Nigella's Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Aka the best chocolate chocolate chip cookies you will EVER make.

The other day I was sitting in my room YouTubing Nigella videos when I came across one for some chocolate chip cookies I had found in one of her books a while back. After scrolling through her website again last night I found the recipe again. My concentration on work was waning. It found me at a time of weakness! I caved and I baked.

Holy mackeral!

My life is complete.

The ultimate cookie recipe is here before you.

As quickly as you bake them they disappear. That is if they even get to being baked.

Far out.

Sorry, just give me a moment to get over this mind blow.

Right. Focus Sophie. Focus on the cookie.  . . nom cookie.

This recipe is supposed to make 12 rather large cookies but I think I managed 16. Probably would have been more had I not eaten so much dough (omg worst food coma of my life).

Here are a few notes on things to do/things I did

• If you choose not to use the ice cream scoop method, roll the dough into balls and then with a bit of force throw/slap them down onto the baking tray. This will flatten out the bottoms a wee bit.
• I only used half the chocolate suggested in the recipe (200g v 400g). This is because I am too poor haha and wanted to save the rest of the chips for another day (probably today to make a second batch).
• Pop 5g of extra butter in with the chocolate so that when you take it off the heat it doesn't solidify but instead remains fluid and scrapable.
• You want to undercook these. Brown cookies are hard to bake. They are so easy to overcook and then they turn out dry. It is better to under bake them, that way they will definitely turn out fudgy. 
• As crazy as it sounds, listen to your baking. When you take these out of the oven you still want to hear a bit of sizzling going on. If they cookies aren't singing, they are overdone.
• The tops should still be a wee bit moist looking.
• Don't eat your body weight in dough. It hurts.
• While your food sci class will love you for it, don't give half of these away haha you will regret it when you are back home having just eaten the last one and wanting more.
• On that note, do give them away. Sophie, stop being so chubs.

Right, shall we do this?

Yes. Yes we should.

Nigella's Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from this glorious recipe here

makes 12-16ish

125g butter, softened

5g butter

125g dark chocolate (use at least 70% cocoa solids)

75g soft brown sugar

50g caster sugar

1 cold egg

150g plain flour

30g cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

200g (or 400g if you really want) dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees on bake.

In a double boiler, or a heatproof bowl over a saucepan with a small amount of simmering water in it, melt the dark chocolate and the 5g of butter. Remove from heat once fully melted together.

Meanwhile, cream together the butter and the sugars. 

Scrape in the melted chocolate and mix until combined. 

Add in the cold egg and vanilla and beat until beautiful and thick.

Sieve in the flour, cocoa and baking soda and mix until just combined (over mixing will make the cookies tough).

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Either use an ice cream or cookie scoop to scoop out mounds onto a baking tray lined with baking paper or roll the dough into balls and slap them onto the tray to flatten the bases out. Don't flatten them with a fork.

If you are making 12 large cookies, bake for 10-12 minutes (see my notes up top about listening to the cookies) but for smaller ones I feel like 8 minutes is the magic number. Again this will depend on your oven. I feel like the oven here at the flat can be a bit cray cray sometimes. 

When they come out of the oven, leave them on the tray for a few minutes, they are really delicate and can break really easily if you move them too soon.

Transfer onto a tea towel or cake rack to cool.

Devour, savour, demolish, destroy . . . share???

Basically, enjoy!!

Just an update since this afternoon when I posted this. After my friend Matt and I drank our cider and ate our wedges (it is a Tuesday tradition) we decided that cookies needed to be made. Which means I make cookies and he tells me hilarious stories about everything. So I decided to do a double batch and make 8 large cookies with the ice cream scoop. This is how they turned out.

So much great.

The rest I made small like the first batch I did. The kids he has to tutor over at Knox tonight are gonna love him!

Nunnite!! xx

Chocolate Bar Brownies

This is day four of that chocolate baking bender I was telling you about.

To be fair, I made these for my flavour science class the next day. We had a 50% exam/test to sit and I thought a spot of brownie would help everyone feel better after the two hours of brain drain.

These were originally called Kit Kat Brownies. As in the Kit Kat brownies from Butter Baking. But I didn't have all the chocolate required (445g) so I decided to use her other recipe for her pretzel brownies as the base as it was mighty fantastic! So I removed all the pretzels and peanut butter truffles and replaced them with oodles of chopped up chocolate bars. It was originally supposed to be only Kit Kats but Cadbury bars were only $0.79 at New World that day, so a couple of moros, moro golds, and some spare caramello may or may not fallen into the mixture. Tragedy I know.

This will be brief, after all I have technically told you all about this one before, it just has a few different inclusions that's all.

Chocolate Bar Brownies
makes 20x30cm sized tray

225g butter
1 3/4 cups soft brown star
1 cup and 2 tablespoons cocoa
100g good quality dark chocolate (60-70% cocoa solids will do)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup dark/white chocolate chips
2 Kit Kat chunky bars
3 more chocolate bars of your choice (I definitely recommend moro gold bars. Bounty would be good. So would twix. om nom nom! Actually you can flag the kit kats and put whatever you like in!)

