ANZAC biscuits

If you've not tried ANZAC biscuits before, then you're missing out. I came across them about two years ago in shop-bought form and immediately decided that they're magical things. Time to try baking them myself! I've used this recipe from the BBC Good Food website, though the variations between different recipes are rather minor.

ANZAC Biscuits
Ingredients

• 85g Dessicated coconut
• 85g Oats
• 100g Plain flour
• 100g Caster sugar
• 100g Butter
• 1tbsp Golden syrup
• 1tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 1tbsp Boiling water
  

Method

1. Mix the coconut, oats, flour and sugar in a bowl.
2. Melt the butter and stir in the golden syrup.
3. Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in the boiling water and add to the butter.
4. Mix the bicarbonate of soda solution with the butter/golden syrup mix.
5. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix, adding water if necessary.
6. Spoon out onto a tray and bake at 180C/Gas Mark 4 for 10-12 minutes until golden.
7. Allow to cool on a wire rack - or better yet, enjoy straight from the oven!
   

As you can see, my mixture is rather dry - I wasn't sure what the consistency was supposed to be like, so I thought I can always add more water later. It seems okay though. This is the first batch about to go into the oven - just under half of the mixture.And straight from the oven (The photo really doesn't do it justice!).

Verdict: Low calorie cake

Here's the finished cake.
As you can see, the top is rather dark - excessively so, really. What happened was I checked the cake with a skewer, and it came out gunky (that's a technical term, by the way). So I put the cake back in the oven for a bit. I checked it again, and once again, the skewer was gunky. Back it goes. Repeat a few more times, and then the top of the cake was so dark that I didn't dare bake it any longer. So I took it out and delivered it with a warning that it might not be baked all the way through and might need zapping in the microwave. It was only after I tried a slice myself that I realised that it was probably just the cooked apple that was getting on the skewer. Doh!Back to what really counts: the cake. It was actually rather good for a low-calorie cake. Because of the over-baking, the top was a bit hard and chewy, but not excessively so and I'd say not unpleasantly so either. The texture was reminiscent of Christmas cake, and quite flavourful too. The apple worked really well, as did the walnut, which provided some much-needed texture. Sweetness was about right I think, and the Splenda® worked really well. I think you could reasonably replace all of the honey with Splenda (with a bit of water to compensate for the lost moisture) and even possibly replace some of the raisins with it too if you wanted to eke out a few more calories. For an ultra-low calorie cake, losing the walnuts would be the next logical step, though I think the cake would lose quite a bit through this. Perhaps replacing the walnuts with sunflower seeds instead might be an option, but I'm not sure. But overall, I'd say it was quite a success!

Slimline baking

In an effort to avoid replicating what happened with Kate's birthday cake, I decided to bake the other birthday cake I owe now. My friend is on a very low calorie diet at the moment - aiming for a mere 1200kcal per day (For contrast, the UK Department of Health Estimated Average Requirements are 1940kcal for women and 2550kcal for men - and a large Big Mac meal from McDonald's (with Coke for the drink) weighs in at a whopping 1160kcal). I've been feeling guilty about completely messing this diet up every time we meet up (there's often alcohol involved followed by eating out somewhere), so for this birthday cake, I thought I'd try to make a sufficiently low-calorie cake that it would merely harm this diet rather than ploughing straight through it with a steamroller. There are shedloads of "low calorie" cake recipes out on the 'net, but if you actually total them up, you find that they are ludicrously calorific and often barely any different to their full-fat equivalents. So I set myself the task of baking a cake that would be 200-250kcal per portion, a portion probably being about 1/8th of the cake. So here we go!

Low Calorie Cake
Ingredients

• 100g Coarsely grated carrot (28kcal)
• 100g Raisins (291kcal)
• 175ml Water (0kcal)
• 100g Honey (304kcal)
• 20g Butter (150kcal)
• 170g Self-raising flour (584kcal)
• 50g Walnuts (345kcal)
• 100g Finely diced apple (52kcal)
• Zest of one orange (~0kcal)
  
• 13g ®* sugar substitute (52kcal)
• 1tsp Ground cinnamon (6kcal)
• 1/2 tsp Nutmeg (6kcal)
• 1tsp Vanilla extract (12kcal)
• 1 Egg (74kcal)

Energy content for the cake: 1904kcal** per cake, 238kcal per 1/8th cake.

