A day of Baking...

Here are the cakes I have made today, well a cake and brownies if I'm going to be accurate, the recipes for both of these items can be found on the blog:

Sugar Crusted Lemon Loaf Cake recipe here

Peyton and Byrne Chocolate Brownies... here

I'm also going to be making a Pear and Almond Tart... keep you posted on that recipe!

Enjoy!

x

Victory over a Victoria Sponge

I have always been a bit wary of making Victoria sponges, I don't really know why I make all sorts of other cakes and sponges, but just not the classic Victoria. As soon as you even consider making one, the ghosts of Mary Berry and hundred of W.I. women seem to crowd your judgement. Surprisingly I do not have a Mary Berry cookbook, and Delia Smith's recipe never works for me, I was loosing the ability to focus. My Mum came up trumps with an old McDougall's Flour cookbook, where the recipe is 2 eggs, weighed with shells on, and then the same weight of flour, sugar, and butter, some lemon zest or vanilla extract and hey presto you all all you need apart from the jam!

The best method I find is the traditional creaming method, so cream the butter, and add in the sugar until light and fluffy, add the two eggs beaten, fold in the flour and vanilla or lemon zest. Split between two 18cm tins that have been lined and bake at Gas Mark 4 for 25mins.

Turn out on to a wire rack and leave to cool. Then spread about 4 tbsp of your chosen jam onto the bottom layer, squish the top layer on to this and dust with sugar, and glitter!

Better Brownies

My friend H is the Queen of brownies, and well baking in general. She makes a good brownie. So as I didn't have her on demand to make me a batch or indeed her recipe I went on the hunt for one. Isn't the internet great for that? I had heard her rhapsodise about the deliciousness of all things Peyton and Byrne, I would have to agree on that front. A-MAZE-ING. But I had yet to try out a brownie from them.  Whilst looking for the ultimate chocolate brownie, I found the elusive recipe on 'The More Than Occasional Baker' . Obviously as I never plan these things properly so I didn't have all the ingredients, so I had to 'fudge' (ha!) it.

Here is the recipe, my adjustments are in italics:



300g good quality dark chocolate, chopped 
100g unsalted butter I never really bother buying unsalted butter and I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference. A pinch of salt in sweet things is always welcome!
1/2 teaspoon sea salt Forget this if using salted butter
3 eggs
50g light brown sugar I used 150g of brown sugar as I didn't have enough caster sugar to do it the other way round!
150g caster sugar I used 50g
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g plain flour
100g chopped walnuts I used roasted chopped hazelnuts I prefer them, but I only had about 55g but it seemed OK to me!

Preheat the oven to 180c and line 20cm square baking tin with baking paper
Put the chocolate and butter in a bowl and melt over pan of hot water.
Beat the eggs, add the sugar and vanilla and stir until all incorporated in a separate bowl.
Whisk the egg and sugar mixture into the chocolate and fold in the flour and nuts
Pour into the tin and bake for 25 mins until just set
Leave to cool, cut into squares and MUNCH!

You can freeze these taking them out as and when you want them.. if you can manage not to eat them all!

Enjoy!