Lactose Free Super Yummy Blueberry Muffins

Lactose Free Super Yummy Blueberry Muffins

Everyone always brings salads or meat to a BBQ. So cliche.

We have a gorgeous Blueberry bush which invariably gives us a bumper crop every year for about a week- and so we try to make everything we can with the glut. This is why I was the "cool" person rocking up to a BBQ with muffins, and seeing as the guest of honour Jayne is Lactose Intolerant, I decided to try adapting a recipe that I know works well.

Here is the original recipe- it's great as you can convert from USA to Metric, and choose how many you want to make and it automatically corrects the ingredient weights.

The only change I made to the actual muffin recipe was to replace the Milk with Olive Oil (equal measurements) and then a touch of water to make the consistency to my liking. To get beautifully risen, tall cafe style muffins, use deep muffin trays and tall tulip muffin cases.

For the crunch on top (which I highly recommend!) replace the butter with cold lactose free butter or Ghee. These things aren't the easiest to find, but good supermarkets (especially Sainsbury's) have great Lactose free sections so target that first. If you can't find any, leave the crumb off and add cinnamon to your muffins.

And Voila- these yummy muffins were even transported in a wicker basket and a linen cloth like they do in the good old USA. I am happy to report that they were devoured by the lactose loving and the lactose intolerant alike!

Rachel x

Cronuts and Croissants

YUM.

Cronut fever has died down a bit, but I made these at the height of the media frenzy just to see if I could. You know what, they were bloomin' yummy. Super chuffed, you should all try at home. I picked up some great tips from the wonderful Jo Wheatley (Winner of GBB2011) at her blog Jo's Blue Aga, although I will confess hers look far more yummy than mine.

Definition: A cronut is a deep fried donut shaped croissant. BUT BETTER

The reason I have coupled a range of other pastries into this post is that the pastry dough used in all is the same. Make up a batch and have a beautifully butter heavy day with friends and family. I can tell you they did not last long at all in my house.

CRONUTS

• Decide how much of your dough (see recipe here) you want to allocate to Cronuts. I went with 1/3^rd for cronuts, 1/3^rd for pain au chocolat/raisin and 1/3^rd for plain croissants. Cut this amount off the main block of dough with a bread knife, and put the rest back in the fridge.

• Decide on how you want your cronuts- sugar coated? Glazed? Drizzled in chocolate and filled with cream? You can have a real mixture, and have great fun playing around with flavours. I went for cinnamon sugar coated cronuts filled with vanilla cream. The world is your baking oyster- go for flavour combinations you love.

• Roll the dough out to around 3.5 cm thick, and then use a round cutter to cut out your donuts. To create the hole in the middle, find something that is at smaller than half the width of the original cutter you used- Jo suggested the larger end of a piping bag nozzle which worked a treat for my mini circles. Put these in the fridge/freezer for at least an hour so they are super cold.

• If you have a deep fat fryer, great- use it. I do not, however, and so I shallow fried them in a deep frying pan, a ton of oil and some guess work on temperature. Use your worst looking cronut to test- they should turn golden brown after a few minutes on each side, and the pastry inside should be flaky and buttery. Burnt on the outside and raw on the inside? The temperature is too high. Once fried, toss them in your sugar to coat- I mixed caster sugar with cinnamon for a twist. Fill with cream if desired- best eaten warm!
  

  

         

CROISSANTS

This is just a different way of shaping the dough - how you flavour them is up to you. I am going to try some savoury croissants next for Brunch, but for this blog I have just coated them in a touch of apricot jam to get that lovely shiny look.

Roll the dough out to about 1 cm thick, and cut out a large circle - I used a large dinner plate. Divide the circle into 8 ( like you would a pizza) and seperate the slices. Roll each one out a bit wider with your rolling pin, and then proceed to roll them up from the outside (the crust of the pizza) to the inside, tucking in the pointy end.

Leave in a warm place to prove for 30-40 minutes, whilst pre-heating the oven to 200C. Cover with an egg wash and bake on a baking tray for 20-25 minutes. Immediately wash with a small amount of melted apricot jam. BEAUTIFUL.

Rachel x



Laminated pastry- the best pastry in the world!

