Gooey Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello my lovelies - oh what a surprise I've been baking again. When you open up the baking cupboard  (yes I have a cupboard especially for baking in fact I have two however sad that may sound) and you see packets of chocolate chunks the obvious solution to me was to bake some chocolate chip cookies. These are gooey chocolate chip cookies that were inspired by the cookies you can buy from Ben's Cookies and Millie's Cookies. Original names or what but whoever Ben and Millie are they do sure know how to bake a cracking cookie. Just the aroma you get when you walk past Ben's and Millie's shop is enough to get your stomach rumbling even after a full three course meal. When I was little and went shopping in Oxford with my Mum she would always treat me to a couple of Millie's cookies. I could list all my favourites but that would take too much room, time and it would pretty much consist of the entire menu. Baking these definitely brings back many a happy childhood memory for me. 

Millie's and Ben's cookies are what I would describe as the perfect cookie. They have a crisp golden edge whilst being warming, soft and gooey in the centre. Absolute bliss. No homemade cookie could ever taste the same yet they can have that comforting homely taste and smell which is just as good. I was really chuffed with this batch of cookies. They have a golden crunch around the edge and are soft and gooey in the middle. These are best served warm as the chocolate will still be gooey and they will be softer then when served cold. Yet even if they last long enough to get to that cold stage they are still amazing if I don't say so myself. I'm not one to go on about my own bakes  and blast my own trumpet but I still can't get over these, they turned out so much better then I could have ever expected which fills me with a warm feeling inside and a smile beaming across my face. 

Just going to throw this out there but how could you say no to a bowl full of warm, freshly baked cookies and ice-cream I mean hello take me there now please thank you kindly so to you. 

This recipe is really quick and easy to follow. It also created very little washing up compared to other biscuits, cakes and sweet treats that I have made before. What I love about these is they are what they say they are - a chocolate chip cookie - nothing fancy just a plain and simple chocolate chip cookie. Don't be put off by these but simplicity is often the best and most comforting thing to bake and eat. 

Ingredients - I made 40 yet these are smaller then the Millie's cookies so if you wanted to get more true to one then you could make larger but fewer cookies

125g unsalted butter
100g light brown sugar
125g caster sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
225g self-raising flour
200g chocolate chips

Method

1) Preheat your oven to 180  C/ 160  Fan/ Gas mark 4. Afterwards line and grease your baking trays with greaseproof paper to prevent the biscuits burning and sticking

2) Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale, light and golden

3) In a separate bowl lightly beat your egg and then add it to the creamed butter and sugar mixture along with the vanilla extract and mix together. This will loosen the mixture and appear similar to that of a cake batter

4) Sift in your flour and mix the ingredients together to form a dough

5) Kneed the chocolate chips into the dough

6) Roll the cookie dough into walnut sized balls and bake in the oven for 10 - 12 minutes. After about 8 minutes in the oven I swapped the baking trays lengthways to aim for an even bake and for the biscuits to all be golden without some remaining pale whilst others burn

7) Once baked remove the biscuits from the oven and leave to cool in the trays for about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire wrack to cool.

You could choose to now either demolish the entire batch or restrain yourself and allow the biscuits to cool, what I will say though is that you cannot beat a warm, freshly baked cookie. I know I couldn't hence why my Mum is now taking less to work with her tomorrow for everyone in the office to share. Whoops sorry Mum. This is such an easy recipe to make I'm so glad that I discovered it. You could change it up by mixing the chocolate chips you use, adding fruits or nuts, adding cocoa powder or even icing them. Now that you have your basic Millie's cookie recipe the world is your oyster so you can get creative. Let me know in the comments if you discover any amazing combinations that you want to share. I personally think you cannot beat a bit of caramel or white chocolate and raspberry myself.

XXX

The Great Blogging Bake Off: Halloumi And Roasted Vegetable Pie

Hello my lovelies and welcome to week seven of my Great Blogging Bake Off Adventure. Yes we have arrived at the week I've been dreading - Victorian week. Gulp. Each week I am attempting the signature challenge from each weeks Bake Off and this week was a Victorian Game Raised Pie - joy of joys. I will hold my hands up and say "I don't like pork pies". Never have done and probably never will. It's the jelly died pale pork that get's me. Just no. To be honest with you I'm not a massive meat eater, I like a little but I could also quite easily be vegetarian and not miss it. So seeing as I have three months left of my teenage years I'm throwing caution to the wind and rebelling. I've decided to bake a Vegetarian raised pie this week. Mainly because I know that neither me or my Mum would eat a raised game pie so it just seems a bit pointless making one. We both have very similar taste buds and a roasted vegetable pie is right up our street. There must have been some vegetarian victorians surely? I am sort of sticking to the brief by using a hot water crust pastry as supposed to a short crust so that's something at least. The good thing about a hot water crust pastry is that you don't have to fath about chilling it you can just crack on. Although it does involve lard which repulses me slightly but I'll be brave and embrace the change.

