Brandy Snap Baskets and Blank-Canvas Banana Iceream

Cones are contentious. Like so much of history, the origin of the icecream cone is one that has some level of debate and mystery to it. Some say the cone was invented by an Italian icecream cart owner in New York named Italo Marchiony who patented a cone making machine in 1903. However, there is evidence that there’s an earlier patent  (1902) held by a Antonoio Valvona who was based in Manchester, UK for an “Apparatus for Baking Biscuit Cups for Ice Cream“.

I have seen cones made of giant cookies, breaded and deep fried icecrem, icecream between slices of bread and much more on my internet travels. One source I read even claims that ”During World War II, cone manufacturers had trouble getting wheat flour since it was needed to make bread… for American soldiers overseas. Several companies in Philadelphia solved this problem by making ice cream cones out of crushed, sweetened popcorn!” I wonder if that actually works? Kavey – I challenge you.

So, not wanting to wade into a a waffle-war I decided to steer clear of cones and make brandysnap baskets instead. I used a Mary Berry recipe from BBC Good Food. I only made one tweak which was to add a little bit of coconut.

Coconut Brandy Snap Basket

Coconut Brandysnap Baskets

55g butter
55g demerara sugar
55g golden syrup
50g plain flour
½ level tsp ground ginger
½ tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp desiccated coconut

The recipe is here but it’s very simple. I just stirred the coconut into the melted sugar and butter before adding the flour. It makes them slightly less “lacey”

I wasn’t planing to make my own icecream to go with these, but there was a can of condensed milk in my cupboard and some old bananas, so it seemed rude not to.

Blank canvas banana icecream

I think you could probably add anything into the base mixture – marshmallows, stir some caramel and salt through, or maybe some jam, whatever you have. I also made a richer version with two bananas and no milk but Mr B preferred this one. I’m not an icecream expert but I think it’s the high ratio of condensed milk than means you don’t need to churn it. So if you want to add more milk to make it less sweet, you may need to think about that.

1x frozen banana chopped into chunks
1x can of condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
50g grated chocolate
50g chocolate chopped into chunks
1/3 pint milk

Put everything except the chocolate in a blender and whizz until combined.
Stir in the chocolate
Freeze

Pretty Icecream

It’s a long time since I last tried my hand at frozen foods – I made BFG Ice Lollies, which were …meh, I mean they were fine, but they just wanted to be icecream. So, hooray for the underhanded way that the Cones & Cups, Biscuits & Baskets, Wafers & Waffles BSFIC challenge nudged me back into the land of icy delights

This is my entry for Bloggers Scream For Icecream run by Kavey Eats.

Coconut Flapjack

Oh look! Another recipe where I realised half way through that I didn’t have enough of some ingredients. Predictable? Moi? Shh.

This is a quick post for a very quick bake. It’s an “adaptation” of my sister’s/mum’s unbeatable flapjack recipe . I’m not certain whose it is, but they both have their fair share of unbeatable recipes and are much better bakers than me, it’s just that I’m geeky enough to blog it.

A huddle of flapjack

You can find the unadulterated version here.

Coconut flapjack

175g butter
130g dark muscavado sugar
45g granulated sugar [it should be 175g demerera but I didn't have that]
175g golden syrup
290g porridge oats
60g crushed shreddies [should be 350g oats but I only had 290!]
75g desiccated coconut

Put butter, sugar, syrup and coconut in a large saucepan, heat until sugar and butter are melted.
Stir oats and shreddies into mixture until completely combined
Bake at 150c for 40mins

Conveniently disintegrates so you just have to “clear up that extra bit”

Chocolate Dipped Mango Macarons

Bring me sunshine….

This blog was born with macarons.

These are not an improvement but that’s ok. Firstly because I can, on occasion, be a stubborn pigling and there is nothing like being close but not quite good enough to make me grit my teeth and have another bash (ok there are all those other things I want to bake that have a habit of distracting me, but we’ll forget that for now). Secondly, because I have an excuse: my hand-made piping bag exploded when I tried to make these. It’s my own fault for making the macaronage before looking for my piping bag and realising I’d thrown it out. It seems that my piping bag creation skills are somewhat lacking. This meant that I couldn’t pipe them and just had to dollop the mixture instead. Not really the ideal way of making a delicate macaron.

“hand dipped” if you want to sound posh

Macarons

130g ground almonds
160g icing sugar
3 large egg whites at room temperature ~ 90 – 100 grams total (aged 24 hours minimum) 
65g caster sugar

The recipe can be found here at Macaron Diaries which also has excellent tips on problem

Mango Curd

1 large ripe mango
Zest and juice of 1 lime
125g golden caster sugar
125g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
4 egg yolks, lightly beaten
The recipe can be found at  Loving Homemade 

The mango curd is my first ever curd. It came out a tad runny, which meant I had to mix it with buttercream to make the filling. I”m a bit disappointed that it wasn’t more mango-y but I think I’ll go back to basics and try lemon curd soon.

