Chocolate and Orange Marble Cake

This was from 'Ultimate Sweet Treats'. It's really more for children but the recipes are still pretty good. I always thought of marble cake as chocolate and vanilla and I don't know why it had never occurred to me to flavour both parts of the marble cake. The recipe was fairly simple, basic sponge with orange zest and tbsp of orange juice and 2 tbsp of cocoa powder in half of the mix. The chocolate and orange together are lovely and very autumnal. I did find that the orange overpowered the chocolate though. I'm not sure if that was because I had small tablespoons or it just needed a little more than what the recipe said.

To  create the marble effect, it said to spoon half the mixture into the corners of the tin before adding the cocoa powder to the rest of the mix and putting that in the tin as well, then stirring it a little with a knife. It does work but it still turns out with more chocolate mix on the top so it was a slightly lopsided marble effect. Does anyone have any tips as to how to do marbling?

The recipe was just for the cake but I added a swirl of buttercream on top. Not only does it decorate the top but the creaminess definitely adds to the texture.

Despite needing more chocolate, very yummy! The orange smell fills the kitchen; it's wonderful! Might try adding pieces of Terry's Chocolate Orange to the cake or icing. (Sorry, no photo today)

Profiteroles

I've made these a few times before and have become one of my favourites! First time was at school last year and that was the best recipe for them that I've found. Unfortunately, I turned out to be allergic to the chocolate I had for the topping. At  least I found out before I put the sauce all over the entire batch! See? There are benefits to eating your ingredients! Luckily, we already had posh chocoate spread in that worked perfectly as the topping for a few of the them.

I often have probems with the choux being a little too soft. I made a point of baking them for longer than I have previously. They seemed much crisper when they came out and were still better than previous batches but were still slightly on the squidgy side. I'm not sure why. I think I cut a big enough hole to let the steam out so I'm not sure if it was the cream that was the problem. Does anyone know when exactly you should put the cream in? (as soon as they're cool or right before serving?) Also, should they go straight into the fridge after they've been filled?

Despite being a little on the soft side and causing an allergic reaction, not bad! Yummy pudding!

(Apologies that the photograph isn't up to the usual standard, they're not the most photogenic of desserts!)

Chocolate Cupcakes

Another improvised recipe today. Starting with a basic cake recipe, I replaced some of the flour with cocoa powder. I was making pudding so only made 4 and the quantities of cake mixture and butter icing were pretty much perfect but 6 squares of chocolate was too much to make the chocolate decorations (3-4 squares would probably be about right).

 I cheated a little with the chocolate and melted it in microwave, then put it in an icing bag with a small, round nozzle and piped various shapes onto a piece of baking parchment... then cheated again by cooling them in the fridge. Melting the chocolate in the microwave didn't make much of a difference but cooling them too quickly did take the shine off the chocolate. Slightly annoying but not a huge issue if you're a little short on time. Don't be put off if you think you can't draw, I can't either and the messy/rustic look works pretty well! However, I wouldn't recommend spirals or similar shapes because they're not strong enough structures to stand up with out breaking. Even some of the hearts were a little precarious!

After making the butter icing, I put about a third of it into a piping bag, then added a little cocoa powder to the remainder (turned out the right proportions of each).  

I'm really pleased with how these have turned out! I've never tried to make things with chocolate before and I think they look pretty good (and yes, they taste nice too!) I don't usually write out recipes but this was semi-made up so thought I'd include it today.

Recipe (makes 4):

• 2oz caster sugar
• 2oz butter
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 oz self raising flour
• 1oz cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Butter icing and decoration:

• 2oz icing sugar
• 1oz butter
• 1/4 tbsp cocoa powder
• 4 squares dark chocolate

(Baked at 170 for 15-20 minutes)

Apple and Blackberry Strudel

This is a recipe I got from the Good Housekeeping website and for the first time in a while, I actually followed all of a recipe!

This was pretty easy to make and takes around an hour and a half. The apple is cooked with a little butter, sugar, ginger and cinnamon. Personally, I think that it needs a little more sugar and less spice although I'm sure it would have helped if I hadn't forgotten one of the apples! (doesn't count as changing the recipe if it's not deliberate, right?)

The pastry is a little tricky to work with. Filo tears so easily but there are so many layers that the odd rip in a single sheet doesn't matter too much. I did get a tear all the way through when wrapping it up and attempted to patch it up with a little extra pastry. I think it worked actually. I still had another major rip though and a smaller but very long tear all around the back edge at the bottom (hense why the back isn't in the photo!). If you can make this without a single tear then tell me about it because you are obviously a filo god!

As for the baking, the recipe says 20 minutes. the pastry was cooked but I think it needed another couple of minutes. Other than that, highly recommended! Autumnal yummies!

Recipe: http://www.goodhousekeeping.co.uk/food/recipes/blackberry-and-apple-strudel-ring

Biscuits

Slightly more conventional today: custard creams and jammie dodgers. I was disproportionately proud of these given their simplicity! There's something very satisfying about making something that actually looks like an everyday thing!