I've made this recipe up myself with my Mum whilst pinching Mary Berry's recipe for a hot water crust pastry. When it comes to baking she is the Queen so seeing as lard and hot water crust pastry is a topic that me and my Mum know very little about we put our hands to the baking Queen. The recipe seemed to work an absolute treat so thank you Mary, kind regards to you thank you so.

Halloumi and roasted vegetables is a heavenly combination. I just love vegetables and cheese simple as. Last night for dinner we had a plateful of gorgeous autumnal roasted vegetables and it was heavenly. Bit of veg, olive oil, blacks pepper, herbs, spices and toasted seeds so simple yet so effective. Currently drooling right now, must stop before the laptop get's sticky.

During baking we found that we had enough vegetables and cheese for two pies so we ended up making two. One for dinner and one for the freezer, boom! Yes Delia would be impressed. Feeling very smug and like two domesticated goddesses right one. If you only wanted to make one pie you could use half of the ingredients although what I will say is that it's tricky to buy half a courgette or half an aubergine. Although cold roasted vegetables are delicious so you could save them for another day it's entirely up to you.

Ingredients

Hot Water Crust Pastry:
500g plain flour
200g water
200g lard
1 egg

Filling:

250g halloumi
1 aubergine
1 courgette
1 orange pepper
2 red onions
100g mushrooms

Method

1) Pre-heat your oven to 220°C/ 200°Fan and very lightly grease three baking trays with some olive oil. At this stage you could also prepare your loaf tins. I ended up using two 2lb/900g loaf tins. Grease the sides and lay a strip of baking paper to cover the base and shorter sides. A good tip would be to cut the paper so parts of paper hang over the edges which will allow you to easily lift the pie out of the tin once baked

2) Thinly slice your onion, pepper, courgette and aubergine. I did this horizontally to form circles of onion and aubergine and lengthways to form strips of aubergine and pepper

3) Roast these in the oven for 15 minutes and then turn the oven off whilst leaving the vegetables in the oven. This will help to dry out the vegetables reducing the moisture level in the pie to avoid soggy bottoms

4) Next to make the pastry, place your flour in a large mixing bowl

5) Add your lard and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to melt the lard

6) Pour your boiling lard and water mixture into the flour and stir with a wooden spoon to form a dough. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and kneed to form a smooth dough, this won't take long just a minute or so

7) Cut 1/3 of your dough and leave to one side to use for your pastry lid

8) Roll out the remaining dough and use it to line the base and sides of your loaf tins

9) Slice your mushrooms and halloumi into strips

10) Remove the roasted vegetables from the oven and pre-heat your oven to 220°C/ 200°Fan

11) Whilst the oven is heating it's time to fill the pie - the best bit. You can create your layers in what ever order you want, I opted for: onion - pepper - aubergine - halloumi - mushrooms - courgette - aubergine. I did one layer of each without double stacking the ingredients. I did end up with two layers of aubergine which isn't a bad thing in my eyes as it is one of my favourite vegetables

12) Roll out the majority of the pastry to form your pie lids leaving a small section for decoration

13) Next you can decorate your pie how ever you fancy, why not get creative?

Seeing as I am currently obsessing over Autumn I plumped for some Autumnal scattered leaves. I recon leaves are very simple yet always look effective on a pie. I also opted for a crinkled edge which you can do by pinching the dough between your fingers in alternate directions. To make the leaves, roll out your pastry and using a round cutter, cut out circles of pastry. Using the same cutter, cut out crescent shapes of dough around the edge of your circles to form the leaves. Pinch one end of the leaf for the stem and using a knife create a decoration of the leaf veins. You can arrange these however you like on your pie. Mine have a rustic effect varying in shape and size but you could do lot's of little ones around the edge or three large leaves in the centre it is entirely up to you. You could even create some branches, the world's your oyster. 