Preheat the oven to 170C. Line a 20x30cm baking tray with baking paper.

In a double boiler (ie a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water) melt the butter. Add in the chocolate and stir until smooth. Dissolve in the brown sugar and cocoa. Stir until evenly combined. Transfer this mixture into a large bowl and beat for a minute until smooth.

Add the eggs and yolk one at a time, beating well between each addition until the mixture is thick and smooth.

Add in the flour and stir as many times as you need until the flour "whiteness" disappears.
Stir in the chocolate chips and the chocolate bars (that have all been chopped up into relatively chunky pieces).

Press the mixture into the tray and bake for 20-25 minutes. Remember it is better to undercook than over cook so definitely give it a check at 20 minutes as each oven is different.

Enjoy!!

Chocolate Lamington Cupcakes

I have been baking non stop. I think today is the only day I haven't made anything in the last like ten days. That's pretty bad. In those last ten days I have made another brownie, hot cross buns, countless cookies including the white chocolate, maple syrup spice cookies that I have yet to perfect and a double layered vanilla bean cake. I think it is just turning into a habit. I really need to stop.

I think the problem is that it is actually quite lonely in our little three person flat. The others are always doing something away in their rooms. I like being alone but I prefer friendly company more. Sometimes you don't even have to interact with the person. You can just sit there doing separate things but still feel like you are being part of something and spending time with that person. Take my best friend Cara for example. We can sit in the same room for hours not talking (although lets be honest, going without talking to her never lasts long!) but we still feel like we are spending quality time together. I think thats why my friends sometimes just find me sitting on the end of their bed, or on their couch just chilling, just absorbing the friendly, loving vibes that are around.

How did I get onto this? ah right, I am substituting in-flat human contact with baking. After all baking equals love. Hmm gift giving (especially of the edible kind) and kind acts of service (get your minds out of the gutter people!) are my expressive love languages.

So now it seems I have a whole stack of recipes I need to blog about. Looks like a job for this coming weekend! But for now I will share with you some delicious cupcakes.

Lamingtons are having a bit of a comeback in the trendy department. You find some very cute looking ones hiding away in some nifty cafes. There is nothing better than a fresh lamington filled with whipped cream and a dollop of really good berry jam. Nom! They are quite a retro wee cake, reminiscent of tea rooms and bakeries stopped at during long family car trips in small New Zealand towns. They are on the same sort of nostalgic level as the mighty custard square.

In the Treats from Little and Friday book I have they have these amazing looking lamingtons. The only thing is that thy aren't your typical lamingtons. They are in fact a cone of really moist, dense chocolate cake smothered in ganache and thickly desiccated coconut. They looked amazing. I really wanted to make them. The only problem was that I didn't have the cone shaped moulds that they baked them in.

So instead of making cone shaped lamingtons I made cupcake sized ones. But I didn't make a dense heavy cake, I made a light and airy chocolate cupcake sponge instead which I then smothered in chocolate ganache. They were divine. They looked really effective too. They certainly didn't last long, especially after giving some to the neighbours as well as Maria, Jamal and Jolene on my way to the gym. Its a good thing most of them were given away, like I said, there are only three of us here.

So the cupcake recipe I used came from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook by Tarek Malouf but I made a wee change. Instead of using 140g of caster sugar I used instead muscovado sugar. This is a less refined sugar as it still has molasses in it. This doesn't make it any better for you though! It has a greater moisture content and the granules are slightly bigger. It lends a wonderful colour and more intense flavour than regular caster or even regular brown sugar. This is perfect for making chocolate cakes with. It make the cakes slightly more velvety that they usually would be. It's hard to describe but I feel like velvety is a good world.

Now for those of you who have never made a ganache before (dear lord you have been missing out!) it is really easy but you are gonna want to do it a few hours before you want to use it as it needs to set in the fridge.

In a double boiler (ie a heatproof bowl over a simmering pan of water) you want to heat your cream. Once the cream is hot enough so you cant put your finger in it for longer than five seconds you can pop in your chocolate. Now I like using the Nestle dark chocolate melts for this. I just like the intense flavour but the sweetness too. For these cupcakes I used just a block of Cadbury 70% cocoa solids chocolate but substituted in about a quarter of it with just plain dairy milk to make it sweeter. It's all up to personal preference. Stir in the chocolate until it is all melted and smooth. Take the bowl of the water (carefully!) and leave to sit on the bench until it is cool enough to pop in the fridge. Don't cover it while it is still hot because then you get condensation dripping back into it. Then once it is almost fully set (still spreadable but firm), use a hot knife or palate knife to artfully swirl the ganache onto the cupcake. Then sprinkle over the coconut and you are ready to go.

