Love is in the air...

Bit late with this blog post, but unless you've been hidden under a rock for the past week you'll know that it was Valentines day on Monday.


Now, those of you that know me will know that I have a heart of stone and romance isn't my thing. I am a bit of a cynic about the whole valentines thing. Quite possibly because I NEVER got that card or flowers (Of course I do now being happily married!) BUT this year I thought I would try and do something to get in the whole spirit of St Valentine.


I've never made red velvet cupcakes before and with them being pretty much the cupcake of choice at this time of year, I thought I'd give it a go...

Ahh my heart's softening up already!

For those who don't know what red velvet cake is, it is an American cake which is flavoured with cocoa and vanilla and is always topped with a creamy white icing, usually made with cream cheese. However, the most distinctive feature of red velvet is that the cake is bright red due to the use of red food colouring. The use of food colouring is a more recent things, originally the cakes gained a red hue due to the reaction of cocoa, vinegar and buttermilk, which all feature in this recipe. For more info, check out the Wikipedia page.


Anyway, history lesson over. I have a number of red velvet recipes but I decided to choose Nigella's from her most recent book Kitchen as I have heard a lot of good things about this recipe. Because the recipe uses cocoa, I thought I could sneak this post into Forever Nigella too.

The recipe itself is pretty straightforward to make. I think I was most apprehensive about adding the food colouring - it calls for 1 tbsp of gel colour...usually you only need a teeny tiny amount of this colouring but I listened to Nigella and the result was the most fabulous coloured batter.

The recipe is said to make 24 cupcakes - I managed to squeeze out the 24, but 12 minis and 12 standard sized cakes.

Once baked, the cakes aren't quite as vibrant, but a more muted shade.

The sponge had a lovely moist crumb which wasn't too sweet. I think what really made the cakes was the brilliant lemony cream cheese frosting - Nigella gives the option of using cider vinegar or lemon juice in the frosting. Obviously I went for the lemon option as the thought of vinegar freaked me out slightly.

I piped the frosting on the cake, and although the looked nice - I thought they needed an extra something, an extra bit of love. So what better than some love hearts? Sometimes a little bit of schmaltz can be good! Is that my heart melting a bit? Maybe...

Chocs Away...

One of my friends, Paul, turned 30 this week and there was a bit of a shindig this weekend. I wasn't intending to make anything, as I was all cake baked out from last weekend's action, but seeing as it was a special birthday I decided to stop being lazy and bake!

I decided to make some Malteser cupcakes for a number of reasons:

1. They are really easy and simple to make.
2. I love Maltesers (I know they weren't for me, but hey, I can be selfish sometimes!)
3. I had been pondering over what to make as part of Maison Cupcake's Forever Nigella #2.

I've never taken part in a blogging challenge before and as a newbie to this kind of thing, am quite excited by it!

So the recipe for the Malteser Cupcakes derives from Nigella's Feast where in its original form is a 20cm layer cake, topped with a crown of malty chocolate balls. I decided to turn this cake into cupcakes - a mixture of minis and standard sized, as I think they're easier to eat at a party, especially the minis.

I made a couple of tweaks to the original recipe, in that I added some crushed Maltesers to the cake batter for some texture contrast and I changed up the buttercream recipe, as I felt that the buttercream in the recipe was quite butter heavy with not enough icing sugar.

An interesting thing to note about the recipe is that it only uses 15g of butter in the sponge. I originally thought this was a typo, but it isn't! The sponge turned out quite dense, but in a gingerbread kind of way - the kind that gets squidgy and stickier the next day. The cakes will keep for about 2 days in an airtight container.

Chocolate and malty goodness!

The quantities below made up 12 minis and 12 standard sized cakes.

Chocolate Malteser Cake

Adapted from “Feast”, Nigella Lawson (2004)


For the cake
150g light muscovado sugar
100g caster sugar
3 large eggs
175ml milk
15g unsalted butter
2 tablespoons Horlicks
175g plain flour
25g cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
50g Maltesers, crushed

For the buttercream icing
500g icing sugar
1 tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp Horlicks
150g soft unsalted butter
2 tablespoons milk
Maltesers, to decorate

The Cakes
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4 / 160C (fan) / 180C. Line a 12-hole muffin tray and a 12-hole mini muffin tray with the appropriate sized cupcake cases.