14) Beat one egg using a fork, this will be used as an egg wash. Before placing your decorations over your pie, lightly brush your pastry lid with the beaten egg and arrange your decoration on top. Then brush more egg over the decoration. This will help stick your decoration to your lid and give your pie a gorgeous brown and crisp shine once baked

15) Create a small hole in the centre of your pie lid to allow the steam to escape

16) Bake in the oven for 30 minutes

17) Reduce the oven temperature to 200°C/ 180°Fan and bake for a further 20 minutes until golden brown

18) Turn the oven off and leave the pie in the oven to finish off

19) Once the oven has cooled, remove the pie from the oven, you can re-heat it to serve warm if you chose to do so. Once cooled remove the pie from the tin

So there you have it my lovelies a twist on a Victorian centre piece. This is a really easy recipe to make and perfect for a winter warmer dinner. Seeing as our boiler has broken the house is on the cold side with no hot water or heating, a nice steaming pie is the perfect dinner. You know the house is cold when you spend your day baking just to keep warm. My first meeting with a hot water crust pastry seemed to go really well. The pies have a golden crisp pastry and it was so quick and easy to make. So much less effort than puff pastry where you have to roll the pastry and butter together to create the layers and then chill it and repeat and so on. Before you know it half your day has disappeared to making pastry. I'll be honest the smell of boiling lard is up there in my top 10 of worst smells but the pie is worth it in the end. When roasting vegetables I would usually smother the vegetables in olive oil and season with black pepper, herbs and spices but I would say that for the pie it's important that minimal liquid is used to reduce the water/moisture content. Hence why it's important to leave the roasted vegetables to dry out in the oven. You could use any cheese or vegetables that float your boat. You could create seasonal pies for example you could use butternut squash, carrots and sweet potato for an autumnal pie seasoned with sage, thyme and pumpkin seeds. Yum.

Thank you for reading this blog post my lovelies. Phew we made it, roll on week eight is all I can say. Next week we will be tackling Patisserie week which involves creating some little cream horns. I'm really excited about those as I've never made them before and they look really fun. I'm sure you could be really inventive with some flavour combinations. I hope you enjoyed reading this post, let me know in the comments if you chose to give this ago. If you are following this baking series or attempting the challenge yourself, I would love to know what you came up with for Victorian week. I hope you all enjoy your Sunday evenings my lovelies.

Week One: Cakes: Raspberry and Almond Madera Cake
Week Two: Biscuits: Coconut and White Chocolate Biscotti
Week Three: Bread: Sun Dried Tomato and Basil Soda Bread
Week Four: Desserts: Amaretto Creme Brûlée
Week Five: Alternative Ingredients: Lemon, Honey and Pistachio Polenta Cake
Week Six: Pastry: Blackberry and Pear Frangipane Tart

XXX

M&M Cookies

Good morning my lovelies and welcome to a cold, wet and dreary Friday. The perfect day to lock the doors, stay inside, turn all the lights on, light an extravagant amount of candles, and indulge in a plateful of M&M cookies whilst working your way through DVD box sets or a personal choice would be the Harry Potter films - all eight at that. Yesterday I had a day off and experienced a very strong craving to bake - what's new there then? What else would I be doing on my day off? Silly question. These are just a simple batch of chocolate chip cookies at the end of the day but sometimes simplicity is best. I love the rainbow colours of M&M's and they are the perfect size for a chocolate chip in a cookie. I thought the bright colours would cheer up the grey day today. The M&M's look like jewels in a bowl. Definitely releasing the inner child in myself with these. I gave some to my Mum to take into work with her for everyone so I hope it has the same effect on them.  Perfect for a Friday treat day.

It's a very simple and easy recipe that would also be great to bake with children. Every time I open the biscuit tin I just get that amazing aroma of warm chocolaty M&M's.

Ingredients - makes approximately 24

150g salted butter
150g caster sugar
225g self-raising flour
2 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
100g M&M's (the more the merrier)

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 190°C/ 170°Fan and grease and line your baking trays, I needed three in the end

2) Cream your butter and sugar together until light, creamy, pale and fluffy

3) Sift in the flour and add the milk and vanilla extract. Mix the ingredients together, towards the end you should use your hands to form a dough

4) Next my favourite part - add the M&M's and incorporate into your dough almost kneading it in to get an even distribution. It is also essential that you test one or two just to make sure that they are okay to use

5) Roll your dough into 24 balls - you could make more or less depending on the desired size of the cookies

6) Place the balls onto your baking trays and push each one down using a fork

7) Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, after 6/7 minutes I swapped the baking trays around lengthways to try and get an even bake and to stop one side being more golden then the oven

8) Once baked remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking tray for about 10 minutes then transfer the biscuits to a wire wrack to cool completely

If I had thought about it at the time I would have saved a few M&M's to put on the top of the cookies after pressing the balls with a fork to get a beautiful and shiny M&M on top.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and it might help to cheer up your rainy Friday. Like I said these are simple to make nothing fancy but also really enjoyable to bake and eat at that. Let me know in the comments if you give these ago. I suppose you could even take it further by icing the biscuits and decorating with more M&M's let your imagination go wild. Another idea could be to incorporate peanut butter into the cookies and use peanut M&M's if you are a fellow peanut butter lover like me. Chocolate and peanut butter what's not to love - quite tempted to give that a go now. Enjoy your Friday my lovelies and the weekend is now insight!