Method

1. Put the carrot, raisins, water, honey and butter in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes and allow to cool.
2. Measure out all of the remaining ingredients into a bowl and fold in the carrot mixture.
3. Let down the mixture with a little water if necessary and pour into a cake tin.
4. Bake at 180C/Gas Mark 4 for 1 hour.
5. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
   

Here's the carrot sludge after simmering. I don't think it looks very promising......but not as worrying as the finished cake mixture ready for the oven. It looks a bit like pavement pizza to me )o:.
Well, we'll see how it is when it comes out of the oven!

*I hate artificial sweeteners, and you wouldn't catch me baking with them usually. However, I think without them, this challenge would be entirely impossible. I think that Splenda® is probably about the best sweetener readily available - certainly much better than aspartame or sorbitol, both of which have horrible tastes. Sucralose tastes much more like sugar in my opinion. The company says 100g of sugar is roughly equivalent to 12g Splenda, so this is what I used as a conversion.
**A quick note on precision: Yes, this is overly precise. Especially since most of the nutritional information is from various places on the internet found through Google and I have no idea as to the accuracy of any of this. I would imagine that 2 s.f. would be reasonable, taking inaccuracies in measuring out ingredients and inaccuracies in nutritional information into account, so 1900kcal and 240kcal would be more appropriate values. But hey, this is my blog and I'll be careless and lazy if I want to, dammit!

Verdict: Chocolate torte

In a word: Marvellous. I stand by that initial feeling I had when I had just read the recipe - just simply marvellous. It was crispy on the top, chewy in the middle and wonderfully stodgy at the bottom - a texture reminiscent of good brownies. Intensely chocolatey, though somewhat too sweet for my liking, but I seemed to be the only one who thought so. I think I might cut down the sugar a bit if I bake it again. We had it with custard, which complemented the torte well, though I think ice cream or even a splash of cream would work well too. Both Anita and Kim had a second helping, which is always a good sign, and David and Gina seemed to like it the next day too.

If you haven't been to look at Rouxbe yet, go and do so now. The recipes of theirs that I have tried so far have been truly excellent (the almond and crab apple jelly torte was based on the raspberry and almond torte from Rouxbe) and they have a lot more to offer than just recipes. I particularly liked the fact that Dawn from Rouxbe took the time to leave a lovely comment too!

Welcome home, Anita!

Anita gets back to the UK tomorrow (yay!), so I thought I'd bake her something to welcome her back. I found a marvellous recipe for a chocolate torte on Rouxbe that I thought would be perfect. Here is the recipe, with anglicised units.

Chocolate Torte
Ingredients

• 200g Dark chocolate
• 200g Butter
• 240g Caster sugar
• 5 Eggs
• 1tsp Plain flour
  

Method

1. Melt the chocolate and butter together over a double boiler.
2. Stir in the sugar and cook for a few minutes over the lowest heat.
3. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before stirring in the eggs, one at a time.
4. Stir in the flour.
5. Pour into a cake tin and bake at 190C/Gas Mark 5 for 20-25 minutes.
6. Allow to cool in the tin for at least 5 minutes, then tip out onto a wire rack to cool for another 15 minutes. Remove to a serving plate and cool for a further 3 hours.
   

So nice and simple, at least in theory. In my experience, incredibly simple recipes like this are the most difficult to get right though. Here's a picture of the tins ready to go into the oven (yes, they do just look like tins of brown goop, but that's because that's what they are).Oh my word! They rise in the oven! I wasn't really expecting that!And straight out of the oven. Looks good, doesn't it?But disaster! Attempting to tip one of the tortes out onto the rack.
Both tortes were completely stuck to the tin. Rouxbe warned not to use a springform cake tin as they can leak. In hindsight, I think I should have used a lined springform tin instead. Oh well, never mind. I'll just serve it in the tin and let everyone just hack bits off...

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, but...

...when I gave the banana bread to Kate and told her "it is vegan", she did reply "Really? It looks too good to be vegan.". What a compliment!

