Brown butter cherry chocolate blondies

We managed to beat the birds this year in collecting a lot of our cheeries, and this was the first recipe we tried (original recipe here) although we didn't follow it faithfully it was totally a favourite for the summer of lockdown!

Ingredients

Blondies

• 10 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
• 1tbl flax seed in 3tbl of water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch salt
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 cup ripe cherries, pitted and quartered
• 100g chocolate, chopped into small pieces, approx 0.5mm

Topping

• 1/4 cup ripe cherries, pitted and quartered
• 30g semisweet chocolate, chopped

Method

• Make Brown Butter: Cook butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until it foams, turns clear, and then turns a deep brown, apparently this should take about 6mins but it took longer. The butter separates and leaves grainy pieces in the bottom. I filter out the grainy bits. Pour brown butter into a medium bowl and let cool to room temperature.
• Preheat oven to 180c and line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper
• Add brown sugar, flax seed egg replacement, extract, and salt to bowl and whisk until smooth. 
• Fold in flour just until incorporated, then fold cherries and chocolate into batter. 
• Scrape batter into prepared pan and use a piece of parchment paper coated with nonstick spray to press batter evenly into pan. 
• Top with remaining cherries and chocolate, pressing gently into the batter; tap pan sharply to remove air bubbles.
• Bake for approx 35 minutes, until golden and set in the middle, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with a few crumbs attached. 
• Cool completely in pan on a wire rack.  Carefully lift parchment to remove bars from pan and place on a cutting board; cut into squares with a sharp knife.

Banana, Peanut Butter and Choc Chip Muffins

After an unsuccessful cookie baking exercise last week I decided it was time to try another baking session with the kids. We had a glut of ripe bananas in our house, and whilst wondering what to do with them I came across two bread recipes from AllRecipes and from 12Tomatoes which looked quite interesting. We also had a party the following day so I decided to give turning the recipes into muffins a go. The first batch was quite small - giving around 10 large muffins, so for the second I  played with the recipe a bit. This recipe will create around 12 large muffins, or 20 smaller ones (good for kids). They went down a treat at the party and stayed nice for a couple of days afterwards in an air tight container.  I reduced the amount of peanut butter purely as I only had so much left - you can add more, I just liked the hint of peanut I got from this recipe so I would hold off on doing more than 1/2 cup although the original stated up to 3/4 cup.

Ingredients

Dry

• 2.5 cups self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar

Wet

• 3 ripe bananas
• 3 tbl crunchy peanut butter 
• 1 tbl flax seed
• 3 tbl warm water
• 1/4 cup of margarine
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Additional

• 1 cup of dairy free choc chips
• splash of almond milk

Method

• Pre heat oven to 180C
• Line a muffin or cupcake tin - depending on size of muffins you want.
• Take a medium bowl and mash down the bananas
• Take the flax seed into a small bowl and mix with the warm water 
• When the flax seed mix is thick/glutenous mix with the bananas 
• Add in the rest of the wet ingredients and mix together, make sure there are no large lumps in it. You can melt the margarine first but I didn't bother.
• Take a large bowl and mix together the dry ingredients
• Make a well in the dry ingredients and then slowly add in the wet whilst continuously mixing
• Once mixed make sure the consistency is quite firm - if  too firm add a bit of milk. The mix should stick properly to a spoon. At this point add the choc chips and give a further quick stir.
• For large muffins use a large tablespoon to put the mix into the cases, I filled them approx 3/4 of the casing.  
• Cooking time: 12 mins for the small cup cake size, 16 for the larger size

Sorry about lack of photos, will have to make them again and then update this post.

Chocolate Cake with raspberry layer

Well it has been a while! I have been baking but not recording it, sorry. Life has been busy but getting some down time thanks to the oldest off with chicken pox, so balancing working at home with making sure he is entertained. Yesterday this was done by doing some baking. We modified two recipes into one, the first was http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/i-can-cook/makes/i-can-cook-stickychocolatecake/ which we saw being made on Cbeebies the day before, the second http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/13485/eggless-chocolate-cake was a bigger version, for a full family cake. This made one loaf tin and three cup cakes as little guy can never wait for big cakes to be finished!! Each worked well, but the cupcakes did get wet thanks to the raspberries in the bottom.

Ingredients

(I didn't go diary free, just egg free)

• 160ml Milk
• 1/2 tbsp. Vanilla Essence
• 85g Butter
• 2 tbsp. Golden Syrup
• 300g Self Raising Flour
• 1 tsp Bicarbonate Soda
• 35g Cocoa Powder
• 125g Caster Sugar
• Handful of raspberries

If you don't go down the raspberry route, and want a plain chocolate cake in a round 9 inch tin...

• 1 small tub of cherry yoghurt (I used a soya yoghurt which was lush)
• 1 large beetroot (the cooked, vacuum packed version)

Add both these to the milk and liquidise (then add the bicarb of soda). Mix in as much liquid as you need.

Method

• Grease the tin with some butter, I would recommend that you use some greaseproof paper in the bottom too (I didn't and the cake/raspberries did stick a little to the bottom, so I had to scrap it out and spread it back over the base of the cake)
• Pre heat oven to 190C/ 170C (fan assisted)
• Mix together the milk and the bicarbonate of soda in a cup
• Mix together the flour and cocoa powder in a "dry bowl"
• Cream together the  butter, sugar, syrup and vanilla essence "wet bowl" (big bowl)
• Slowly add some of the milk mixture and dry bowl mixture into the wet bowl, continuously mixing. (Little chap helped add these, I would then stir, he would add more etc)
• Once you have a smooth, but slightly stiff mixture you are ready to put in the tin
• Take a handful of raspberries and layer them at the bottom of the tin, then add mixture on top. Smooth the mixture out as otherwise the cake will be "lumpy" on top as it rises. 

