In the Meantime..

Various dates in May 2017

In between the other recipes in May, I made a couple of quick things.

The first was vanilla and camomile cupcakes which can be found in an earlier blog post here: http://cookingwithgingers.blogspot.com/2015/04/camomile-vanilla-cupcakes.html

There wasn't a lot of difference with this batch other than I made the cupcakes smaller and go further. I think this was probably the most successful batch of butter icing actually. The consistency was beautiful and there was the perfect amount to cover all the cupcakes fully.

I also made a couple of stir-frys from the mix and match pages from A Modern Way To Cook. This provides lists of ingredients under the headings "greens", "crunchy", "sweet", "carbs" etc. which allows personal taste and preference in creating wholesome meals.

In my favourite combination so far, I used broccoli, sweet potato, tofu, sugar snap peas, vermicelli noodles, chilli and sesame. It was pretty high in calories but really tasty and across the board healthy.

Orange and White Chocolate Loaf Cake

5th October 2015

Its Bake Off final week and I think that means its a bit of a free for all - no big show stoppers for me. I thought I'd go for a recipe I've been tempted to try for a while.

Of course I forgot to take out the butter to soften before going to work, so I started by melting the butter the old fashioned way to I didn't break a wrist creaming butter and caster sugar. Next the orange and lemon zest was mixed in as well as the eggs and milk. I also squeezed in some lemon juice for extra flavour.

Next went in the flour, baking powder and salt which was folded in to a smooth consistency. Finally I mixed in the chocolate chips, hopefully in an even spreading - no-one wants them to all sink to the bottom! A few milk chocolate chips got mixed in there too just to bulk it out. I'm sure it won't hurt!

The mixture was poured into a lined loaf tin and baked for almost an hour.

I was supposed to make the syrup while it was baking, but I didn't read it properly. After the cake came out I began the syrup, which only took a few minutes to heat the orange and lemon juice with some caster sugar. This was poured into holes pricked in the top of the cake. It almost felt a shame to dampen the top of a nice crisp top with just a single crack! I used just about all the glaze so I hope I didn't ruin it with too much moisture! I wonder if that's even a thing with gluten free cakes.

Garlic Dough Balls

19th August 2015

Bread week this week. I enjoy having a go at bread. I chose to do garlic dough balls because I wasn't confident enough to do a whole loaf with gluten free flour. I figured smaller bakes would be less dense and dry in the middle.

Rather than following this recipe from Crumb completely, I sort of added a few things differently for a bit of experimentation. So to start with I melted some margarine in a pan and stirred in some garlic paste to make what tasted like a very strong garlicky mixture. In a separate bowl I weighed out plain gluten free flour, yeast, herbs and salt and poured in the garlic butter and some water. I used the mixture and dough hook to start mixing this into a dough. I think due to the density of the flour not all the liquid was being incorporated with the mixer so I got my hands dirty a little and kneaded the remaining liquid into a squishy dough. I covered this with cling film and a towel and left this to prove for an hour.

After an hour, I knocked the air out by hand and used a tablespoon measure to divide the doughs into small balls. I was running short on time so I just left these for 15 minutes for a second prove whilst the oven heated up.

These were baked for 12 minutes while I ran around clearing up and getting ready for the Bake Off party. When I came back the kitchen smelt amazingly garlicky and they were done! They did look rather anaemic but they were soft and squishy inside and tasted great.

They definitely tasted a lot better warm, as the gluten free-ness made then quite dry once they'd cooled down. Overall I was very pleased with how they turned out, especially for gluten free and not using proper bread flour.

Orange Lemon Coconut Biscuits

11th August 2015

Bake Off week 2: biscuits. Biscuits have never been my strong suit, as you can see from earlier posts, but I'm not skimping out on a challenge, and one made even tougher by baking for my gluten free friend. I chose this recipe because my housemates requested chewy biscuits and these sounded delicious.

First the oven was preheated and two baking trays lined with parchment. I had to melt the butter a little to cream with the sugar as I forgot to take it out of the fridge earlier... But this seemed to work ok. Into this the egg was beaten and then the zest from the orange and lemon mixed in.

In a separate bowl the (gluten free) flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and ground cardamom were mixed together. I lost my pestle and mortar in the move so I had to improvise with a cup and a heavy jar. Not quite the same really... The dry ingredients were folded into the wets ones and finally the desiccated coconut went in.

Using two spoons I made small balls of dough on the tray, leaving space between them. This perhaps wasn't quite enough space with hindsight. These were baked in the oven and I rotated the shelves to make sure they baked evenly.

