Chocolate Yule Log

Chocolate Yule Log

Once again I should probably be apologising for a lack of Christmas posts. But you know what? I’m not going to. I’ve been that damn busy enjoying the festive period that well, I’ve not really had time to do updates. I’ve been baking plenty, but the food I’ve been making has been going straight to the plate. Since my last update I’ve also died of a hangover. This is my ghost writing this. I’m not exaggerating. My work Christmas do left me a shell of what I once was. I think it made my top 5 hangovers and possibly clinched the number one spot. Those that follow me on twitter, sorry, but I took it out on my twitter feed with some live tweeting.

Christmas Yule Log

Apparently my Cranberry & Orange loaves arrived in one piece and were devoured by the winners. I apologise for not sending out others like I said I may, but at £8.50 a pop I just couldn’t afford the postage. In the new year, you are all (well some), getting cake sent across.

Christmas Yule Log

Christmas Yule Log

I wanted to do something properly Christmassy. So who wants a Yule Log? This is basically my Chocolate Swiss Roll recipe slathered in chocolate and made to look like a log. If anyone wants to pass me some holly I’ll get it looking extra festive.

Christmas Yule Log

I’ve failed at a couple of recipes of late, and it’s annoyed me a little. I tried making a gingerbread sleigh the other day and just couldn’t get it to stick together. Not quite right anyway. Below is a fairly awful picture of what I did make, along with some pretty awesome Christmassy treats from Lindt. It didn’t stick together well and didn’t photograph well, so it doesn’t get its own post I’m afraid.

Gingerbread sleigh

 

Chocolate Yule Log
 
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Author:
Serves: 12 slices
Ingredients
  • • For the Swiss Roll:
  • • 3 large eggs
  • • 75g caster sugar
  • • 50g plain flour
  • • 25g cocoa powder
  • • For the Buttercream:
  • • 175g Good quality dark chocolate
  • • 250g Icing Sugar
  • • 225g Butter, soft
Instructions
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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).
  4. 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.
  5. While it cools on the new parchment, make the buttercream. Melt the chocolate, either using a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of water, or in the microwave. Set aside and allow to return to room temperature.
  6. Sift the icing sugar in a mixer with the butter and cream together. Pour in the chocolate and cream until well mixed.
  7. Spread the buttercream over the whole cake, making sure it goes to all the corners. Carefully roll the swiss roll from the longest edge close to you, getting the roll as tight as possible.
  8. Once rolled tightly, cut off either end at a slight angle, use these to make the branches of your log.
  9. Cover the log in the remaining buttercream, using a fork afterwards to drawn the pattern of the bark. Dust with Icing Sugar to get it looking extra festive.
 

Cranberry and Orange Loaves

Cranberry & Orange Loaf

IT IS CHRISTMAS NEXT WEEK. GET EXCITED. Stick on your favourite Christmas song, get the wine mulling and tuck in to some form of festive sandwich from your local convenience store. Better yet, make one a Cranberry and Orange Loaf. I love this recipe and make it every year, several times, yet somehow I managed to not write it up last year. I think it was because it’s something I usually make to gift to people or to take places. Which means I never get a chance to actually photograph it.

Cranberry and Orange Loaf

Cranberry and Orange Loaf

Speaking of gifts. This is actually the prize from my Mystery Cake Box giveaway I ran in November. So congratulations to the winners and I hope you enjoy the cakes. I may well be sending a few of these in the direction of some friends if I’ve got time this week so keep an eye on the postie.

Cranberry and Orange Loaf

Cranberry and Orange Loaf

It contains nuts, usually walnuts but I’ve made it with pine nuts for a nut allergy fearing mother before now. The crunch that gets added from the nuts and the extra flavour is a great addition. I have tried a recipe that replaces the Orange with Orange Juice and I have to say, it was much too orangey for me and a bit too sharp. This is a much preferred method and I thought I’d lost the recipe a couple of years ago but managed to dig it back up. It’s one of the few that I have on a scrap of paper that has somehow survived a few years.

Cranberry and Orange Loaf

Cranberry and Orange Loaf

It’s something I usually bake in batches of 2-3 as well. Which you will see below as this recipe makes 2 loaves. The only really time consuming bit is halving all of the Cranberries.

 

Cranberry and Orange Loaves
 
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Author:
Serves: 2 Loaves
Ingredients
  • 510g Flour
  • 400g Sugar
  • 3tsp Baking Powder
  • Couple of pinches of Salt
  • Juice and Zest of two large Oranges
  • 4 tbsp melted butter
  • 2 Eggs, beaten
  • 100g Walnuts, chopped
  • 300g Fresh Cranberries, halved.
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 175°C (155°C fan assisted) and grease/line two loaf tins.
  2. Sift the dry ingredients into the bowl of your mixer, add the zest.
  3. In a measuring jug combine the butter, juice and eggs. Add enough water to the jug to make it about 350ml.
  4. Pour into the dry and mix at a medium to low speed until just combined.
  5. Add in the cranberries and walnuts and mix again.
  6. It makes a very thick gloopy batter. Divide this up evenly between the two prepared tins and place on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes. A toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf will come out clean.
  7. Remove from the oven and allow to set in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool

Pumpkin Spice and Pecan Loaf

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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Author:
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.
 

 

 

Sticky Ginger Loaf

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

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.