Belated birthday banana bread

It was my friend Kate's birthday back at the start of May. Before her birthday, I'd promised her a birthday cake. When her birthday did arrive, I had too much stuff on, so didn't get around to it. And then she went away for a bit, then I went to America for a bit, then I was busy again and then she went away again. Essentially, I never got around to baking her birthday cake. Unfortunately, over the course of all this procrastination, Kate also became a vegan. This proves somewhat problematic with cakes, as egg is the magic ingredient that makes baking cakes easy. But, I thought I'd give it a stab anyway. I read online that half a mashed up, very ripe large banana works as a substitute for one egg, so I thought if I was using mashed up bananas anyway, why not make a banana bread? So here we go...

Vegan Banana Bread
Ingredients

• 125ml/115g Light olive oil
• 220g Golden caster sugar
  
• 3 Very ripe bananas
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
  
• 200g Self-raising flour
• 1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
• 30g Cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp Nutmeg
• 30g Glacé cherries
• 50g Mixed raisins

Method

1. Mix the oil and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.
2. Mash in the bananas with a fork. Add the vanilla and mix well.
3. Sift in the dry ingredients and combine.
4. Chop the glacé cherries and stir into the mixture with the raisins.
5. Pour into a lined cake tin and bake at 180C/Gas Mark 4 for 50-60 minutes.
6. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
   

When I said very ripe bananas, I meant, it!Here's the cake mixture ready for the oven.And here's the finished article.
I really didn't have very much confidence that I'd end up with anything even remotely edible when I started, but as the mixture came together, it started to look more and more like a cake, so I'm actually quite hopeful for it now.

I still owe someone else a birthday cake too, but at least that's only two weeks late so far...

Do earwigs make chutney?

I'm visiting Tracey and Denise tomorrow and I had promised (quite some time ago) that I'd make a slab of cinder toffee/honeycomb for them when I did. So here we go!

Cinder Toffee/Honeycomb
Ingredients

• 200g Caster sugar
• 3 tbsp Golden syrup
• 1 heaped tsp Bicarbonate of soda

Method

1. Put the sugar and golden syrup into a pan and heat gently to the hard crack stage (153C).
2. Add the bicarbonate of soda and whisk through with a balloon whisk.
3. Pour out onto a teflon baking sheet or a large sheet of oiled kitchen foil and allow to cool.
4. When cool and fully set, shatter into manageable pieces.
   

Easy, isn't it? Well, it is if you have a sugar thermometer. You can do it well without one (the sugar changes to a really deep brown just around the right temperature), but the hard crack stage isn't far off caramel and burning - and as soon as you've burned the sugar even slightly, the whole thing tastes burnt and you may as well throw it away and start over. Trust me, it's happened to me before.

Here's the honeycomb just starting to cool.And here it is fully set. As you can see, it deflates quite a bit.

Verdict: ReBoot cake

Oddly enough, it was actually rather good! I had been expecting a monstrosity, but it turned out very well - moist and delicate. Sweetness was perfectly balanced and the various competing flavours complemented each other nicely. The beetroot was barely noticeable, but there was just the slightest hint of it in the background (though I suspect this may have been partly because the beetroot didn't seem overly ripe). It wasn't quite perfect - the lower half of the cake was a bit too moist and slightly soggy. It really could have done with a bit longer in the oven, but the top was getting dangerously dark so I decided to take it out rather than risk burning the top. All in all, rather successful, I'd say!
If anyone's wondering how to transport a cake without a car, this is how!

Just double-click your icon and say the magic word

Confused yet? You probably are. It's a reference to the fantastic cartoon series ReBoot (the quote is from Series 3 Episode 3 - Enzo's telling Cyrus how to reboot into a game). I've just discovered that the whole of ReBoot is available online - it's available on YouTube and neatly grouped here. So go and check it out!

Anyway, the reason for the slightly unusual title is actually in the next line: Beetroot. My brother has succeeded in growing quite a lot of beetroot... but without any real idea of what to do with it. I took two and thought I'd give beetroot cake a go. It's essentially a carrot cake with beetroot substituted for carrot, but also cocoa and spices added to help soak up some of the sweetness and cut through the beetroot flavour. That's the idea anyway...ReBoot Cake
Ingredients

• 250ml Light olive oil
• 250g Golden caster sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 250g Self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp Baking powder
• 50g Cocoa powder
• 1 tsp Ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp Grated nutmeg
• 1 1/2 tsp Ground ginger
  
• 50g Honey
• 2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 220g Beetroot, peeled

Method

1. Beat the sugar, eggs and oil together.
2. Sift in the flour, baking powder, cocoa, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. Add the honey and vanilla extract and fold in.
3. Grate the beetroot coarsely and fold in.
4. Pour into a greased, lined cake tin and bake at 180C/Gas Mark 4 for 1 hour.
5. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

The top of a beetroot after being sliced off. Pretty, no?
Here are the peeled beetroots.
The cake itself, ready for the oven. It just looks like a regular cake with bits in.And finally, the cake straight from the oven.

