Peanut Butter Brownies

So last week Monday was National Peanut Butter day, a day to celebrate the wonderful gooey addition to food cupboards around the world :) Peanut butter brings up a bit of a Marmite scenario - people seem to love it or hate it. I am on the 'love' team and use it in baking whenever the opportunity arises. It works fantastically well with chocolate, so where to use it better than in Brownies! The below recipe is from an old food magazine (I think BBC Good Food?) and replaces all of the butter with peanut butter to give it a fantastic flavour.


Ingredients:

225g crunchy peanut butter
150g dark chocolate (broken into pieces)
50g milk chocolate (broken into pieces)
280g light soft brown sugar
3 medium eggs
100g self-raising flour

Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease and line a square baking tin. Put aside 50g of the peanut butter, then gently melt the rest with the dark chocolate and sugar in a pan over a low heat (only stirring occasionally). Once the sugar has just about melted, turn off the heat and beat in the eggs ones at a time - be sure to do this quickly as if not, the eggs will start to cook when they come into contact with the hot mixture.



Once all the eggs are mixed in, mix in the flour until just combined and then pour into the tin and level with a spatula. Melt the remaining 50g of peanut butter cover a low heat until runny, then drizzle over the brownie mixture.


Place in the oven and bake for around 30 minutes or until it has a nice peanut butter crunch on top and is still slightly wobbly in the middle. Whilst still warm, melt the milk chocolate and drizzle over the top of the brownie. Leave to cool completely in the tin and then cut into squares. These keep for up to 5 days in an air tight container, and go very well with a nice big cup of tea :)

Healthy New York Cheesecake? Yes!

I have been lucky enough to co-ordinate the Cardiff branch of the Clandestine Cake Club (www.clandestinecakeclub.co.uk) Our first challenge was to bake a cake with less sin. In my research I happened upon an American recipe for New York Baked Cheesecake. As you may know this cake is delicious but rather high in fat! This rather exciting recipe came with its own challenges, requiring interpretation. After three attempts I perfected it and can now share it with you. So enjoy and let me know how you get on!

Crust

85g butter melted, plus extra for tin

140g digestive biscuits, made into fine crumbs

1 tbsp sugar, granulated or golden caster

Filling

450g 1 percent cottage cheese

225g lowfat yogurt cheese (or Greek-style yogurt)

450g light cream cheese, room temperature

1 & 1/2 cups caster sugar

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp lemon zest

1/4 tsp salt

3 large eggs, room temperature

N.B. As with most recipes the following temperatures are for non fan ovens, take 20 degrees Celsius off for a fan oven.

For the crust: 

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 160 degrees celsius. Process the biscuits in a food processor to fine, even crumbs, about 30 seconds. Add in melted butter and sugar and pulse or stir to combine, then pour crumbs into a 9‑inch springform pan and press into an even layer using the flat bottom of a measuring cup or glass. Bake the crust until fragrant, 10 minutes should do it. Let cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes then put in the fridge for at least an hour or as long as you can leave it.

For the filling: 

While the crust cools, increase the oven temperature to 260 degrees Celsius. Line a medium bowl with a clean dish towel or several layers of paper towels. Spoon the cottage cheese into the bowl (and Greek yogurt, if using instead of yogurt cheese) and let drain for 30 minutes (this can also be done in a fine strainer).

Process the drained cottage cheese in a food processor until very smooth and no visible lumps remain about 1 minute, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add the cream cheese and yogurt cheese and continue to process until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes should do it, scraping down the bowl as needed. (Yogurt can be added with cottage cheese if you drained them together). Add the sugar, vanilla, lemon zest, and salt and continue to process until smooth, about 1 minute. With the processor running, add the eggs one at a time and continue to process until smooth.

Being careful not to disturb the baked crust, coat the inside of the pan with vegetable oil spray or butter. Set the pan on a rimmed baking sheet. Pour the cheese mixture into the cooled crust and place in the oven.

