Raspberry Brownies

Once a month, I attend a leadership team meeting for my company. It is a day-long affair, and being finance I usually get to go first, while everyone still is paying attention and before their brains have turned to mush.

But this month, before looking at footfall, at profit analysis, at department expenditure, we had another pressing matter to attend to.

"Right," said my boss, "T is running late thanks to Scotrail, so we should probably talk about her imminent birthday."

Turns out T was about to hit a landmark number. Balloons were required (which requires serious planning when you have motion sensors linked to alarms in your office) and cake was needed. My German colleague and I eyed each other across the table, her being the more frequent office baker.

"I can make a cake." I declared. "Unless you want to?"

She gave a shrug. "Nah, you go for it."

But what kind??? With furrowed brows, we tried to recall any allergies, any flavour aversions, any exclamations of favourites on previous baking occasions, but we drew a blank. Moments later, T arrived and the conversation was cut short.

So numbers were discussed, charts were analysed, and then later, as conversation drifted over tea and biscuits (the bourbons always disappearing first) my boss turned the conversation towards confections, eyed T and asked "so, T, if you had to choose one perfect cake, what would it be?"

She looked down, running through her mental list of cakes, and said "ooh, something chocolate. With raspberries. And coconut. I don't know, something like that!"

To the internet I went, looking for something that would travel well (ideally, by bicycle) and that ticked at least 2 of those three boxes. Raspberry brownies came up as the most likely option to please, and while I could have experimented by adding a bit of coconut, I wasn't willing to risk it since I hadn't tried this recipe before. As it was, I feared I had overdone them, so sent them in with instructions to give constructive feedback (I wouldn't be in work that day), and was told the following:

"Was lovely. Looked overbaked on outside, but was all gooey on inside, and great taste. So yeah, def do them again. Raspberry flavour came through, everyone loved it. A winner." (this person was given strict instructions to tell me if they had been overcooked so I would know if to adjust baking times, they were not being overly critical)

"Fabulous brownies, I've just inhaled one."

"Although gingerless, it was OUTSTANDING." (someone who likes ginger. A lot.)

"Even I loved it." (a person who doesn't generally eat sugar)

"Brownies are heaven."

"Brownies are yummity moo moo. You need to make again."

So I will try to make these again sometime, and maybe then I'll get more photos than just the one taken above.

Ingredients

• 200g dark chocolate
  
  , broken into chunks
• 100g milk chocolate
  
  , broken into chunks
• 250g pack salted butter
• 400g soft light brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 140g plain flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 200g raspberries

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Line a 20 x 30cm baking tray tin with baking parchment. Put the chocolate, butter and sugar in a pan and gently melt, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Remove from the heat.
2. Stir the eggs, one by one, into the melted chocolate mixture. Sieve over the flour and cocoa, and stir in. Stir in half the raspberries, scrape into the tray, then scatter over the remaining raspberries. Bake on the middle shelf for 30 mins or, if you prefer a firmer texture, for 5 mins more. Cool before slicing into squares. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Chocolate chip cookies, Er, I mean, flapjacks

This weekend marks Mothering Sunday, a day to celebrate all mums with a name that helps avoid the whole apostrophe debate that plagues me on the second Sunday in May.

And it also hopefully underlines something else - the end of my exams. On Thursday, I sat what was what I greatly wish to be my last ACCA exam, a test that consisted of three and a quarter hours scribbling about advanced taxation. It was basically a test of how many financial loopholes you can discover for rich people that are completely legal, with only 5 points out of 100 dealing with the ethics of such scenarios. In the revision kit the marker states many students miss out on these ethics points entirely, simply skipping that section of the long question - doesn't exactly fill me with confidence about the profession.

With all that behind me, I now have hopefully a bit more time to devote to other pursuits, such as blogging and baking (Michael has kind of taken over the cooking lately). With us in charge of cakes after mass this week, I thought I'd put out a wee note to the mums to say that they'd get a free sweet treat if they came along on Sunday, and then I set to work.

Last night I made a lemon drizzle cake, which sank in the middle. Not quite so much so as to be reclassified as lemon pudding, but that was certainly its intent.

So then I made a carrot cake, only in the middle of measuring the flour, I had to go deal with a certain child who wouldn't wear their trainers (they were soaked from hockey practice), who didn't want to wear school shoes (it was still raining and girls' school shoes are terribly impractical in that respect for Scotland), who refused to wear wellies (she would look stupid, apparently), and who was having trouble squeezing her foot into a silver converse, as it was pinching her pinkie toe.

