Vanilla frosted chocolate and espresso cupcakes (a couple unfrosted) and banana & cinnamon cupcakes with a banana frosting.
Recipe to follow...
Thursday 9 September 2010
Monday 6 September 2010
Soft Baked Vanilla Fudge Cookies
Nothing beats a house that smells like freshly baked cookies...except perhaps a house that contains a plate of freshly baked cookies, perhaps with the left over wooden spoon caked in all that glorious cookie dough nearby.
It's getting quite hard to be adventurous with cookie flavourings without being avant-garde, given their rise (no pun intended) in popularity in many supermarkets. I'm aware that toffee cookies are a much loved entity but fudge cookies I've yet to come across. Fudge has a higher melting point than the likes of chocolate so you have to be patient with these allowing them to melt down in the oven and giving them ample time to re-set afterwards.
I'd really recommend this recipe for basic cookie dough which you can jazz up with whatever you taste-buds inspire you with, just substitute the 200g of vanilla fudge for whatever else you fancy: I made a batch of white chocolate (150g) and chopped hazelnut (50g) at the same time as these.
Makes 10-12ish large cookies
Ingredients:
125g Butter
40g Caster Sugar
60g Soft Dark Brown Sugar
1 Medium Egg
125g Plain Flour
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
Few drops of Vanilla Essence
200g Vanilla Fudge (or whatever else you fancy)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Line several baking sheets with baking paper or lightly butter them.
Using an electric mixer (or a heavy hand and a wooden spoon) beat the butter with both sugars, in a large bowl, until soft and fluffy.
Beat the egg, then gradually beat this, with the vanilla essence, into the mixture.
Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda together and carefully fold into the creamed mixture.
Chop the fudge into small pieces and stir into the cookie dough, be careful not to over mix.
Spoon heaped teaspoons of the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, allowing plenty of room for them to stretch their legs and spread out whilst in the oven.
Bake for 10 minutes or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool for a few minutes before placing them on a wire rack to cool completely, transfer them too soon and they'll be so soft they fall through the rack - I'm speaking from experience here.
Sunday 5 September 2010
Caramel and Pecan filled Chocolate Cupcakes
So, this was my first experiment with filling cupcakes; it was so easy that I can't believe it's taken me this long to try it. The sauce could have done with being a bit thicker but for a first attempt it did the job. With a toffee flavoured cupcake, caramel and pecan filling and chocolate fudge frosting sprinkled with coconut these were perhaps my most calorifically indulgent to date - I tried to compensate over the weekend by going for a five-mile bike ride. Truth be told the majority of it was down hill. And I got-off and pushed on the slightest hint of an incline. And I got a lift back. But I tried, right?
Anyway, I digress. Divine with a 4pm cup of tea, these will definitely give you that friday-afternoon-almost-finished-work blissful satisfaction.
Makes 10
Ingredients:
75g unsalted butter
140g dark muscovado sugar
2 large egg whites
140g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp cinnamon
225ml full fat milk with 1tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.
Blend the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon - the type of sugar means that it won't go as creamy as usual, so before long add the egg whites.
Sift together the flour, cocoa, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder into a separate bowl. Add half to the sugar mixture.
Add half of the milk concoction (this is a substitute for buttermilk as this recipe is adapted from an american one) to the sugar mixture.
Don't forget the vanilla essence!
Now the other half of the flour mix.
And finally the other half of the milk mixture. Blend well. Spoon into a cupcake case lined muffin tray.
Bake for between 15 and 20 minutes.
For the filling and frosting...
Ingredients:
6 pecans (chopped)
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
4 tbsp milk
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp butter
75g icing sugar
100g plain chocolate (broken into pieces)
50g butter
Directions:
On a low heat, suspend a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (making sure that the water doesn't come into contact with the base of the suspended bowl).
Gently heat 1tbsp butter, 1tbsp golden syrup, 2 tbsp milk and 2 tbsp dark brown sugar.
Once all the ingredients have melted, remove from the heat and stir in the chopped pecans.
With a sharp knife cut a cone shaped section out of the middle of each of your, now baked and cooled, cupcakes. Using a teaspoon fill each hole and replace just the top of the cone which you have cut out. And repeat.
As before, suspend a heatproof bowl over a saucepan with a small amount of simmering water. Gently heat 1tbsp butter, the chocolate and 2tbsp of milk. Occasionally stir the mixture with a wooden spoon. Be sure to set the saucepan to a low heat - try to avoid the water boiling as chocolate burns easily.
Once melted stir in the icing sugar and spread over the cupcakes whilst the frosting is still warm. And enjoy!
Friday 3 September 2010
It's been a while...
So apologies for my absence, I have been rather ill, rather busy working and rather besieged with a broken camera. Alas, I did still find time to bake but I have limited photographic evidence due to the aforementioned problem, but what I do have is below...
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