Chocolate brownies

These are really naughty. They use a whole block of butter. A whole block. But if that hasn’t put you off…

250g/9oz butter
9oz plain chocolate
3.5oz white chocolate
4 eggs
6oz light muscovado sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
3oz plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1tbsp cocoa

Melt butter and plain chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. Mix sugar, eggs and vanilla extract and beat until pale.
Add dry ingredients. Carefully fold in chocolate and butter mixture.
Pour into 8″ lined tin. Melt white choc and dollop and swirl on top. Bake at 180 degrees for 20-25 mins.

These keep though are nicest warm out the oven. If they get a little old, 20 seconds in the microwave before devouring gives them a new lease of life!

However…..Dave and I have both made these and found that we got a slight spongy, odd thin layer on the bottom of some,parts of the bake. I don’t know why but think it’s to do with the egg mix. If you have any ideas and have read this far please,let me know!

Anorexia vs baking

It’s a bit of a conflict of words, isn’t it: “anorexia” and “baking”?

I had anorexia when I was younger. Thank God I came through it and am healthy physically (apparently) but it’s never really left. I still get the thoughts. I still have “off days”. I still want to lose weight. And yet…And yet I love the brownies that I baked last week! I want to bake for my housemates’ birthdays, and I’ll eat with them. I love food!! I hate to admit it but I do.

I had a pub dinner with friends last night and so today the guilt is there. But of course, I still had that brownie at lunch, didn’t I?! 

I don’t understand why I do it. The guilt takes over. Again. I found myself pray over Christmas that I would become anorexic again! Or at least, God, give me the energy to eat less. Just for a bit. Just to lose half a stone. How could I do that?! I have the most loving family, boyfriend, friends and God that any young woman could ask for. I know my Saviour who died for me whatever number the scales show. 

There are probably lots of bakers who struggle with the amount of time they spend around food. It’s such a joy to bake for other people but it’s a battle to not nibble whilst cooking. But Heaven is gonna be a banquet! Food IS a blessing!

There are also lots of Christians who struggle with image. This shouldn’t be the case. Psalm 139:14 “…I was fearfully and wonderfully made…” we all were. 

I don’t know how we can solve the pandemic of eating disorders and distorted views of body image and worth. We were made in God’s own image (Genesis 1:27) but it’s going to take a miracle for so many young men and women to believe this. 

Somehow we need to tackle this problem. I am seriously concerned for young people growing up now. Not just with food-related pressures but all the others, too. I don’t know how the we can turn around the trend in thoughts and attitudes.

But I do know this: turning back to our Creator must have something to do with it. Knowing truly and deeply in our hearts – not just intellectually – where our identity is. Or rather, WHO our identity is in.

my chocolate orange cake

My favourite bake of 2014 so far…! It’s rich and scrummy, and I made up the recipe though it’s based on a simple 8oz sponge.

Ingredients:

• 8oz caster sugar
• 8oz butter
• 6oz Self Raising flour
• 2oz cocoa
• tsp baking powder
• Milk
• 1 orange
• 3 eggs

Ganache: Double cream, dark chocolate, 1 orange

Cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs, and then the dry ingredients. Then add the grated zest of an orange and also its juice. Give it a good beating. Add 2 tbsp mill if you feel the mixture needs some more liquid.

I used a hemisphere, 8.5″ cake mould which I greased and floured but you could use a normal cake tin to bake it in. In the mould I found it took an age to bake and so the top was a little burned but I cut that off and tried to forget the little mishap!

Let it cool and then make the ganache which is simply breaking up 100g dark chocolate into a bowl, then heating 100ml cream until it nearly boils and then adding the cream over the chocolate. Mix until the chocolate melts. Add half an orange’s grated zest, and a squeeze of juice. Leave to cool a little and spread over the cake.

The cake is really moist and rich and tastes so good with the orange bursting through! Decorate how you wish. I didn’t have time to crystallise some orange peel so just put some on top for effect.

Honestly try this – and not any artificial orange flavours used!

 

 

Sweet Potato and Salmon Fish Cakes

These are delicious, healthy and simple :)

You’ll need (for 6 cakes): 2 salmon fillets, 2 sweet potatoes, 1 finely chopped red chilli, chives/dill/parsley, seasoning, 1 lime, 2 eggs, breadcrumbs.

Boil the potatoes until becoming soft and add the skinned salmon to poach it until it is cooked.
Drain and then mash these together, adding the zest of the lime, the juice of half of it, your choice of herb, the chilli and the egg.

Leave until cool enough to handle and then shape into fish cakes. Dip into a beaten egg and then into the breadcrumbs.
You can either shallow fry them for a few minutes on each side or bake in the oven for 20mins. If shallow frying rest in the fridge for 20mins so they keep their shape.
Serve with veg, and they taste great with sweet chilli dipping sauce. Make chips if you need more carbs!!

More Shortbread

What do you get for your boyfriend’s parents for Christmas? Ahh I had no idea. Except. They like my baking: sorted!

