Pink and Glitter

I will be the first to admit that I am way, way behind on updating this poor blog. Know that it is because I have been having a fabulous christmas time, Dear Internet, and I do so hope you have been too. As it is, most of the festive recipes will be going up in the new year, ready to be called upon next yuletide.

I make ganaches and truffles several times in a year, but since Christmas is a feast, it seems incomplete without them. That and they make lovely gifts. And, well, if you can make them look as festive as the season, well...

This year I made two different flavours of truffles; Milk Chocolate with a hint of cointreau, and White Chocolate with a hint of Forest Raspberry Brandy (A.K.A Magic Potion). That sounds terribly chic, doesn't it? Like most of my recipes, I wish they were more complicated, so I could pretend to be culinarily gifted. Ah, well.

This is the recipe I use, which seems to work with any chocolate.

Chocolate Truffles

180ml Double Cream
30g Unsalted Butter
230g-250g chocolate.

Regarding chocolate, before I go into method. The better quality the chocolate, the better the flavour. Belgian chocolate is particularly lovely. If using dark, go for something around the 70% cocoa solids mark. For milk, anything over 35% is going to be a bonus. For white, it really seems to be more about quality than content for flavour, but the belgian chocolate I used was 28% and is divine. For a bittersweet chocolate, I have used half dark and half milk too; you get the heady cocoa colour and tang, but it melts creamily away into sweetness. But then, I am a heathen, and I do so love candy-sweet white and thick creamy milk. Yum.

Whatever chocolate you are using, break it into pieces in a heat proof bowl and set aside.

Heat the cream and butter over a medium heat in a good pan. Once the butter has melted and been combined by whisking gently, bring to the boil. Take off the heat as soon as it has boiled, and pour it over the chocolate.

Leave the cream-chocolate bowl alove for a few minutes, then whisk it through. The hot cream will have melted the chocolate. When ready you with have an even, glossy, sumptuous chocolate ganache liquid.

If you wish to make boozy or flavoured truffles, this is the time to add your flavouring. For spirits, 2 tbsp will give it a hint, a fragrance and a slight taste. 4-5tbsp or so will give you a kick. For non alchoholic flavourings like vanilla, lemon etc, 1 tsp of extract should be enough. You can use lemon juice, but in my experience and basic kitchen technology, it has always curdled somewhat, yeilding a less smooth finish. If you do choose juice, you will obviously need more. The mixture pre-chill is completely palatable, so 'season' to taste. I would 'season' it a little too much, if you get me, because the flavour will lose edge as it cools.

Refridgerate for at least 4 hours, but prefferably overnight.

And that really is it. Once the ganache has set, spoon out teaspoonfuls and roll into balls in some sort of coating. For milk, dark or bittersweet chocolate, cocoa powder is a simple and classy finish. For white chocolate, you can achieve a similar effect with iciing sugar, or a blend of icing sugar and cocoa sieved together. I think white chocolate truffles are so sweet that the icing sugar can kill them somewhat, but that's jsut my point of view.

For more 'exciting' coatings, this year I used for my milk chocolates:

bittersweet melted chocolate
chocolate sugar strands
chocolate curls
chocolate sprinkles.

And for the white chocolates (which is where the title becomes apt):

various pink sprinkles
hundreds and thousands (non pareils) in pink and multicoloured themes
pink sugar strands
pink glitter sugar

There are no words for how festive these looked. In a cut glass candy bowl, they looked like shining baubles.

I must apologise for a lack of pictures in this post. I shall add some later. I am having a little camera difficulty at the moment. That and since a large number of these have been snaffled, I may have to make a whole new batch to photograph. What a pity... wink wink.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Christmas and the festive season means something a little different to everyone. Whether you are a perpetual winter bachelor or bacheloress, or someone who dives headfirst into gluts of quality family time, you will have some sort of ritual that comes in to play once a year; traditions that your play out, often as your parents played out for you too.

To me, something which is uniquely and absolutely Christmassy is the food. Sumptuous feasts aside, Christmas is the season of nibbles and canapés and sweet treats and cakelets. It is the season of baubles and trinkets, where no one can judge you on your frankly outrageous overuse of non pareils and what not.

I don’t know whether it is simply because I am a glutton, or because I am from eastern European stock (sometimes I believe the two are more than related) but Christmas to me just isn’t Christmas without baking; filling the besparkled and bejewelled house with spiced clouds of aroma that help defrost even the frostiest of unfestive humbuggers.