This post is a pre-amble to my next post about Cronuts- how to make laminated pastry. This pastry is used for croissants, pain au chocolat's and a tonne of other beautiful pastries.

This laminated dough is essentially layered with butter, which is done by folding the pastry into 3 every few hours. Make this the night before for best results.

·         500g Strong White Flour

·         1.5 tsp salt

·         7g fast action dried yeast

·         25g caster sugar

·         300-320ml lukewarm water (lukewarm, not cold. Crucial difference.)

·         400g COLD unsalted butter

1. Easy as pie- put all the ingredients except the butter in a bowl, mix until the dough forms and then knead for 5 minutes or so on a floured surface. Put make in the bowl and leave to prove for 1 hour.
2. Take the cold butter, place between 2 pieces of laminated baking paper and flatten with a rolling pin to around 20cm by 60cm. This is hard work- don’t give up!
3. Take the dough, which should have doubled in size, and roll it out to 20cm by 60cm. Lay the sheet of butter on top of the dough in the top 2/3rds, and fold the bottom 3^rd of the dough over the top of the butter layer- think like a butter sandwich! Then fold the top 3^rd down over the rest of the butter sandwich.
4. This process will be repeated around 4 times, once every hour for 3 hours after you do the initial fold, and once in the morning an hour before you start baking. Leave in the fridge between each fold.

The next morning your dough should be gloriously risen and airy- if it is not, it is likely that you water was too cold at the first step, so the yeast wasn't properly activated.

See the next post for what to do with this glorious stuff!

Rachel x

Lilac and Lavender

Ah meringues, such a sweet, sweet classic, always enjoyed with strawberries and cream, a summertime favourite, enjoyed by Etonians in a mess and er, people that went to polytechnics too, consisting of only beaten egg whites and sugar, how simple.... 

But wait a sec, lavender flavoured? And sorry, they're lilac? 

"Ooh ar. Not for me thanks. Bit modern that is" I hear you say as you back away from me slowly like i've age reversed a couple of years and started to experiment with interesting scented herbs and food again in some early quater life crisis (anniversairy of my birth is infact looming).


Fear not! Im not trying to heal anyone herbally or cure insomnia, i made these simply because:

1.    I’ve never attempted meringues before and felt this bbq weather was the perfect excuse to try for a classic summer pud.

2.    Purple is my bestest colour.

3.    The lavender sugar was reduced in sainsbos (hard times remember guyz)

4.    The big misshapen pastel coloured stacks of meringues in Borough market always look fabulous and I wanted to ‘ave a go myself creating these sugary clouds of happiness

5.    Lily, lavender and lilac are a good alliteration and MAN do I love me one of those.


Observe the prettiness i then created.

The recipe is adapted from Lily Vanillis basic plain meringue recipe. I deducted 10 grams of plain sugar and added the infused lavender one instead to make up the 280g.

It’s incredibly easy to follow and I (for once) didn't have one single panic moment in the kitchen. Mostly, because i took my time and didn't cut any corners- chemistry was never a strong subject for me at school, i spent more time listening to my chemical romance with my friend Lucy and waving at Rachel if she walked past the science block than i did paying attention- however- as cooking is in itself a science, i had to pay lots and lots and lots of attention to everything i did from temperatures to timings and could not sing along to my spotify playlist (badly) and drink cups of tea as is my usual baking routine! 

I will happily admit i will gloss over long instructions to do with anything and seem to think i'm always right (haa i hear you ALL say) but i'd heard many a disastrous meringue story (mostly on come dine with me) and knew for once, i had to be patient and good and did what the instructions told me in fear of messing with some big bad baking sciencey rules.


And voila perfect, pretty, homemade sugary mountains of marshmellowy yet crunchy moreish meringues were created!

Tips:

-I was vigilant with my whipping speeds (start v v slow only allowing small bubbles in first), egg white tempreture (room, always!) and sugar adding (not all at once!).

-Let all your crazy lady tendacies out at once by cleaning all your equipment within an inch of its life to remove all grease and/or rub a lemon around your mixing bowl (i did both, cause hello, crazy lady!).

-I made one batch (about 8 large) freehand with a metal spoon and piped small neat ones with the leftover mixture (freehand ones turned out to be my fave!).

