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

Soft and Chewy Pretzels

My first experience of a real, proper bready pretzel was at the Arts Centre in Christchurch many years ago with my best friend Cara.

It was crunchy in some places but soft and warm in the fatter bits. The salt covered exterior satisfied me more than any cheeseburger or bag of mini pretzels ever could. It was like the best salty bread roll I had ever eaten. But way cooler. And tastier.

It changed my life.

I never thought I could make one myself though. I thought that they would be difficult to make.

That was until I stumbled upon a wonderful blog.

I have found that following other foodie type people on Instagram I have been able to stumble across and discover some really cool new blogs. I found this one here,  The Sophisticated Gourmet which is brilliant. Unfortunately he hasn't posted since last year but he has some great recipes like this pretzel one here. I was so excited to find a decent look pretzel recipe from a reliable source. Everything is beautiful to look at. Definitely go and visit it. I can't wait to try out his bagel recipe too.

So this week has been a bit cray cray. I'm not too sure why. Probably a mix of everything. I find one of the best ways for me to calm down is to make bread. It is time consuming. You need to be patient and committed to it. You can't just make it on a whim, it needs to be planned for. I had a mad soft pretzel craving on Wednesday. Unfortunately I don't know of anywhere in Dunedin that sells these beautiful authentic pretzels so what did I do? No I didn't just make myself a piece of toast and tell myself to get over it, I freaking well made an entire batch of them.

Typical Sophie. It was like that time at 11pm I felt like a warm cookie. Most people can't be bothered if it isn't right in front of them. But not me. I will go and make myself an entire batch just so I can have one (or two . . or three . . .). I've also been known to make up corn fritters in the early hours of the morning just because I woke up and was hungry.

I was also curious as to how to make them. Pretzels are one of the few foods (other than fermented shark meat) that has a basic pH (ie above 7).  Now upon reading how to make them I realise it is because they are boiled for about a minute before they are baked in a pot of water and baking soda. Boiling the pretzel in basic solution allows for the interior of the pretzel to puff up making it softer but also chewier. The baking soda allows the exterior to form a nice golden brown crust. Its an odd step compared with usual bread baking but it was actually really cool to see the small pretzels knots puff up in such a quick space of time.

Now I used the dough hook on my stand mixer to knead the dough but kneading by hand (which was originally called for) is totally sufficient and in itself very theraputic.

I have a literature review to write so I am gonna stop waffling on and get to the point!


New York Style Soft Pretzels
Adapted from The Sophisticated Gourmet (who I believe adapted it from Martha Stewart)
Makes 12

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoon white sugar
1 cup warm water

1 cup (128g) high grade flour
2 cups (256g) plain flour
2 teaspoons salt
35g softened butter

2 tablespoons baking soda
2 teaspoons sugar
7cm worth of boiling water in a medium sized pot (super accurate I know)

Chunky sea or rock salt
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon water


In a small bowl, activate the yeast with the warm water and sugar for around 10-15 minutes. It should become very foamy. If nothing happens you need to get new yeast.

In a large bowl, mix together the flours and the salt. Either use your mixer to rub in the butter or do this by hand. You want to achieve a smooth crumb with no visible lumps of butter.

Once the yeast has been properly activated, pour the yeast liquid into a well in the centre of your flours. Use a spoon to bring the dough together.

Either tip the dough onto a lightly floured bench and knead the dough for around 5 minutes or pop it into your cake mixer with the dough hook and leave it to be kneaded for around 5 minutes also. The dough should become smooth and elastic.

Grease up a large bowl with a small amount of oil. Place the dough into this bowl, cover in cling film then leave to rise for an hour in a warm place (like on top of the hot water cylinder). You want the dough to double in size. Apparently you can also leave it in the fridge overnight, which is handy if you want to make these early in the morning.

Cut the dough into 12 portions. Roll out each ball into a rope around 20cm long.

Bring the rope up into a large U shape.

Take the two ends and twist them around each other twice.

