Baking

A collection of baking recipes

Pumpkin Spice and Pecan Loaf

- Michael 4 Comments
Pumpkin Spice Loaf

Pumpkin season is not over yet. It’s thanksgiving for you guys across in the US this week, right? That makes me feel better about baking with the stuff. I’d originally hoped to do some things in the run up to Halloween, but without my own place and baking stuff it ended up not working. On my list, as well as the more standard pumpkin pie, was a Pumpkin Loaf with Cinnamon Drizzle. What I’ve ended up doing was a Pumpkin Loaf with a cinnamon swirl (see here for similar) and stuffed with pecans then drizzled with icing. It was good, really good. Oh and I baked it in my still broken oven, which means I’ll be doing it again soon to make sure I get the temperatures and times exactly right.

Pumpkin Spice Loaf

Just a month or so ago everyone started raving about pumpkin spiced latters again, yawn. I’m not a coffee fan, and even if I was, places like starbucks aren’t exactly my cup of tea. I typed that, I realised what I’d done, I then took a sip of my tea. Tea > Coffee, there, I said it. But yes, I do however love cinnamon, as I wittered on enough in the last post, I’ll save you from that again. I also discovered that the Tesco at the end of my road sells tinned pumpkin, something that I struggled to find in the entirety of Leeds city center (it also sells buttermilk, which I could only grab from M&S in leeds). This is all great news, so it meant I got to finally bake up some pumpkin goodness.

Pumpkin Spice Loaf

I came across a recipe for a tray bake, here, added some pecans, the cinnamon “swirl” and turned it into a loaf. I bought the loaf in to work for the Children in Need Bake Off, to find I was the only one who had. Er, oops? But it at least helped raise a little for charity.

Pumpkin Spice and Pecan Loaf
 
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Serves: 1 Loaf
Ingredients
  • • 110g margarine
  • • 220g dark brown soft sugar
  • • 135g bread flour
  • • ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • • ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
  • • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • • 175g tinned pumpkin
  • • 2 eggs, beaten
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to: 180°C and either grease or line a loaf tin.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer (or by hand) cream together the margarine and the sugar.
  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix until smooth.
  4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. (Optional – if you want to do the swirl, mix some cinnamon with brown sugar. Add half the batter, spread some of the cinnamon sugar mix on top then pour the rest of the cake batter on top of this).
  5. Place in the center of the oven and bake for approx. 35 mins or until a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  6. Allow to cool before removing from the tin.
  7. Drizzle with icing if desired.
 

 

 

Nuts and Nuts and Nuts for Candy (Cinnamon Sugar Cashews)

- Michael 1 Comment

I like nuts, and I also like a Blood Brothers reference. Specifically I really like Cashew nuts. I also really like Cinnamon. Also it’s November so brace yourselves for me continually talking about cinnamon, cinnamon and yup, you guessed it, more cinnamon. I only did 2-3 posts about last year. THE SHAME! If you want to see them they are here, here and here. They are all tasty recipes that I still highly recommend. I will rebaking a couple of them this year.

Cinnamon Candy Cashews

Anyway, I’m having oven issues. The thermostat on our new oven is, to put it lightly, fucked. I burnt a batch of my Peanut Butter Cookies last week with the oven set to 140 for 5 minutes, and by burnt, I mean black. The tray was also too hot to hold through my oven glove. This means that the large amounts of baking and recipes I’d intended to be flooding you with are going to have to wait until this is fixed. I can’t risk things like cakes/cookies etc when I just plain can’t guarantee what my oven will do to them.

Cinnamon Candy Cashews

However, I can still do a few things, if I’m just very careful. For instance these Cinnamon Sugar Cashews don’t need to rise and/or won’t collapse in on themselves if checked often. So if I set my oven to 40 (FORTY, SERIOUSLY?) then it isn’t too bad. These make a great snack, any time of year, but I made them to take with me to the Battersea Fireworks display last Saturday, which was phenomenal. I also made a huge batch of Mulled Cider (it was tasty, but could have been mulled a tad longer, I was in a rush). I’m still experimenting with roasted nuts so used recipe from here as a base.

Cinnamon Candy Cashews

Other than the oven being tricky, and needing a bookcase plus bedside table (anyone got any spare?) I am thoroughly enjoying having my own place again and being a resident in Clapham.

And while I’m a Londoner now, I just want to give a huge shout out to the guys across at Leeds Indie Food, as they successfully got funded through kickstarter and their site went live this morning. Go check it out!

