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