XXX

Bye Bye Blonde And Hello Autumn Hair

Hello my lovelies and a Happy Thursday to you all. I have a hair post for you all today. Some of you who have followed my blog for a while may remember that back in February I had ombre put into my hair. For those of you who have forgotten, weren't following my blog at the time or if you just fancy a nosy/refresher you can check out that post by clicking here. I was really nervous before this it took a large caramel latte with extra cream and sauce to pluck up the courage to have my hair dyed. It sounds pathetic I know but I had never dyed my hair before. I was scared that having naturally such dark hair the blonde wouldn't suit me. I also straighten my hair frequently so I was conscious of the dye causing further damage and once you've dyed your hair once it's hard not to continue to dye it even if you just want to get back to your natural hair colour. But hey you only live once and theres a lot of worse things that a young 19 year old could be doing compared to her continual growing coffee addiction and experimenting with her hair colour. 

Personally I really enjoyed having ombre hair; it was a bit of fun for the summer. My hair dresser blended the blonde and the dark together really well and there were loads of different colours running through it. The fact that my hair colour was called caramel pleased me immensely. I loved it so much in the summer I had more blonde added in. 100% I would definitely take the plunge again next summer and have ombre put into my hair. Just have to be a little careful though as all these luxury pamper days at the hairdresser mount up on the old bank account and I would never ever, ever trust myself to home dye my hair - never in a million years.

As much as I loved my caramel, blonde hair I did miss my dark hair. Seeing as Autumn is now upon us it seemed like the ideal time to take the plunge again. This involved a pamper morning at the hair dressers for over three hours accompanied by a Costa coffee and a whole lotta magazines. First of all they put a sort of protecter/toner on my blonde hair. I'll be totally honest I can't remember the name of it but I believe that the purpose of this was so that when they applied the brown dye my hair would all change to the new colour and to remove the ombre effect. It acted as a base almost to seal the blonde. This was left on my hair for 20 minutes and then washed off leaving me with ombre hair still yet with  dark brown and chestnut colours which I actually really liked as well, I'll have to remember that one for future reference. After debating many swatches that all look almost identical we plumped for praline chocolate - great name. It was a semi dye which means that gradually over time the dye will fade so that when my natural hair colour grows down it will magically blend back in together. Well that's the plan anyway. This way fingers crossed I won't have to continually dye my hair which will be a lot better for it and hopefully save me from being bald when I'm older. 

Again this took another 20 minutes before being washed off, cut, dried and transformed into some sort of hair goddess. It's such a satisfying feeling that after 19 years I have finally discovered a decent hair dressers who do a pretty damn good job if I don't say so myself. 

I love my new colour, it's a luxurious dark brown shade with almost lighter brown/red undertones in it which was 100% what I was after she couldn't have got my description more spot on if she tried. I love it so, so much and I just feel that dark hair is more 'me' if that makes sense. I definitely feel ready for Autumn - give me warm knitted jumpers, thick coats, spicy candles, scarfs, gloves and hot chocolate and I'm there and ready for it. 

xxx

The Great Blogging Bake Off: Blackberry And Pear Frangipane Tart

Picture the scene: it's a beautiful crisp, Sunday Autumnal morning with blue, blue sunshine, autumn leaves crunching and a warm golden sunlight with a cool air. What could be more perfect then a Sunday morning of baking heaven with Mum. The obvious solution to me was to continue my Great British Bake Off adventure with week 6 which was Pastry week for the bakers.

Pastry week on the Great British Bake Off filled me with great excitement. I love, love, love a frangipane tart. You cannot beat that gorgeous Bakewell slice now can you? The combination of raspberry and almond is just heavenly and I do love a frangipani filling I won't lie to you. When I saw that the signature challenge for week 6 was a frangipane tart I was so excited. I came up with loads of different flavour combinations it was really hard to narrow it down to just one. Seeing as it is now officially Autumn I thought I had to go for Autumn fruits and what could be more Autumnal then blackberries and pears. If I was some sort of really organised domesticated super woman I would have gone out and picked fresh blackberries or used some that I had frozen from last year to save for that special baking moment when it arrived. But I'm not so I haven't - sorry. The thought was there so I'm half way there but in the real world with work and college who has time to go blackberry picking?