Verdict: Chocolate cherry fudge

There was (some) method to the madness - I had intended this batch of fudge to be Lonnie's birthday present (it was his birthday earlier in the week, but I'll be seeing him later today) and I didn't want to mention it yesterday on the off-chance that he saw it. But since I'll see him in about an hour's time, I think it's safe to announce it now...

Anyway, the fudge. As I suspected, the 50ml of Kirsch was a little too much, and it was barely set; outrageously soft really. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it rather difficult to handle. As far as alcohol content goes, I think it's nicely balanced - it's obviously alcoholic, but not overpoweringly so. But the big problem is that I am but a novice in fudge-making - it's gone grainy. It turns out that making fudge is rather a subtle art; the texture of fudge comes from very carefully controlled sugar crystal size. Too big, and the fudge becomes grainy and gritty. Too small and it's not really fudge. I just found quite a good guide here, so I might give it another go at some point in the future. For now, I think it's a failure, but not a bad failure - the fudge is still edible and is (just about) recognisable as fudge. But the recipe definitely shows promise (it's got a good taste, just not quite the right texture), so hopefully at some point in the future, I'll get it right!

Chocolate cherry fudge

Before I get into this post, I think there's something I should tell you: I don't like fudge. Never have - I've always found it too sweet, too rich and somewhat sickly. But I also note that this puts me very much in the minority. I've given (shop-bought) fudge as presents to people in the past and it has always gone down inordinately well. So, if for no other reason than that, I feel I should probably expand my repertoire of desserts into the realm of fudge. Plus, it's an additional excuse to play with hot sugar. So anyway, here's the recipe.

Chocolate Cherry Fudge
Ingredients

• 300ml Milk
  
• 350g Soft brown sugar
• 60g Dark chocolate
  
• 2 tbsp Golden syrup
• 75g Butter
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 50ml Kirsch
• 100g Glacé cherries
  

Method

1. Put the milk, sugar, chocolate, golden syrup and butter into a saucepan and heat gently until all the ingredients have melted or dissolved.
2. Bring to the boil and heat to 115C (soft ball stage).
3. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes until the temperature is down to about 60C.
4. Beat the vanilla extract and the kirsch in with a wooden spoon.
   
5. Chop up the glacé cherries and place in the bottom of a well-greased cake tin.
6. Pour the fudge over the cherries and allow to set at room temperature.

Here's the fudge in the tins setting. I probably could (and should) have fit it into a single tin.

I have slight doubts about it, particularly as I think 50ml of kirsch might be a bit too much liquid, but we shall see. Hopefully it will set!

Verdict: Basic white bread

It was a little dense. I suspect underproving - I actually thought that I should leave it a bit longer, but got impatient. But never mind. It was very much recognisably bread, with a beautiful crust and wonderful spongey interior. Despite being a bit heavy, it tasted pretty awesome. There are definitely the makings of a great loaf here, so next time I'll try not to be so impatient!

The staff of life

First off, An Engineer's Cookbook is not dead - far from it in fact. I realise that it's been quite a long time since the last post, but I've kinda been busy and not baking.

Back at the beginning of May, I bought a copy of the River Cottage Handbook No. 3: Bread by Daniel Stevens. Whether or not you like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall or River Cottage really doesn't matter - if you are interested in baking bread, even if it's purely on a hypothetical level, you should buy this book. It's beautifully written and illustrated with the most wonderful photos (as are all of the River Cottage books). His enthusiasm for bread and baking really comes through in the writing and I found it a tremendously entertaining book. Yes, I read it for fun. It's a really good instructional book as well, but mostly I like it for its entertainment value.

Now I've had a chance to try baking my first loaf since reading it...