I used rather large cupcake cases for these. The Jaytee ones (in the supermarket) I find are quite small. I wanted a decent sized cupcake for this. Just whatever you do, only fill it to 2/3 of the way up otherwise you end up with a very messy spill over! Not ideal!

Chocolate Lamington Cupcakes
Adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook
Makes 16

200g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
280g muscovado sugar (brown sugar will also suffice)
3 teaspoons baking powder
80g butter, softened
240ml (1 cup) milk (preferably whole but it doesn't really matter)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

about a cup of large flaked desiccated coconut

for the ganache:
400g good dark chocolate (If using really high cocoa solids try try substituting in a proportion of milk chocolate to make it sweeter if you wish)
1 cup full fat cream


To make the ganache, heat the cream in a heatproof bowl over some simmering water. Place the chocolate into the bowl, leave to sit for a minute then stir until melted and smooth. You may want to take the bowl off the heat if you are worried about the chocolate burning on the bottom. Leave to cool on the bench before transferring to the fridge for a few hours.


Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

In a large bowl mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder until a fine sandy consistency is achieved.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, milk and vanilla together. Slowly add, in thirds this mixture to the dry mixture. Beat well after each addition. Once all the liquid has been added, beat on high for a minute so that the mixture becomes thick and smooth.

Spoon the mixture into a muffin tray lined with large paper cases until they are two thirds full (!!!).

Bake for 20 or so minutes or until the sponge bounces back when touched, a skewer comes out clean, your house smells like baked cupcake or you can hear them no longer sizzling away.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Leave to cool completely before smothering in ganache and sprinkling with coconut.

Enjoy!!

Peanut Butter Truffle, Triple Chocolate, Pretzel Brownie

Some people cover their feelings with food. Some people try and drown out their sorrows by drinking.

I bake out my stresses and woes. 

Im currently on day three of my chocolate baking bender.

So in the last week I am pretty sure I have been to New World like every day to buy more ingredients. 

The peak of this tragic behaviour was when I went to New World twice within twelve hours and purchased six blocks of chocolate, a kilo of butter, more chocolate chips, a nice big jar of peanut butter and a bottle of cream.

You know magic is about to happen when those items fill up your basket. 

Four days ago I somehow ended up following Butter Baking on instagram. I seriously do not know how. Anyway she posted these delicious looking cookies so I went to go check out her blog.

Oh. My. God. 

I died and went to blogging heaven. 

So. Much. Great.

Almost everything contains chocolate or nutella or peanut butter or a combination of all three! So I jumped up off my seat in the commerce building (where I was just chilling at the time even though I don't do anything commercy at all) and went with my dear friend Matt to New World. So this is how all that chocolate and cream came to be in my shopping basket. 

www.butterbaking.com

Go there. Like now!

So anyway I recreated her pretzel, chocolate chip, peanut butter brownies. 

Sorry about the weird lighting in the photos. I was too preoccupied with the wonders before me to really care haha. Until now.

Anyway, pretty sure all the crack dealers are about to go out of business.

Ok I know the idea of pretzels sounds strange especially in a chocolate brownie but how many of you love putting jam and peanut butter together? or maple syrup on your bacon? The combination of salty and sweet, creamy and crunchy, moist and fudgy, it is just amazing. Trust me. 

I did make a few adjustments to her recipe, mainly out of lack of the appropriately coloured chocolate chips! But also I decided to use brown sugar instead of white. I had enough of the white. I think it is because I wanted a really dark colour. I dunno. I always feel cookies are better with brown sugar so why not brownies. Brown sugar contains molasses which gives whatever you use it in a more intense colour and flavour. Yum. I actually just used muscovado sugar in my chocolate cupcakes today. They turned out so great! the flavour was really intensified!

So yes. Make this brownie. It will change your life. 

Tripe Chocolate, Peanut Butter Truffle and Pretzel Brownie

adapted from the recipe by Butter Baking

Makes a 20x30cm brownie

For the peanut butter truffles:

1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter (I used extra crunchy!)

30g butter

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 cup icing sugar

For the most amazing brownies of your life:

225g butter

1 3/4 cups soft brown sugar

1 cup and 2 tablespoons cocoa

100g good quality dark chocolate (60-70% cocoa solids is enough)

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

3/4 cup plain flour

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips or melts

1/2 cup white chocolate melts

1 cup pretzels plus a few extra to dot over the top

All of the peanut butter truffle balls made above

1 teaspoon sea salt flakes

To make the truffles, melt the butter and peanut butter in a small saucepan. Once they have melted together, add in the brown sugar. Stir until it dissovles. Then gradually add in the icing sugar and stir until it is all nicely combined. Remove from the heat. Take half teaspoon amounts and roll into balls. Place in a plastic container and pop that in the freezer while you go and make your brownie.

To make the brownie, preheat your oven to 170 degrees C and line your baking tray with baking paper.  

In a double boiler (ie a heat proof bowl balanced over a saucepan with a few centimetres of simmering water beneath it) melt together the chocolate and butter, being careful not to burn the chocolate. I find melting the butter a bit first before adding the chocolate helps. Then add the brown sugar, cocoa and vanilla and stir until it is all combined.