In my Great Blogging Bake Off Series on my blog I am attempting the signature challenge from each of the episodes to put my own spin on it to imagine what I would do if I were to take part on the show. Does anyone else remember how shocked Mary was from last series when one of the contestants didn't make their own fondant icing in biscuit week? Well being the bake off shop brought  pastry wouldn't be acceptable so I have also made my own pastry for this one. Obviously in the really world not everyone has time to do this so shop brought shortcrust pastry would be perfectly acceptable to use. After just rambling on about how in the bake off it's important to make everything yourself I will confess that I didn't make my own jam. To be honest at the time I never really thought to do so. Shocking I know. To be honest I have no idea how to make jam so that was one step too many for me but one day I would like to attempt it so who knows maybe I'll go the whole hog and make everything from tip to toe myself you never know.

Ingredients 

Pastry:

125g unsalted butter
250g plain flour
1 egg

Filling:

125g unsalted butter
125g caster sugar
150g ground almonds
50g plain flour
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp blackberry jelly
handful of blackberries
2 pears

Method

1) To make your shortcrust pastry you will need to make breadcrumbs in a large mixing bowl.

To do thus I cut my butter into chunks - the longer the butter is out of the fridge the softer it will be and therefore this will make your life a lot easier. Obviously with in reason, not days before we don't want to give everyone food poisoning do we now. Gently and lightly rub the butter and flour in between your fingers until the mixture resembles soft, fine breadcrumbs. This is the most therapeutic experience you will ever experience in your life. If I was a life coach and people came to me because they were suffering from stress I would tell them to make breadcrumbs. 

2) In a separate bowl beat your egg with a fork

3) Add the egg to your breadcrumb mixture and stir the ingredients together using your fork before finishing it off with your hands to incorporate the mixture all together to form a round pastry ball.

4) Place your dough in the fridge and chill for 30 minutes

5) In the mean time prepare your tart tin - I used a 23cm loose bottomed flan tin. To do this you need to grease your tin to prevent the tart from sticking once baked

What is it with bakers with tarts and bottoms: loose bottomed and soggy bottom they're obsessed

6) Pre-heat your oven to 200°C/ 180°Fan/ Gas mark 6

7) Once chilled sprinkle your work surface lightly with flour and roll out your pastry to approximately 3mm thick

Frangipane tarts are known for having a nice thin pastry layer at the bottom. Personally I'm not a massive fan of thick pastry so this suits me down to a tee. To roll your pastry try to roll it out in a circle as this will make it easier to cover your tin. Be very kind and gentle to your pastry and don't overwork it or it will be brittle and break. Seeing as you've spent the time making it you should respect it and not ruin it at the last hurdle - it's your baby. 

A good tip to cover your case is once rolled, lightly roll half of the pastry onto a rolling pin to help lift the pastry and transfer it to your tart tin. 

8) Mould your pastry to your tart tin by lightly pressing around the edges. Don't trim the edges you should do this once baking is complete to get a nice neat finish to your edges as you may find that your pastry shrinks after being in the oven

9) Prick the pastry base lightly with a fork and blind bake for 15 minutes

Blind baking prevents any soggy bottoms to your tart and it will help to ensure that your pastry will be fully baked. By this I mean you won't be left with raw, soggy pastry at the bottom which Mary Berry certainly doesn't approve of. 

To blind bake, line your tart with baking parchment or baking paper and fill with baking beans or rice. 

10) After blind baking remove the baking parchment and baking beans and return to the oven for a further 8 minutes. Once the pastry is looking golden, remove it from the oven and allow to cool whilst you make your frangipani filling

11) Lower the oven temperature to 180°C/160°Fan/ Gas mark 4

12) To make the filling, first cream together the butter and sugar.

You could use an electric whisk but I find it more satisfying to use the old fashioned method of a wooden spoon. After all I'm a home baker without a set time frame so I can take as long as I want and enjoy it. 

13) Mix in the ground almonds, three beaten eggs and your flour

14) Finally mix in your vanilla extract and your batter is complete

15) Gently layer your tart case with the blackberry jelly

I used a blackberry jelly rather then a jam as a jelly is smooth and without pips so you're not trying to get pips out of your teeth after eating it which isn't the most attractive of looks. 