Basic White Bread
Ingredients

• 500g Strong white flour
• 300g Water
• 10g Salt
• 5g Dried yeast
• 10g Light olive oil
  

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients into a rough dough.
2. Tip out onto a large, clean work surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Test by stretching the dough into a thin membrane - According to the handbook, you should be able to stretch it out thin enough to see daylight through it with strong white flour (though I didn't quite manage this).
3. Shape into a round and return to the mixing bowl. Place the whole bowl into a black bin bag, folding the end over and tucking it under the bowl to seal.
4. Leave in a warmish place and allow to rise until the dough roughly doubles in size.
5. Uncover and tip onto the lightly-floured work surface and squash all over using your fingertips to deflate the dough.
6. (Optional) Shape into a round, return to the mixing bowl/bag and allow to rise again. Deflate the dough again.
7. Place the baking tray in the middle of the oven, a roasting tray in the bottom of the oven and pre-heat oven to its maximum temperature.
8. Divide the dough into two equal parts. Shape into rounds, flour lightly and leave on a board to rest for 10-15 minutes.
   
9. Shape the loaves as required (I shaped them as rounds again) and coat with flour.
   
10. Place on a floured board, cover with plastic bags and leave to prove until roughly doubled in size.
11. Slash the tops of the loaves with a sharp knife.
12. Transfer the loaves to the baking tray in the oven. Put a slosh of boiling water from the kettle in the roasting tray at the bottom of the oven.
13. After 10 minutes, take a look and reduce the oven temperature to ~210C/Gas Mark 6. Bake until done - roughly 40mins total.
    
14. Remove to a cooling rack and allow to cool before slicing.

In the end, I decided my dough looked too dry at the end of step 1, so I actually used 340g of water instead of 300g. I think I used too much, as my dough was too wet and just generally a right pain to work with. But the handbook is extremely instructive and insightful - particularly the recommendation to pause in the kneading every few minutes and shape the dough into a round. He's right too; it really does tame unruly dough! I also used about 7g yeast instead of 5g, so I'll have to hope you can't taste it in the final loaf...

Here's my dough after kneading (at the start of step 3):
And now in the mixing bowl. Pretty, no?
The shaped loaves, ready for the final proving (end of step 9):And a really bad shot of them after 10 minutes in the oven (step 13):And now (drum roll please) here we have it... the finished loaves!I think they look really amazing, personally. I should have made the cuts a bit deeper I think, but otherwise, they look marvellous. How do they taste? Well, I'll let you know as soon as they've cooled down...

Another batch of cookies

Verdict: Guinness gingerbread cake

In the end, I was bothered enough to make custard, but not patient enough. In cooking off the custard to thicken it, I heated it a little bit too quickly and ended up scrambling the eggs. D'oh! Never mind - Instant custard to the rescue!

Anyway, the cake: Pretty good actually. I liked the slight bitterness from the Guinness and the overall flavour was really good. Texture was just like a moist sponge cake really, and the crust was beautifully crisp but not hard, so all in all a decent success I'd say. Pity about the custard...

Guinness gingerbread cake

Salva, Kenny and I are having Noel and Helen over for lunch in a bit. We agreed to share out cooking between the three of us - so Kenny is doing a starter, Salva is doing the main (a paella which smells fantastic and is making me so hungry!) and I'm doing the dessert. I've been wanting to try out a recipe I saw for Guinness Gingerbread, so I thought this would be a good opportunity. The recipe is quite American, so I've adapted it slightly...

Guinness Gingerbread Cake
Ingredients

• 160ml Guinness
• 240g Plain flour
• 2 tbsp Cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
• (Generous) 2 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• (Generous) 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• Large dash of ground nutmeg
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 90g Caster sugar
• 85g Dark soft brown sugar
• 115g Honey
• 180ml (=145g) Light olive oil
  

Method

1. Bring the Guinness to a simmer and then remove from the heat.
2. Whisk the eggs, vanilla extract, sugar (both caster and brown) and honey together in a large mixing bowl.
3. Whisk the olive oil in to the mixture.
4. Add the Guinness and the remaining dry ingredients a little at a time, alternating dry ingredients and stout, whisking gently.
5. Pour into a lined cake tin and bake at 180C/Gas mark 4 for 50-60 minutes. Check with a skewer.