Since I’d made shortbread recently and it’d gone down well; it was easy and keeps, I decided they would be perfect. On Christmas Eve morning (still in dressing gown!) I set about making them. It would only take me a short while and then I would have time to revise before the Children’s Carol service. If only.

After a disaster of trying to make shapes (DON’T bother! – it doesn’t work. Obviously.) I had to re-make a batch. I was making three flavours: plain, choc chip and lemon. They all follow the same basic recipe I blogged last week. For the lemon ones, add the grated rind of 2 lemons (adjust depending on how much you/the recipients like lemon).

They all turned out well. And definitely try lemon ones – the crumbs of that flavour were definitely my favourite!

I put them in the little cellophane presentation bags you can get, tied with Christmas ribbon and wrote on gift tags to label the flavours. They went down a storm – success!

Christmas presents

Christmas is not all about presents, despite what we can be led to believe. It’s called CHRISTmas for a reason. However, we do also get presents and this year there was something of a theme developing with mine…plus what I got earlier in the month for my birthday:

• Muffin tin + cupcake cases
• Gingerbread house cutters and decorations
• 3 tier cooling rack
• Hemisphere cake tin
• 3 x sandwich tins (2 silicone and one silicone seal)
• Icing shape cutters x2 and moulding kit
• Mary Berry’s Christmas Collection (SIGNED!!)
• GBBO baking book (thanks bf’s parents!)
• Mary Berry’s autobiography – “Recipe for Life” READ IT. I have already. It had me in tears. Taking photos. Quoting. It’s brilliant.

Either people know I love baking or they’re hinting that they want feeding….or both.

Chocolate Chip Shortbread

David asked me if I can bake shortbread. So of course, I then had to!

Mary Berry (legend) calls this “the very best shortbread” so who am I to dispute that?!

8oz plain flour
4oz semolina
8oz butter (do not use marg for shortbread!)
4oz caster sugar
Chocolate chips (optional)
Dipping chocolate and sprinkles (optional)

Mix flour and semolina then add butter and sugar. Rub with finger tips until it starts to bind. When it does, add the choc chips. Keep going! Slowly it will form a dough and you can bring it together into a ball.
Press into a greased and or lined baking tin to however thick you like – thinner = crispier. Prick with a fork and chill.
Bake at 160 fan for about 25 mins or until golden brown. Unfortunately you can’t listen to shortbread!

Leave to cool for a bit in the tin but while warm, cut whilst in the tin into fingers. When possible, remove from tin.

Melt chocolate and spoon over one end,of each,finger. Add sprinkles

Gingerbread pile of rubble…

My housemates bought me cookie cutters to make a gingerbread house for my birthday so naturally I couldn’t resist trying it out immediately!

I made the gingerbread – I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made it – and duly cut out all the pieces. I had a LOT. (Clearly I didn’t need double the recipe….)

It smelled amazing. It tasted good. It looked okay… I baked the parts which took forever in my small oven! But disaster came when putting it together….

 

Lesson #1: bake The gingerbread for longer. It being probably about a decade since I’ve made gingerbread, I kind of guessed. Very embarrassing – it went wrong. Bake it longer than you’d expect! It tasted LOVELY but what is good as a gingerbread person is not necessarily best for a house.

Lesson #2: Make strong (cement-like!?) icing to hold it together.

Lesson #3: It’s okay that it went wrong because James Morton (from GBBO) didn’t get his perfect on the bake off and this was my first time. And I loved James. So it’s okay. It IS okay!

 

 

Baking in the Bible

Just conducted a little experiment: put the word “bake” into the Biblegateway search of the Bible and got 32 results. “Cake” got 31 results; “cook”, 6; “flour”, 82; and “bread”, 366 (no surprises that’s the most common!).

“Stars” is the nearest physics thing I can come up with in the Bible and that gets 55 results.

Interestingly, there is quite a difference between the ESV and NIV translations of the bible: I’ve quoted the former above.

Not too sure what has been gained from this little search (other than a few minutes of physics time wasted) but I enjoyed it! :) Such fun!

Flapjack

I had 2 friends round for lunch after church yesterday and found they don’t bake but would like to. So, I thought we’d start off with simple flapjack. In their words: “this is SO EASY! Even a child could do this”. Go bake, kids :)

6oz butter + 5oz golden syrup + 2oz sugar (caster/demerara the best but granulated would work too) into a pan. Heat and melt everything together.

Take off the heat, add 9oz of porridge oats and mix in. Put into a tin lined with greaseproof baking paper, so that it’s 1.5cm thick. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180’C for about 20mins or until golden on top.

Now be patient! Mark out the squares of flapjack whilst still in the tin. Then leave to cool in the tin so that it doesn’t fall apart when you take it out of the tin. Move to a wire rack and cut some more.

Et Voilà!

Variations:

Add raisins/sultanas or chocolate chips, or even cinnamon to your flapjacks with the oats. Be creative!