16) Layer your frangipani filling on top of the jelly and again lightly smooth it over to get an even distribution being careful not to chip your pastry or to get the jelly mixed into your cake batter. We want those beautiful layers after all

17) Now it's fruit time. Peel and cut your pears and arrange them how ever you wish to with your blackberries. You can be totally spontaneous and free flow. Personally with pears I like the fan effect but like I said it's totally up to you to get creative

18) Bake in the oven for 30 minutes until golden and set. If the centre is taking longer to bake, reduce the oven temperature by 20 degrees to prevent the edges from burning. Once a skewer is inserted and comes out clean you know that your tart is baked

19) Remove the tart from the oven and allow to cool before removing it from the tin

I'll let you into a little secret here. I was genuinely and still am really proud of this bake. I've never made a frangipane tart before let alone attempt shortcrust pastry. I don't know why but pastry always leaves me a little nervous as I've never got on that well with pastry before we've always had a rocky relationship but this one worked a treat. The pastry was really light and buttery yet really easy to make. I think it may become a classic staple recipe that will be programmed into my memory so if ever in need of pastry I will automatically turn to this recipe. The tart itself held it's four distinctive layers: pastry, jam, frangipani filling and fruit. I love the combination of the almond, blackberry and pear. The tart itself is really light, fruity and indulgent I would really recommend giving a frangipane tart a go. It's a real treat and crowd pleaser.

Hold on to your socks kids but I had no soggy bottom - yes let me repeat that and shout it from the roof tops - no soggy bottom. This was what I was most nervous about, it sounds silly I know but I didn't want to let Mary down. I felt quite chuffed actually as on the bake off quite a few of the bakers experienced a soggy bottom so this felt like an achievement for me. By blind baking you can be sure to avoid a soggy bottom and instead I was left with a smooth, golden and crisp bottom. Yes we are still talking tarts here. Actually that still didn't help, let me rephrase that we are still talking baking.

Before this post get's censored I just wanted to say thank you for reading this blog post and I hope you are all enjoying accompanying me on my Bake Off adventure. Let me know in the comments if you attempt any of these recipes or if you have attempted any similar in your own bake off challenge. This has been my favourite challenge so far in my bake off series as it was entirely new to me yet very satisfying to make. I enjoyed a new baking challenge. The frangipane tart is just as satisfying to bake as it is to eat. Stay tuned for next week's post with Victorian week - don't hold your breath but that could be an interesting one put it that way. Not sure how I feel about that one to be honest with you all.


Week One: Cakes: Raspberry And Almond Madera Cake
Week Two: Biscuits: Coconut And White Chocolate Biscotti
Week Three: Bread: Sun Dried Tomato And Basil Soda Bread
Week Four: Desserts: Amaretto Creme Brûlée
Week Five: Free Form: Lemon, Honey And Pistachio Polenta Cake

XXX

The Great Blogging Bake Off: Lemon, Honey And Pistachio Polenta Cake

Hello my lovelies and welcome to the 5th edition to my Bake Off Baking series on the old blog. Week Five involved the bakers attempting cake without sugar, bread without gluten and ice cream without dairy in the form of free form week. I quite enjoyed the challenge of this week searching for sugar free cake recipes as for individuals with allergies they can't eat your bog standard flour, eggs, butter and sugar all in one cake so it it's important to find alternatives as a life without cake would be a very sad one. Also, for the health conscious among you all this will appeal as a sugar free cake must be better for you then a sugar cake which justifies two slices instead of one surely? When researching sugar free cakes the majority seemed to be banana bread, carrot cake or citrus cakes. It's kind of difficult to put a spin on a banana or carrot cake without changing it from a banana or carrot cake so I plumped for a citrus cake. I adore lemon cake it always tastes light and refreshing and I haven't eaten it for a while so I plumped for lemon. With the cakes being sugar free you need a strong flavour fruit for taste as well as sweetness. I remember baking a lemon and pistachio cake with my gran many years ago which I loved so I thought that I would incorporate pistachios into the cake for a bit of texture and crunch as it is a very gooey and moist cake with the glaze which isn't a bad thing in my book. My aunty recently baked an orange and polenta cake over the summer which was gorgeous and where I first discovered polenta but I have never baked with it before so now seemed like the ideal opportunity to test it out, killing two birds with one stone this week. I believe that polenta is a type of grain yet I never realised how 'grainy' it actually is before if that makes any sense. I was also surprised to the bright yellow colour it holds. To sweeten my cake instead of sugar I thought honey would be an easy option and after visiting a local market at the weekend and seeing traditional Sussex honey I knew my little baby was complete and all set to go. 