 

I used a basic biscuit recipe I got from school and also made up some butter icing (100g icing sugar, 50g butter). Perfect amount for the amount of biscuits. The dough was really nice to work with, soft but not sticky and very easy to get off of the baking tray. I made the top half of the jammy ones with a large round cutter and a tiny round cutter to take the middle bit out. These on their own reminded me so much of party rings! I think I would've made some if I had icing and food dye.I may have gotten a little trigger happy with the little cutter and had to blend the middle bit back into the whole circle!

Overall, fun, quick and easy to make. Very satisfying, simple finish and most importantly, very yummy!

Tea Loaf

This was another semi-improvised recipe. It was supposed to be an orange and cinnamon tea loaf that I adapted from a chai tea loaf recipe on BBC Food. I left out all the spice mix part of the recipe and added 2 orange zests and 1 tsp cinnamon and replaced the dates with currants. Its not so much an orange and cinnamon loaf but tastes almost exactly like a hot cross bun!

The recipe says to mix it using an electric mixer with a dough hook. I don't have one of these so I did it by hand. It also didn't say to knead it. I'm not sure why but the loaf turned out very dense. I'm guessing it either needed longer kneading, proving or both. I'll try it again and see what works.

It wasn't exactly what I was aiming for but it still taste good, particularly toasted with butter :)

Recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chai-spiced_ginger_and_38256

Chocolate and Marshmallow Bakewell Tart

Bit of a different one today. This was a task for food tech to make a variation on a bakewell tart... I may have gone a bit overboard but it seemed like a good idea! This has a sweet shortcrust pastry, chocolate spread at the bottom, chocolate cake and marshmallow on top.

I pieced this recipe together using the school recipe as a base. I guessed at how much of the flour to replace with cocoa powder in the cake (15g cocoa powder, 35g self raising flour) and I added a little extra baking powder to make up for the lost raising agent in the flour.

took the marshmallow from the baked alaska recipe because it was easy and its the only marshmallow I've made before and it worked pretty well last time. I've also got a time limit in food tech and I knew I'd have time to make it.

I also used a different pastry recipe. The school recipe had lard in which is an ingredient I don't really like. It also only needs 25g and I didn't want to get a block of lard for such a small amount. I don't seem to have used any of the school recipe actually! I used a pastry recipe from the BBC Good Food website. I think I had a problem with the butter though, the dough wasn't exactly wet but incredibly soft. Should spreadable butter not be used for pastry??

I intended to pipe the marshmallow in peaks on top but it turned out very messy and uneven so I spread it instead. I tried sprinkling cocoa powder on top to improve the appearance but apparently cocoa powder does not sprinkle lightly! In the dish, it really didn't look as good as I'd hoped, unfortunately this seems to be quite common in food tech lessons.

Other than not quite enough marshmallow, it tasted really good! Despite my worries about the pastry, it did not have a soggy bottom! :)

Cupcakes

 I made these with a standard 6663 recipe: 6oz butter, 6oz self raising flour, 6oz sugar & 3 eggs (I don't know if it's a common thing or just something my family say?)

The icing bag is a disposable plastic one. These are brilliant! I always found fabric icing bags horribly awkward to wash out. I got these after I had to throw my last one away and I'm definitely not going back!

As for the frosting, I whisked the butter and sugar with a little bit of milk. I've never thought to use milk before and it makes the frosting so much lighter. I used the quantities in Mary Berry's cupcake recipe (6oz butter, 12 oz sugar) but this was quite a bit too much. I now have a bag of frosting in the fridge... wonder what I could do with it?? :)

 I dyed half the frosting a delicate pink and put the 2 colours side by side in the icing bag. I really like this effect but I should have used a deeper pink (you can't really see the two colours at all in the photograph).

I may have to make some more of these to use up the rest of the icing!

Chocolate Brownies

 These yummy treats were made with the BBC GoodFood recipe. I love brownies and how they never look perfect but as delicious as they are, the ingredients are ridiculously unhealthy so I won't be making these too often! The instructions in this recipe I found particularly good. Each step is clearly explained with tips for technique. They seemed more complicated to make than I remembered but still not difficult.

It said to leave them in the tin after baking until cool... Is it just me who thinks this is impossible? I cut out a small piece to 'test' after they came out of the oven but I think it caused them to collapse away from the sides, unless that usually happens? It didn't seem to matter though, they still taste delicious! I would recommend that you wait and actually let them cool in the tin but that's probably a bit unrealistic!

For those of you who like your brownies gooey rather cakey, I would definitely recommend this recipe. It definitely deserves it's title of 'best ever brownies'!

Recipe:http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1223/bestever-brownies

New Oven!!!!!

We Finally have a new oven!! I can actually know the temperature now! 

No more blaming the oven when things go wrong!