Bring the ends back onto the curve of the U and press down lightly to attach them.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees C (or as high as you can go) on bake.

Bring the water in the pot to a boil. Add the sugar and baking soda.

Using a slotted spatula place three of the pretzels in the boiling water at a time. Leave to boil for 45-60 seconds before removing and leaving to drain on a cooling rack. Repeat with the rest of the pretzels.

Transfer the puffed pretzels onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Mix the egg and the teaspoon of water together and brush this over each pretzel.

Sprinkle over a generous amount of salt and any other topping of your choice. Poppy and sesame seeds work well.

Bake for 15 minutes until the outer surface has turned a nice dark golden brown.

Serve warm!

Make sure you eat them within 12 hours of baking them. They aren't as good after that.

Enjoy!!!

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

Blueberry and Frangipane Tart

What a terrible blogger I've been. It has almost been a month since I last wrote here even though it seems like I have been baking every day! I feel like such a bad person. I kinda wish I hadn't been baking within that last month (I dread the day I have to put my skinny jeans back on).

Wow so much has happened since I last posted here. I had an early 21st Mexican fiesta birthday party back home! Which was awesome. The photos are on my instagram feed :). What else, oh I moved back to Dunedin back into my wee little flat. Lucy and I got a new flatmate; Alex, to replace Alix who moved up to Auckland. Just to clarify, this Alex is male. You never know with the name Alex.  Oh and I turned 21! Yay me for surviving childhood illness in this hardship that is the 1st world. Slash yay me for not screwing up so far. My parents can proudly call me a success and no longer have to take the bad parenting blame for anything dumb I do now. But most exciting were the arrival of my two new babies.

For a whole week before my birthday there were these two HUGE gift wrapped and bowed boxes
sitting in the corner of our tiny lounge.

 Then on my birthday two glorious machines emerged! My 21st presents from my family and family friends were a beautiful Kitchenaid stand mixer and its (almost) matching Kitchenaid food processor. Holy mackerel! They are beautiful. Wonderful. To die for. Amazing! They are brilliant. I have named my cake mixer Nigella (because she is a goddess) and my processor Annabel (it was going to be a Jamie but I have trust issues with Jamie recipes at the moment).

Annabel

Nigella

Seriously, who needs a man when you have two perfectly smooth, stunning, robust, high quality kitchen appliances in your life? They do the job and they do it well. They don't complain and they are forever reliable. So. Much. Great.

Anyway since receiving these beautiful machines I have been baking and processing almost everyday. I think my flatmates need to stage an intervention on the baking front. Pretty sure I will be obese in no time.

Do you remember that Little and Friday cookbook I got for Christmas? I made the wee banana cakes from it about two months back. Ever since I got it I have been wanting to make one of the beautiful tarts they have pictured. The only problem is that you had to make pastry, then the frangipane then the creme patisserie and so on and so forth. The recipes were tricky and bitsy.

But! Now that I have my beautiful toys making these tarts (and finally using the tart dishes I bought) was be a dream.

I managed to find some cheap blueberries ($2.49 a punnet!) at Vege Boys and I wanted to use them in something special. Blueberries are still a treat food for me and I feel like their glory is wasted when they are just thrown into a smoothie or sprinkled over yoghurt.

Now what better way to celebrate the wonder that is the humble blueberry that by placing it on a pedestal of vanilla bean and lemon pastry, a layer of delicious frangipane as well as cushioning each and every berry with the soft caress of creme patisserie. Ok I got a little carried away there.  . .

I adapted this recipe from the Little and Friday book (Treats From Little and Friday). I started off thinking I was going to make six small tarts. I was going to line all six of my small tart tins then freeze four of them and only bake the other two. Since Lucy is away this weekend it seemed silly to have an abundance of tart in the house.