I bake pretty much everything in our house when it comes to Christmas. We often buy posh continental biscuits, and the obligatory tin of chocs, and real german pfeffernusse, if we can, but the house (as it should be at this time of year) is well stocked with homemade mince pies, lebkuchen, Christmas cake, brownies, sugar cookies, tarts, chocolates, petit fours, cheese savouries and pretty much any other festive recipe that tickles my fancy.

Money is tight this year, so my ingredients fund is tighter. Therefore, bakes are coming in dribs and drabs, but already my cranberry sauce is stashed in jars in the cold store. In the ’pantry’ cupboard I’ve stored cranberry and homegrown tomato chutney from the summer, and range of homemade spiced jams (perfect for making tarts for those who don’t like mincemeat, or Christmas presents). Last week I gleefully threw together my cranberry mincemeat (a faithful Nigella recipe I simple couldn’t do without) and mince pies (sadly now mostly gone- I make must knock up another batch!). This week I must resist the Christmas cake completely, ready for it be dressed up next week. More immediately I have planned a tart citron (which is rapidly becoming a speciality!) to appease my gluttonous but frosting hating brother, and a cranberry bake well (another Nigella I have discovered) in order to appease my a) adoration for cranberries, however terribly unbritish they may be, b) my love of almonds and c) my chronic, incurable sweet tooth. There is nothing like a festive twist on a traditional, sweet and filling pastry to chase away the winter blues.

However, most pressingly, and most Germanic of me, I must make up my first batch of Lebkuchen!

Though I’ve baked all my life, I’ve really come into baking blossom in the last few years. This also coincided with our local delicatessen no longer stocking traditional german biscuits at Christmas. I once travelled to Colchester and back for some, but really, that’s a little excessive, even for something so delicious as Pfeffernusse. I found, around this time, my Lebkuchen recipe, and I have loved it ever since. There is nothing quite so Christmassy for me as a hot steaming pot of honey and lemon for the mixture, and the joyous burst of spice; ginger, cinnamon, clove, allspice, nutmeg and black pepper, as they fill your lungs and heart, released when the batter is mixed, and more so when baked. Every Christmas Eve I bake a fresh batch of lebkuchen and sit up, watching terrible television, or sometimes more wholesome carols and services, surrounded by the Christmas lights as I ice them, ready for Father Christmas, and then my family, to enjoy.

When I say bake, it means just and only that. Lebkuchen, like many Christmas recipes, needs time refinishing, for the flavour to develop. As delicious as it is, it is not something to be rustled up in a couple of hours, or even really a day. I leave my dough in the fridge to develop for two to three days. The minimum, really, should be 24 hours after mixing, though I suppose a few hours would suffice. Not only does it allow the spices to infuse, but this dough is very wet compared with many biscuits doughs, and the time allows it to firm up at least a little. Also, this dough makes A LOT of lebkuchen! You could easily divide it into three parts, using one after a day and so on.

Lebkuchen

200g honey (I use a lovely local honey, but really any honey will do)
200g muscovado sugar
50g unsalted butter
Juice of a lemon
Zest of one orange and one lemon (if you only have clementines and they are being zest resistant, just squeeze out a little juice with whatever zest you manage to get)
2 free range eggs
550g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2-3 tsp ginger (depends how hot you like your ginger biscuits!)
1/2-1 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4-1/2tsp mixed spice

To decorate:
Royal icing
Silver and gold balls and dragees, non pareils or really whatever you like.


In a large saucepan (large enough to be used as a mixing bowl later in the recipe), combine honey, lemon juice, butter and sugar over a low heat until the butter is melted and the sugar dissolved. This takes about 15 minutes, but stay with it to stir as it goes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool until lukewarm.

Zest the orange and lemon (I hate this part but it’s important for flavour) and whisk into the cooled honey-lemon mixture, along with the eggs.

Stir in all the dry ingredients (flour, bicarb, spices) bit by bit. If you’re fussy you can sieve or whisk the dry ingredients before adding, but I’ve never had a problem just stirring them in.

Spray the inside of a large plastic freezer bag with oil. Frylight is fine for this. Alternatively rub with some oil with your hands. Place the dough in the bag, squeeze out the air as best you can and twist to secure it. Chill in the fridge for as long as you are going to.

When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 180/170 (which I believe is Gas Mark 4). Line baking sheets with parchment.

