Dragon Rambles

I haven’t forgotten I was going to share my xmas feast and recipes with you all, but I’ve been out all day and just come home. I’ll share the cupcakes with you today and come back tomorrow for the rest.

I’ve made these cupcakes twice: once with blueberries and once with boysenberries and strawberries. You can use whatever you want. The first time I made a cream cheese frosting, but the second time I had no cream cheese in the house so made a buttercream one instead. I’ll give you info to make both so you can choose which you want to prepare. If you use metric cup measurements, this’ll make about 18 cupcakes, otherwise (if you’re using american cups) it’ll make 12. Either way, the quantities as read, but if you’re using the metric cups, make the teaspoon of baking powder a rounded one instead of a flat one.

Berry puree

First step is to make a berry puree. For the blueberry cupcakes I used two punnets (400g in total), for the boysenberry-strawberry cupcakes I used one cup of boysenberries and three of strawberries.

Put your berries (fresh or frozen) into a pot and cook over a low heat (stirring occasionally) until berries have become mush and then reduced down so that most of the liquid has been removed. This should end up a nice thick consistency, but still easily pourable. Cool slightly then put through a blender. You’ll still end up with berry bits, go with it, these are nice to have in your cupcake. You will want to have 1.25 – 1.5 cups of puree for each batch of cupcakes.

Oh and if you’re using blueberries, your wooden spoon will be stained purple, the other mix I made turned it wine red. I’m thinking I should dye all my wooden spoons this way

Cupcakes

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup of baking margerine (or butter, but the veg fat makes for lighter cupcakes, use the sort from a tub rather than from a brick)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup berry puree
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating just until incorporated.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, mix the milk, berry puree and vanilla.

Add half the dry ingredients, then all the wet, then the other half of the dry to the butter mixture. Mix just until incorporated after each addition. Do not overbeat!

Spoon into lined muffin trays. Put a dollop of puree on the top of each cupcake and swirl. Bake at 175C (350F) for 20-25min, until cooked through. Cool for 10min in tin before moving to wire racks. Cool completely before icing.

Cream cheese frosting

225g cream cheese, room temperature
90g butter, room temperature
1/2 cup berry puree
3 cups icing sugar, sifted

Beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Mix in the berry puree until just combined. Add the icing sugar gradually and beat until smooth and spreadable.

Buttercrean frosting

140g butter
300g icing sugar, sifted
1/2 cup berry puree

Beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add the icing sugar gradually and beat until smooth. Add puree and beat until smooth and spreadable, but don’t overbeat.

And voila, enjoy! These can be refridgerated or frozen, just serve them at room temp.

But a word of warning. Be prepared to serve them in pairs like shown above, because you’re going to want more than one.

Around this time last year, one of my office mates left for greener pastures. Well…. maybe not greener, but hopefully less frustrating than his job in Cardiff had been. Since he’d been sround for a while and was well liked by all, I thought this parting deserved a good cake. And since I love to bake and had several ideas of what to make, I actually made several . Since he is german, I felt that one of my offerings should definitely be an authentic black forest cake. Little did I know how much I’d have to hunt around Cariff one Sunday to find the all important bottle of kirsch. Luckily, he chose to leave in summer, so finding cherries was no problem.

Now making a black forest cake is serious business and if you decide to make one, you have to allow several days. The first step is to pit the cherries and soak them in kirsch. Well, I’m no expert at pitting cherries whole, so I decided to halve them instead. I figured this would save me having to halve them later and had the added bonus of allowing them to soak up more alcohol. This could also be why I used twice as much kirsch as the original recipe suggested for this step. So, cherries halved, pitted and getting drunk? Ok, leave that soaking overnight.

Next morning, bake the cake. There are two ways you can do this: make one big cake and slice into three portions or make three smaller cakes. I know my limitations and that includes knowing there was no way I was going to be able to slice three layers from a cake, so I went and bought three shallow cake tins so I could take the sane approach.

When these have completely cooled it’s time to start building the cake. First take a toothpick (cocktail stick to some of you) and poke holes through the cakes. Then give each layer a liberal sprinkling of the kirsch that your cherries have been pickling in. I think my addition was midway between a sprinkle and a douse. Leave the layers while you are making the icing so they can start to soak up the alcohol. Hint: you may want to have put each layer onto a sheet of baking paper before you added the alcohol so they are easier to pick up and layer.