That problem dealt with, I added more flour and was pretty sure, but not entirely sure, that I put in a cup too much flour. So the carrot cake is substandard. Cream cheese icing will make it all better. Lots of it.

After those two mishaps I thought: I know - choc oat chip cookies! They always turn out perfectly, and it's so easy to just throw all the things into the food processor!

So I was weighing out the oats and was fairly sure that there was more in the bowl than the scales were telling me, but there was another child crying about the fact that he didn't get as much jam as his sister so I didn't double check the measurement. The work surface wasn't exactly immaculate, so I believe some particle had wedged itself under one of the feet of my digital scales, throwing all accuracy to the wind. And then I put all the ingredients in the food processor, to which the machine said: "No. Get this s*** out of me" in its special loud way.

Sure enough, the mixture was crumbly and not at all cookie dough-like. Not quite sure how to fix it to get it back to what it should be, but also not willing to waste these ingredients that still tasted fairly good together, I put it into a big tray and pressed it down, in the hopes of making some cookie bars of sorts. After 20 or so minutes in the oven, my experiment emerged looking like this:

The tray came out smelling good, and the kids came into the room shouting - "oooh!!! Flapjacks!!!"

Flapjacks, American readers, mean chewy oat bars here, usually bound with golden syrup. They do not mean pancakes.

So yeah, I guess I made flapjacks for tomorrow. When in doubt, drizzle over more chocolate.

I had planned to make hot cross buns, too, but I don't think I could handle those failing on me.

In summary, baking this weekend has been much like motherhood - I knew exactly what I had to do as a mum until I had kids. Plans change, and the result is nothing like what you thought it would be, but you learn to improvise and make the best of it. Now I just need that written on a soft focus photo of a mother looking adoringly at her children...

Happy Mothering Sunday.

Don't ask me for the recipes. 

Auntie Jennifen's Chocolate Cake

School holidays, that time of year when you slow down, relax, eat healthy, and accomplish great things.

HA! Just kidding.

You hire a cheap, duct taped car, drive a distance to go and see lots of family members (and some breathtaking scenery), then stuff your face every half hour all day, every day. You get nothing productive done, and then wonder why your clothes feel all tight and you are behind on your studies...

But it's worth it because you get to taste some pretty amazing chocolate cake - not too rich, just the right amount of chocolate, and, er, MOIST! And handily, your sister-in-law not only HAS the recipe, she is willing to share it.

Now, you don't just make this cake on any old kind of day. No, you wait for one of those days when you are running late to pick up your youngest child, after which you need to go and pick up your other two, and you head into the shops to make sure you have lunch and other bits and bobs needed and you get to the self scanning till and realise...you don't actually have your purse with you. You know exactly where it is, now that you think about it (note: never change bags, ever) but that isn't going to help you pay for the basket of shopping that you don't have time to come back and get later. One of those days where you also find out the school has planned the individual photo portraits for Hallowe'en, and that happens to be when your son's class will be skiing for half the day, and your daughter's class is having a costume party. One of those days when you work for a ghost tour company and things are going a bit mental. This is the perfect sort of day to make a chocolate cake.

So yes, after children were collected and fed (eventually) I gathered ingredients together and started throwing them into a bowl.

Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble...

And I began to mix.

Then I poured in boiling water and mixed some more.

Until I had this beautiful, runny batter in front of me.

Funnily enough, some people arrived to help me with it.

My daughter's top is great for hiding stains, I was relieved to discover

It was poured into two tins, in uneven quantities, naturally, and then they grew to unnatural sizes.

And, because I am such a skilled baker, they sank a bit.

I stuck them in the fridge to cool quickly, then moved onto the icing, beginning with butter, cocoa, and espresso powder, then getting ready to add icing sugar and milk until the final product was ready.

Then I had one of my special moments. You know, one of those special times when you have three people in the kitchen talking to you at once, and you just mean to bend down to dive under the mixer's wire extended across the not-so-greatly designed kitchen to get to the fridge for the milk, only you misjudge the distance and bash your head so hard on a corner that blood starts pouring down your face? And your husband asks you what's wrong with you as you sit crying on the floor with your three year old handing you tissues "for your drips"?

Does that happen to you, too?