They came out very spread out and they had to be very carefully separated off the parchment. They ended up being very thin and I wonder if this was to do with the flour type or just my terrible biscuit skills! Nonetheless, they tasted wonderful, even in pieces. I'll definitely try this one again.

Sour Cream Madeira Cake

4th August 2015

Back on it! With all the moving and mini-life crisis nonsense going on this cooking and baking has really slipped. Let's change that.

Whilst away I did dabble in another toffee brownie from Good Food Bakes and Cakes which has never yet failed to be the most delicious brownie, even made with gluten free flour this time. I remade the banana bread from Crumb also, but adding in chocolate chips this time which made it something rather special.

Another bake I made for friends was the stout gingerbread from Crumb, again made with gluten free flour and with the stout replaced with milk and this too turned out very well.

But today is a special day because its the night before The Great British Bake Off returns! So this week is Cake Week, and having had a sneaky peak at what's coming up I decided to get back into routine with something simple from this week. The choices of themes included black forest gateau, walnut cake and madeira cake. I chose the latter for ease. And also to get to know my kitchen.

To start I had to melt the butter a bit because it was still cold and solid from the shop. This was beaten thoroughly into the sugar until it was all dissolved, light and fluffy. Next the eggs, lemon zest and sour cream was stirred in and beaten well.

In a separate bowl, the flour, baking powder and salt were mixed together before being mixed into the wet ingredients, but without beating them together too much in order to prevent the cake becoming chewy. Apparently. Who knew! 

Finally this was all poured into the prepared loaf tin and baked for 45 minutes. It smelt very lemony whilst baking!

And after the allocated time it was a perfect colour and a perfect fluffy consistency inside. I've still got it!

Chocolate Lime Mud Cake

22nd April, 2015

This one is a bit of a glorified brownie, but much gooier and creamier and yummier. It was worth all the extra effort for this one and my colleagues certainly seemed to agree!

To start, the chocolate was melted in the microwave in short bursts, and the butter was stirred in until it melted along with the lime zest. I used some fresh lime juice also because I prefer my brownies the gooier the better. This was set aside to cool.

Next came the interesting part. With the eggs separated (and I find such satisfaction in doing this for some reason) the yolks were quickly beat with a third of the caster sugar to ribbon stage, quick so the sugar didn't cook the eggs. Next the whites were beaten until they begun to foam, and I added the remaining two thirds of caster sugar one tablespoon at a time until the eggs formed soft peaks. Without the aid of an electric whisk I did this all by hand until both arms felt like they would drop off. 

The egg yolk mixture was folded into the chocolate, and then this in turn was folded a third at a time into the egg whites without mixing too much to retain as much air in it. This will have a slight marbled look. Finally the flour was sifted in a tablespoon at a time and folded until combined, without over mixing. This mixture was poured into a lined cake tin and baked for twenty-five to thirty minutes until risen and crispy on top. Much like a brownie.

I cut it up into small pieces to take into work for my colleagues and it went down a treat, leaving none for me to bring home! Success.

Camomile Vanilla Cupcakes

9th April, 2015

Time for more baking today! Finding time in my bizarre work schedule has been hard lately, but I'm glad I got chance to try these.

To start, I had to replace my curdled milk with fresh milk. Good start. This was simmer on the hob with melted butter and camomile tea bags for a few minutes. It smelt like slightly fragrant custard which was amazing. The infused mixture was separated 1/3 to 2/3 and put in the fridge to cool for twenty minutes. This is aided if you remember to shut the fridge door...

Next I weighed out the caster sugar to be beaten into the larger proportion of the butter and milk mixture and beat them together using the Kenwood mixer. Next to be added was three eggs and the vanilla extract. I used the wrong sized spoon and ended up adding almost three teaspoons instead of one and a half teaspoons of vanilla, but worse things have happened.

The flour, baking powder and salt were weighed out in a separate bowl and stirred together before folding into the wet ingredients. This was beaten together until it became a smooth thick batter with dropping consistency. The batter was divided into the twelve cupcake cases ready for baking.

These baked for fifteen minutes until risen, golden brown and cooked in the middle. Meanwhile I made the butter icing with the remaining butter and milk infused mixture. Icing sugar was slowly added until it reached the right smooth consistency.

I decided to give the piping bag another try. I was confident the butter icing was the perfect consistency this time. And it actually worked! The only drawback was that I was running out of icing after only four cupcakes and there was no more infused butter. So I went back to using the palette knife.

A bit shoddy and mish-mashed but I'm still learning the art of cake decorating. I'm definitely much better at the baking side of things. Considering I don't like tea, I was quite surprised by how much I liked these cupcakes and I licked out all the bowls and piping equipment! 

