won the competition hands down. Her prize was a delightful bottle of Laurent Perrier champagne, lucky girl.

So, inspired by her fantastic baking, I decided to bake a batch myself. I have the book that she used at home and it had been sitting dormant on the shelf for a while so I put it to good use! I adapted my recipe to include nutmeg, which worked really well!

The result is a light, airy and fluffy gingerbread – It is best left for a day so that the flavour really has time to kick in.

Gingerbread

Ingredients

225g butter
225g dark muscovado sugar
225 black treacle
290ml full fat milk
340g plain flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs, beaten

Method
Pre-heat oven to 150degrees

1. Line a baking tin with parchment paper
2. Melt butter along with sugar and treacle in a saucepan. When melted, pour in milk and cool to room temperature
3. Sift flour with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, bicarbonate of soda and then stir in eggs and melted mixture (once cooled!)
4. Pour into the prepared tin and place into the oven for 1 hour. Cover the top of the cake with parchment paper after 45 minutes in the oven
5. Check the cake after an hour – you’ll know that it is cooked when a skewer comes out clean
6. Leave the gingerbread to cool and then cut into slices

Enjoy with a cuppa!

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Blueberry, banana and cinnamon oat muffins

2 Mar

I have made a fair few banana loaves over the last few months. A lot of you probably know that I am a huge fan of breakfast foods, especially the sweet kind. My local supermarket is currently selling punnets of blueberries at £3 for 2 packs so I stocked up and decided to make some banana, blueberry and cinnamon breakfast muffins.

These muffins are low fat due to the fact that they’re made with buttermilk and light olive oil rather than butter – in fact they only contain around 5g fat per muffin. I’m not normally one to watch my fat and calorie intake but I don’t like to consume a lot of them at breakfast time as it leaves no room for my after dinner treat!

They are lovely and moist and will keep for a month in the freezer.

Ingredients

120g light muscovado sugar, plus extra for dusting
300g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
50g oats, plus extra for dusting
2 ripe bananas
284ml carton of buttermilk
2 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp light olive oil
2 egg whites
150g blueberries

Method

1. Place flour, bicarbonate of soda, sugar, oats and cinnamon into a bowl
2. Mash the bananas in a separate bowl and add the buttermilk, olive oil and whites
3. Add the liquids to the dry bowl and stir quickly. The mixture will be quite lumpy at first but keep stirring!
4. Pour the mixture into 12 cupcake cases and sprinkle sugar and oats over the top. I also placed two blueberries on the top of each muffin
5. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown
6. Enjoy for breakfast or for 11ses with a cuppa!

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Chocolate ganache dipped flapjacks

1 Mar

You’ll have to excuse my photos for the moment. My camera is poorly so I’m using my iphone – but I have to say, I’m loving all of the photography apps you can get on it!

I still have quite a lot of the Green & Blacks chocolate left from the fabulous event that I took part in a few months ago. So what better way to use it up than to dip homemade flapjack biscuits into a ganache. Yum.

This is a really easy recipe that is fun to bake with kids. You can muster up a batch in half an hour from start to finish – the dipping takes slightly longer but this part is optional.

Ingredients

75g unsalted butter
70g light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
175g porridge oats (I used Scotts)
For the ganache
50g Green & Black’s dark chocolate
50g Green & Black’s creamy milk chocolate
50ml single cream (or judge by the consistency – it needs to be thick but runny enough to dip the flapjack into)

Method

1. Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a pan over a medium heat until melted
2. Stir in the oats until well combines
3. Place the mixture into a lined baking tray and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown
4. While the flapjacks are in the oven, make the ganache by putting the chocolate into a bain marie
5. When it has nearly melted, add the cream and stir until well combined. Take off the heat when the mixture is runny
6. Cool the flapjacks slightly before dipping. Leave to cool on a cooling rack
7. Enjoy!

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Chocolate and Rose Petal Cookie recipe

12 Feb

My mum gave me a bag of rose petals around Christmas time. She is a baker herself and bought a huge jar back from Australia with her. They have been sitting in the baking box unsused since then so I decided to finally use them this weekend.

I also still have a huge amount of Green & Blacks chocolate left over from the cook off that I did a few months ago so I put a chocolate, rose petal and vanilla cookie to the test.

I baked the cookies with rose petals in the mixture and then covered the top with Green & Blacks Milk Chocolate and scattered more rose petals on top.