Looks like I'll be Harry Potter for Hallowe'en. This is the cut cleaned up and swelling subsided:

Not to be deterred, I had my assistant hold the bowl while I applied pressure (and an ice pack) to the wound so I could keep mixing. What else was I to do? Give up on a cake? Pfft, I DON'T THINK SO!

If there was any time chocolate cake was needed, now was the moment.

My precious...

After my family had sampled it

The rest was sent along to the lovely folk at work who are keeping folk entertained this weekend as part of Hallowe'en celebrations. The cake was not given out of any real generosity on my part, you understand, but instead to prevent me from sobbing and eating all of it in one sitting.

If you find you are having the sort of day requiring this cake you can get a pretty and printable version of the recipe here, or you can settle for the usual copy & paste below.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1½ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup vegetable or canola oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water
• Chocolate Buttercream Frosting Recipe

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350º F. Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by spraying with baking spray or buttering and lightly flouring.
2. For the cake:
3. Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk through to combine or, using your paddle attachment, stir through flour mixture until combined well.
4. Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to flour mixture and mix together on medium speed until well combined. Reduce speed and carefully add boiling water to the cake batter. Beat on high speed for about 1 minute to add air to the batter.
5. Distribute cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely.
7. Frost cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.

Frosting:

Ingredients

• 1½ cups butter (3 sticks), softened
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 5 cups confectioner’s sugar
• ½ cup milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon espresso powder

Instructions

1. Add cocoa to a large bowl or bowl of stand mixer. Whisk through to remove any lumps.
2. Cream together butter and cocoa powder until well-combined.
3. Add sugar and milk to cocoa mixture by adding 1 cup of sugar followed by about a tablespoon of milk. After each addition has been combined, turn mixer onto a high speed for about a minute. Repeat until all sugar and milk have been added.
4. Add vanilla extract and espresso powder and combine well.
5. If frosting appears too dry, add more milk, a tablespoon at a time until it reaches the right consistency. If it appears to wet and does not hold its form, add more confectioner’s sugar, a tablespoon at a time until it reaches the right consistency.

Sweet and Strong Hare

On Saturday mornings, when all in my household are well and the weather is not too horrific, you will find me at our local farmers' market. It is a relatively small affair, with only some 30 or so stalls in total on a busy week, but there you can find items you really can't find easily in your local supermarket. The vegetables are ugly and obscure, the eggs don't just come from hens, and the hand crafted items are, well, very obviously hand crafted, shall we say.

The main draw for me is the meat. Puddledub bacon is the best bacon you'll find in Scotland. Really. And you can get great other cuts of really good meat at far cheaper prices than the butcher would offer for the same stuff. For example, the chickens I buy there I pay about £10 for (which is still pricey compared to a supermarket factory farmed bird, I know) but at the butcher's the same bird will cost you £25.

The first time I tried hare was when my husband brought home a bloody, skinned carcass from the farm where he worked and announced it would be dinner. I was skeptical, but he prepared jugged hare it was, indeed, very flavourful. Hares are far bigger than rabbits, so you really get a good amount of meat off of one of these violent creatures.

My preferred recipe now is one found in a book my mother sent me, an Italian cookbook named The Silver Spoon, which is some kind of Italian institution (or so its cover tells me). Its secret ingredient is chocolate - a small amount is all you need to add complexity and depth to the sauce enveloping the hare. You basically just slowly simmer the meat in some booze and stock until it is tender, then add sultanas and simmer some more, then some nuts, dark chocolate, vinegar and a tiny bit of sugar. Once that all comes together, it's easiest to just remove all the meat and put it in the sauce for simple serving, which we did alongside some roast potatoes and cauliflower in cheese sauce. No calories were counted in the creation of this meal.

For a good cauliflower cheese I recommend you try Nigella Lawson's recipe. For the next time you bag yourself a hare, try this recipe below:

Sweet and Strong Hare

from The Silver Spoon

serves 6-8

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp olive oil

25g butter

40g smoked bacon bits

1 hare, cut into pieces

2 Tbsp plain flour

175ml red wine

175ml meat stock

1 bay leaf

50g sultanas

25g pine nuts or sliced almonds

25g plain chocolate, grated

1 tsp white wine vinegar

t tsp sugar

salt and pepper

Method:

Heat the olive oil and butter in a pan, add the bacon bits and hare and cook over a medium heat, turning and stirring frequently, until the pieces of hare are browned all over. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with half the flour, mix well and cook for about 10 minutes. Pour in the wine and stock, add the bay leaf, lower the heat and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours. Meanwhile, put the sultanas in a bowl, add warm water to cover, and leave to soak for 15 minutes, then drain and squeeze out. Stir the sultanas and pine nuts into the pan and simmer for a further 30 minutes. Mix together the chocolate, the remaining flour, the vinegar, sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl, then stir in 3-4 Tbsp water. Pour the mixture into the pan and bring just to the boil. Taste and add more salt if necessary. Serve the hare covered in this ancient chocolate sauce. 