Floury Baps (Cobs)

22nd March, 2015

On my one day off work this week I decided to get up early and make bread. (Madness, I know!) I'm determined to master bread because fresh homemade bread is so much nicer than shop bought loaves.

Bread dough is surprisingly easy to make: strong bread flour, fast action yeast and salt into the mixer. Beat lightly on minimum speed whilst adding lukewarm water gradually. I freaked out a bit here at how quickly it balled up around the dough hook and worried about it being dry and added a little bit more water. This, as it turned out, was not needed. The dough remained a bit too wet and sticky for the remainder of the baking process. But I left this to prove over an hour and a half (while I gymmed and did the laundry) and came back to it more than double the size! This amazes me every time.

Next I knocked the dough back in the mixer for a couple of minutes and tipped it out onto a floured surface to knead and fold a little more. This was really difficult due to how sticky I'd made the dough and I didn't want to add too much extra flour to my hands and the surface incase it changed the dough before baking. I remember the Great British Bake Off telling me to use minimal flour. I think. It was only here I decided on making cobs instead of a loaf as I figured it would cook more evenly if I really had screwed up the mixture.

I cut up the dough into eight pieces and used the Paul Hollywood technique to roll into balls under cupped hands. It works extremely well! These were left on a tray for another hour to rise (and became huge!) before baking for 20 minutes.

It smelt amazing while they baked and when I took them out of the oven they felt firm on top, but soft when squeezed a little. Once they had cooled I obviously made a sandwich! It tasted amazing. I like making bread!

Dark Chocolate Orange Bourbons

9th February, 2015

Its been a while. I felt a real need to bake this week. I've been craving chocolate all weekend so I found a nice chocolatey recipe for biscuits in Crumb.

Things started off well and was fairly easy. Mix the flour and cocoa powder, rub in the butter, and stir in the remaining dry ingredients caster sugar and orange zest.

Aaaaaaand with the next step I really messed up the recipe. I misread the quantity of milk as 300ml instead of 30ml. Fortunately I only added 100ml to begin with and immediately noticed my mistake. No biscuit dough should be that runny! Doh! In an attempt to save the recipe I mixed up a third more of the original dry ingredients to stir in but this only helped a little. I used a small amount of corn flour to stiffen it a little more and wrapped the runniest biscuit dough of all time into cling film as best I could. I resolved to leave this for an hour to chill.

In the meantime I mixed the butter icing for the middle of the biscuits, which consisted of butter, cocoa powder, orange zest and icing sugar. This, incidentally, is very tasty and I could have easily just eaten it all with a spoon.

As the dough was still quite runny I decided to bake one large biscuit on a tray and cut it up after baking. It was, however, firm enough that spreading it out onto the tray was slightly tricky. The "biscuits" baked for 12-15mins and were left to cool on a cooling rack.

I cut up the cooled biscuit into roughly bourbon sized pieces, noticing that some were really thin and some much chunkier. After another epic fail with the piping bag, (this time I at least assembled it correctly, but the mixture was far too runny and just came straight out the other side!), I just poured on the icing and shoved it all in the fridge to chill and set while I went out. I had no idea what to expect when I got in.

Sooooo, that happened. I got a B grade from my boyfriend. He said: 

"So this stuff is neither cake nor biscuit but the icing is delicious so I'm giving it a solid B grade."

And he's right. They're definitely satisfying my chocolate needs right now but I must do better next time!

Banana Bread

16th January, 2015

A bit of baking next! This recipe is taken from Crumb. First I had to purchase a larger loaf tin - a 1lb tin is hardly going to make for a nice big cake.

The recipe was actually quite simple. Cream the butter and sugar (I opted to use caster sugar instead of agave nectar to keep things simple and costs low), add the eggs, rum and mashed banana and a bit of the flour. I used my food mixer to make sure the mixture was smooth and then added in the remaining flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and seeds from cardamom pods. I completely missed this in the recipe the first time I read it and it was lucky I had cardamom pods in the cupboard at all! And I always love an excuse to get out the heavy granite pestle and mortar to grind those seeds. This all mixed together to make a smooth batter which was poured into the loaf tin.

Here I actually nipped away for a bath rather than making the glaze straight away! But I had a spare egg yolk from making the mayonnaise a few days earlier which meant I could make a stiff icing that would set pretty quickly regardless of how long it was left. I didn't, however, check how much icing sugar I had left so it was probably a bit thin on the ground. Or the cake, as the case may be. Who cares, it tasted delicious!