I made this pastry up yesterday in my food processor and left it wrapped up in the fridge overnight. When I went to go roll it out (after softening it in the microwave for 20 seconds) I realised that I had far too much pastry and that the recipe I used was whack as crack when it said it would do for 6 small tart cases. I ended up lining my long rectangular tart tin as well as 10 small muffin holes for when I need to make mini pecan pies next. Its not a problem at all, its actually a good thing. It saves time in the future. It makes access to tarts far more . . well accessible.

So I am saving the small individual tarts for another day and instead using my long rectangular one. Winning!

This was definitely a learning process for me so along the way i'll point out mistakes to avoid and things to remember! :)

Also, you can buy food processors from Kmart for $59. I'm not sure what they would be like but I bet they would do the job for pastry.

Blueberry and Frangipane Tart
Makes one long rectangular sized tart
Loosely adapted from Treats from Little and Friday by Kim Evans

You will need 2 punnets of whatever berry fruit you desire. I would avoid strawberries though, they have too high a water content and would turn to mush on top of the tarts. I recommend raspberries and blueberries.

For the vanilla bean and lemon pastry (of which there will be plenty left over to line around eight or nine small tart cases):
2 3/4 cups plain flour
1 cup icing sugar
250g butter
1 large egg
3 teaspoons of lemon juice (about the juice of half a lemon)
zest of one lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla essence or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

In a food processor (buy, borrow or steal yourself one), pulse together the flour, icing sugar and lemon zest. This is to mix it together and to aerate it. Add the butter in cubes and pulse until the mixture looks like fine golden sand. Add the egg, juice and vanilla and pulse until the mixture comes together. It will look dry and crumbly but trust me, it does come together. Turn the dough onto a floured bench and bring it together into a smooth ball. Flatten the ball into a disc then wrap in glad wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours. Apparently this pastry can be kept in the fridge for up to two weeks. Or if you aren't going to use it all at once, do what I did and line spare tart tins. Wrap them in glad wrap then pop them in the freezer. When you go to use them you don't need to thaw them, just fill them and bake!

To line your tins, roll the pastry out onto a floured bench until it is about 3mm thick. Try spraying the top of the pastry lightly with cooking spray to stop the pastry sticking to the rolling pin. If you are making the rectangle shaped tart roll the pastry out until it is about 4 cm larger on each side than the tart tin. Drape the pastry over the tin and gently press the pastry into the corners of the tin with your fingers. Use large cooks knife to trim the edges. Prick the base with a fork and then return to the freezer while you preheat the oven (about 30 minutes).

 Ok the following couple of photos are when I was filling the small round tarts. The same process still applies for the long rectangular one or even a large circular one.

Press the pastry into the tin gently with your fingers

You don't have to wrap it in gladwrap if you are going to use it that day. At the time of wrapping I still thought I was going to make the small ones.

Dock your pastry with a fork

For the frangipane (enough for just the rectangular tart or six small tarts i.e. about a cup and a half):

62g butter, softened
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup ground almonds
1 1/2 teaspoons plain flour

Cream together the butter and sugar. When light and fluffy, add in the egg and beat until voluminous and airy. Add the almonds and flour and stir until combined.

For the creme patisserie (enough for just the rectangular tart or six small tarts i.e. about a cup and a half):

250 ml (1 cup) milk (trim or full fat it doesn't matter)
1/4 cup caster sugar
4 teaspoons plain flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
2 egg yolks (from small eggs)

Beat together the sugar, egg yolks and vanilla until thick and pale. Add the flour and beat until thick. In a medium sized saucepan (don't use a small one like I did!), bring the milk to a simmer whilst stirring so it doesn't burn on the bottom. Whilst beating the egg mixture start carefully pouring the hot milk into the mixing bowl making sure the addition is gradual. Beat until all the milk has been added and there are no lumpy bits at the bottom of the bowl. Return this mixture to the saucepan. Heat the custard whilst quickly whisking until just before boiling point (Ie a trembling simmer). If you heat the custard mixture to beyond boiling point it totally collapses and the egg curdles and it becomes a total unusable disaster. Don't do this. Thankfully we had enough milk in the fridge for me to start again. Take it off the heat immediately and pour into a clean bowl. Leave to cool before using. you should see it become nice and thick as soon as you take it off the heat. Check out this video to see if you are doing it right.