Bake for 10 minutes at 260 degrees Celsius. Without opening the oven door, reduce the oven temperature to 90 degrees Celsius and continue to bake for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.

Transfer the cake to a wire rack and run a paring knife around the edge of the cake. Let cool until

barely warm, 2&1/2 to 3 hours, running a paring knife around the edge of the cake every hour or so. Wrap the pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, about 3 hours.

You may like to blot any excess moisture from the top of the cheesecake with paper towels and let the

cheesecake stand at room temperature about 30 minutes before serving.

Serves 12.

Per Serving: Cal 330; Fat 13g; Sat Fat 8g; Chol 90mg; Carb 40g; Protein 13g; Fiber 0g; Sodium 500mg

I thought that I would share with you that disasters happen to all of us. This was my second attempt and as you can see I got my temperatures a little confused!

Much baked love x

David @want2bakefree

Budding Bakers - Baked Cheesecake

This is a super simple cheesecake that you can use as a base to create your own flavour combinations.  We had some squishy apricots so used those up in the cheesecake and as a sauce.  There is no biscuit crumb base as this is an Austrian recipe rather than an American one.

Austrian Baked Cheesecake

You'll need

• 60g soft unsalted butter
• 140g caster sugar
• 280g cream cheese
• 60g ground almonds
• 60g fine semolina
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 small lemon 
• 10 apricots (optional)
• Handful flaked almonds (optional)
• 20cm cake tin

To make it

• Preheat the oven to 190C.
• Grease and line the cake tin with greaseproof paper. 

• Separate the eggs and set aside. 
• Zest and juice the lemon and set aside. 
• Chop the apricots (skins on) into small cubes and set aside.  
• Measure out the butter, sugar and cream cheese together and beat  until light and fluffy. 

• Beat in the egg yolks and set aside. 
• Now whisk the egg whites til you get stiff peaks.  As Amy is demonstrating, you should be able to hold the bowl over your head without anything dropping out! 

• Fold in the ground almonds, semolina, vanilla extract, lemon juice and zest into the cream mixture. 
• Now fold in the egg whites. 
• Pour half the mixture into the tin, then pile in half of the chopped apricots and then pour in the rest of the mixture. 

• Level out the top and then bake for 50 minutes.  

• We threw some flaked almonds on top for a little crunch and played Polly Pockets and My Little Pony while we waited.  

• To make the apricot purée, simply heat the remaining apricots with 2 tbsp of water until they are all mushy and melted.  Then purée to remove any lumps.  

Gingerbread House Challenge Results

Well, I should probably start this post with a great big apology! It is now nearly February and I am only just posting the results of our December Challenge! Life, Christmas and some exciting events in January have kept me pretty busy but I hope you can all forgive me.

We had so many lovely entries for the Gingerbread House challenge, I didn't envy Holly in her task of judging them at all! So without further ado, I will hand you over to Holly Bell from recipes from a normal mum;

Incredibly hard to judge this competition as all entries were fantastic and creative in their own way. However, there has to be a winner I guess:

(Based on looks entirely of course)

Winner of my favourite 'traditional' gingerbread house goes to: Karen from Lavender and Lovage, for being the fairytale gingerbread house I'd most like to live in!

Winner of most chic gingerbread house, the one perhaps the late Chanel might have chosen to live in: Liz from Eliza Do Cook More.

Joint winners of most creative interpretation of a gingerbread house goes to: Jacqueline from Cakeboule and Dave from Baking Beats

Winner of most original idea for a wedding favour: Becky from Mint Custard.

This was so hard to judge! Maybe next year you could ask people to get together to create a gingerbread town - where every blogger brings their house with them - a Guinness record perhaps?

Thank you so much to everyone who took part, and once again massive apologies for my terrible timing. Another huge thank you to Holly Bell for being our judge.

Did you enjoy the challenge? Do you think the right people won?