Beat the sugars and eggs until the sugar has dissolved and is light and frothy. This will take around 5 minutes with an electric mixer, probably about 10 by hand. 



Beating the eggs and sugars



In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, bicarb and baking powder.

Heat the milk, butter and Horlicks powder in a small saucepan until the butter has melted and the mixture is hot but not boiling. Whisk through whilst this is on the heat to get rid of any lumps.

Add the warm Horlicks mixture into the eggs a little at a time, beating as you do this. Fold in the dry ingredients thoroughly, then fold through the crushed Maltesers. The cake mixture itself will be quite thin and runny - don't worry as this is the correct consistency.

Divide the cake batter evenly between the cupcake case. because the batter is so runny, I found it easier to pour it into the cases with a measuring jug. Fill the cases no more than 2/3 full.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes for the minis and 20 minutes for the larger cupcake, turning the trays after 10 minutes. -The cakes should have risen and by quite springy. Test with a cocktail stick - if it comes out clean, they are done.

Let them cool in their tins on a rack for about 5 minutes and then turn them out onto a cooling rack. Leave to cool completely before you ice them.

The Icing
Beat the butter, milk, Horlicks and cocoa along with half the icing sugar until smooth. This can take up to 10 minutes using an electric mixer. Gradually add the rest of the icing sugar and beat until the icing is smooth and creamy.

Pipe or spoon the icing onto the cupcakes, topping each one with a Malteser.

The cakes, especially the icing, really tasted like Maltesers - not too sweet or rich and quite light. They went down a storm at the party - all the minis went in the space of about 5 minutes, with my friends Paul and his wife Claire hiding away the larger cupcakes to enjoy alone over the weekend.

Death by Cake

I am conscious that I haven’t posted for a while and that so far I haven’t blogged about baking. So much so it is going me nightmares. The truth is that I have just been really lazy this week and rather just get on and write, I have taken the option of drinking wine… (Speaking of which, Morrison’s have a lovely St Chinian red on offer for £4.99, it is usually £9.99, V. good!) For those who know me well, they will know that my first passion in the kitchen is baking.

It was my Father in Laws birthday last weekend and rather than make cupcakes (blog post on those to follow!) I decided to make a good old fashioned chocolate cake, with a bit of a fruity twist.

The idea of raspberries with chocolate is a very common combination and I think that the inclusion of a raspberry cream as the cake filling really helps to cut through the richness of the cake. The cake consists of a rich chocolate sponge, the raspberry cream and the whole thing is then covered in a beautiful, thick chocolate ganache icing.

The different elements of the cake are an amalgamation of 3 different Nigella Lawson recipes, who I think is pretty reliable when it comes to cake. (Although I have to say I don’t ever take cake decorating tips from her, she’s a bit scruffy for my liking and she’d probably agree with me).

Raspberry Chocolate Cake

For the cake

50g/2oz best-quality cocoa powder, sifted

100g/4oz dark muscovado sugar

250ml/8fl oz boiling water

125g/4½oz soft unsalted butter, plus some for greasing

150g/5oz caster sugar

225g/8oz plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 free-range eggs

For the raspberry cream

1 punnet raspberries

300ml extra thick double cream

For the icing

75g unsalted butter

175g best quality dark chocolate, broken into small pieces

300g icing sugar

1 tablespoon golden syrup

125ml sour cream

1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

1 punnet of raspberries, to decorate

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line the bottoms of two 20cm/8in sandwich tins with baking parchment and butter the sides.

Sift the cocoa into a large bowl and mix in the dark muscovado sugar. Pour in the boiling water and mix. Se to one side to cool slightly

Cream the butter and caster sugar together in a separate bowl, well until pale and fluffy

Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together in another bowl and set aside for a moment.

Dribble the vanilla extract into the creamed butter and, then crack in one egg, quickly followed by a spoonful of the flour mixture (this stops it from curdling), then the second egg. Keep mixing after each addition. Incorporate the rest of the flour mixture little by little, then finally mix and fold in the cocoa mixture.