-Fan oven setting is allowed unlike when baking cakes! Hurrah!! Swirly heat!

-Always always leave for an hour or more in the oven once it is switched off so they set just right.

-However it still infused through the meringue making the soft pillowy inside a lovely colour of lilac.

-The lavender flavouring, although it does seem peculiar and bubble bath like to be putting into food, was a sweet success, i added just the right amount so that it wasn't too over powering, and so it leaves a very faint added sweetness to the meringue, a very soft floral lift if you will, without tasting like soap or something you found in the flower bed! 

-I almost like to think the lavender adds a cutesy old fashioned spin on this classic, perfect for afternoon tea with strong cups of earl grey, it would work well with macaroons and cute purple cupcakes too, so i can't wait to experiment with infused sugar more now i know its not too overpowering or odd in food. 




Try to enjoy with strawberries and whipped cream. If they last that long. They're very moreish and most sweet and light. They melt in your mouth like candyfloss. I scoffed half the glossy mix before it was even cooked. I was in some bizarre lavender  infused calm world whilst bouncing of the walls on sugar at the same time for the rest of the afternoon. I highly recommend.


Holly x


P.s HOW cute is my pink egg box that my mums friend gave us with fresh eggs from her chickens?

Lily Vanilli's Basic Meringues

Here is a rough guide to Lily Vanilli's basic meringue recipe. Her book is filled with such interesting and imaganative creations that i was apprehensive at first to attempt her recipe rather than sticking with an old school recipe, but she explains it so well and breaks it down into easy steps- as well as explaining all the science behind it which really helped and made me pay extra attention to what i was doing- although get back to me once i've attempted her 3 tier bitter chocolate orange cake, i have a feeling the impressive photography of this cake matches the complex recipe *faints*.

6 large egg whites- at room tempreature

1 tsp lemon juice

280g caster sugar

(i used 270g plain caster sugar and 10g sainsbury's taste the difference lavender infused sugar)

One baking tray, lined. 

1. Preheat the oven to 120 degrees fan assisted/gas mark 1.

-Prepare a baking tray with non stick baking parchment- stick down with some of the meringue mix to stop it folding up in the oven!-

2. In a bowl with an electric whisk whip egg whites- very slowly- you only want small bubbles to get in at first- once they start to foam slightly and look less liquid add the lemon juice and continue whisking until soft peaks form (still very light and airy but starting to hold shape)- approx 5 minutes 

3. Now you can slowly beat in the sugar- 2 tablespoons at a time- and continue to increase the speed until stiff peaks form

-The mixture should stick up when you move the whisk away, if it flops back down (don't be crude now) then whisk further.

4. Do the upside down bowl test- i dare ya.

-This is when i add the food coloring and fold it in very, very carefully, i found turning the whisk round once with the coloring helped create the lovely swirled effect. 

5. Use a metal spoon to dollop the beaten whites onto the prepared baking tray, or pipe, up to you, spooning by hand makes them look very big and messy in a good way!

-Do this straight away and don't leave the mixture to sink or knock it about to much- it won't make big fluffy meringues! 

6. Bake for 1 hour until set- they will have a still soft but crisp shell formed.

7. Turn off the oven and leave to dry for another hour.

Tips:

-Grease or oil, as well as plastic, can damage the whites from forming.

-Lemon juice round a clean bowl will help remove any dirt or grease.

-Keep the oven temperature low- or you will end up with burnt peaks!

-Create small bubbles on a low speed first. You don't want big pockets of air.

-Only increase the speed as you are adding the sugar to create your stiff peaks.

From Lily Vanilli's book Sweet Tooth

Easy Peasy Paprika Pepper Quesadilla...

......wiiiiithhomemadechilliandlimeguacamole.
Holy Guacamole! Try saying all that after a few tequilas. I DARE YA.