Here's the cake fresh out of the oven:
And removed from the tin:
I was planning to serve this up with Crème Anglaise (a light custard) too:
Crème Anglaise
Ingredients

• 290ml Milk
• Few drops of vanilla extract
• 2 Egg yolks
• 1 tbsp Caster sugar
  

Method

1. Heat the milk and bring slowly to the boil.
2. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl with the sugar.
3. Pour the milk onto the egg yolks, stirring steadily. Mix well and return to the pan.
4. Stir over a low heat until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Do not boil.
   
5. Strain into a chilled bowl.
6. Add the vanilla extract and stir in.

I'm not actually certain I can be bothered to make the custard - we'll see!

Flapjacks

Summer is here! I'm going punting with friends later and I'm bringing the sweet snacks. Flapjacks are awesome, so I thought I'd make a batch. They're based on this recipe for sloejacks, which is absolutely fantastic. I highly recommend the original recipe, though I'll warn you that when I made it, the sloejacks did end up rather alcoholic!

Anyway, back to the flapjacks!

Flapjacks
Ingredients

• 190g Oats
• 150g Butter
• 115g Caster sugar
• 100g Almonds, coarsely chopped
  

Method

1. Melt the butter and mix with the other ingredients.
2. Tip into a shallow, greased baking tray and bake at 180C/Gas mark 4 for 20 minutes.
3. Allow to cool slightly before removing from the tray.
   

Simple, innit? Here's the finished article:

Verdict: Chocolate and nut brownies

Oh my word! These turned out really, really well. I'm not a massive fan of brownies in general, but even I thought these were good. Cakey, slightly gooey, very chocolatey, rich and not overpoweringly sweet. And Anita seemed to like them too :D.

Brownies!

Anita comes back to Oxford tomorrow, so I thought I'd bake her something to welcome her back. I think I've done cookies for too many occasions already this year, so I thought I'd try doing something different and slightly more elaborate. Time to give brownies a go methinks!

Chocolate and Nut Brownies
Ingredients

• 25g Hazelnuts, very roughly chopped
  
• 25g Almonds, very roughly chopped
• 60g Caster sugar
  
• 110g Plain chocolate (50% cocoa)
• 125g Better quality plain chocolate (72% cocoa), roughly chopped
  
• 110g Butter
• 110g Plain flour
• 210g Soft brown sugar
• 2 Eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp Baking powder (I didn't actually have baking powder, so I used a roughly 2:1 ratio cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda mixture)
  

Method

1. Dissolve the caster sugar in a little hot water and heat in a saucepan to ~160C (This is above the Hard Crack stage but below Caramel - I think if you dare, heating it all the way to Caramel will give a better result, but I really didn't fancy overheating it and having to start again) and then remove from the heat.
2. Stir in the chopped nuts and set aside.
3. Melt the 50% cocoa chocolate and butter in a double boiler.
4. Remove from the heat and sift in the flour, brown sugar and baking powder.
5. Once cool enough, beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
6. Stir in the chopped chocolate and the caramelised nuts.
7. Pour into two greased sandwich cake tins and bake at 180C/Gas Mark 4 for ~25 mins.
8. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin.

Here they are straight from the oven:


And a photo taken without flash:I think they look pretty darned good personally! As I removed them from the tin, I snaffled a little bit of the dough that had stuck to the base and had a sneaky taste too - the mixture is really, really good! I think the brown sugar lends a really nice depth to the flavour and it is rather chocolatey too, which I gather is the main point of brownies (though I must confess, I've never really understood why people like them quite as much as they seem to). Anyway, hopefully the nuts will work too and hopefully Anita will like them!

Verdict: An Elizabeth David chocolate cake

I can see why this particular chocolate cake has passed into the realm of legends. It was absolutely fantastic; moist, soft, light and chocolatey. The texture is wonderful - a real melt in your mouth cake. Sweetness is nicely balanced and the almond just sits there in the background and really complements the chocolate. A really fabulous easy cake recipe that will quickly become a personal favourite I think!

An Elizabeth David chocolate cake

It's Helen's birthday tomorrow. Time for me to try my hand at (a version of) the legendary Elizabeth David Flourless Chocolate Cake. Countless variations of this are available online, but here is the variant that I used. I would have added a shot of rum and a spoonful of strong, black coffee to the mix in step 2, but I had no rum and my coffee making stuff was in the lab.