Heat the milk (in a much larger saucepan than this!)

In a bowl, beat your eggs, sugar, vanilla and flour until thick and pale. Then gradually pour in the hot milk. Beat this until everything is mixed in then return to the saucepan.

Whisk until just until it starts boiling. No later!

It should start thickening as soon as you take it off the heat. Don't be tempted whatsoever to keep it cooking.

If you leave it to boil too long it will end up looking like this.

If in doubt, google!!

To assemble the tarts:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees on bake. Place a baking tray in the oven to also preheat. You will put the tart on this and it will enable a crispier base.

Spread the frangipane over the base of the tart. Then spread the creme patisserie over the top of that. Top the tart with the berries. Bake for 30 minutes or until pastry is golden.

Leave the tart to cool before removing from the tin.

To serve, dust with icing sugar and some long strips of lemon zest.

On goes the frangipane

Then the creme patissiere

Then the fruit :)

Place it on the preheated baking tray

and voila!

So. Much. Great.

Prepare for your friends to weep when you serve them up a slice.

Enjoy!


xx

Peachy Keen: Peach, Blueberry and Raspberry Pie

It is Summer.

Not for much longer though.

So why not preserve what we have left of the beautiful Summer stone fruit and berries and turn them into a delicious pie!

This pie features on the cover of Cuisine Magazine. Not this pie of course! But the recipe. It looked rather delicious and the picture of it inside the pages looked wonderful and rustic! My kind of pie.

I am liking things that are not perfect. I like a bit if imperfection. It looks like more love has gone into it and isn't the result of mass production.

I am saying this before I make my pie. I have never made my own pastry before so before I started I had to accept that the crust would not be even and that the lattice would not be latticed! I even accepted that this pie could taste absolutely terrible! But it was all about the learning process and making my first pie. Because we must all start somewhere.

Recently I have become fixated with the idea of food processors. We have this horrible big clunky thing that we never use because Mum can't be bothered taking it out of the drawer (and all the crash bang and clanging that goes along with it!). My 21st birthday is coming up and on my wish list (it is a very short list due to the nature of the items) are a cream coloured Kitchenaid artisan stand mixer and its matching food processor. I don't know if I will be lucky enough to get the processor but I am still preparing my skill set for when I do get one! So in my processor obsession my eyes locked onto this recipe in Cuisine. It never occurred to me to make my own, I usually opened a packet from the freezer. Golly gee whizz have I been missing out all these years!

The walnut pastry was the easiest thing to whip up! and so quick as well! I highly recommend giving it a go.

Where pastry and I stop seeing eye to eye is in the rolling and lining of the tart tin.

You use cold butter when making the pastry. You refrigerate the pastry. You handle it as little as you can. This is so the butter doesn't melt into the flour and sugar but instead forms small solid particulates which then melt when baked creating a beautiful crisp pastry!

Unfortunately it gets rather hot in our kitchen and so the last golden rule was broken. The pastry kept sticking to my rolling pin and the baking paper I was rolling it out onto. I kept having to regroup and re roll. This made the dough all soft, squidgy and sticky. If this is the case you should probably chuck the lined tin in the freezer for half an hour or so to re-harden before filling with the fruit before finally throwing in the oven.

I used 2 peaches and 3 nectarines for this. Nectarines are just peaches without the fur and are called nectarines purely for marketing purposes. I also find using the Hunny nectarines makes it a whole lot sweeter and you get that glorious golden yellow colour.

The original recipe said to use blackberries. It also said you could substitute them for blueberries or raspberries. Why not both?

When we went to Onemana on the Coromandel last weekend we found that my auntie's house had a blueberry tree. We may or may not have totally stripped said tree of all blue fruit! This gave us about a cup and a half of delicious and free (!!!) fruit! Needing to use this fruit I decided to pop it in this pie!