Its only 10am on a Saturday morning and about, roughly, i'd say, 100 degrees outside (weather girl career plan B sorted). If you eat a fry up right now, i will think you a) must be so hungover you can't tell its sunny and scorchio or b) you're one of those people who eats fry ups on holidays in spain and therefore get out of my kitchen right now.
SO.
Ditch the bacon grease and ketchup on hot summer mornings and head straight for a mexican brunch.
Fresh, spicy, light, bright ingredients (except the cheese but who doesn't love cheese on all the foods OK?) make for the best type of breakfast. These are so quick and easy and 10000% tequila hangover proof. Rachel loves tequila more than me. Im sure she could manage 20 of these after that night we had in exeter...
The homemade guacamole is also so, soooo easy and takes just a few minutes. Don't worry if you don't have a blender an electric mixer, just going at it with a spoon pretending its someone you hate will work just as ok and offer some free therapy at the same time.

Just promise promise me you WILL use lots of lime, chilli and paprika and bright red crunchy peppers and we're sorted.
These also make for a healthy pizza alternative if you can't quite bring yourself to eat this much cheese in the AM and want it with beer (who am i kidding. really).

For the Guacamole:

2 ripe avacados

1 lime squeezed

Chilli powder to taste- fresh chillis even better if you can face it in the am!

Paprika powder to taste

Put all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and blitz. Season with the spices to taste!

For the Quesadilla:

2 tortilla wraps per person

Grated cheese

Fresh peppers, chopped

Paprika to taste

Head your griddle or pan on a high heat, grease pan, lay down one tortilla and load on the cheese and peppers and sprinkle with pepper and paprika to taste, place the second tortilla on the top and press down- i used a bacon press because god knows why but there's on in this house- flip over when the cheese starts to melt inside and the side of the tortilla starts to brown. The edges should go nice and crispy! This works well with cajun chicken also!

Plus you can add sweetcorn, chorizo etc etc into your quesadilla. To be honest i haven't eaten pizza in weeks, it was friday, i love making fresh guacamole and i wanted to play with my new camera. Do what ever the bloody hell you like with these ha!

p.s first brunch recipe post on this blog yay! 

Holly x

Big Blueberry Muffins For Breakfast

When most folk buy a new camera what do they do? Oh you know, maybe take a walk and photograph some landscapes, take pictures of their friends, family, maybe even their pets. What did i do? Headed straight for a quick and easy but damn yummy blueberry muffin recipe from my magnolia bakery book to create some little bundles of blueberry joy that would make for the perfect test subjects for my new camera. I was picturing big fluffy white muffins with bright blue spots all over them to make for fantastic foodie bloggy photos.
What i got was even better! Big proud, fluffy, but dense (good dense, buttermilk was involved, however full fat milk works fine) with bursts of burst purple blueberries, specks of white chocolate chips and lovely glazed tops.
Why did i add white chocolate? Er cause. Chocolate.
Oh they also read the manual. I have a certificate somewhere that says i'm pure BA boss at photography, so i left the manual in the box and headed straight for the kitchen. So really i still have no clue how to use my new camera.

Next time i make them i will 100% use chocolate chunks from an actual bar rather than chips, there wasn't enough chocolate! Are you a crazy woman i hear you all cry. Well when i took them into work Hayley who sits on the desk opposite noticed pretty much straight away. And if a fellow lady notices there isn't enough chocolate about, well, we have a problem!
However when you did get a bite of the dense soft sponge, big soft blueberry and a decadent swirl of the white chocolate all at once then it was the perfect combination i had pictured when fruit, chocolate and breakfast foods join together in holy muffin matrimony.
They made for welcomed thursday breakfast treats in the office and in the saxton household. Apart from my sister who is weirdly allergic to white chocolate. The milky bar kid is tres sad.

The really quick and easy one bowl recipe from the magnolia bakery book is in the link after the pics. Bring that cliche freshly baked muffin smell into your casa pronto!

Tips:
-I made my own DIY cases with squares of baking paper cut 20cm wide, place them over the muffin tin and use a small cup to press them down into the tins. The muffins cooked fine in them and have a real home baked look about them without the lines you normall get from shop bought cases.
(I used normal cases too for the ones to take to work with leftover batter)
-This makes them look great on a plate (poet wheeey) in little nests of scrunchy baking paper. 
-Try and find small blueberries, as in smaller than already quite small blueberries?! (i have officially gone mad) mine were a little too big (?!) and left quite big pockets in the sponge. However win some/lose some cause they also meant for that great purple dye on the sponge and when they burst they left an almost sweet jam like texture. 

-Use big big big chunks of good quality white chocolate for real rich decadence.