Roll out the dough as you like. Traditional lebkuchen are quite thick and puffy and slightly soft. If you like really crisp gingerbread, roll it to about 4-5mm thick. Otherwise, about 8-9mm is good, or you can thicker.

Cut out your desired shapes and place on your sheet. Small (>3cm in diameter) cookies will take only 7 minutes or so, but check at 5. Medium biscuits (around 5cm in diameter) will take 8-9 minutes. Larger biscuits or gingerbread house pieces could take as much at 12 or so. I would check small ones at 5, medium at 7 and large at 9. The desired colour when done is a light gingery golden, though even when browned as the thinner biscuits often get, they are delicious.

Can you tell which corner of my hellfire-powered oven is hottest?

Once cool, you can ice as you like. I either draw outlines or stars at each corner, and top with a dragee or silver/gold ball. On reindeer, however, I give them an eye, and either draw a saddle, or give them a my little pony style bum patch! If you want to use these as Christmas decorations, use a drinking straw to punch a hole prebake, and thread a ribbon through before icing, or once the icing has set (about 12 hours). You may need to reopen the hole a bit with a skewer because they do rise up a bit, but the biscuits are tough enough to take it. You can also make attractive stained glass cookies, or windows for a gingerbread house, by smashing boiled sweets, and placing them in holes cut in the cookies prebake. These melt in the oven and set as the biscuit cools to create a stained glass effect. Very attractive!

A hamper I made up as a gift. You can see the iced lebkuchen at the back. Unfortunately I overlooked taking a picture before I packed them!

Red Velvet Joy

There are some cakes and bakes that feel a little bit like Holy Grails. Souffles, for example. Or Macarons. But when it comes to cakes, something that has been mocking me from the horizon is the Red Velvet Cake. I must explain for those of the American persuasion that Red Velvet is not a common cake over here in Blighty. I’d never even heard of it until about a year ago, when simultaneously my friend tried and failed to bake one, and a Buttercup cupcakery opened at my local shopping centre. But it looked so delicious! It tasted so delicious! It was gaudy and flouncy in all my favourite ways! I was desperate to try making some, but struggled to find certain ingredients, and was a little shy of trying it too.

However, the planets aligned. The stars spoke forth unto the sibyl, and I found myself with buttermilk, red food colouring, marscapone and whipping cream. It was time.

I found a recipe on Joyofbaking.com which I decided to try. The exact recipe I used (and then tweaked) has been changed on there, but as far as I can see it has mostly just been halfed. However, I have listed below the exact amounts I used, and the method.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

120g butter (I used stork)
300g golden caster sugar
2 free range eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g self raising flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
240ml buttermilk
2 tbsp liquid red food colouring (N.B this is about 2 whole bottles.)
1 tsp distilled white vinegar
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

Preheat oven to 170 and prepare 15-20 cupcake tins/silicones, depending on the size of your moulds.

Cream together the butter and sugar. I actually ran out of golden caster sugar during this bake, so I used about 100g of soft brown sugar to compensate. This worked very well.

Add the eggs and vanilla to the butter mix, and beat until thoroughly combined.

Combine flour and cocoa in a separate mixing bowl.

In measuring jug, measure out your buttermilk (N.B even though the carton said more than that, mine measured out as this perfectly) and add the red food colouring. Whip together.

Reeeeeeeeed :D

Combine the three mixtures by adding the flour and buttermilk to the butter a bit at a time. Stir gently until fully combined.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine vinegar and bicarb. Allow to fizz, then combine quickly but gently with the cake mix.

Making haste, not speed, divide the mixture between your cases and put in the oven to bake for 15-18 minutes.


Perfect Cream Cheese Frosting
230g cream cheese
230g mascarpone
1 tsp vanilla extract
120g icing sugar
360ml whipping cream

Remove items from the fridge. It is not essential to let them warm up, as you are going to be whipping them thoroughly.

Beat together the marscapone and cream cheese until completely combined and fluffy.

Using an electric whisk, whip the cream until stiff.

Sift the icing sugar into the cream cheese mix, and then fold the cream in to combine gently but thoroughly.

Spread or pipe as you like.

I think these are probably the prettiest cakes I have ever made. Ever. In my life. I was a little overcome, actually. And they were almost unnervingly delicious. The cream frosting was so light and sweet and moreish, and the cakes had the smoky touch of cocoa, but were so moist and delicious. If I could change anything about the bake, it would be that mine weren’t quite as dayglo red as some examples I’ve seen. I will happily and hungrily work on that!