It seems strange that I’ve not attempted macarons again since the birth of Pigling Bland. I never seem to have enough eggs or enough almonds at the same time. So whilst I don’t bake  solely for online challenges, this month has been one where the various challenges have been brilliant for pushing me. I have had to re-visit bakes which I’ve sort-of managed in the past but not been happy with.

I’m entering these into

Classic French: Macarons hosted by A Kick At The Pantry Door and run by Blue Kitchen Bakes
and
We Should Cocoa: Mango and chocolate hosted by Allotment 2 Kitchen and run by  Chocolate Log Blog / Chocolate Teapot

Bread: Poppy Seed 4 Strand Plait

I’ve mentioned before that bread is a bit of a challenge for me, but that’s what this blog is partly about – making me stretch myself. And so it is that I find myself googling yeast conversions, looking at kneading techniques and watching bread-braiding videos.

Wonky braiding

Mr B who is, I think it’s fair to say, a lover of bread, tells me that this was “a very good one”. He disagrees with my complaints – namely that I can always detect a slight uncooked yeasty note in my home made loaves and feel that the texture is a little too tight. I do agree that this is a definite improvement on previous attempts. I felt quite smug about my plaiting skills before leaving  it t rise, but I didn’t seal the ends tight enough, so one strand came a bit loose which meant it ended up a bit lop sided. It’s a little over browned, but tasted fine.

Is that crumb too tight?

Poppy Seed Plait
from Rose Elliot’s Book of Breads

1 sachet quick yeast (which is what I used)
400ml warm milk
700g strong white flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
50g butter
1 egg for glazing
poppy seeds

Put the flour into a large bowl.
On one side of the bowl put add the salt, on the other add the sugar and yeast.
Rub the butter in, then add the wam milk.
Knead for 10 mins, cover the bowl with a damp teatowel and leave to rise until doubled in size. Around 1 hour in a warm place (though Paul Hollywood reckons that it’s better to let it rise slower in a normal heat place)
Knock back, knead a very little bit and split into four strands.

Now to plait it:
4th strand over 2nd
Twist 2nd and 3rd
1st strand over 3rd
Twist  2nd and 3rd.
Repeat

Leave to prove for about 30mins – it should be puffy now.
Preheat your oven to 230c / 450f
Beat the egg and brush all over to glaze. Sprinkle the poppy seeds over it.
Bake for 35mins

Note: You could also use 25g fresh yeast or 15g dried yeast + 1/2tsp sugar. If doing so, blend the yeast into the milk first. For dried yeast add the sugar as well and leave for 15mins until frothy.

This is my entry into the Random Recipe Challenge, run by Dom over at Belleau Kitchen. The theme is bread so I put the number of pages in Rose Elliot’s Book of Breads into the random number generator and this is what it came out with.

I am also entering it into Yeast Spotting link up, Bake Your Own Bread and the Baked themed Breakfast Club hosted by Feeding Boys and a Firefighter  and run by Fuss Free Flavours

Kladdkaka (Sticky Swedish Brownie)

Ok, I’m holding my hands up. I wanted a cake beginning with K so I googled “types of cake”.

Kladdkaka (before being popped back in the oven for a bit extra time)

Luckily, thanks to the power of Wikipedia I found that there is a Swedish version of the brownie called Kladdkaka. Jackpot!  Even better, the recipe I found is from a Scandinavian deli and grocery shop in London that I have been to on several occasions.

If you want to experience more cakes like this and some excellent coffee I heartily suggest that you make a trip to:
Scandinavian Kitchen
61 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PP

Kladdkaka (Sticky Swedish Brownie)
They have also provided a handy PDF of the recipe here

100g unsalted butter
2 medium eggs
300g caster sugar
150g plain wheat flour
4 tbsp cocoa powder
A pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar (or I used 2 tsp vanilla bean paste)

Melt the butter in the microwave or in the pan and leave to cool slightly while you do the rest.
Whisk egg and sugar until light, fluffy and pale.
Weigh out all dry ingredients and sift them into the egg and sugar mixture. Fold the mixture until incorporated. Lastly, add the melted butter and fold again until you are left with a smooth chocolate mixture.
Pour into a lined pan – this recipe fits a normal 20 x 30 cm pan. The cake will not rise, only puff up slightly during cooking but will fall back down again once take out of oven.
Put into a hot oven (180 degrees) for about 20 minutes

Note: I thought mine was cooked so took it out but it was still really runny – had to put back for another 10mins though maybe I didn’t leave it to sit long enough before cutting

The exact time varies from oven to oven, so you must keep checking it towards the end. A perfect kladdkaka is soft in the middle – but not actually runny. The difference between a dry and too runny cake is a matter of a minute. The way to test it is to press down gently on the crust: if it take a bit of pressure to crack, it is done. If you hardly have to apply pressure, it needs a bit longer.

When you take it out, leave it in the tin to cool for at least half an hour. (Note to self – you should have paid more attention to this bit)

After the extra minutes in the oven. Still perfectly gooey but less drippy!