Nuts and Nuts and Nuts for Candy (Cinnamon Sugar Cashews)
 
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Serves: One small bag or bowl
Ingredients
  • 250g Cashews (pecans and almonds would also work, as would a mix)
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • 1 cup light brown granulated sugar
  • 1.5 teaspoons cinnamon
  • Couple of pinches of nutmeg
  • Couple of pinches of salt
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 150°C (I did it on 40 due to my thermostat being messed up) and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
  2. Beat the egg white with the water until it forms stiff peaks.
  3. Fold in the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt carefully so you don’t knock all the air out.
  4. Fold in the cashews until they are well coated.
  5. Spread the cashews out evenly over the baking sheet and place in the center of the pre-heated oven.
  6. Bake for 45 minutes, turning every 15 minutes to ensure they are evenly roasted.
  7. Remove and allow to cool slightly before serving. These are great slightly warm but also just as tasty cold.
 

 

Sticky Ginger Loaf

- Michael 2 Comments
Sticky Ginger Loaf

It was my Gran’s 90th Birthday last weekend and I was asked to make a selection of cakes/brownies for a crowd of 60. I also knew that a few other people were baking things so I just went for a couple of things instead of the 3 or 4 my mum asked me for (surprise, surprise there was way too much). I decided to make my usual batch of triple chocolate brownies and a couple of sticky ginger loaves.

Sticky Ginger Loaf

I’ve been looking for a really good ginger cake recipe for ages. I’ve tried a few over the last 6 or so months to no avail. They’ve either been too dry or not sticky enough. I think I’ve finally nailed it. This recipe is beautifully moist and sticky. With heaps of ginger and really dark colour. I added some crystallised ginger to give it an extra hit. Both this

Sticky Ginger Loaf

Both the loaves and the brownies went down really well, as did the other bakes. My cousin, who runs a cake decorating company in her spare time, made a very impressive 4 tiered cake as the centre piece.

Sticky Ginger Loaf

I’m also trying out some new photo editing software, let me know what you think.

Sticky Ginger Loaf
 
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Author:
Serves: 1 loaf
Ingredients
  • 225g self-raising flour
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 tbsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground mixed spice
  • 115g butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
  • 115g dark muscovado sugar
  • 115g black treacle
  • 115g golden syrup
  • 250ml whole milk
  • 85g crystallised ginger
  • 1 egg
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC (160ºC fan assisted). Grease/line the greaseproof paper.
  2. Mix the flour with the bicarb and the spices. Rub the butter into the flour with your hands until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
  3. Mix the sugar, milk, treacle and syrup in a saucepan over a low to medium heat. Stir gently until the sugar is completely dissolved then turn up the heat and bring it to just below boiling point.
  4. Add the ginger to the flour mix, pouring in the treacle mixture stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Once this is combined, beat in the egg and mix until it’s combined. Resembling a thick pancake batter.
  5. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes to an hour. Until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin on a rack until it’s completely cool.
  6. I then added a lime drizzle, but you could add a lemon one if you wished.

Sticky Ginger Loaf

Sweet Potato Paleo Brownies

- Michael 4 Comments
Sweet Potato Brownies

First of all, I’m sorry. I’ve been really bad with baking updates the last couple of weeks. While I hope you all enjoyed my Scotland updates (you can see part 1, part 2 and part 3 here), I understand that they aren’t what you likely come to this blog for. I am warning you now that there will likely be one from my Chicago trip next week as well… featuring a lot of Pizza.

Anyway, before I get sidetracked rambling about pizza and my travels I thought it was time to do something a bit different. A week or so ago one of my closest friends put out a Facebook status declaring she wasn’t doing too good and asking someone to send her cake. So I am. She is currently doing a Paleo diet, which is something that I’m not even going to begin to pretend I’m an expert on. So she sent me across a few ideas she’d found while she herself had been doing Paleo cooking research.

Sweet Potato Brownies

I opted for Sweet Potato & Ginger Brownies. A lot of the Paleo recipes I came across asked for ingredients which I likely wouldn’t use again, unless I was to regularly do Paleo things. This meant that I wanted to be careful with what I was baking and not shell out for a heap of fancy ingredients. Being my first attempt at this sort of thing I also wanted to keep it simple. These Sweet Potato Paleo Brownies were just right. With the only slightly awkward (read: Expensive) thing I needed to buy being Coconut Flour. I opted for this recipe here.

Sweet Potato Brownies

Plenty of the Paleo recipes call for sweet potato or avocado, often both. They help replace a lot of the flour, butter and chocolate, the avocado being naturally oily and also creamy. The sweet potato being good to bake and help hold things together. A few other recipes that use these sorts of things can be found here.