Transfer this mixture into a larger mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand cake mixer. Beat the mixture just to make sure it is nice and smooth. 

Add your eggs one at a time, beating well in between each addition. The mixture should now be nice and thick and glossy.

Add the flour and stir only as many times as it takes for any visible flour to disappear. 

Mix in the pretzels, chocolate melts and peanut butter truffle balls.

Press the mixture into the lined baking tin. Dot a few whole pretzels over the top and sprinkle over the sea salt flakes.

Bake for 20-25 minutes (I baked mine for 24 and I think it could have done with only 23). You do still want a skewer to come out slightly gooey. 

Leave to cool before slicing or else it will just goo out everywhere. Which I guess isn't a bad thing.

This is why you are going to want to beat it properly

To easily separate eggs, break them into your hands and use your fingers to sieve out the white.

This is how lovely and glossy it should look after all the eggs

Post flour addition

Could this get any better?

The answer is yes. yes it can.

Try cutting the corners of your paper to get a more fitted lining

Go for a run in preparation for eating the whole lot because there is no way you can run after eating these things!

The neighbours the other day helped me break into my flat. Lucy was away in Christchurch and Alex just left me on the doorstep with all our shopping (we both forgot our keys). Thank God for neighbours!

So I sent them a thank you :)

Enjoy!

xx

Hey Blondie!

I don't think blondes have more fun.

I don't know where that myth came from. I would kill for lovely dark hair as well as the dark eye lashes and brows that accompany it.

You see being a fair lass myself, I am cursed with equally fair brows and lashes, making it look like I have neither unless they are coloured in and lacquered with mascara. On the rare occasion I go to the gym without either painted onto my face I find that no one recognises me. Awkward!

Anyway that is all somewhat irrelevant since I joined the strawberry sisters.

I have been on a real baking drive lately. I want to make as many things as possible these holidays. I have a nice long list if things I want to make.

I had a flick through my Hummingbird baker cookbook and found this blondie recipe. It looked simple and didn't require copious amounts of chocolate which all their other brownies need.

The process is kind of strange. You melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler then add the sugar. This causes the mixture to split and look crazy wrong but trust me and persevere! Once the eggs are added the lecithin in the yolks emulsifies the butter and the water in the mixture. Win! I love science!

This is a nice sickly sweet alternative to its brown cuzzie. The addition of pecans is delicious but walnuts or even macadamias would be equally amazing. I added extra chopped white chocolate because what is a brownie or a blondie without extra chocolate!

So shall we then?

White Chocolate Blondie
Adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook

150g white cooking chocolate
125g butter
150g castor sugar
2 eggs
200g plain flour
120g pecans, chopped
100g white chocolate chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees bake and line a small slice tin (20x30cm) with baking paper.
In a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water (make sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl - I used a cookie cutter to prop it up) melt together the butter and white chocolate. Remove from the heat.

Once melted, whisk in the sugar and vanilla and stir until dissolved. It is here where the mixture looks like it has split but don't worry about it. Quickly mix in the two eggs making sure they don't scramble.

Sift in the flour, mix until just combined. Do not over mix. Add in the pecans and extra chocolate and very quickly mix to spread them out.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 25 minutes. It should be nice and gooey.

Leave to cool completely before slicing.

Enjoy!! :)

Cara's Wicked Chocolate Brownies

Good Monday Afternoon!

Remember that baking ban I was on? Yeah well that sorta went down the loo this weekend. On Friday After making custard squares and a vanilla three layer birthday cake my dear brother asked me to make him a chocolate brownie to take to his mates house for their boys (pronounced boyce by the boys) night . Since I obviously hadn't spend enough time strapped to the hand beater already I agreed and whipped up the trusty, delicious and positively wicked Cara's wicked chocolate brownie.

I got this recipe off one of my best friends, Cara, quite a few years ago now. This is the best brownie recipe I have ever found and I have stayed true to it all this time and have never made a different recipe. I made it so frequently that it was permanently engrained into my brain and so whenever someone asked me for a good brownie recipe I could recite this one off to them instantly. 

The trick with brownie is to undercook them. That way they are guaranteed to be gooey in the centre. Originally this recipe said an hour at 150, then I shortened that to 50 minutes and then this time I shortened it again to 45 minutes to achieve optimum gooeyness. To make these even more decadent I decided for the first time to try out icing the brownie once it had completely cooled. I used a simple chocolate buttercream that had plenty of cocoa to balance out the sweetness. The best type of brownie is one that you only need to have a single piece of before being totally chocolated out!

Considering the box that I sent it away came out completely empty I am assuming the brownie went down rather well. 

This recipe is really easy to make, just make sure you cream the butter and sugar really well as well as beating the eggs enough so that the volume about doubles. 