The walnut pastry turned out beautifully in the end. The walnuts lent a lovely nutty brown colour to it making it slightly less garish than the usual sweet crust pastry. Oh and lets not forget that it tastes excellent as well!

Oh and since tomorrow is Valentines Day why not put some wee hearts on the top?

(Ugh Valentines Day. I have a hot hot date!  . . . with my cousin Hannah!!!! :) )



Right lets do this shall we?



Peach, Blueberry and Raspberry Walnut pie
Adapted from Cuisine Magazine issue 156, January 2013
Makes 25cm diameter pie

For the pastry:
100g icing sugar
300g plain flour
75g walnut crumbs (walnuts that have been blasted in the food processor)
pinch of salt
200g chilled butter, cubed
2 eggs, beaten

For the filling:
5 peaches/nectarines, peeled and sliced
1 1/2 cup berries (fresh or thawed), can be made up of blackberries, blueberries, raspberries.
2 tablespoons orange liqueur or brandy
3 tablespoons caster sugar
2 tablespoons cornflour


In a food processor, whizz together the flour, salt, sugar and walnut crumbs together to evenly distribute everything. Drop the butter in whilst still whizzing) cube at a time until the mixture takes on a sandy consistency. Add the eggs and pulse until the dough just comes together.

Tip the dough onto a floured bench, bring into a ball then divide the mixture in half. Form discs out of each half, wrap in glad wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven and baking tray to 200 degrees bake.

Roll one disc out on a large sheet of baking paper until it is about half a centimetre in thickness (and large enough to line a tart tin - diameter + height + height).

Drape the pastry over the tin and gently press into place. Patch up any holes with scrap pastry. Use a Flat edged knife to trim the edges nice and flat.

Leave the other disc in the fridge until it is time to lattice the top.

Place the lined tin in the freezer while you prepare the filling.

To prepare the filling, in a large bowl, mix together the sugar, orange liqueur and caster sugar. Add the fruit and gently toss until everything is coated.

Remove the tin from the freezer. Scatter the fruit evenly into the pastry case.

Take the second disc, roll it out until 5mm thickness then cut thin strips. Completely cover the pie in parallel strips. Then cover with a second layer of strips perpendicular to the first layer. Cut out hearts if you wish.

Bake for 30 minutes on top of the baking tray (this crisps up the bottom). Then turn down the temp to 180 degrees for another 25 to 30 minutes. If the pastry gets too brown place some tin foil over the top for the remainder of the time left.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for half an hour or so before removing from the tin. You want the pastry to be cool enough so that it doesn't break.

Cut into nice big slices and serve with whipped cream or a really good vanilla bean ice cream!

Enjoy!!

Lemonade Date and Orange Scones

Greetings from Taupo Bay.

I did write this from the kitchen table looking out at the glorious ocean but due to the excellent lack of wifi in this house (I do really mean excellent - but more on that later) I am uploading this from a tiny Telecom phone booth down the road. Its a pretty sad site actually. There are four of us; Jack, Tessah, myself and some random (we can call her wifi hog) all lined up against a stone wall with our iPhones (and in my case MacBook Pro) out.

We are staying at our family friends place, I have asked them to formally adopt me so they won't be family friends for much longer! haha but if I ever write a cookbook I will ask to use this kitchen as the backdrop. 

It looks straight out onto the beach. As in drop-something-out-the-window-accidentally-and-it-will-almost-land-on-the-sand straight onto the beach. There is something about this kitchen encourages you to slow down, relax and to take the time in enjoying the cooking process. I have been itching to make bread from scratch all week (but alas! no yeast!). Oh and the light that comes in from the windows is truly magical!

The best thing about this house is the lack of reception and lack of wifi. No Facebook. No Instagram. No hobbit game (much to Jack's dismay) and no texts (not that anyone texts me anyway). I find keeping up with the previous quite tiring and stressful. Also, seeing people's overseas holiday snaps on facey ruins your own beachfront paradise. We always want what we don't have right? Plus all this lack of telecommunication has forced us into family PUZZLE TIME! (did you say that like in the drink driving ad?)