Sweet Potato Brownies

Oh yeah and the big news? I’m moving to London at the start of October.

5.0 from 1 reviews
Sweet Potato Paleo Brownies
 
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Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • 1 Large Sweet Potato (approx. 2 cups once mashed)
  • 3 Eggs
  • 57g Butter
  • 60ml Honey
  • 3 Tablespoons Coconut Flour
  • 3 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
  • ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ¼ teaspoon baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 75g Dark Chocolate, chopped roughly.
Instructions
  1. Peel and dice the sweet potato. Place in a pan of boiling water and boil until tender.
  2. Mash the potatoes until smooth.
  3. Preheat the oven to 180 °C(160 °C fan assisted) prepare and line a 9x13 inch brownie tin.
  4. In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the potato, butter, honey and vanilla.
  5. Add the dry ingredients and mix well, then stir in the chocolate.
  6. Pour into the prepared tin and spread into the corners.
  7. Place in the middle of the preheated oven and bake for 30-35 minutes (a tooth pick inserted into the middle should come out clean).
  8. Remove from the oven and place on a rack, only removing from the pan once cooled.
 

 

 

Chocolate Swiss Roll

- Michael 2 Comments

Chocolate Swiss Roll with Buttercream filling & Salted Caramel

So the Great British Bake Off has started up, and there is totally a guy stealing my vibe coughIaincough. Now a great many of you pestered me last year about applying, my friend Matt even said he was going to send in my application for me. I didn’t, and I am glad I didn’t. Yes, I can bake, but what I bake is all relatively niche and just the very first episode of this years highlighted a few things to me. I am not experienced at a great many of the more traditional techniques and bakes which are seen as “standard” things to bake.

Swiss Roll 01

My first example of this, the Swiss roll. I haven’t really considered making one before, and it wasn’t until they did last week that I thought; “You know what? I’m gonna give that a go.” So I’m starting with a simple one. None of the faff that some of those entrants attempted (I assume in a desperate attempt to be “impressive” in the season opener), but simply a standard chocolate Swiss roll. I’ve even gone and bought a new tray and everything.

Swiss Roll 03

I am pretty pleased with how it turned out for a first attempt. It cracked a tiny bit while I rolled it, partly due to rushing it and partly due to (ever so slightly) overbaking. It still held very well and rolled properly in about 95% of it. I’ve a decent amount of Salted Caramel leftover so I think I’m going to try again later in the week. I’m also tempted to give some of the biscuits a go from this week’s episode. I’ve made Caramel before on the blog but wanted to go for the saltier kind this time around.

Swiss Roll 04

 

Chocolate Swiss Roll
 
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Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • For the Caramel:
  • 200g granulated sugar
  • 90g salted butter
  • 120ml heavy cream
  • Salt to taste
  • For the Swiss Roll:
  • 3 large eggs
  • 75g caster sugar
  • 50g plain flour
  • 25g cocoa powder, plus extra to dust
  • For the Buttercream
  • 75g butter, at room temperature
  • 125g icing sugar
Instructions
  1. Start with the caramel, preferably the night before. In a medium saucepan over medium heat melt the sugar. Stirring with a rubber spatula. Lumps will form but keep melting and stirring until it becomes a see through syrup. Be careful not to let it burn.
  2. Add in the butter, it will bubble at this point so be careful. Stir until it completely melts and combines.
  3. Pour the cream in slowly, again, it will bubble. Mix and boil until it reduces slightly. Be careful not to let it catch. Remove from the heat and pour into a bowl. This will last in an air tight container for a couple of weeks in the fridge.
  4. For the Swiss Roll. Preheat the oven to 200°C(180°C fan assisted) and line a swiss roll tray with paper. Whisk together the sugar and eggs for 5-10 minutes until it forms a pale, creamy mixture. The whisk should leave trails.
  5. Sieve in the flour and cocoa powder and mix well. Be careful not to knock the air out but make sure it is well combined with no clumps.
  6. Spread the mixture out evenly into the prepared pan. Using a palette knife to ease it into the corners. Place in the centre of the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes (or until the cake is springy to the touch. I could have baked mine for a minute or so less).
  7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan, covered with a damp cloth. In the meantime, lay out a large piece of greaseproof paper and dust with cocoa powder. Transfer the cake to this.
  8. While it cools on the new parchment, make the buttercream. Cream the butter until smooth and add the icing sugar. Beat until combined.
  9. Using a palette knife evenly spread the buttercream onto the cooled cake. Top with the caramel, again smooth evenly.
  10. Using the greaseproof paper, slowly roll it up.