-Remember to spinkle with caster sugar before you bake them- this creates the lovely golden brown tops!

If you dont eat these warm with butter i won't ever talk to you again. Cheers.

Holly x

CLICK BELOW FOR RECIPE

Good Grief Charlie Brown(ies)

Yeah thats right, i went there. (sorry schulz)

There are 3 reasons why i adore this recipe for peppermint pattie brownies:

1. brownies are probs in my top 5 baked goods of all time
2. i really really love anything peppermint
3. i really really REALLY love peppermint patties, ever since i fell in love with them on a ski-ing trip to killington a few years back. i can scoff a bag of them in a scary amount of time it wouldn't even be worth filming for man vs food they're gone that quick
4. all we have here are peppermint poppets which suck ass in comparison and you only get like, 5 in a box
4. i really really love anything snoopy related and peppermint patty is a boss
5. they come from the absolutely stunning food blog How Sweet It Is which i am currently obsessed with and my new blogging hero/inspiration is the very funny and lovely Jessica who runs it
6. i made them and they came out WELL good, giving me mega baking confidence booster points and the boyfriend agreed to help make them too which was a great way to spend a sunday afternoon
7. my friend Lucy once made me a 17th birthday cake with snoopy on and rachel (fellow blogee of this blog!) dropped the cake on the floor outside lucy's house. I don't think i've ever quite recovered but these seriously make up for missing Peanuts related baked goods in my life.

Okay, so thats er, 7 reasons why i adore this recipe.
This basically turned out to be the best brownie batch i have ever baked combined with the most fun and delicious topping you could want. Americans might say silly food things like scallions or chickpea mash or eggplant but by eck do they give good candy, this recipe is SOOO american and it works so, so well.
It wasn't dry, it didn't sink when i took it out the oven. The fondant turned out the most perfect consistancy. Maybe i under estimated my darling boyfriends cooking skills! (this didn't involve meat, pasta or caesar dressing so i thought we were in for a challenge)
I don't have too much waffling to do for once, this easy and delicious invention has sugar stunned me into silence for the first time ever.
It was incredibly easy to make- mixing time about 10 mins and baking time about 30. Fondant done in 10. Refrigerate for another 30 whilst you make the ganache. Eat entire block of them in about 5 seconds. I didn't even need my beloved kitchen aid for the batter its that easy!
I really cant remember the last time i ate something so good that i wanted to skip around my kitchen going weeeeee/OH MY GAD/guhhh im in food heaven at the same time. I think pancakes or pulled pork are the only things that make me go weak at the knees these days but these brownies may have just taken top spot.

I can't take ANY credit for these. Its all thanks to the amazing recipe from Jessica's blog.
Please go have a look, even if its just to drool over her fabulous food porn photos!
Follow the link for the recipe and don't get too confused with the cups you can look up conversions into grams. You can buy all the ingredients in good old tesco theres nothing complex about this recipe at all.
For some reason my peppermint fondant didn't come out as bright white as hers did which is a shame as the bright white icing looks great against the dark fudgey brownie, but it sticks all together perfectly in a big sticky minty chocolaty chunk of heaven.
I honestly don't think there's anything better than refreshing peppermint cutting through chocolate and theres something about fondant thats just so blissfully moreish you just can't help yourself. These will literally just make you go UGH (in a very, very good way). Make sure you use good quality dark chocolate for the ganache otherwise it will taste rubbish.

Enjoy!

Holly x

CLICK HERE FOR BROWNIE HEAVEN

Jamie O's Orangey Carrot Cake

...thats also carroty, spicy and er, quite flat. But that didn't make a cool alliteration.
I came to a bit of a carrot cake conundrum this week when looking for a recipe to use for a fathers day treat (as requested by papa sax) theres obviously tons of variations of every kind of cake, everyone has thier own preferred versions or family recipe's but i must have seriously missed the memo that there is about 500 different ways to make carrot cake! I thought i'd just look one up and have everything i needed already yet every recipe calls for something different and i didn't come across one the same.. after browsing all the books in the house i whittled it down to the following few:

Lorraine Pascales 3 tier carrot cake (asks for 9 eggs!)
Lili Vanilli's carrot cake (made with an entire bottle of fruit smoothie and spelt flour)
Magnolia bakery carrot cake (asked for many complex americany things i didn't have time to source)
Jamie Olivers 'a rather pleasing carrot cake' from his 'cook with jamie' book

In the end i went for Jamies recipe- mostly for the simplicity of the recipe- this was my first attempt at solo carrot cake baking and so i wanted to keep the ingredients to a minimum!
Luckily for me i don't have to type it out as old good jamie is so trendy its on his site, all 'pukka' and ready to go (and luckily for you guys that means less rambling from me)-

CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE

HOWEVER my tips for this 'simple' recipe to actually make it more simple (like it should be) and to stop you using every grater/zester/spoon/mixing bowl/whisk/chopping board in the house in a bit of a flap (as i ended up doing when halfway through mixing ingredients i forgot i needed to zest and squeeze my orange, chop the walnuts finely and ground nutmeg and cloves etc etc)
SO- before you start this-

-weigh your carrots out once grated- not when they are whole
-seperate your 5 eggs! it doesn't state this anywhere in the recipe?! 
-finely chop walnuts, zest and juice the orange, grate the nutmeg and crush the cloves first thing and set to one side so you can add them in quickly (i had to stop everything halfway through which left my mixture sitting for quite a while!)
-use a small to medium size orange, not an L, the one i used was pretty much a wannabee mango and i think made my cake too moist and dense and therefore resulting in a flat cake
-don't split between 2 21cm cake tins or you will be left with 2 very skinny (in my case slightly sunken and flat- sadface) cakes rather than a lovely thick cake like a traditional carrot cake should be! 

However it's whats on the inside that counts with cakes such as this, and im incredibly frustrated that the sponge turned out so dense after been in oven for 60 minutes! Considering this recipe has baking powder, self raising flower and egg whites in i do not understand why both my cakes sank when i took them out the oven and then uncovered a very damp sponge when cutting into it.
Anyway im set on making it again and tweaking it to get the perfect sponge. The recipe was a joy to make and the orange and spices came through amazingly making it a very moreish and fresh cake.

Im happy with the end result now its been iced, it has a nice homemade look to it and perfect for elevensies on fathers day, maybe it will taste so nice my dad will momentarily forget about me turning the heating up in june/leaving lights switched on all around the house/not cleaning my car/owing him money....

Holly x

My Two Favourite Things - Wine and Chocolate

This week is my last week at my current job, and so last week I was inundated with requests for some cakes to bring in this week. Whilst browsing the Internet for a bakewell tart recipe to make for these guys, I somehow came across this fabulous blog, Love and Olive Oil.

These guys are incredible, and after browsing through their recipes (there are A LOT) this one really caught my eye. Chocolate and wine, a girl's dream.

The recipe uses olive oil instead of butter in the cake mixture, which gives it a gorgeous richness and helps preserve the cake for much longer. I think I will be using this trick on a few more of my recipes.

I also made a few changes to the original recipe - my edition is below, the original can be found here.

It will take a while to assemble, and you will end up become facetious about how smooth the edges are. If pressed for time, make the cake the night before and assemble the next day.

Rachel x

Flour Free Gooey Goodness

Spying a metro over someones shoulder one december evening on my way home from work i saw Nigella was doing a signing of her new book at Selfridges the next evening. I thought: 

Ah an excellent christmas present for my mum, she'll love this!

The next evening i had about 5 minutes between finishing work in covent garden and getting there to get a good spot in the queue so legging it down a packed oxford street at the peak of christmas time i thought: 

She better actually be there. I better get a good spot in the queue. Man i wish i worked at Selfridges, this would be so much easier (guess where i ironically work now. Dreaming for another book signing of interest that i can be at the front of the queue for. ho ho ho)

Standing in an extremely packed lower ground floor in the middle of a very long queue, clutching my newly purchased Nigellissima book, the front pages bare and ready for a sharpie pen blessing i thought: 

This better be worth it, if all the recipe's are for salad i will be most annoyed.....

Et voila it was all worth it as the chocolate olive oil cake that i successfully baked last weekend was divine and there was a very happy momma Sax on christmas day when she opened her present and saw the message in the front pages. 

I am an awesome christmas present buyer and world renowned attempted cake baker daughter extraordinaire. Aren't my family lucky to have me living with them still.