Bananarama: Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

Oh Dear Internet, how wonderful National Cupcake Week was! How much glee it brought me! How are did you celebrate National Cupcake Week? Me? By stuffing my face with frosted deliciousness, of course! Alas, I was unable to post at all this week due to time constraints and the dreaded 'Busy', but here I am, as promised, with a delicious recipe and bake to share!

Now, this post begins a theme; a series of recipe trials celebrating one of my favourite fruits; the humble banana. I’m currently looking for the perfect banoffee cupcake recipe to make it quadrilogy of deliciousness, but for now I have three fantabulous recipes that I will be sharing with you over the coming months.

To start us off, we have the Chocolate Banana Cupcake, with dark chocolate ganache frosting. The original recipe, pre my tweaks, is here.

Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

Makes about 24 good sized cupcakes

400g golden caster sugar
250g self-raising flour
75g cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
2 large free range eggs
3 small ripe bananas (or about 2 medium, or 1 very large)
240ml warm water
120ml milk
120g butter, melted
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180/160. Melt the butter in the microwave.

In one bowl, combine all dry ingredients (sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder)

In another bowl, mash the bananas. Then whisk in the wet ingredients (butter, water, milk, vanilla and eggs) fairly vigorously to incorporate air.

For reference: the size of bananas I used beside a teaspoon

Combine the two mixtures together, adding wet to dry until evenly mixed. You will have a very liquid, aerated batter. This is normal. Do not panic.

Ladle or pour the batter into either a pre-lined muffin pan or, like me, into your silicone moulds. A regular cupcake mould should be full up to about ½-1 cm below the rim.

Bake for 15-20 mins. In my oven on 160-170, they took 18.

To ice and decorate:

230g very good quality dark chocolate
180ml double cream
14g unsalted butter

Break the chocolate into small pieces in a heatproof bowl.

Heat the cream and butter in a pan over a gentle heat, stirring until the butter has melted.

Bring the cream just the boil, then remove from the heat immediately and pour over the chocolate.

Leave for 3-5 minutes, then come back and stir to combine.

Stir/Beat vigorously for 2-5 minutes, then allow to cool and thicken until thick enough to pipe or spread.

Pipe/spread onto your cakes as you please. Decorate with sprinkles, foam bananas etc.

These cupcakes did not impress me one bit to begin with. There was something about the flavour combo that just didn’t work for me. It was only after the cake was aged for a day or two that I really began to appreciate the smoky chocolate and indulgent fruitiness of these cakes. I’m still not 100% convinced by the ganache/cake combo, since the ganache packs a real hefty wallop against the most subtle flavour of the cake. The ganache is incredible on its own if you use the right chocolate, and makes very good truffles in its own right. However, flavours aside, the cake is very light, fluffy and moist, and flavours more subtle. I think if I make these again I’ll just chocolate/royal ice them, and stick a foam banana on top! How wonderfully gaudy! Squee!

I gave a plate of these to Looby because she wasn't feeling well. They certainly perked her up!

Happy National Cupcake Week!

Salutations, Dear Internet, how be, how be? I’m very well; I’ve been flitting off to London every day for a week, and have one more week of fluttering to go! I feel so debonair, so chic, so utterly fabulous, wandering up and down the Strand or gazing over the ornate period rooftops from my office window. Oh, be still my shallow, cliched heart!

But I am very excited, Dear Internet. Have you heard? It’s National Cupcake Week! Happy National Cupcake Week, Dear Internet? Have I managed to convince you that it is National Cupcake Week yet? Ohoh! In celebration of our favourite confection, I plan to share with you a series of bakes this week, all wonderfully scrumptious and darling cupcakes! Hoorah! The itinerary may or may not include:

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Chocolate Banana Cupcakes
Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

My plan is to post up about 3-5 bakes between today and the nineteenth. This will depend, firstly, on my internet access- some horrible folk decided to cut my internet and phone lines on the 8th, and I have been without it ever since! Boohoo! Secondly, it will depend on time constraints. I may throw in a LFMF to fill in a gap!

Are you excited, Dear Internet? Possibly not. But do be excited, and ecstatic, and exultant, and express you sheer glee at the fact that it is National Cupcake Week, and you don’t need to find an excuse to enjoy pure deliciousness! Huzzah!