Fraisier

"So what kind of cake do you want for your birthday?" I asked my son.

"I want the same kind you had!!" he quickly replied.

"A fraisier? Are you sure? You don't want a chocolate cake? Or just a lemon drizzle cake? Or a victoria sponge?"

"No, I want the kind you had!"

He's lucky he's worth it...you'll see why...



First you put some eggs, sugar, and lemon zest in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Then you ask your husband to plug in the electric mixer because the outlet still isn't screwed in properly even though the boiler was changed (and the panel behind the outlet dismantled) 6 months ago.

And after a few minutes it is light and fluffy like this, the "ribbon" stage where if you can see a ribbon of batter stay on the top for a bit if you dribble some across.

In went some of the self raising flour to be folded in.

Then in went the rest.

And what makes everything better?  BUTTER OF COURSE!!! Melted, so no need to worry about "room temperature" consistency, thank goodness.

Then it went into a lined springform pan. I didn't trim it enough, hence the jagged edge.

While that went in the oven, I started on the creme pastisserie by heating some milk and vanilla paste (I rarely can be bothered with using actual vanilla beans).

In a separate bowl went eggs, egg yolks, corn flour, and sugar.

Once the milk was hot it was poured into the bowl and whisked.

Then returned to the pan.

Once it had thickened, in went butter.

Lots of whisking was necessary here.

Then into a freezer bag it went, to be put in the fridge to be ready for piping later.

Then I moved onto the syrup that keeps the sponge MOIST. Lemon juice and sugar.

It was heated until boiling and until all the sugar was dissolved.

By this time I had to go and get the kids from school, so Michael printed off some stensils and piped melted chocolate onto greaseproof paper for me to transfer later.

Now for assembly. I rolled out some marzipan using icing sugar to prevent it from sticking

And then traced a circle onto paper, then cut out the paper and put it on top like so.

Look, I can make a circle! Sort of.

Not having acetate to hand, some clingfilm went around the side of the now empty springform pan.

The sponge was sliced in half with a big bread knife.

And half the syrup was put on the bottom half after I'd wedged it into the tin. Robert helped.

Sliced strawberries went around the sides.

And the filling was squirted between them.

Then I squirted big creme pat turds all through the middle.

On went quartered strawberries. I sometimes put raspberries in instead, but have strawberries around the sides as it's prettier that way.

More creme pat turds.

Then I squashed on the other syrup soaked layer of sponge.

Then the marzipan...

Then the writing and garnish.

We had wanted to have it on the night of his birthday, but Catherine had fallen asleep by the time Christopher got home from cricket, so we decided to have it for, er, breakfast instead.

I mean, it had fruit and nuts in it, didn't it? And lots of eggs too...10 I think in total.

Waitrose's finest candles.

My son made his birthday wish

And smiled on his parents' great efforts.

He was delighted to get all the candles on the first attempt.

And even happier to get cake for breakfast.

And I was happy not to have to do any more baking for a bit.

The GBBO technical challenge recipe is here, or in copy & paste form below. All 34 friggin steps of it:

Ingredients

• 125g/4½oz caster sugar
• 4 free-range eggs
• 2 lemons, zest only, finely grated
• 125g/4½oz self-raising flour, plus extra for flouring
• 50g/1¾oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly, plus extra for greasing

For the crème pâtissière

• 600ml/20fl oz milk
• vanilla pod
• 4 free-range eggs, plus 2 free-range egg yolks
• 180g/6¼oz caster sugar
• 1 tbsp kirsch
• 100g/3½oz cornflour
• 150g/5½oz butter, cut into cubes and kept at room temperature

For the lemon syrup

• 75g/2¾oz caster sugar
• 2 lemons, juice only

To finish the cake

• 200g/7oz marzipan
• 200g/7oz dark chocolate, for decoration
• 600g/1lb 5oz medium sized strawberries

