The Boy Who Bakes- Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Cookies

For Christmas, I received The Boy Who Bakes by Edd Kimber and what an amazing book it is! As an avid Great British Bake Off fan, I loved Edd and was excited to start baking some of his mouthwatering recipes.

The book is jam packed with impressive cakes and bakes and, even without a tempting picture, my brother and I were keen to try his Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Cookies.

The pictures aren't great but they were eaten so quickly, we didn't really get any photos! As you can see, the cookies are a wonderful size. Although the recipe said it made twenty two, we got nearly forty five out of the dough and they were all what I would class as 'large' cookies. This made me very happy!

All in all, a wonderful cookie! They were chewy but crunchy, sweet but salty and totally moreish, I thoroughly recommend you to make these! I won't post a 'how to' as I want you to all invest in this book :)

Happy Baking everyone!

A Day at the Beach: Cheesecake Brownies and Choc Chip Cookies

Let me set the scene...

(source)

The above photo is of a row of beach huts in Blyth, a small coastal town in Northumberland. The hut on the far right, fondly known as Lobster, was ours for the day and my full family gathered our deck chairs and picnics and spent the day by the beach. I love an excuse to bake, especially as cake is never fully appreciated in a diet laden household like mine so I jumped at this opportunity.

I've had a Betty Crocker Chocolate Chip Cookie mix sitting in my cupboard for ages and knew this was a good time to get rid of it. I did a great job at pretending these were my own recipe and I'm ashamed to say that these went down better than any of my homebakes ever do!

I also chose to make Cheesecake Brownies from The Ultimate Philadelphia Cookbook. Although I like the idea of this book, I feel some of the recipes were put together without any regard as to whether the cream cheese works as an element and it certainly didn't in this recipe.

It's very rare that I don't get to use my mixer when baking but the brownies were made completely in a pan, alike the jumbles I made previously.

The recipe told you to swirl the cheesecake mix on top of the brownie batter but I found that this was inconsistent and some brownies had loads of cheesecake and others none at all. I know it may ruin the idea of the recipe but I feel the cheesecake and the brownie should have been one batter.

Normally, I would never bake two things that have different temperatures and cooking times together at once but, as there were only ten degrees between each and I was short for time, I took the plunge and there were no negative consequences, luckily!

As these were a rushed bake, I had to cut these when they were still warm and they crumbled quite badly as a result. I also found they cooked before the 35-40 minutes and I had burnt edges, so they're definitely a bake to keep your eye on!

The majority of my eatership agreed that, while the brownie was really good, the 'cheesecake' bit was too over powering and was, at times, an unwelcome contrast to the chocolate brownie (my words not theirs!).

In my opinion, Philadelphia has quite a sour flavour and, should I make these again, I'd avoid using it completely. Marscarpone cheese would also work really well as a substitute.

All ready to head off to the beach!

Just to finish, my beautiful cousin Olivia who saw that her brother was on my blog and she wanted to be aswell!

Cheesecake Brownies- adapted from The Ultimate Philadelphia Cookbook

Ingredients:

125g butter- it wasn't specified but I used unsalted

125g dark chocolate, chopped

200g dark muscovado sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

50g plain flour, sifted

50g cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

200g Philadelphia Light- I used regular which may have affected the taste

50g caster sugar- I suggest more than this!

Method:

-Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4 and grease and line a rectangular cake tin or a tray bake pan

-Mix the chocolate, butter and muscovado sugar in a saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the mixture has melted.

-Remove from the heat and whisk in the eggs after allowing it to cool for a few minutes

-Sift in the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix until combined.

-Spoon into the prepared tin and level off

-Beat in the Philadelphia and caster sugar until smooth and creamy then spoon randomly over the chocolate mixture and swirl with the tip of a knife

-Bake for 35-40 minutes or until cooked through

-Allow to cool before slicing- otherwise it goes all mushy like mine did!

Enjoy!

Cookies, Tarts and Pies!

Apologies for the lack of blogs! I've been busy baking, whilst watching Daytime TV and failing to do much else so spare time has been non existent...