I adapted Tamal's Honey and Grapefruit Polenta Cake recipe which seemed to go down a treat on the bake off to my own but the cake is based on his recipe. I opted for a honey glaze for the topping as the cake mixture itself is a little more drier then usual which I believe is down to the polenta. It's a strange one because as the cake is only one tier it is a little dense yet it's still really light to eat. Personally I love the texture the polenta gives the cake and would definitely try baking with it again. I opted for a honey drizzle which keeps the cake really moist and full of flavour. It also gives the cake a beautiful shine to it. What I would say is that when you tuck in to this beauty you will need a fork as it's very gooey and sticky but I always think that those are the best kind of cakes. The aroma you get whilst this little beauty is baking is so good there aren't words to describe it. Imagine homely comforts of your Mum baking on a wet and cold Sunday afternoon and times it by one thousand. This cake is packed full of flavour I would definitely try giving this ago if your looking for new inspiration. 

Ingredients

200g unsalted butter

150g ground almonds

70g polenta

80g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

140g honey

2 eggs

zest of 2 lemons

For the honey glaze:

4 tbsp honey

juice of 2 lemons

50g pistachios 

Method

1) Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin and preheat your oven to 170°C/150°Fan/ Gas Mark 3

2) In a bowl mix together your flour, polenta, bicarbonate of soda and ground almonds 

3) In a separate large mixing bowl, beat the butter to a smooth, pale consistency 

4) Add your honey and lemon zest to the butter and whisk in

5) Gradually whisk in your eggs and dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Before adding eggs I always whisk the eggs together separately in another bowl before whisking them in with the main ingredients. When adding the eggs and dry ingredients I did this in two stages to prevent the mixture curdling. Simply by adding half of the eggs and half of the dry ingredients and whisking together followed by the remaining eggs and dry ingredients once incorporated

6) Bake your cake for approximately 30 minutes until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean once inserted into the middle of the cake. 

7) Once baked remove the cake from the oven and set aside to cool leaving the cake in it's tin

8) To make the syrup and glaze for the top, heat the lemon juice and remaining honey in a saucepan over a low heat to get a smooth and runny consistency. You may want to adjust the amount of honey until you are happy with the sweetness level

9) Prick the surface of the cake all over using a skewer, I think I inserted the skewer to about half way through the cake

10) Pour over 3/4 of the honey glaze to soak the cake and prevent it from drying, similar to a drizzle cake really 

11) Chop the pistachio nuts and sprinkle on top of the cake, this doesn't need to be precise I think I roughly chopped one nut into three or four pieces

12) Pour over the remaining glaze to give a pretty shine to the cake. I left the cake in it's tin for a couple of hours to absorb all of the juices and to stop them from leaking out. Once absorbed you can remove the cake from the tin and indulge away

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post my lovelies and let me know if you attempt this recipe. I would also love to know any good sugar free recipes that you know and would like to share. Pastry week sees us next attempting a frangipani tart which excites me immensely as of course that means almonds and I adore frangipani so I'll see how I'm inspired for that one. I hope you are enjoying this baking series on my blog. I am loving creating and baking new ideas and sharing them afterwards. I also think that so far friends and family have been enjoying all these new baking discoveries but let's not tempt fait and speak too soon on that one. 

Week One: Cakes: Raspberry And Almond Madera Cake

Week Two: Biscuits: Coconut And White Chocolate Biscotti 

Week Three: Bread: Sun Dried Tomato And Basil Soda Bread

Week Four: Desserts: Amaretto Creme Brûlée 

XXX

OOTD - London Reunion 07/09/15

Hello my lovelies, I have more of a lifestyle post for you all today. As I have mentioned recently in the post I wrote last month for my blog's first birthday I started my blog along with my best friend from school who also created one after we finished Sixth Form. I was moving to Sussex and she went to uni so we thought it would be another good way to keep in contact and plus it would be a fun hobby to have. For the past three years we have always met up in London towards the end of the Summer, it has turned into our little tradition now. In fact seeing as it's officially Autumn now it wasn't even the Summer this year - shocking. Mind you saying that I have never really seen London during the Autumn and it is so pretty. I love seeing how different it looks around the different seasons. It was definitely cooler, there were leaves crunching on the floor and the shops were filled with Autumn goodies which just makes me squeal with excitement. One of the first posts I ever wrote on my blog was on one of our previous day trips to London which you can read by clicking here. Please don't judge me on the quality of that post. It was like I said one of my first blog posts where I still didn't really have a clue as to what I was doing. 

I don't have many outfit pictures just the above but I thought I could include a basic outfit of the day feature. My entire outfit pretty much came from New Look and although you can't see it I also wore a gold necklace and ring from New Look with a blue scrunchie. This honestly isn't sponsored by New Look but what can I say, I like to shop there. 