Ingredients- Makes 8 large cookies

115 g butter, at room temperature
55 g caster sugar
135 g plain flour
Hand full of rose petals

For the topping

1 bar Green & Blacks Milk Chocolate
1 tbsp milk
2 tsp butter
Hand full of rose petals to scatter

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 170degrees
1. Cream the butter in a bowl until light and fluffy
2. Add the sugar and beat together
3. Sift in the flour, add the rose petals and combine until a soft dough is formed
4. Pull off a bit of the dough, roll it into a ball and place on a lined baking tray. Repeat until all of the dough has been used up. Leave at least 2cm between each cookie so that they don’t merge together when baking
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until firm on top. Make sure you take them out of the oven before hard otherwise they won’t be soft in the middle
6. While the cookies are baking, melt the chocolate, butter and milk in a bain marie
7. Place the baked cookies on a cooling rack and smother over the melted chocolate mixture. Scatter rose petals on a leave the dry
8. Enjoy!

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Banana and Cinnamon Loaf Recipe

4 Feb

Don’t worry, I’m not going to preach to you about how amazing Australia is for brunches and fresh cakes again, although the banana bread there was what lead me to make my mind up about the country being the best.

I baked my first loaf of Banana Bread a couple of years ago and was absolutely bowled over at how amazingly easy it is to bake and how delicious it tastes toasted with a smothering of butter on top. It’s just too good.

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This recipe is for a simple Banana and Cinnamon loaf – just bung all of the ingredients in a bowl, mix, pop into a loaf tin and an hour and a half later, you can tuck into it warm! YUM!

My loaf tin wasn’t as big as I needed so I used mini loaf tins for the left over batter. They are a great size for one serving and look pretty too.

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Ingredients

225g self-raising flour
100g unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
150g golden caster sugar
3 very ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of salt

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 180degrees
1. Line a loaf tin with baking parchment – I didn’t have any so I just oiled the tin with sunflower oil
2. Pour all ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix until combined
3. Pour into the ready lined tin and place in the middle of the oven
4. Bake for around 1 hour and a half

Enjoy with a cup of tea for breakfast or an afternoon snack.

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Lime, Vanilla and Almond Madeleines

2 Feb

My first memory of Madeleines is on my family holiday in Ibiza. Bet you didn’t expect me to say that did you?

Well, there was a little bakery next to the hotel that we stayed in every year and most days I would take a wander down with my brother, buy a sweet treat for the family and take it back to the swimming pool.

They sold the most delicious Cream Cakes and Madeleines. I also had fun making my way through large packs that you could buy in the supermarket. I found them delicious – rich and sweet with a fantastic vanilla taste.

So I am surprised that I only baked them for the first time last week. I guess I had never got around to buying the special tin – until Lakeland had an offer on just before Christmas time. I spotted it and thought I’d give them a go.

I also received a great present through the post last week, which spurred me on even more. When I was on holiday in Australia, I baked some Chocoalte Chip Cookies and I was telling my boyfriend’s grandma how much I love to bake. I opened my post last week and she had sent me the brand new ‘Baking Made Easy’ by Lorraine Pascale with a little note saying that she had been watching her new TV programme and that she thought I’d like her book. I do, I love it.

Lorraine has a great recipe for Lemon and Hazelnut Madaleines but I didn’t have any Hazelnuts in the house so I substituted this for Ground Almonds. I also swapped the Lemon for Lime to mix things up a bit.

They turned out well with a lovely zesty lime flavour. I couldn’t really taste the Almond and I have a feeling that it had made them slightly heavier than they were supposed to be so next time I’ll make sure I stick to Hazelnuts.

Ingredients (Makes around 30)

I used sunflower oil for oiling the tin

4 large eggs
100g golden caster sugar
80g melted butter
1/2 vanilla pod, deseeded (you’ll need to use the seeds)
Pinch of salt
100g Nature Friendly plain flour
40g ground almonds
Zest of 2 limes

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180degrees and oil the madeleine tin

1. Whisk the eggs in a bowl (an electric mixer is very helpful here) until almost doubled in volume
2. Still whisking, tip sugar down the side and keep going until the mixture is light and mousse like. Stop whisking
3. Tip the melted butter down the side of the bowl, followed by the vanilla. Fold the mixture carefully so that you do not knock too much air out of the mixture
4. Add the salt and the flour little by little (I didn’t sift this and it was fine) and fold until a batter is formed
5. Add the ground almonds and lime zest and stir to combine (again making sure that you don’t knock any air out)
6. Pour into the madeleine tin and bake for 10 minutes or until they turn a golden brown colour
7. Unless you have a few tins, you’ll need to empty the baked madeleines onto a cooling tray, cool the tin with cold water, re oil and add the next batch of batter. I did this 3 times

Enjoy with a cuppa or a steaming mug of Hot Chocolate.