Fresh White Bread - Bread Series

To write a post about how to start making bread really made my head ache for a while.  There is so much advice out there and everyone has their own way of doing these things. So I decided to show you how I do it on a day to day basis and then work up to other methods and recipes as I carried on in other posts.  I used to knead all my bread by hand many years ago.  I got older and my wrists just couldn't keep up with it all.  For a few years I had a bread maker, but although the bread was brilliant it felt like cheating to me.  Then I was so lucky and became a KitchenAid stand mixer owner.  That gave more satisfaction.  Then I came across the name Dan Lepard.  He is a baking genius.  His method of making bread involves hardly any kneading saying that time kneads it.  So for our first loaf I decided to do a simple white loaf. Good starting point for anyone I think.  I grabbed the recipe I have written in my recipe book by hand but no idea where I got it from but is the one I use for basic bread.

So we start with
 500g strong bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp olive oil
1 sachet or 7 g fast action yeast
300ml body temp water

the fast action yeast doesn't need to be activated before use but if you were using fresh yeast (double the weight of dried yeast) or wanted to test if your yeast was working  then you would crumble or stir the yeast into some of the water  with the sugar. and wait for it to go frothy before using it.  The water doesn't actually need to be body temp as it will prove if it is cooler but will take longer.  If you put your finger into the water it shouldn't feel hot or cold.  To hot and the heat will kill off your yeast so take care with the temperature.

So I mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and mix together, then add the olive oil. The olive oil is not strictly necessary if you don't have it.Then mix together with your hands or a spoon with the water or yeast activated in water.  It may be wise to keep a little back just in case, but you may need to add a little more to. All flours differ and even the same brand may require more or less on different days.  The dough should come together leaving the sides of bowl fairly clean, It should feel soft but not sticky, slightly tacky is OK but not so it is sticking to your hands to much.you can add more water or more flour until you get the right consistency.

 At this stage you can either mix in a mixer with a dough attachment for 5 minutes or so, knead by hand on a board for 10 minutes.  I prefer to oil the board with a little oil, The dough doesn't absorb any more flour and change the properties of the recipe. I found a video here that might help with the kneading if you want to do it by hand.  If you are doing one of these 2 methods knead as said, and looking like the pictures below, then rest in a covered bowl and leave until doubled in size in a warmish room and look for **** further down to carry on with instructions.

They way I do it though is by covering the bowl for 10 minutes and then coming back. I oil my board a little larger than my dough and place dough onto the board and do 10 seconds of very lazy 'kneading.  I slightly flatten the dough and take large pinchfuls from the side of the dough and fold into the centre, turn slightly and do again,  working quickly I do 8-10 of these in my 10 second.  Turn the dough seam side down and you are left with a dome of dough

And that is just 10 seconds worth to make it smooth.  Place back in the bowl and cover and knead this way twice more with 10 minute intervals, making a total of 3 times.

Cover again and leave until doubled in size, roughly about an hour. I cover with just a tea towel because the bread has already got a coating of oil to stop it drying out.

***#*
After the dough has double and proved for its first time it should look like this

It's puffed up feels very light to the touch and airy.  Now we have to knock it down.  The yeast has been activated creating Co2 which have created bubbles of gas in the dough.  Take your fist a gently push down onto the dough and watch it deflate slightly,  Don't go to mad once or twice should do it.  Then carefully tip out your dough onto your oiled board and flatten out slightly folding one third back onto itself

Then the other side goes into as if you were folding a letter almost

I turn this upside down and place into a greased and floured 2 lb loaf tin seam side down.

Cover again either with a tea towel or oiled cling film loosely for around 45 minutes and preheat your oven to gas mark 8.  When your dough has risen to the top of the tin and just above we are ready to bake it.

For a basic white tin loaf I like to do mine by sprinkling with flour and slashing it lengthwise. The cut helps the loaf rise without bursting as well as being decorative.  I use a sharp craft knife to do mine.  It needs to be done with a very sharp knife/razor and confidently and quickly so as not to knock out all the air from the second prove.