We now hate puzzles. 

Anyway, back to the magic that is the lighting. 

See? Don't these scones just looks super excellent when they are sun soaked?

What this lighting and sea view has encouraged me to do is to make copious amounts of scones. The wonderful circular chopping board they have here might have helped also as it looks excellently rustic with a batch of scones and the white ramekins of butter and jam atop it. 

The best type of scone is a date scone. A date and orange zest scone is even better. And what makes a date and orange scone even better? An easy peasy simple as recipe that basically has three ingredients (minus the dates and orange zest). 

I think I made these in pinwheel form last year (where brown sugar and cinnamon are rolled into the dough and then cooked to make pretty pinwheels which are then iced). 

However what I have not made for you are scones of the date variety.

I love dates. Date cakes, date slices, dates dates dates.

On that note, Jamal (a fellow date lover), remind me to make these for you. 

I compensate for my lack of romantic dates with the the more delicious fruit variety. I wonder why I have so few dates when I can make scones like these.

Anyway when shopping for dried dates I recommend have a good feel of the packets. Sure, when people see you fondling and groping packets of dates they will give you odd looks but finding a good, moist packet of juicy dates is far more important than the opinions of others. I find the Cinderella brand with the blue packet (not the white packet) are a decent date. 

Want to know the secret to juicy date scones?

You soak them in boiling water for five to ten minutes before draining then adding to the mixture.. What is even better is if you have a bit of orange juice lying around, pour that over them to cover then zap them in the microwave for two to three minutes, then drain and add.. Delish!

To these scones, I just soaked them in boiling water, drained them then added the juice of the orange that I zested then add the juice and the dates to the flour mix. 

I should probably  mention something about the unorthodox base ingredient list. Cream. Lemonade. Self raising flour. 

Trust me it works. It produces the most luscious, tender scones ever and you don't have to rub in a single gram of butter. The cream provides the fat content and the lemonade the sugar. You can substitute the self raising flour for standard flour with the addition of two teaspoons of baking powder for every cup of flour used. So if you have a scone craving on the way home from work or uni, stop at the dairy (Rob Roy flashes into my mind as I write this), grab a small bottle of cream and a can of sprite and whip some up in 20 minutes! 

To the flour you add equal quantities of the lemonade and cream. It usually lies at around a cup of each. Somedays, depending on the humidity you will need more or less. It doesn't have to be an exact science. The final dough should be soft and slightly sticky. Also, don't worry if there are patches of unmixed flour, it will sort itself out in the oven.

On that note I should give you Allie Edmonds (my mum)'s top tips for excellent scones.

1. Do not over handle the dough. You will overwork the gluten and make them tough and chewy. The heat from your hands also does the dough no favours.
2. Use a knife to mix the dough ingredients. This prevents over hand handling and just works really well.
3. Place the scones close together on the baking tray. This will prevent them from drying out too much and will make them rise up rather than out.
4. Pat the tops of each scone will a bit of milk just before popping in the oven. It makes the tops all nice.

With these commandments you can overcome any  preconceived scone fear you may have had. 

Lemonade Date and Orange Scones

makes 8 large scone wedges or 12 smaller squares

4 cups self raising flour (or 4 cups plain flour + 8 teaspoons baking powder)

1 cup full fat cream 

1 cup lemonade

Half a packet of dates (2 cups ish), chopped

Zest and juice of one orange

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees on bake and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Soak the dates in boiling water for five or so minutes. 

Place the flour and zest in a bowl and mix to spread the zest evenly throughout. 

Drain the dates, squeeze over the juice of the orange then add this to the flour. 

Mix the dates in with the flour to evenly distribute them.

Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the cream and lemonade. Use a knife to stir the mixture around until it all roughly comes together. 