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Green & Blacks search for a Taste Assistant

15 Nov

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Have you heard? Green and Blacks have launched a nationwide search to find a brand new Taste Assistant! The lucky candidate will work along Head of Taste, Micah Carr-Hill and will be responsible for developing new flavour combinations for the brand. Sound good? You’ll get to travel the world to source the very best ingredients and devise new products. Is this your idea of a dream job? Then what are you waiting for, enter now!

The job won’t come easy though, Micah is looking for the person that has the ultimate taste buds as well as smell. He’s looking for someone that fully understands the difference between taste and flavour – to enter simply head to www.pieceofgreenandblacks.co.uk. Closing date for entries is 16th December 2010. The successful candidate is expected to take up their role early 2011.

I am a self confessed chocoholic. I can’t go a day without eating at least a teeny bite of the delicious brown stuff. Green & Blacks Creamy Milk is my bar of choice so imagine my delight when I found that Green & Blacks were hosting a bloggers event to coincide with the search for the Taste Assistant.

The event was held at the lovely Miele Gallery in Central London and there were three competitions to take part in on the evening. My boyfriend and I took part in the 15:15 challenge. What is this I hear you cry? We had £15 to spend on ingredients to create any dish that we liked but here’s the catch – we only had 15 minutes to cook it from scratch! There were 9 contestants in total and each person created something incredible in the allocated time. The dishes were judged on the taste element (obvioulsly) and Micah wanted to see great flavour combinations that exploded your taste buds when hitting the mouth. I went for a Lemon and Lime Cheesecake with an Oreo Biscuit Base

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and Jack opted for Pan fried Scallops wrapped in Pancetta with Pesto and Capers.

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Each contestant had their own cooking station with a helper from the Miele Gallery. It was a little nerve wracking because the guests that weren’t cooking were watching intently!

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During the cook off, guests could enter the other two competitions of the evening, both to test the taste buds of course! The first was the ganache test – you had to taste two ganaches and write down as many ingredients as you could decipher. The second test was tasting the flavours that were present in two cocktails.

I have to admit, I realised that my sense of taste isn’t the greatest. I had difficulty figuring out what tastes were present in either. I got a couple right but that’s not nearly enough if I wanted to apply for the role of Taste Assistant. I was too busy cooking and watching others cook to enter the ganache test and by the time I realised, the answers were alreay been looked at! I definitely don’t think I would have come top anyway!

The winner of the cocktail taste test was the lovely Jennifer from Chocolate Ecstacy Tours and the winner of the ganache taste test was the equally as lovely MiMi from Meemalee’s Kitchen.

The dishes from the 15:15 challenge were all lined up and Micah, armed with a fork, set out to try each dish. He gave nothing away as he slowly tasted each dish and moved onto the next. Each contestant stood grinning as he took a mouthful of their creation.

After much deliberation, the winner was announced. Drum roll please…….. MiMi!!! She made a fantastic Japanese dish using linguine with fish roe and wild mushrooms. The flavours were great – I really can’t remember exactly what was in it but it was delicious!

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A round of applause was followed by tears of joy and a quick photoshoot. Doesn’t she look so happy!

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Two more dishes were highly commended – Jennifer’s mille feuille and the rather scrumptious looking piece of beef, which according to Micah was just a little bit too spicy. YUM!

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The best looking for me though was the fantastic Partridge garnished with Rose petals.

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I had an absolutely fantastic evening and got to walk away with a gift – a Green & Blacks box containing 15 (yes, 15) different bars of Green & Blacks, a bottle of wine, a USB stick and my very own taste test kit. I was happy as larry walking out of there.

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I may not be up to the challenge of Taste Assistant but if you feel like you’ve got what it takes, don’t delay, enter now. You’ll be the envy of millions!!!

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