Now we are ready to bake, This needs to be placed it upper half of the oven and baked for 20 minutes then the oven turned down to gas mark 6 and baked for a further 15-20 minutes.  With my oven it needs to be 25 minutes.  All ovens vary and all this tapping bottom of loaf doesn't always tell you if your loaf has cooked properly.  I go by colour, smell and somehow a loaf seems lighter when baked.  But it's down to finding out how your oven cooks in the end.  Now at this point your house will be filled with the most amazing smell ever and family if home start to ask when is it going to be ready.
Mine came out looking like this

Turn the bread out of the tin and cool on a rack for 30 minutes or so before cutting into it.  It may seem a long time to wait but it needs to cool or will be a little claggy when you cut it somehow.

All that is needed now is some real butter, jam or cheese and just dive in.  If you have any left a day or so after this makes the MOST amazing toast to :o)

Next time I will show you 3 variations on this white bread dough, sweet and savoury.  So why not have a go and let us know how you got on? Any questions just ask and I will do my best to answer them.

Jules x

New Year, New Bakes, Praline Mini Cakes

Last week I made some delicious Praline Cupcakes for the December edition of Weightwatchers magasine, I didn't have some of the ingredients so I improvised!

2 pp per cake 39 pp per recipe 57 calories per cake

Ingredients:

calorie controlled cooking spray
60g  s/r flour
50g  icing sugar
20g  ground almonds

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp dark rum (I used tia maria)

50g low fat spread - melted

30g  white chocolate - melted

1.Preheat oven gas mark 6, 200c, or fan 180c

2. Mist a 24 hole silicone button chocolate mould or mini muffin mould with cooking spray ( I used butter!)

3. Put flour, icing sugar and almonds in bowl add the eggs, vanilla, rum and melted spread and chocolate - stir until combined.

4. spoon mix into mini muffin tin - bake for 10 min or until just firm

5. Remove from oven and leave for 5 mins. Then remove the cakes from tin, transfer to a wire rack and leave to go cold

6. Dip the cakes upside down in 75g of melted chocolate and allow the excess to drip off - leave to set before decorating with sprinkles

These cakes will last for up to one week in an airtight container.

Budding Bakers - Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies

These lovely simple biscuits are from the book "My Grandma's Kitchen" which I was kindly sent to review.  It's a really good book if you've never baked with children before and are wondering what would be good recipes to try out.  All the recipes are beautifully illustrated to appeal to the children - almost like a story book.

Amy wanted to make something to take to a friend's birthday party and we chose these healthy Oatmeal and Raisin cookies but glitzed them up with some fondant icing at the end. I have left the measure in cups as it is much easier for children to follow.

Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies decorated by Amy

You'll need

125g soft unsalted butter
2/3 (two thirds) cup soft brown sugar
 2 tbsp milk
2 eggs
1 cup self raising flour
1/4 (quarter) tsp ground cinnamon
1.5 cups rolled porridge oats
Half cup raisins

To make them 

• First cream the butter in a mixer or using a hand whisk until it is soft. 

• Then add the sugar and beat til the mixture is light and fluffy. 
• Add the milk and eggs and beat it thoroughly. 

 

• Sift in the flour and ground cinnamon and stir it very gently til the flour is combined in. 
• Add the oats and raisins and stir them in. You'll have a sticky mixture. 

 

• Grease a large baking tray and preheat the oven to 180C. 

• If your little one doesn't like the stickiness, you can put the mixture in the fridge for an hour or so at the point and then come back to it. It will be stiffer to work with - Pick up a little of the mixture, roll it slightly and then plop it onto the baking tray.  Use a spoon to flatten it out into a circle type shape.  

• Do this for the rest of the mixture and then bake the cookies til they are golden brown on top - about 15 minutes. 

• Transfer them to a wire rack to cool and then if you like use the fondant icing pens to decorate.  

Instead of or as well as the raisins, you could use nuts, seeds, dried fruit like apricots or cranberries.  This is a great little base for you to experiment with your little ones.  Hope you have lots fun doing that!