What I wore:

Jacket - New Look

Blue T-Shirt - New Look 

Ripped Jeans  - New Look

Trainers - New Look

Scarf - Fat Face

Bag - Topshop

Nail Polish - Barry M Blood Orange 

Hands up, both of us are huge fans of Made In Chelsea so it was a no brainer to go to Chelsea first. Seeing as Jazz got into Paddington and I got into Victoria it was also an ideal place to meet, quite handy really. We have previously visited Chelsea on our first London trip so it was nice to go back and explore different areas. Chelsea feels really 'clean' to me if that makes any sense. It has gorgeous designer shops, parks and cafes. Once we met up and after a lot of squealing we stopped for lunch in Pret A Manger. A classic cafe which does really good food and drinks. I plumped for a brie, tomato and basil toastie with a gorgeous hazelnut latte which is my new obsession at the moment. After a long and I mean long catch up we wondered down towards Battersea Park which I had never been to before. I just need to take this moment to say how pretty it was. Especially walking through the crunching leaves and seeing the glossy red berries it felt very autumnal. London parks are one of my favourite things about London as amongst the concrete and sky scrapper buildings you have these green and luscious hidden gems tucked away amongst the hustle and bustle. I also find the parks quite calming and relaxing amongst the London rush as they seem to be a place where everything is calm and still, definitely a place to read a book, relax or walk the dog - who knows even a spot of yoga might go down a treat. 

Battersea Park has a very bohemian feel towards it; for example the random Buddha temple that we stumbled across. There are so many parts and paths hidden away in the park to discover such as the gorgeous fountains, many lakes, gorgeous flower beds and a zoo (as you do). It has definitely shot right up there as one of my favourite London parks yet it was so quiet compared to others such as Green or Hyde Park. An undiscovered gem I'm going to call it, I would recommend it as a place to escape from any London drama. There were also some parts that I recognised from the Made In Chelsea so I'm sure they have filmed the odd clip there. 

After exploring the park we trotted off back to Sloane Square where I forced Jazz to take some pictures in a photo booth. Mind you having said that it didn't take much persuading. I've always wanted to take some fun pictures in a photo booth as a souvenir for the day. That's the only time I ever want to go in a photo booth, I hate having to get passport or driving licence pictures done it's way too serious for my liking.

We popped on the tube to Victoria and changed for Oxford Circus for a bit of window shopping. Theres no harm in looking right? Seeing as we are now both students and both trying to be careful with money we were very well restrained and didn't buy anything. Although I'm pretty sure between us we could have brought the entire Topshop store but we'll save that for another day. Both of us were in joint agreement that a coffee stop was in order, and I do love a fancy coffee at a cafe. We found a Costa and I plumped for my classic Caramel Cappuccino with a salted caramel tart - I mean total heaven. I could quite happily spend a whole day in a cafe working my way through the entire menu. They even sprinkled my chocolate in the shape of hearts which is just too cute for words.

Whenever we've met up in London in the past we always finish the day at Tower Hill so it only seemed fitting that we did the same again. We popped on the tube down the Bakerloo and across the circle line and hopped off at Tower Hill where the sun decided to come out again which was very kind of it. A little bit more squealing happened I won't lie. We wondered around the Tower of London where you also get a pretty decent view of the shard. Rather then walking over Tower Bridge like we usually do we thought we would stick North of the river as neither of us have explored that area before and I'm so glad we did as there are so many more hidden gems tucked away that need revealing. We found a really cute area which was filled with little cafes in the form of gypsy caravans and old camper vans with seating by the river. There were fountains, lanterns and fairy lights which were all lit up seeing as it was about 5 ish at this point.

Whilst wondering around we discovered St. Katherine's docks which I had never heard of before but they are tucked away behind some of the riverside hotels. They are filled with old ships and boats some of which are really pretty. We also found the Royal barge which was pretty special. It's hard to put into words how cute the are is with bridges leading to never ending sections of the docks. With little shops, cafes and dinners around the docks you could find all you need there. Another thing that stands out in my head about the docks is how quiet they were. There were hardly any people there, similar to Battersea Park it was so peaceful. This trip was definitely about discovering hidden quieter areas of London. That's why I could quite happily spend the entire day just walking around London to see what I could discover as you miss so much if you stick to trains or the main tourist attractions. 

We hopped back on the circle line as both our stops are on the line so it was just handy really. The day went so quickly I love having day trips to London I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to visit London so much this year and long may it continue. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post my lovelies and seeing what I got up to. Enjoy your days.

xxx