Cara's Wicked Chocolate Brownie

Fills a 17x28cm tin rather nicely

200g butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar 

3 eggs

1 cup cocoa

1/2 cup plain flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

150g chocolate chunks (Dark chocolate works the best - you can put more chocolate in if you like - I recommend it). 

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees on bake.

Cream the butter and sugar until light in colour. 

Beat in the vanilla and eggs one at a time. After the last egg has been added keep beating for another few minutes to make sure that the maximum volume has been achieved. 

Mix in the cocoa and beat until evenly mixed.

Add in the flour, beat until evenly mixed.

Stir in the chocolate melts or chunks.

Line a baking tray with baking paper and spoon in the mixture. Spread the mixture out so that all four corners are filled.

Bake for 45 minutes, a skewer should come out still gooey.

Leave to cool completely before dusting with icing sugar or icing with chocolate.

To make the chocolate icing, cream together 50g softened butter with around 2 cups of icing sugar and 1/2 cup of cocoa, a splash of vanilla and a few drops of milk (if it is too thick). I didn't actually weigh anything out when I made the icing, so this is just an estimate of what I put in. I like my chocolate icings to be really rich and chocolatey which is why so much cocoa was put in. 

Using a nice big knife, slice the brownie into pieces and brace yourself for all the friends you are about to make :)

Have a great day!

I know I am!

Sophie 

Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Maple and Pecan Filling

How's the study going.

As you can see mine is going excellently.

For the last two days I have found myself leaving the library at rather early times (1pm and 2pm) after feeling uncomfortably hot on the upper floors. I also found myself with epic hunger sickness (that point where your hunger turns to nausea) but then the heat caused my salad and my tuna to warm up and that grossed me out. So in order to fix the problem I had to go home. Yup. That was my justification.

Like Tuesday. It was so so hot. 6am Tuesday morning it was pouring down. I mean bucketing down so I dressed in stockings (for once!) and a woollen top as was appropriate for the miserable weather. By the time lunch came around I had my tights around my ankles and shoes thrown on the floor under my desk. Thank god I was in the celebrity squares or else I would have been given some odd looks at my lack of pants. I had to go home. I couldn't study like this. It was indecent.

So yesterday. Yesterday was Wednesday. Once again my salad heated up and my mind had become more fogged than a bathroom mirror. Time to go home. I was going to have a nap. But then I didn't.

I baked instead. My reasoning? It was fun, it was soul restoring and Alix and I needed study noms for the week.

Ahaha. yeah. Well it was soul restoring, it was fun. But for the weeks worth of study noms? uuh it was more like three episodes of cougar town worth of noms, no study in sight.

The last time I made whoopie pies they were super domed and rather dry. The method also almost broke my beater, it was too thick and dough like.

To overcome this I altered the recipe and method a bit. Rather than add the wet ingredients last, making a huge glutenous mess, I decided to mix all the moist ingredients together first then slowly add the flour. I also upped the amount of yoghurt and milk in the mixture. I found this helped and made them far less stodgy.

As for the filling? I just made a simple buttercream icing and threw in a few good squirts of maple syrup. I had a few pecans left over from my pecan pies so I chopped them up finely and sprinkled them in between. Walnuts would work too. They gave a nice wee crunch in between all the soft moist cakeyness.


Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Maple and Pecan filling

80g softened butter
150g castor sugar
1 large egg
140g plain yoghurt (I used vanilla)
50ml milk
I teaspoon vanilla
70g cocoa
200g flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Filling:
60g butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
A splash of milk to combine
A couple of squirts of maple syrup
chopped pecans or walnuts


Preheat the oven to 170 degrees

Attempt to cream the butter and sugar together. It won't work very well because there isn't enough butter but try to lighten the colour a wee bit. Add the egg. Beat until most of the sugar dissolves and the colour is a very pale yellow and the texture is fluffy. Add in the vanilla, yoghurt and milk. Beat until smooth.

Sift in the cocoa. Beat until the colour lightens from a dark brown to a lighter shade.

Sift in the four, baking soda and baking powder. Mix until combined. Try not to overmix.

Wet your hands and par dry them (so they are sill a little damp). Take small teaspoon sized blobs of dough and roll them into balls.

Next is the fun bit, throw the ball as hard as you can onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. This helps them to flatten out. Repeat and lets hope you don't have any collisions like I did. Flatten them a bit more with a wet spoon. I didn't do this. I wish I had, I think mine were far too round.

Bake for 10 minutes. You don't want to overcook them. It is better for them to be slightly undercooked than overcooked. That was they will be nice and fudgy.

Leave to cool because sandwiching together with the icing (which you creamed together earlier) and the chopped nuts.

Enjoy!

I advise you don't eat them all in one go right before dinner haha.

My First Attempt at Whoopie Pies: Peanut butter and chocolate

Hello there.

Whoopie pies. Only recently have I heard of such a baked good. They are apparently comprised of two cakey blobs sandwiched together with fluffy frosting. They are commonly the size of small cheese burgers. Typical Americans continuously coming up with new ideas to become obese.