Divide the batter between the two cake tins and put in the oven for about 30 minutes. (Mine cooked in about 20, so be aware! If a cake tester comes out clean, it’s done!)

Leave the tins on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes, then turn the cakes out and set aside to cool. It took a good hour and a half – 2 hours.

For the filling, simply fork through the raspberries into the cream. If you haven’t bought thick double cream, you will need to whip it beforehand until it is soft and voluminous, but not too stiff.

To make the icing, melt the butter and chocolate in a good-sized bowl, set to one side.

While the chocolate and butter are cooling a little, sieve the icing sugar into another bowl.

Add the golden syrup to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla and then when all this is combined whisk in the sieved icing sugar.

When you've done, you may need to add a little boiling water or more icing sugar depending if you need it to be thicker or runnier. It should be liquid enough to coat the cake easily, but thick enough not to drip off. In any case, the icing will dry off quite firm.

Assembling and decorating the cake

On your cake stand / plate cut out four strips of baking parchment to form a square outline on it (this stops the icing running on to the plate). Then sit one of the cakes, with the domed side down.

Spread the raspberry cream into the cake half evenly and smoothly with a palette knife / spatula. Sit the other cake on top, normal way up, pressing gently to sandwich the two together.

Spoon half of the icing on to the top of the cake and spread it over evenly. Spread the sides of the cake with the remaining icing and leave a few minutes till set, then carefully pull away the paper strips.

Decorate with raspberries. To keep them in place, I dipped the bottom ends into the icing to stick.

Try and not to devour it all at once.

And then I Broke the Bird's Breast!

This is my second attempt at Nigella Lawson's Praised Chicken dish which is from her Kitchen book (one of my faves from 2010) and also featured in one of the TV Episodes.

It's one of those dishes that really makes you feel virtuous, as it's just poached chicken, veg and rice. Definitely one for January, it's a welcome change to all of the excesses of the Christmas and New Year. (Speaking of which, the decorations need to come down tonight!!) I was hoping that the fact it's full of chickeny goodness would cheer the husband up, as he had a bit of a nightmare with trains tonight! Well, this coupled with a few beers anyway. Think it worked!

I have made some slight tweaks to Nigella's original recipe, but its essentially the same. The only bit if kit you will need is a rather large pan that will fit the chicken. My Le Creuset only just fits everything in and it's 24cm wide and about 10 cm deep. I love one pot cooking and this is easy peasy.


Nigella's  Chicken

1 chicken, approx 1.5 kg (pref free range / organic please!)
A glass of white wine
2 carrots cut into batons
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 leeks, each cut into 4 batons
4 garlic cloves, peeled but kept whole
A few sprigs of parsley
A few sprigs of thyme
Cold water

To Serve
Rice
Parsley

Untruss the chicken and then snip off its ankles (If it's not a better welfare bird then you won't have to do this as they will have already been removed) but don't throw them away!

Then press down on the breast of the bird until you hear its breastbone crack and the bird flattens slightly. Like Nigella, I really enjoyed this bit! Great if you feel like a bit of violence on a Thursday evening... If you're a wuss then skip this part, but be warned that it may not fit into your pan. Season the bird.

Splosh some olive oil into the pan and heat up slowly. Once it's warm enough, place the chicken in the pan, breast side down and turn the heat up. After a few minutes, the chicken should have browned so turn it over and pop in the bird ankles (Of course these are not for eating, unless you want to, but they will add flavour to the soup).

You don't need to completely cover the chicken

Add the white wine and let it bubble away slightly before adding the garlic, carrots, leeks and celery. Add the parsley and thyme (I tie them up with the elastic I untrussed the chicken with).

The add enough cold water so that most of the chicken is covered, bring to a rumbling simmer and then clamp the lid on.

The chicken should take around 1 hour 30mins - 45 mins. Once ready, remove from the pan and carve.

Serve the chicken, soup and veg with rice (I used basmati as this is all I had in the cupboard, but wild rice would be yum!) and an extra smattering of parsley. Not the prettiest of dishes, but it tastes brill. Felt so healthy that a glass of wine was in order to restore the balance...

This also leaves shed loads of leftover chicken as for some reason it goes a very long way and any leftover soup can be used as a stock. Bonus.