Tip the dough onto a floured board or bench. 

Use your hands to do the last of the mixing, then shape the dough into a flattened circle or rectangle about 5cm thick. 

Using a sharp knife, cut the circle into eight wedges or the rectangle into 12 or 9 squares. 

Place on the baking tray with just less than a centimetre between them. Pat with milk then bake for 15 minutes or until the tops are golden. 

If you want you could sprinkle over a bit of white sugar, just to give the tops a bit of a delicious crunch.

Serve with butter and jam and prepare for the exclamations of gratitude from friends and family who will automatically assume you are some glorious creature who has spent the morning rubbing butter and flour in between your fingers. 

Enjoy!

Baby Banana and Caramel Cakes with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Icing

I tried to explain to my parents that baking Jack banana cakes was a sibling bonding activity and that they should appreciate the fact that we don't fight and hate each other and therefore is totally necessary.

They bought it.

 Yuss another baking escapade completed without too much parental hate. Having me in the house is like living in a bakery. You get chubs. There is always cake or something delicious around to munch on. I think they enjoy it when I leave. Wait, there is no 'I think' about it. I know they love to see me hop on that plane to Dunedin where they don't have to see/live with me for months at a time.

Anyway Jack and his friend Will (Hi Will!) were going to the gym together and they needed post gym nutrition. I don't know where they got the idea that banana cake was a good option for post exercise sustenance but regardless, I was going to be the source of this cake.

Ever since receiving my Treats from Little and Friday book for Christmas I have been wanting to try something out.

The problem with this book, whilst it looks beautiful, all the recipes have hideous quantities of ingredients and last time I checked I didn't have my body weight of eggs and chocolate lying around the house. The same with the ground nuts that are required for a few of the cakes. Seriously, who can afford 4 cups of ground hazelnuts for a spot of afternoon treat baking?

The one small cake recipe that wasn't atrociously expensive to make was the mini banana cakes. They used the recipe from the Edmonds cookbook but frilled it up with a few lashing and dashings of cream cheese icing, mascarpone and caramel.

It said it would make 12 small texan muffin pan sized cakes.

Negative.

It said to use a texas muffin tin that had the sides lined up with baking paper so that the cakes could be made quite tall. I ended up making 6 smallish texas sized ones (I didn't know how far to fill them so a erred on the side of caution) and used some of the left over batter to make 3 small baby bundt ones. The batter definitely wouldn't have made 12 large ones. Awkward.

The next weridity was the amount of mashed banana the recipe required. Your standard banana cake recipe calls for around about 3 ripe bananas.

Haha but not this one.

It called for three CUPS of mashed banana. I mashed up four bananas and that only achieved one and a half cups. Who has eight bananas lying around for SIX wee cakes. I am hoping it was a typo. I only added four bananas worth. You could probably increase this to five bananas and that would make it quite moist but also a wee bit on the dense side.

I don't know about you but I am all into simple methods. Methods that are minimalist on the word front because seriously who can be bothered reading methods when there is cake to be had! The method for these had a crazy number of steps (one of which was to sift the flour into a separate bowl - uuuh extra dishes anyone?). So here I am going to condense all these steps into a more manageable and easy to read format.

The caramel I used was from a tin of condensed milk that I had boiled away (in the sealed tin!) for three hours rather than boiling sugar and cream etc for which you need a candy thermometer (which I don't). I boil up around three tins at a time and then keep them in the cupboard for when we need it.We also didn't happen to have any mascarpone in the fridge so I left that out too.

I think it is cake time.

Individual Banana Cakes with Caramel and Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Icing
Adapted from Treats from and Little and Friday
Makes 8

125g butter, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
5 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons hot milk

Cream cheese icing:
30g butter, softened
50g cream cheese
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or one teaspoon vanilla essence)

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees on bake. Line a texas sized muffin tin with baking paper. Cut a circle for the bottom then a long strip around 25cm long and 10cm wide and place that around the edges of the tins. Make sure the strip is long enough to overlap at the ends when in the tin. It will stand up in a tall cylinder but as you place the cake batter into it it will stretch out and line the edges of the tin exactly.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time then continue to beat until fluffy and voluminous.