To celebrate my 10 00th view on my blog I decided to try something new. These whoopie pies in my Hummingbird Cake Days book looked delicious, almost comical in their perfectness. Unfortunately mine turned out a big more knobbly that they should have. Maybe I should have squished them down a bit, who knows?

I also found the mixture to be quite sticky, gummy and chewy, like the flour had been over mixed, like my overcooked mug brownies that stick to the roof of my mouth (not ideal). Oh well there is a first time for everything.

Once cooked (and popped in the fridge for a bit) they become quite fudgy. An unusual texture but I wouldn't say a bad one. I am actually rather enjoying this late night fat snack. Without the icing they wouldn't be so great though.

Whoopie pies are like really dense cakes, they use plain yoghurt and a wee bit of milk rather than mostly milk (like cupcakes). You also start off by beating the egg and sugar together, rather than the butter and sugar. What else is strange is that you add the butter melted, rather than softened. Quite a peculiar method to follow, but an easy one.

Cake Days says to use marshmallow fluff in the icing between the two pie pieces. Unfortunately I don't know where to get that in Dunedin and there is something about buying a can of marshmallow fluff that creeps me out a bit. Maybe its the thought of all the processing and additives that must be in it. I'm a food sci student, for additives to freak me out it must be pretty bad. Usually those sorts of products taste no where near as good as freshly made alternatives.

To compensate for my lack of fluff, I added a good hunk of butter as well as a nice heaped dessert spoon of crunchy peanut butter to the icing. The icing reminded me of the new Whittaker's peanut butter chocolate. That can't be a bad thing right?

I have not given up completely. Far from it. I shall try again! probably with a different flavour though. These will work for me! They will! For the mean time I shall use my food class to dispose of them tomorrow morning, hide all evidence that I failed!


Peanut Butter and Chocolate Whoopie Pies (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days)
Makes 8-10 sandwiches

1 large egg
150g castor sugar
125g plain yoghurt (I just bought a single serve pottle from the supermarket for like $1)
25ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
75g melted butter
275g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
60g crunchy peanut butter

Icing:
40g softened butter
2 ish cups icing sugar
25ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 dessert spoon peanut butter


Beat the egg and sugar together until thick and a very pale yellow colour.

In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, yoghurt and vanilla together. Pour this into the egg and sugar mix and beat well.

Pour in the melted butter then mix well again.

Sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa together. Add half of the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, beat well on a low speed until smooth then add the rest of the dry mix and beat again until smooth.

Add the peanut butter then mix through until evenly distributed.

Place the mix in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to cool down.

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Once the batter is cool, roll into balls (mine weighed 40g each) place in the tray and flatten with your fingers. I should have done this step. Ahh hind sight, its a wonderful thing.

Bake for 10 minutes or until they spring back when lightly pressed. The dough is quite a dry mix and you definitely don't want to overcook these or else they will be horrid and dry.

Transfer the half whoopies onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Whilst they are cooling, beat your butter, milk and icing sugar well until light and fluffy. Add your peanut butter and continue to beat to regain the fluffiness. I found I had to add some more icing sugar to stiffen the icing up. If the icing is too soft the whoopie halves will slip off each other.

Transfer the icing into a piping bag with a large circular tip. Pipe the icing onto one half then sandwich another on top to make a sandwich. Unfortunately with sandwich biscuits as soon as all of them are stuck together the total yield of biscuits is halved, meaning they run out twice as fast!

Store these in an airtight container in the fridge to set the icing (or on the bench if your flat kitchen is cold enough).

I hope you enjoy, they do not taste bad at all. A little big for my liking (I feel like I have eaten a cake burger after only one).

Byeee!!!

Banana Chocolate (and Spice) Cupcakes

Hello!

Sorry it has been so long. I dunno, I guess I have just been lazy. This is more of a post on how NOT to make these cupcakes. Everything was going hunky dory until I misread the important wee bit of info regarding the baking powder. Turns out it was 1 TABLESPOON not 1 teaspoon. So my lovely fluffy cupcakes to be turned out as little runt cakes that were about as flat as my chest (which is VERY flat haha). Anyway they still tasted mighty fine so I decided to go ahead and write up this post. Haha thank goodness I didn't make the black bottomed cheesecake cupcakes tonight. That would have been tragic had I ruined good cheesecake. Since dear Jamal isn't around this weekend to consume cheesecakey things I decided to do these ones instead. Thanks Jamal for sort of helping me avoid cheesecake CATASTROPHE!!

As per usual I got the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook (I have my cakelet eye on their Cake Days one - oh it looks amazing!).