To build the cake, take the first layer and place on a cake board. Spread half of your icing over the base and cover with the pickled cherries.

Top with second cake layer and repeat.

Top with third cake layer and then cover the whole cake in cling film. The cake now goes in the fridge for 1 to 2 days to allow allow all that lovely kirsch to soak through the cake and make it nice and moist.

The morning that you are going to serve the cake, make the cream topping. Cover the cake with the cream, put grated chocolate around the sides, pipe some cream edging around the top of the cake and finish up with decorating the cake with some whole, fresh cherries.

Black Forest Cake

1 2/3 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter or baking margerine
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups milk

Filling
1 cup kirsch
1/2 cup butter
3 cups icing sugar
1 pinch salt
1.25kg cherries

Cream topping
2 cups thickened cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 cup kirsch
2 Tbsp milk powder
2 Tbsp icing sugar

Put aside approx 10 cherries for decorating top of cake. Halve the rest, remove the pits and soak in a cup of kirsch overnight.
Preheat oven to 175 deg C. Line bottom of three 20cm round cake pans.
Sift dry cake ingredients together. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Pour evenly into the cake pans and bake for 20min or until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool cakes and remove from pans.
Prick tops of cakes with a toothpick and pour 1/2 cup kirsch (from the cherries) over the cakes.
To make the icing, beat butter until light and creamy. Add the icing sugar, salt and mix well. If icing is too thick, add some of the kirsch from the cherries (think I added about 1/4 cup, but can’t quite remember).
place base layer on top of cake board or tray, spread half of the icing over the top and cover with the halved cherries. Cover with another layer and repeat. Top with third cake layer then cover and sit in fridge for 1 to 2 days to allow kirsch to soak through cake and become moist.
The day the cake will be served, prepare the cream topping. Whip the cream until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in milk powder and icing sugar. Add vanilla and pour in kirsch until it becomes a good conistency (note: don’t use the kirsch from the cherries or your cream topping won’t be white). Spread cream over the cake and down the sides. Cover sides with grated chocolate and decorate the top with extra cream topping and fresh cherries.

A couple of weeks ago I made some gorgeous cupcakes. I’m not the only one who thought they were great either. I took them into work and they were gobbled up in no time. I tried one of Martha Stewart’s recipes for chocolate cupcakes, then added a teaspoon of peppermint or orange extract. They’re low fat too, but of course what I put on the top of them wasn’t I used a choc fudge frosting and used a jaffa (the kiwi ones of course) or half a mint stick to decorate the top.

For those who want to give them a go, they are incredibly easy to make. here’s the recipe. I used plain milk instead of buttermilk as I didn’t have any on hand. I got about 18 cupcakes from one batch.

Choc cupcakes

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
3/4 cup warm water
1 tsp peppermint or orange extract

1. Preheat oven to 175ºC. Line standard muffin tins.
2. Mix together all dry ingredients.
3. Add all the liquid ingredients and beat with a mixer on low speed until smooth.
4. Divide batter among muffin cups .
5. Bake, rotating tins 1/2 way through, until skewer in centre comes out clean (about 20 min).
6. Cool in tins on wire racks for 10 min. Transfer cupcakes to racks and cool.

I set a resolution this week to not work 10+ hr each day, and so far that’s going quite well. So after starting work at 6am this morning I packed up and headed out at 3pm. It’s a lovely wet day, and that always gives me the urge to bake, so since I was home so early I finally baked something that has been on my list for a few months…. peanut brownies!

When I was in NZ in Oct I picked up an Edmonds cookbook. I’ve been wanting one for ages as it’s essential for every kitchen. Well, every kiwi kitchen, and I’m still enough of a kiwi that I agree. They were really easy to make and while I haven’t eaten them in years, that first bite was so very familiar.

If you too want to make these yummy treats, here’s the recipe.

Peanut Brownies

125g butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 Tbsp cocoa
1 cup peanuts (redskin or roasted and husked – just not salted)

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat well. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa together. Mix into creamed mixture. Add cold peanuts and mix well. Roll tablespoonsful of mixture into balls. Place on greased (preferably, lined as that’s the easiest way to get them off) cookie trays. Flatten with a floured fork. Bake at 180ºC for 15min or until cooked.