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Grease, flour and line the base of a 23cm/9in spring-form or round loose bottom cake tin.
3. Place the sugar, eggs and lemon zest in a large bowl set over a pan of simmering water.
4. Using an electric hand whisk, whisk the mixture over a medium heat until doubled in volume and pale in colour. The mixture is at the right stage when it forms a ribbon trail when the whisk is lifted out of the mixture. Remove from the heat.
5. Sift in two-thirds of the flour and gently fold into the whisked mixture with a metal spoon or spatula. Add the remaining flour and fold again. Try to keep in as much of the air as possible. Make sure all the flour is incorporated into the mixture.
6. Gently fold in the melted butter.
7. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the sides of the cake begin to come away from the tin and it is pale golden-brown.
8. When cooked, allow the sponge to cool a little bit in the tin, then turn out onto a cooling rack. Be careful as this sponge is quite delicate. It should be just under 5cm/2in in height.
9. To make the crème pâtissière, pour the milk into a wide based pan, split the vanilla pod along its length using a sharp knife, and add it to the milk along with the vanilla seeds. Bring the milk up to the boil, then take it off the heat.
10. Whisk together the eggs, sugar, kirsch and cornflour in a medium sized bowl until blended.
11. Remove the vanilla pod from the milk and pour the hot milk through a sieve into the egg mixture. Whisk to combine.
12. Pour the custard back into a clean saucepan and set over a medium heat.
13. Stir the custard constantly until the mixture thickens. The mixture will take about four minutes to thicken, but when it does it happens very quickly, so you need to really keep stirring to prevent lumps. Whisk until smooth.
14. Cook the mixture until the crème is very thick, so that it can be piped and it will hold its shape. Stir in the butter until thoroughly melted and combined.
15. Allow to cool slightly, pour into a shallow dish and chill in the fridge for about an hour until really cold and set firm. This chills it faster as it cools over a larger surface area – alternatively you could fill the piping bags with it at this stage and leave overnight to chill.
16. Place the ingredients for the lemon syrup in a small saucepan with 70ml/4½ tbsp water. Heat gently until the sugar dissolves, then boil rapidly for two minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
17. Meanwhile, roll out a thin disc of marzipan to fit a 23cm/9in circumference circle. It is best if you draw around the 23cm/9in base of another loose bottomed tin for the perfect circle. For best results and a perfectly flat surface, chill it in the fridge until it is needed.
18. Slice the sponge in half horizontally, creating two slim discs of cake. The cut must be as level as possible as it will be visible in the finished cake.
19. Place a strip of acetate plastic around the inside of the springform tin. Or line the base and sides with cling film or parchment lined foil.
20. Place one layer of sponge cake in the bottom of the cake tin. Then liberally brush the sponge with half the syrup. With the back of a spoon, gently squash the edges of the cake down so that they are pushed directly against the sides of the tin, creating the defined edges necessary for the Fraisier cake.
21. Rinse, hull and halve about 12 strawberries, try and make sure they are all the same height.
22. Place the cut sides of the strawberries against the plastic on the inside of the tin. The strawberry halves should be sitting snugly beside each other, so it looks like a little crown inside the tin.
23. Take the chilled crème pâtissière out of the fridge and spoon two thirds of the crème into a piping bag, fitted with a 1cm/½in nozzle.
24. Pipe a swirl covering the exposed sponge completely in the bottom of the tin.
25. Then pipe between each of the strawberries so the gaps are filled right to the top with the crème pâtissière.
26. Set about 3-5 strawberries to one side for decoration, then hull and quarter the rest of them and place on top of the crème, so it raises the inside of the cake by about an inch.
27. Pipe another swirl of crème pâtissière on top of the cut strawberries to cover the whole surface. Then smooth with a palette knife.
28. Place the other disc of sponge on top of this, with the cut side uppermost, so it has a completely flat top. Brush with the remaining syrup.
29. Gently press the top down quite firmly, so that the cake and filling push against the acetate to create the distinctive smooth and defined sides of the Fraisier cake.
30. Lay the chilled marzipan circle on top of the cake and put the whole thing back in the fridge to set.
31. Make some pretty decorations of your choice with melted dark chocolate.
    Technique: How to pipe chocolate decorations
    Watch technique1:06 mins
32. When ready to serve, remove the cake from fridge.
33. Very carefully release the spring tin/loose bottom and remove the cake from the tin and from the acetate or cling film.
34. Place onto a serving plate and decorate with reserved strawberries, chocolate decoration and a dusting of icing sugar. Serve chilled.