Notes

• I would  be tempted to try the raspberries on the top of the cake next time, or even all through the mixture. The raspberries helped with the moisture of the cake.
• This was very nice with ice cream and extra raspberries.
• The cupcakes took around 15 mins
• The cake took around 45 mins
• The raspberry free round (9inch) cake took around 40 mins. Just keep checking it!

 

Double Chocolate Chip Cup Cakes

I found this recipe on the Annabel Karmel website and decided to try it to keep little man entertained while we emptied the house ready for our move! Plus little man has been invited to a birthday party and they are not providing egg free cakes. Unfortunately I have lent out the cake pop maker so will be trying this as a cupcake recipe. This makes 12 cupcakes.

They didn't sink! Yeah. 

Ingredients

• 145g sifted plain flour 
• 150g caster sugar (or vanilla sugar) 
• 20g nice quality cocoa powder 
• 62g vegetable oil 
• 175ml water 
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 
• small pinch of salt 
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 
• 100g of choc chips

Method

• pre-heat oven to 180C / gas mark 4. 
• Set out the cupcake cases
• In a bowl, sift the flour, bicarb of soda, salt and cocoa powder. Mix well. 
• Add sugar and mix well 
• Add oil, water, choc chips and vanilla essence and mix well
•  Pour into cupcakes 
• Cook for approx 22 mins

Notes

Original recipe says it serves about 6, so I'm guessing a 8" tin, and says to grease a tin and pour in to the baking tin/ring and bake for 1 hour in the middle of the oven or until a knife inserted in to the centre comes out clean.

These tasted a little funny to us... The taste of bicarbonate of soda seemed to come through. Will be trying again with self raising flour or adding some orange/lemon juice to balance it out. I think even a bit of vinegar would help. 

Chocolate Oaties

This week we did two lots of baking, on Monday we did the apricot & coconut cake as an actual cake rather than cake pops, which didn't last two days thanks to visitors on Tuesday morning (I've updated the blog post with a photo of the proper cake)! Therefore on Tuesday afternoon when my little one asked about baking we decided to make some cookies. I did think about trying my egg free cheesecake recipe, but I would like to try that unwatched/ unhelped first! As we had some left over oats from a past recipe so I decided to use them for our baking. My little one loved the melted chocolate stage, and everyone was a big fan of the final product.

Ingredients

• 125g soft brown sugar
• 125g butter
• 125g self raising flour
• 125g rolled oats
• 50g raisins (optional)
• 1 tbl spoon golden syrup
• 100g chocolate
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Methodology

Biscuits

• Preheat oven to 165C (fan assisted)
• Measure butter and syrup into a saucepan & stick on a low heat
• Add self raising flour, oats, raisins, bicarbonate of soda & sugar into a big bowl and give to little one to mix while you continue to melt the butter and syrup together.
• Once the wet ingredients are melted and mixed, add to the dry ingredients and mix with a spoon.
• Get out two baking trays (I used non stick)
• Roll into balls slightly smaller than golf balls (my mix made 14 cookies)
• Put on tray & lightly press down
• Cook for 15 mins, until golden brown
• Leave in tray for 3 mins to 'set'
• Put on cooling tray to cool.

Chocolate Topping

• Melt the chocolate on a low heat (I've got induction, a 1 or 2 works best, I also used the saucepan from melting the butter & syrup together as butter gives chocolate a nice sheen, this did not work too much but did save on washing up!)
• Once melted I let my toddler lick the spoon while I painted the biscuits
• Using a pastry brush paint half the cookies with chocolate. 
• Put back on the cooling tray. 

The final produce waiting to set

Update 01/07/2016: I've just done this again, added 40g chopped cashew nuts, 40g chopped dry dates and a mashed banana. This meant adding more flour and oats. Did this ad hoc during the mixing stage. 

Chocolate & Marshmallow Cornflake Cakes

Well, this baking weekly effort has been hard to maintain. Mainly as we have to keep eating it & I'm still trying to lose some of that illusive baby weight. So will admit to finding other things to do with our days!

I have been trying some proper home made dinners, they don't really need to go in this blog as they never had egg in the original recipes. Mind you I still might add them as notes on what I did, what worked and what has failed. At the moment the notes are in magazines!

I know this recipe doesn't have egg in it anyway, and I know that there are loads of these recipes out there.. Still, added this one as it is our first step back to baking for a while, and although it is a non egg recipe anyway I wanted something that slowly introduced us back into cooking this week, with a non baking option. Straight to fridge!

Plus this is a tweaked recipe, I've cut out a little of the syrup as seemed too much & added the marshmallows. As far as I can work out from forums etc the syrup is for added sweetness & leaves the cakes slightly sticky, you could miss it out if you want the final cakes to be more 'solid chocolate'.

Ingredients

• 80g Cornflakes
• 50g butter
• 50g mini marshmallows
• 100g milk chocolate
• 2 1/2 tbl spoons Golden Syrup

Methodology

• Melt together the butter, chocolate & syrup (with induction just put ingredients straight into a saucepan and heat on 2 or 3 for around 5 mins)
• Put cornflakes & mini marshmallows in a very large bowl if you've got a little one doing the stirring! I let my little one do a bit of mixing here before adding the chocolate mix
• Add the melted chocolate mix to the dry ingredients
• Stir until everything is covered in the chocolate
• Spoon into approx 12 cupcake cases.
• Put in fridge & let to 'set' (approx 2 hours)