They called these Banana and Chocolate Cupcakes, but the only chocolate in them is from the icing and I was surprised to find that there was ginger and cinnamon in the recipe. I think they would be more accurately called banana spice cupcakes. For the chocolate icing, I just made a normal butter cream (with not that much butter really) and mixed in around 1 1/2 teaspoons of ginger and maybe 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of cinnamon into it. It gives the chocolate this lovely warming sensation, just like ginger chocolate. Do it :)

So you will need:

120g plain flour
140g caster sugar
1 TABLESPOON baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
80g butter at room temperature (they say unsalted and then include a pinch of salt in the recipe - I don't have unsalted so I just use normal and then exclude the pinch)
120ml whole milk
2 eggs
120g mashed banana

Chocolate icing (with another 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground ginger and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon added if you wish)

A few words on bananas. The browner the bananas the better. The blacker the bananas are, technically the riper they are. Ripe bananas (ie when they fall off the tree) are black. The starches in the flesh have been broken down into their simpler sugar constituents resulting in a more caramelised, sweeter baked result. Bananas are a climateric, ethylene dependent fruit. To speed up the browning process either throw your bananas around about an hour before you need them (against a wall works well) or pop them in a paper bag with half a cut apple. The bruising causes the production of ethylene (the ripening hormone) which speeds up the process of ripening. Apples are naturally high ethylene producers so their ethylene can be used to ripen other fruits as well. Make sense? Or you could just hide a few bananas behind your couch for a week. That too would make good black banana . . .


Anyway  . . . the method:

(Makes 16)

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees on bake.

In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until combined.

Sieve in the flour, baking powder, ginger and cinnamon then mix until a sandy consistency is reached. Make sure you scrape down the edges of the bowl with a spatula regularly though the batter making process.

Slowly pour in the milk, beating well until it is all combined and the mixture is smooth.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating until they are well incorporated and the mixture is smooth. Remember to scrape those edges.

Stir in the mashed banana using a spoon.

Spoon the mixture into patty cases until they are two thirds full.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until they are golden brown on top and the sponge bounces back when touched.

Leave the cupcakes to cool in the muffin tray for a few minutes before removing and transferring to a wire rack or clean tea towel.

Once the cupcakes are completely cool, whip up your chocolate icing (75g softened butter, 250g (ish) icing sugar, 100g (I think) of cocoa, a few tablespoons of boiling water and a teaspoon or two of ginger and a teaspoon of cinnamon). Either ice them using a palate knife, butter knife or pipe the icing on using a nozzle and bag.

Enjoy!!


 The method in pictures for all you visual learners out there . . .

Ok children, so caster sugar and butter. Go!

Beat until it looks like this.

Oh dear, the egg went for a bit of a wander . . .

So sieve in your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, ginger and cinnamon).

Beat until a sandy consistency is achieved.

Like this :)

I have started making up milk powder milk. I know it sounds gross (it does smell odd I have to admit) but lovely my flattie Alix and I consume a vast (I mean VAST) quantity of custard at very odd times of the night. We go through a lot of milk between the three of us (Lucy sometimes joins us on our late night custardapades) and I figured if we make the custard up with milk powder milk we a) wont taste the milk powder and b) save $1 per litre of milk we use. I figure I can also use it in baking, it has the same solids content as fresh milk. All milk powder is is fresh milk that has been homogenised, pasteurised (like fresh milk) and then spray dried. I have started to get used to it. I even had it over my cereal at lunchtime (haha slash managed to drink a litre of it in the last 24 hours).

What are we doing again? Ah right, adding the 120ml (aka half a cup) of  milk. Add it slowly and beat until the batter is smooth and starts to fluff up.

Next beat in the eggs one at a time. Beat until they are well incorporated and the mixture is . . . you guessed it . . . smooth!

Next the gross bit. Mashed banana *shudder* I hate the stuff. It activates my gag reflex. It is all right in cake though. Actually it is excellent in cake. Excuse the 10g too many of banana.

Mash up the banana and then mix it gently into the batter.

Spoon into the patty cases until two thirds full.

Pop these in the oven for around 20 minutes (or until they are golden brown etc etc you know the drill).

If you have any bananas that are looking a bit sad, peel them, pop them in a snap lock bag and then freeze them. Next time you want to make banana cake/loaf/cupcakes, just whip these bad boys out and you will have instant mushy banana. Just a word of warning, they will go really black and gloopy looking. Why all the better for baking with! They are safe to eat don't worry :) They have just undergone cellular damage during the freezing process (oh god I am a nerd).

Haha remember how I said I didn't put the right amount of baking powder in? These looked fine when they first came out of the oven but as they cooled they started to sink. They sunk until the tops were wrinkled like cerebral cortex. Lovely.

Icing time!

I used a 1M nozzle. But just ignore the poor icing effort. I was disheartened by my brain looking dense cakes so I didn't put any effort into piping them into a nice ruffley swirl.

Oh yeah, then I dropped my camera into one of them :( Shot Sophie.

So there you go :)

They were actually really tasty. I love the ginger in the icing. Next time I will remember to put the right amount of baking powder in haha as these were very cakey and squidgy not light and airy. If at first you do not succeed . . . hide all evidence that you tried :) so I am in the process of mass cupcake consumption.

catch you later alligators!