An Elizabeth David Chocolate Cake
Ingredients

• 200g Dark chocolate
• 150g Caster sugar
• 150g Butter
• 100g Ground almonds
  
• 5 Eggs, separated
  

Method

1. Put the chocolate, sugar and butter in a double boiler and melt together.
2. Stir in the ground almonds.
3. Beat in the egg yolks.
4. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the chocolate mixture.
5. Pour into a cake tin and bake for 45 minutes at 180C/Gas Mark 4.
6. Allow to cool fully before removing from tin.

And here is the finished cake! As you can see, it's fallen somewhat on cooling, though I did expect that. But it looks pretty good I think. I might even dust it with icing sugar if I have any...

Verdict: Malteser cheescake

Two thumbs up! The cheesecake was lovely - well balanced, fairly light and sweet but not sickly. I think it could have done with more Maltesers personally, but it was certainly a success. Salva even asked me to marry him after trying it...

The continuing cheesecake adventures

So now I've bought more cheese, and this time it's even the right type. The cheesecake is finished, so here it is, in all its glory:
And here with some bonus moody lighting too:And also removed from the cake tin:As you can see, it's turned out quite thin. I think I used to do this in a smaller cake tin. Oh well, next time I'll just double the quantities (o:.

Tune in tomorrow for the final part of the ongoing saga of the cheesecake. Part three: this time it gets eaten...

Maltesers and garlic? Funny combination...

I promised my labmates quite some time ago that I'd make them cheesecake. Since Inés is leaving Oxford soon and James and Salva are off to Austria just before she goes, now seemed like a sensible time for me to make it. Unfortunately, just as I was about to start making the filling, I discovered that instead of buying cream cheese, I'd managed to buy cream cheese with garlic and herbs. I decided that that probably wouldn't go terribly well with the rest of the cheesecake, so I'll have to go get some cream cheese tomorrow and finish it then. Anyway, in the meantime, here's the recipe as I intend it to be.

Malteser Cheesecake
Ingredients

• 10 Digestive biscuits
• 20 Maltesers for the base
  
• 70g Butter
• 200g Soft cheese
• 90g Caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
  
• 150ml Double cream
• 10 Maltesers to decorate
  

Method

1. Crush the digestive biscuits and Maltesers for the base.
2. Melt the butter and mix with the crushed biscuit/malteser mix. Press firmly into a lined loose-bottomed cake tin and refrigerate to set.
3. Cream the cheese, sugar and vanilla together.
4. Whip the double cream in a separate bowl then fold into the cheese mixture.
5. Spoon over the biscuit base and decorate with crushed Maltesers.
6. Refrigerate until set.

The base is done at least:Stay tuned for the next installment of the exciting adventures of cheesecake!

Verdict: Chocolate and Almond Cake

Well, I said I wasn't going to stay for the marathon, but I am a weak-minded fool and so ended up staying for the entirety of it (though I was asleep for pretty much all of the last film). But anyway, the cake: Dry mostly. I think not enough butter, and I don't think I let it down enough with the milk. Also fairly dense, but that's to be expected, given how much flour I swapped out for cocoa powder. Not nearly enough almond, but there would have been more if I'd had any more. But overall, an edible cake at least, though not one that will win any awards.

Chocolate and Almond Cake

It's Imogen's birthday tomorrow and she's celebrating with a Lord of the Rings marathon tonight. I'm not staying for the actual marathon, so I thought I'd better turn up at the start of proceedings - but I've also just come back from a bike ride. So with about two hours to shower, get ready and bake a cake (including cooling time), I decided that now is probably not the time to go and do any zany experiments. So I'm baking a variation on a standard sponge instead.

Chocolate and Almond Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:

• 120g Butter
• 50g Soft brown sugar
• 70g Caster sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp Almond essence
• 1tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 80g Self-raising flour
• 50g Cocoa powder
• 40g Blanched almonds (there would have been more, but I ran out)
• Dash of milk

For the topping

• 110g Dark chocolate
• 15g Butter
• 2tbsp Water
  
• Blanched almonds to decorate
  

Method

1. Cream the butter and sugar together.
2. Beat in the eggs, vanilla essence and almond essence.
3. Sift the bicarbonate of soda, flour and cocoa powder into the mixture and fold in.
4. Let the cake mixture down to dropping consistency with milk.
5. Pour into a lined cake tin and bake at 180C/Gas Mark 4 for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Remove to a wire rack to cool.
7. In a bowl, melt the chocolate, butter and water over a double boiler.
8. Spread over the cooled cake and decorate with almonds. Allow to set.