Bakewell Tart

I found this recipe in Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy and made it for my boyfriend's birthday, mainly to prove that I do listen to his baking requests!

This was the first time I have ever made Bakewell Tart never mind pastry and, having heard many pastry horror stories, I followed the recipes suggestion and bought pre-made pastry. I hear all of your jaws dropping and I am not ashamed (I must repeat this to myself), this honestly saved me a whole lot of time and took a load of stress from the pressure of providing the only birthday 'cake' for the party. I must say at this point, however, that a recipe for Lemon and Almond pastry was also provided, I just took the cheat's way out...

I don't like Bakewell Tart, or more to the point I don't like almonds so this may appear a pointless venture but it's my boyfriend's favourite and it was a big birthday! I decided to make two tarts (the best one going to my Grandfather to fatten him up) and by the time I made the second tart, I felt like a pro.

This of course is all down to Lorraine Pascale and her brilliant 'baking made easy' which allowed me to bung all the ingredients into the mixer and concentrate on my shop bought pastry. It was a bit of a faff mind and took a good 3 hours to make the two tarts, this was not helped by my refusal to taste the tart but I tried and it was very good indeed!


Banoffee Pie

Banoffee Pie! Or tart? Who knows but who cares! What a beautiful invention! However every time I eat one I always remember why I don't like bananas. Certainly, after eating this I expected to feel like it would work better without the bananas but the recipe I used, again Lorraine Pascale, cooked the bananas in butter and vanilla essence and it added something to the taste of the pie which I actually quite enjoyed.

I used whipping cream for this pie but felt that double cream would have provided a fuller flavour, the unhealthier the better!

I also stupidly didn't make it in a loose bottomed tin and consequently struggled to get it out, much to my taste buds frustration! An easy peasy recipe all around, to be honest, and considering I've ruined 3 pans trying to make Dulce Leche, I went for Carnation's caramel in a tin. I'm such a pathetic cook!!

Crinkle Cookies

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies! I found this recipe on BBC Good Food last year and have never turned back. They are soo easy to make and have proper chocolate in them, not just cocoa powder like some other recipes I've come across. A tad faffy, you have to leave them in the fridge for an hour or two but this can be done for as long as you need, over night too if necessary. This also gives them their fantastic fudgey brownie texture, they are absolute bliss! The recipe says 60g of icing sugar is needed for the coating but I just tend to chuck some in a bowl and drop the dough balls in. A tip though, have COLD hands! Otherwise the dough just melts and it's an absolute mess. One adjustment I think I'll make next time is some chocolate chips, the cookies don't need any more flavour but I fell their texture is missing out somewhat. Go try them, now!

Bakewell Tart- adapted from Baking Made Easy

Ingredients:

500g shop bought shortcrust pastry or Lemon and Almond Pastry (found on Pg.222 in her book)

200g butter

200g caster sugar

2 eggs

2 tbsp amaretto (optional, I didn't use)

40g plain flour

200g ground almonds

40g flaked almonds (again, I didn't use these)

180g good strawberry jam (I was told raspberry jam was used traditionally and chose this, which worked beautifully)

23cm flan ring or loose bottomed tart tin, about 4cm deep

Method:

-Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/Gas Mark 4

-Roll out your pastry on a floured surface to the thickness of a £1 coin. Ease this into the flan tin and press into the sides. Place this into the fridge until firm, roughly half an hour

-Once ready, line with baking paper and weigh down with baking beans. Blind bake for 15-20 minutes or until a light golden

-Then, remove the beans and place the pastry back into the oven, allowing it to brown for a further 3-4 minutes

-Once out of the oven, set it aside to cool and make the frangipane. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy, add the eggs and amaretto and beat until combined

-Fold in the sieved flour and the ground almonds. Cover the base of the pastry with the jam and then spoon the frangipane over the top

-Sprinkle over the flaked almonds and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the frangipane has puffed up

-Remove from the oven and allow to cool

Enjoy!