Baking with olive oil may seem daunting or slightly weird- you may think the cake will be greasy or have a strange taste or that nutty smell that comes with (good quality) olive oil but this wasn't the case at all. It meant the cake retained just the right amount of soft gooeyness you need whilst its in a hot oven without been raw or undercooked in the middle.

You can substitute the ground almonds with flour. However even with no allergy sufferers in the house i still went with the almonds- and the complete lack of butter, milk and flour in this cake makes it seem just a teeny bit healthier doesn't it? (I asked my parents if almonds had dairy in them before writing this. I've said before Rachel is the brains behind this operation.) meaning its also the perfect tea time treat if you have guests who suffer from those allergies. 

Finally standing in front of the beautiful and talented Nigella herself i thought:
Er, nothing. I thought nothing. My mind went completely blank in a way i thought i was far too cool for it to go when around people from the tele. When she said hello and i er'd and ummm'd like a complete and utter loon until she finished signing the book in silence and handed it back to me where i then proceeded to walk away impersonating the blue one from finding nemo. A kind looking Selfridges employee then looked at me and asked if i needed any assistance. Great.

Holly x

Recipe link below to reduce blog post waffling length-

Rhubarb Spiced Cake

Oh What To Do With Rhubarb....

As you may or may not know, my family keeps a gorgeous vegetable patch, providing us with super fresh ingredients to cook with and share with our friends. Around this time of year, we usually have a glut of rhubarb- and unable to face a month of rhubarb crumble (very nice, but wears thin after a while) I went on the hunt for something different. 

I came across this recipe on the Internet, as my cook books were not providing something of interest for once, and I am glad I did. This cake is super moist, reminiscent of the sticky ginger cake I used to love as a kid, and everyone who tried it loved it. Easy peasy recipe by the amazing Mary Cadogan (although I will make some notes at the end) so crack on and enjoy! Very good for those who might never buy rhubarb in their weekly shop.

Rhubarb Spiced Cake

Count Your Cupcakes

Everyone has seen the film Bridesmaids right? You know the hilarious female led film with enough gross bits to compete with any lad film, puppies as party favours and chris o'dowd trynna make it as a big time movie star... WELL there's a scene halfway through the film where kristen wiig has some sort of ex bakery owner equivalent of crying over your ex boyfriend at midnight and decides to bake a cupcake, except she just bakes ONE cupcake, and ever since seeing that film i have been been desperate to know how she just makes enough mixture for one perfect little cupcake. Obviously she has no effing clue. She is an actress. Not a real life baking lady. The cupcake probably tasted like ass.

ANYWAY, pointless examples aside. I finally found a recipe one day when browsing pintrest- i tracked down the source of the picture and found it on a very lovely and exciting baking blog called Bakergirl- A truly scrumptious baking blog from across the pond with tons of delicious recipes and great photography to go alongside- no iphone snaps and instagram filtering in sight which i am incredibly guilty of in regards to this blog.....

Its perfect because sometimes the thought of making 24 cupcakes in an afternoon and then having to ice them all with nowhere to then take them to afterwards can seem a bit of a pointless waste and probably one of the reasons i avoid making cupcakes unless its someone's birthday, because no one NEEDS 24 cupcakes in the house (yes, i did just say that) and theres always too many and not enough icing etc etc.

So here is the recipe for vanilla cupcakes just for 2, they will make 2 if you're using large muffin cases- or 4 with the standard small cases.
The recipe was a quick and easy success- i was a tad worried as baking is like science and when you start messing with quantities and measurements all sorts can go wrong but after about 15-20 minutes in a pre heated non fan oven at 180c they were soft vanilla perfection!
I baked 4 and bought cute cupcake carry boxes from Hertford cake shop and  took them to the boyfriends. They survived a whole train journey to London til they met some womans wildly swinging backpack on the packed W3 bus. She's lucky i didn't see the damage til i got off otherwise it would have been a heavy mock rocco bag TO THE FACE!

Holly x

1 egg white

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup flour- 32 grams in UK

1/4 heaping teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt 
1 1/2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 350°F. (180C and no fan) Line a muffin pan with 2 liners.