Afghans

Good afternoon to you all!

I am having a bit of a nana revival here. First sultana cake and date loaves, now afghans? Almost borderline retro, or should I dare say hipster baking! I am pretty sure baking is too mainstream for hipsters, especially measuring ingredients. Sounds way to restrictive for their way of life. Although it's the sort of thing hipsters take over exposed instagram photos of when chilling at known hipster food outlet locations. Ok to be honest I myself take lots of food photos using instagram (along with stalking photos of certain TVD actors . . . ). Anyway I think the message here is that sometimes the best things are the tried and true recipes without all the fandangled swirly twirly sprinkly bits. I dunno, what do you think? At least you can eat these without feeling guilty that you are destroying a work of art.

The other day we ran out of cereal. As in the only cereal we had left was Coco Pops and Weetbix (both I do not classify as suitable breakfast foods, too sugary and too mushy - bleeeeh). As it was only Thursday (our shopping day here is Sunday) I only had a few dollars to tide us over for the next few days. Turns out cornflakes were on special (score!!) at $1.69 (double score!!).  Then I thought what else can I do with cornflakes other than eat them with milk?  . . . Oh I wonder.

(Too right you are a box full of golden crispy corn flakes!)

Oh and guess what:

This must mean they are healthy!! Haha justification to eat five afghans in one go! Hmm whilst eating my cereal this morning I noticed that it also contained in one serving 50% of your RDI of folate. Why do they not put this on the packet? Is this so annoying uneducated anti folate buffs arn't put off? It's important to have. I don't want any accidental children of mine to have spina bifida (Mum don't you worry! haha). Hmm why isn't there calcium fortified into it? Special K is pumping with it (which is why if I am feeling rich I buy it). Milk is expensive for poor students to buy (except in our house of three girls where we have gone through 6L this week . . .) so we need to get it from other sources (please no one suggest eating a tin of salmon with bones). Anyway where was I? . . .


In African countries (where the majority of people are illiterate) they put pictures of the package contents on the box to avoid confusion. There was a hilarious case of an American baby food producer that put a picture of a white baby on the front of their tins. Delish! Why is there a rooster on the pack? So there is a rooster in the box? Do roosters eat corn? Why Kellogs why? Roosters crowing in the morning? Morning = breakfast time? Roosters are found on farms, they want to bring that country lifestyle to the inner city breakfast table? Is there some historical thing going on?


At least its not a kangaroo . . 


I hate you food science!. Why do you do this to me? Actually I love it. You guys are missing out :)


Hmm where did the name for this biscuit come from anyway? This is all Wikipedia had to say about the baked morsel in question: 


An Afghan biscuit is a traditional New Zealand biscuit made from cocoa powder, butter, flour and cornflakes, topped with chocolate icing and a walnut. The origin of the recipe and the derivation of the name are unknown, but the recipe has appeared in many editions of the influential New Zealand Edmonds Cookery Book. 

Yes I did just copy that all off the Wiki page. Is this a uni assignment? No. But if you want to see for yourself, here is the link :) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_biscuit 

I have this sneaking suspicion that it is another New Zealand vs Australia type recipe. Like the pav and that a New Zealander beat the Aussie to writing the wiki page. 


Hmm I think I might go ask my Food and Culture lecturer from last year . . .

Anyway back to it

Using of course the trusty Edmonds Cookbook (It seems to be the bible for all these nana type cakes) the recipe I used was the first listed in their biscuit section.

You will need:

200g softened butter
75g sugar
175g flour
25g cocoa powder
50g (Although I am sure I used 70g+) corn flakes

Chocolate icing (lots of it - afghans are not a very sweet biscuit so you need the icing to balance it out)


Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugar until white and fluffy. Sieve in the flour and cocoa and then mix in well. Pour in the cornflakes and stir in with a spoon (the beater just crushes the flakes of corny goodness). Once well combined, spoon and roll into balls and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Press the balls down with a floured fork then pop them into the oven for 15-17 minutes. Once done, take out of the own the leave to cool. Once cool slather them in icing in whichever fashion you prefer.

And here is the method in pictures (as usual)

 Cream together your butter and sugar

 Sieve in the flour and cocoa. Beat until combined.

Add your golden flakes of corn

Mix in with a spoon (or spatula)

Roll into balls and flatten with a floured fork

Set the timer . . .

And bam! 15-17 minutes later these delicious creations come out.

Once they are cool, mix up your icing.

(It's St Patrick's day by the way. Chris is pointing out all the green ones we could extract to make our afghans more festive)

Now ice them and decorate :) Pop walnuts on the top if you wish :)

Hmm the person who invented afghans obviously didn't know about water activity and the migration of moisture from a high moisture area to a low one in mixed medium food products, ie the water in the butter into the cornflakes making them soft and soggy.

Although a few hours later these are still good :D

And once again I have added an obscene number of biscuit photos . . .

Ok time to eat more . . .

See you next week!