Serve cut into pieces with either whipped cream or DAIM cream. Also works very well in Sundaes, with fresh fruit… Do you need more excuses?

Decoration
A dusting of icing sugar.
DAIM CREAM: Softly whip 500 ml whipping cream with a tsp of cocoa powder. Chop up 2 Dime/Daim bars and add
to the mixture. Whip a bit more to integrate but take care not to over beat. Serve with the Kladdkaka.

Scandinavian Kitchen have kindly given me permission to reproduce this recipe.

(c) 2010 by Bronte Aurell at Scandinavian Kitchen http://www.scandikitchen.co.uk – all rights reserved, Do not reprint without permission

Gooey chocolate on a pretty cakestand.

This is my entry to May’s edition of Alphabakes, run by The More than Occasional Baker and Caroline Makes. The letter this month is of course K.

As mentioned previously, the cake stand was a gift from dotcomgiftshop.com

Chocolate Crack Cookies

There was a cookie fight inside my head this week.

Having seen the recipe for The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever I thought it was only good baking practice to test them out. You can’t be bandying around claims like that without backup.  Then I saw “6 Simple Cookie recipes” on How to Simplify and more specifically the Chocolate Crinkle Cookie recipe.

Which to make? Well, both – obviously, but not at the same time.

Winner of PB’s internal cookie fight: The Crinkle/Crack Cookie

Given that I had run out of plain flour and only had rye flour, I thought that the crinkle cookies would lend themselves more to the substitution.  I was right. Hooray for me and my shoddy shopping lists.

Mr B disputes the name of these cookies. He says that they are not crinkly but look like they have big cracks in them and so should be called Crack Cookies. Can’t think why the original recipe didn’t call them that. Hmm. Still, he does have a point.

He’s right you know. That’s a grand canyon, not a crinkle.

The rye flour lends a chewy nuttyness to these dark cookies and makes them great for a serious chocolate hit without the hand-in-cookies-jar problem that comes with sweeter more refined biscuits. Perfect served with a latte or for a more hardcore coffee lover they’d be great with a freshly pulled espresso.

Chocolate Crack Cookies
Adapted from  How To Simplify’s Crinkle Cookies

130g cocoa
4 eggs
1tsp vanilla bean paste
2tsp baking powder
150g soft light brown sugar
190g caster sugar
96ml sunflower oil
290g rye flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
icing sugar to roll them in

In a large bowl mix the  cocoa, sugars and oil.
Now add the vanilla bean paste and eggs. Beat until combined.
In a separate bowl weigh out the flour, baking powder and salt and stir through so b.p is evenly distributed. Stir into the cocoa mixture. It’ll be relatively stiff.
Cover the mixture and put in the fridge for at least 4 hours (I’m not sure why it’s so long…anyone?)
Preheat oven to 350f/ 180c
Pour some icing sugar into a shallow tuppaware or bowl.
Take chunks of the dough and roll into 1inch (2.5cm) diameter balls. 
Roll each ball in the icing sugar and put on a greased baking tray. They won’t spread very much.
Bake for 12ish minutes (mine took a touch longer). They are very soft when they come out so wait for them to cool before taking off the tray.
This makes a big batch of cookies (30ish). I imagine you could freeze the balls of dough but I’m not sure how you’d roll them in icing sugar. 

These are my entry into May’s Tea Time Treats challenge which is “biscuits and cookies” and is run by Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked

Banana Churros with Chocolate Sauce

So, did you guess what this was for?

A Churrera

It’s an authentic Churrera, or Churros pump. Thanks to friend Pablo’s mum having a clear out, I have this on long-term-loan. As someone who is unable to go through a day without some kind of bump/graze/burn/ it has taken me a while to psych myself up to facing the large pan of boiling oil needed to make churros. However, when in receipt of such an exciting gift and a load of crazy shaped extruding plates (dog shaped churros anyone?!) it was only going to be so long before my curiosity got the better of me. So, on Tuesday I made five different types of batter and  spent a good 2.5hrs deep frying things – it turns out that there’s quite a knack to getting the right consistency of mixture and to piping the perfect star shaped strand.

Dunk me!

I wanted to make banana churros, which is why I spent a long time trying to get the batter right but if you want to make plain ones then this recipe from Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers was by far the best mix I tried. My churros are slightly heavier in texture but if you like the banana & dark chocolate combo then they are a nice variation.  You can find the full recipe and method for them over on my monthly blog for Rangemaster, but here’s what you’ll need to make them:

Banana Churros with chocolate sauce

300g self raising flour
400ml boiling water
2tbsp rapeseed oil (or olive oil)
1 banana
1 litre sunflower oil for frying
1tbsp cocoa
1 1/2 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp sugar
35g dark chocolate, broken into squares

Banana Churros and dark chocolate sauce

Oh and for the sake of full disclosure, here’s some that didn’t work quite so well. Promise not to laugh:

Don’t say what you are thinking. It’s not kind