In a bowl, add egg white and sugar and whisk until combined. Add in vanilla and melted butter and stir until mixed. Add flour, baking powder, and salt and stir until smooth. Stir in milk. Divide batter equally between the 2 cupcake liners.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cake is set and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Let cool completely & then frost as desired

I was was in the mood for experimenting as i only had 4 to decorate so i made a bright pink creme cheese frosting with smashed up pieces of green and blacks honeycomb choclate and gold edible glitter. Because it was new and i couldn't help myself.

Visit bakergirl's beautiful blog at the budding baketress for this recipe and hundreds of other delicious sweet treats:

Bakergirl

Madness Free Macaroons

Here is the very simple and easy to follow recipe for the very successful macaroons me and rachel made a few weeks back. In the next post below is a bit more detail and tips about colors and flavors and lots more pictures!

Makes 16

75g ground almonds

115g icing sugar

2 large egg whites- left to sit for a few hours at room temp. V important.

50g caster sugar

1.2tsp vanilla extract

food colouring

Filling:

115g soft cheese

1tbsp icing sugar

flavours/colours of your choice

• Place the ground almonds and icing sugar in a food processor and process for 15 seconds.
• Sift mixture into a bowl.
• Line two baking sheets with baking paper.
• Place egg whites in a bowl and whisk until soft peaks are formed.
• Gradually whisk in the caster sugar to make a firm and glossy meringue.
• Whisk in vanilla extract and your chosen food colouring.

If the food colour makes the mixture slightly runny continue to whisk until you have a very thick and stiff meringue mixture- this is so important to make the macaroons thick and fluffy and not leak all over the baking sheet!!

• Using a spatula carefully fold in the blitzed almond mixture one third at a time.

Fold the mixture until its a shiny and thick ribbon like batter then pour mixture into a piping bag. Use a sandwich bag and cut off the corner if you don't have a piping bag. Insert a small nozzle. Our mixture was luckily so thick we didn't need a nozzle fitted and the bag just helped control the amount we put onto the baking paper.

• Pipe the small rounds onto the baking sheets spacing well. You want them to be thick with little peaks.
• Tap the baking sheets firmly onto the counter to get rid of any bubbles and the peaks.

This action helps create the 'frilly foot'- which is the airy chewy level beneath the hard shell of the top!

• NOW LEAVE AT ROOM TEMP FOR 30 MINUTES. This is so important as this is when the macaroons form the hard shell/skin on the top! Check this after 30 minutes very carefully by pressing the top. If its slightly firm and shiny and doesn't stick then they are ready to go in the oven.
• Place in pre heated oven at 160c with NO FAN.
• Bake for about 10-15 minutes.

If after this time the bottoms are still soft and sticking leave for a few more mins with the oven door open!
Cool for 10 minutes or until they are cool and formed enough to peel of the baking paper.
If they are sticking place in the freezer for 5 minutes and they should come away easily.
Leave to cool on a wire rack completely.
Fill with your desired filling and enjoy!

Taken from the easy to follow recipe book Macaroons
Macaroons: 30 perfect bite sized treats

Macaroon Madness Continued

I am going to admit, hands down, i have no idea how to correctly spell Macaroon/Macaron?! My spell check just tried to make it macaroni. No almonds in that pasta based dish.

Anyway if you want to confuse yourself and question the spelling even more then try making the damn things. After successfully creating these pesky little treats you can call them maccas for all i bloody care. Im just so happy it worked!

Here are the pics from our successful baking session- as you can see you don't have to follow the colors exactly as the recipes suggest- its a great opportunity to experiment- for the below we used violet grape, tangerine and mulberry food colouring paste, which is stronger and less runny than cheap liquid ones so much safer for mixing into delicate mixtures such as this!

You can also experiment with fillings as much as you like also, for example the chocolate rum ganache for the pink ones didn't set right in the fridge so we used a chocolate cream cheese filling instead! Or you could always use whipped cream or a plain buttercream/frosting and add flavours such as peppermint or lavender and dye your macaroons accordingly!
You can also see from the pics the importance of how thick the mixture is (the purple is thicker therefore made much smaller, puffier macaroons) and the spacing you should allow for them to cook!

We made ginger, blueberry cheescake and chocolate rum flavours-