Here's the cake fresh from the oven:
And here's the finished article:
I think the cake looks quite dense and the chocolate top hasn't set yet, but it's about 25 minutes walk to Imogen's and I'm already late, so I'd better get going...

Verdict: Coffee and Walnut Cake

In a word: Terrible.

This was, in my opinion, an abject failure. The cake was dense (unsurprising given how much nut and how little flour/raising agents were in the mixture), but most of all tasted of pretty much nothing. The coffee was just not noticeable in any way. The sandwich layer had far too much butter in and the cake tasted greasy. I thought it was absolutely dire, personally. Other people present at the party thought it was better, some even claiming to like it, but I'm sure they were just being polite. I sure as hell won't be baking that cake again!

Not your boring sponge: Part the Second

Time to finish off the cake!

Coffee and Walnut Cake Continued
Ingredients
For the sandwich layer:

• 50g/2oz Butter
• 1 Egg yolk (left over from the cake)
• 125g/4oz Caster sugar
• 50g/2oz Walnuts, finely chopped
• 60ml/2fl oz Strong black coffee
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

For the top:

• 120g/4oz Icing sugar
• 60ml/2fl oz Strong black coffee
• Walnut halves to decorate

Method

1. Cream the butter in a bowl then beat in the other sandwich layer ingredients
2. Cut the cooled cake in half horizontally and spread the sandwich layer mixture on the lower half before replacing the upper half
3. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and stir in the coffee
4. Add water gradually until the icing reaches a spreadable consistency
5. Spread the icing over the top of the cake using a warm palette knife and allow to set
6. Decorate the top with the walnut halves

Here is the end product:

I'm really not sure about this cake. The icing was ridiculously runny (unsurprising given the coffee:sugar ratio) so ended up as more of a glaze than anything else. And the sandwich layer also turned out much more liquidy than I expected. We shall see, but I suspect this might be one of the less successful cakes...

Not your boring sponge: Part the First

Lindsey's birthday falls in the Easter break this year, so she wouldn't be able to celebrate with Oxford friends on her actual birthday (a predicament I can sympathise with). Thus, she's having her celebration tomorrow instead and I decided to bake her a cake in lieu of a present. Now, I have pretty much always thought that sponge cakes are fairly boring. Nice, but very boring. So I thought I'd try something different. She said she wanted a coffee cake, so I did almost resort to making a sponge and adding instant coffee. But luckily, I stumbled across a more interesting recipe that I could adapt. So here's the cakey bit of the cake. Sandwich filling (yes it will be a sandwich cake, but I don't have sandwich cake tins - in a perfect world, I would have baked it for ~25 mins at 200C/Gas Mark 6 in shallow sandwich tins) and maybe also icing will follow in a subsequent post...

Coffee and Walnut Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:

• 5 Eggs, separated
• 125g/4 1/2oz Caster sugar
• 125g/4 1/2oz Soft dark brown sugar
• 250g/9oz Walnuts, finely chopped
• 2 tsp Instant coffee, crushed
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 100g/3 1/2oz Plain flour

Method

1. Mix four of the egg yolks with the caster sugar and soft dark brown sugar in a bowl
2. Stir in the chopped walnuts, the instant coffee and the vanilla extract
3. Stir in the flour, a little at a time
4. Whisk the (five) egg whites in a separate bowl until they form stiff peaks. Fold gently into the cake mixture
5. Pour into a lined loose-bottomed cake tin and bake at 170C/Gas Mark 3-4 for an hour, or until a skewer comes out clean
6. Remove from the tin and allow to cool on a wire rack

I was amazed when I took it out of the oven first time around - it looked absolutely gorgeous, so I thought I had better take a photo before poking a hole in the top with a skewer:

And here's the finished cake:

Incidentally, if anyone is wondering why the holes in the top of the cake are quite so large, it's because I don't have skewers and I've been using chopsticks to test my cakes! (Actually, a much bigger problem at the moment is that I don't have a mixing bowl. I've been making my cakes in saucepans mostly!).