Beat in the mashed banana.

Dissolve the baking soda in the hot milk.

Gently fold in the milk and sieved flour and baking soda in three equal lots.

Divide the mixture evenly between the tins. If you want really tall cakes then you may only get 6 but the shorter ones may be better if you or your guests aren't very good at tackling huge quantities of sickly sweet food.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool before removing from tins and removing baking paper.

To make the cream cheese icing, cream together all the ingredients until light and fluffy.

To assemble the cakes, cut the cakes in half horizontally. You may need to level the tops of the cakes if they have domed substantially. Spread around two teaspoons of caramel over the base of the cakes then follow with a good dollop of the cream cheese icing. To the top layers, spread over the cream cheese icing followed by a small drop of caramel. Place the top halves onto their matching bottoms. Garnish with a slice or two of banana or some banana chips if you wish.

Enjoy! :)

Lemon Blueberry Sour Cream Cake

Also known as the best summer fruit based cake known to mankind.

Today was one of those crazy baking days where you just seem to make one thing after the other.

Jack and his friend Will wanted banana cake. So I made banana cake.

Then my friend Ashleigh came around with a box full of blueberries. So we made this blueberry cake.

Then I felt like sending Jamal something in Dunedin. So I baked a brownie.

Then before you knew it I was getting everything out to start cooking dinner.

Anyway Back to the blueberry cake.

Ashleigh took a trip to the Coromandel and on her way stopped off in Ngatea to pick some blueberries. I have decided that another trip to Ngatea needs to be made as they were the best blueberries I had ever tasted and better still they were only $9 a kg. Brill!

I saw a recipe in my Julie Le Clerc Favourite Cakes book for a frosted lemon blueberry slab cake. I'm not a fan of slab cakes, they never look as pretty as a nice circle, so we decided to use a 23cm circular tin instead. You don't want too small a tin as the blueberries sink which would leave you with a massive layer of plain cake over the top of the blueberries.

I feel like the blueberries could also be substituted for raspberries if you happened to have those in the fridge. What I think makes this cake great is the lemony tang of the lemon is softened with the delicate flavour of the blueberries.

The sour cream also makes it delicious and moist. The sourness counteracts all the sugar making it less sickly sweet.

Then you add delicious, whipped and luscious lemony icing to the top.

Just make this cake ok. It is so great. I know I say that about a lot of cakes but this is different. It is Summery. It isn't chocolatey and heavy but light, airy and fruity. And since fruit is good for us, especially blueberries, it is basically calorie free.

But as we all know, calories don't even count between December and February.

True story.

Did I mention this was super easy to make?

Ok I'll stop blabbing now and get straight to the important bit.

Lemon Blueberry Sour Cream Cake
Adapted from Julie Le Clerc's Favourite Cakes
Makes a 23cm diameter cake

125g butter, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
Zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 cup blueberries (fresh or thawed frozen ones)

Lemon icing:
30g butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar
Juice of 1 1/2 lemons

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees on bake.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs in one at a time, beating well between each addition. Beat until fluffy and voluminous.

Mix in sour cream and lemon zest.

Sieve in the flour and gently fold in until just combined.

Add the blueberries and delicately mix in.

Transfer into a lined cake tin (preferably one with a removable base) and bake for 35-40 minutes or until the top turns golden and a skewer comes out clean. I found that the top of the cake browned quickly so to stop over browning I placed a piece of tin foil over the top.

Leave to cool for half an hour before removing from the tin and transferring to a cake rack. Leave to cool completely before icing.

To make the icing, beat all the icing ingredients together until smooth and fluffy. You may need more icing sugar or lemon juice depending on the resultant consistency.

Garnish with strips of lemon zest if you wish.

Enjoy with a nice glass of iced tea (we did!)