Ok, so I was supposed to post these recipes before xmas, what can I say.. I was slack.  Here they are now, so you can use them any time through the year or save them for next xmas. Just bear in mind that the pictures aren’t the best as I had to take them in the evening under artificial light

Dark choc orange truffles

300g Dark orange choc (the good quality sort that has the orange pieces in, like lindt or the newish bournville)
125ml thickened (or single) cream
cocoa for rolling

Put cream into small saucepan and heat over low heat until volume just beginning to increase (not until it boils).  Turn off heat and add choc (chopped), stir with metal spoon (you don’t want any moisture) until well combined.  Pour into a bowl and leave to set in fridge.  Roll into small balls and coat in cocoa.

Milk choc marshmellow truffles

300g Milk choc (the better the quality, the better the taste; pref not eating choc)
125ml thickened (or single) cream
1 cup chopped marshmellows (if you start with the mini ones, there’s less chopping involved)
milk choc for coating

Put cream into small saucepan and heat over low heat until volume just beginning to increase (not until it boils). Turn off heat and add choc (chopped), stir with metal spoon (you don’t want any moisture) until well combined. Mix in the marshmellow pieces. Pour into a bowl and leave to set in fridge. Roll into small balls and coat in milk choc.

Apricot balls

500g dried apricots, chopped
1 tin of condensed milk
2 1/2 cups coconut
extra coconut for rolling

Combine all ingredients well. Wet hands (VERY important hands are wet, and you’ll need to keep rewetting them, wet hands helps to stop the mixture sticking to you rather than rolling) and roll mixture into small balls. Roll balls in extra coconut.

White christmas (variation)

300g white choc (using this instead of kopha and milk powder, close enough and tastier – especially using a belgian white choc)
1/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts
1/4 cup coconut flakes
1/4 cup each of chopped red and green jelly lollies (I was looking for some snakes or such to chop up but settled on wine gums as that’s all I found – you’ll need 3 rolls of wine gums to get enough green and red, and you get to eat the rest of the colours too)
1 cup of rice bubbles

NB: try and chop up the nuts and lollies to about twice the size of a rice bubble

Melt the chocolate (microwave for about 1 – 1.5 mins then stirring works quite well). Mix in all the other ingredients. Pour and pat out into a lined square baking tin (about 20cm), leave to set then cut into squares. You can also put these into muffin cases, but as it can be quite sickly you might want to go for the mini muffin size

Fudge

NB: the two recipes below use a nice cheats way for making fudge, without having to worry about sugar thermometers and sugar ball stages. If you don’t have the liquid glucose that’s ok, you can leave it out – you’ll still get tasty fudge it just won’t be as smooth as the glucose controls the formation of sugar crystals.

White choc, pistachio fudge

1 tin of condensed milk
1 cup light brown sugar
2 Tbsp liquid glucose
125g butter
100g white choc, chopped
1 cup shelled pistachio nuts, chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp Bailey’s liqueur

Combine condensed milk, sugar, glucose and butter in large glass mixing bowl (if you choose a ceramic one you’ll have to extend your cooking time as too much energy goes into heating up the ceramic and not enough into the mixture). Microwave for 8 min on medium-high (70%), stirring every 2 min. Microwave for another 4 min on medium-high, stirring every 1 min (mixture should now be think and bubbly by the end of the time, before the stirring). After final stir add (gets all bubbles down), add white choc and stir until melted and smooth. Stir in nuts and liqueur. Spoon into a greased and lined square cake pan (18-20cm) and leave to cool. Cut into desired sized pieces.

Dark choc, walnut fudge

1 tin of condensed milk
1 cup light brown sugar
2 Tbsp liquid glucose
100g butter
200g dark choc, chopped
1 cup chopped walnuts

Combine condensed milk, sugar, glucose and butter in large glass mixing bowl (if you choose a ceramic one you’ll have to extend your cooking time as too much energy goes into heating up the ceramic and not enough into the mixture). Microwave for 8 min on medium-high (70%), stirring every 2 min. Microwave for another 4 min on medium-high, stirring every 1 min (mixture should now be think and bubbly by the end of the time, before the stirring). After final stir add (gets all bubbles down), add white choc and stir until melted and smooth. Stir in nuts. Spoon into a greased and lined square cake pan (18-20cm) and leave to cool. Cut into desired sized pieces.