Baked Alaska

These are one of the best things I've made! They're fun to make and taste absolute amazing!! I used the recipe in the Great British Bake Off book (is there a theme developing here??). The meringue can be made a while before you construct and cook the pudding which is very convenient. I was surprised at how long the recipe said to whisk the egg whites for (over 20 minutes in total) but it really works. You whisk the egg whites and sugar over a pan of hot water so that the meringue cooks which seems to make it take longer to whisk to stiff peaks. Then you keep whisking while it returns to room temperature and it goes so thick and creamy, it's wonderful! I think this is the same as marshmallow? Don't taste it before you've scraped it all out of the bowl to use or you will lose all motivation to get as much as possible off of the whisks! Never mind the baked alaska, I could have just eaten a bowl of the meringue! You are going to need as much of the meringue off of the whisks and bowl etc. because the icecream has to be fully covered so that it doesn't melt in the oven. As for the cake bit, the recipe says to use 1 slice of home made swiss roll per pudding. I didn't want to go through the fuss of making a swiss roll so bought one instead but these are significantly smaller than a home made one so I used two slices rather than one which worked pretty well size-wise. They're a little fiddly to assemble but they only take 3-4 minutes in the oven (great for if you're very impatient!). I would definitely recommend these. They're not too difficult to make and will guarantee happy noshing! Absolutely my new favourite pudding!

Quote of the day: "I think it's the happiest pudding I've ever had!"

Risotto

I didn't really follow a recipe to make this. I used Mary Berry's mushroom risotto as a guideline for how to make it but added different ingredients for a chicken risotto and another veggie version. The chicken risotto contained 1/2 an onion, 1/2 pepper, 2 mushrooms and 250g chicken breast. These quantities worked pretty well. The vegetable risotto had 1 pepper, 3 mushrooms, 1 stick of celery and 1/2 an onion.   I didn't have much of a plan so I just threw all the vegetables in to the pan at the same time and fried the chicken in a separate pan.I didn't have enough white wine so made up the difference with extra stock  but this overwhelmed the flavour in the veggie risotto but it was ok in the chicken one. The rice in the vegetable one also seemed to have a slightly odd texture (still tasted good though!). As usual, I didn't follow an instruction properly; I didn't add the stock a bit at a time which might've caused the rice to go a little gloopy but that only happened in the veggie one so I'm not sure. Despite a few hiccoughs along the way, it tasted good and was definitely a popular meal at home. How much more can you ask for?

Scones

These were made from the BBC Food scone recipe. This is a good no-fuss recipe for scones. I thought the dough seemed a little wet but I can't remember what it's supposed to be like. I think I got a bit carried away with the kneading which I think is why my scones weren't as tall as they're supposed to be. Note to self: listen to the recipe when it says knead lightly!

Enjoy with cream, jam and a cup of tea!

Recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/scones_1285

Iced Fingers

I used Paul Hollywood's recipe featured on The Great British Bake Off. The bread is made of an enriched dough that contains milk, butter and sugar as well as the standard bread ingredients. It is a very sticky dough so when you start kneading beware; most of the dough ends up on your fingers! It is supposed to be wet so try to use as little flour as possible on the surface but I probably used too much flour and it didn't seem to change the texture too much and the bread turned out surprisingly well. After the first few minutes, the dough becomes much softer and easier to work with so try and be patient.

 Think about a suitable warm place to leave your dough to prove. A grill above the oven is perfect because you can preheat your oven and some of the heat rises into the grill but any warm place will do. I had my dough proving in the bathroom because it was warm from the towel heaters!

 Although they take a long time to prove, you won't be tortured waiting for too long once they're in the oven as they only take 10 minutes to bake. Mine turned out a darker colour than I wanted but the bread inside was baked well and it still had a nice, soft texture on the outside as well as the inside.

As for the cream, I needed quite a lot more than it said to use. Depending how much filling you want, you may need up to double what it says on the recipe. For the icing, just make sure it's not too runny. If you like the slightly messier look that mine has (lets call it rustic) then you can add a little more water than the recipe says. If you prefer a neater finish then stick to the recipe!

These iced fingers were fun to make, the recipe works and has good, clear instructions. This was the first time I'd made them and they certainly tasted good and went down very well at home! The dough is a little tricky to work with though so if you've never worked with dough before then try making normal bread before attempting these yummy treats!

Recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/iced_fingers_34133

Hello!

 Firstly, welcome to my blog! I'm going to be writing about things I've cooked and the recipes I used. Sorry if this first post is boring, feel free to move on to the actual cooking related stuff but if you will carrying on reading, this is an introduction to my blog, Sophie's Spoonful.
 I believe that the word inspirational is over used. So many people say they were 'inspired' by the Olympics but what do they mean when they say this? Although the definition is vague so that it could be used in this context, I think that to be inspired should come a genuine desire to do or influence something, however big or small. The performances from some of the athletes during the Games were truly incredible and certainly admirable but, as someone with very little interest in sport, I can not say I was inspired. Through it I found no encouragement to be more active. If anything, the continuous bombardment of Olympics related activities, competitions and assemblies throughout the previous year at school left me sick and tired of the Olympics and anything sport related.
 I have always liked cooking, baking in particular, and last year I started watching The Great British Bake Off. I loved the show, following the stories of the contestants and the presenters, Mel and Sue, were wonderfully funny and entertaining. But as well as this, I found a great interest in the cooking and wonderful photography. I have found The Great British Bake Off inspiring and have decided to write a blog about the things I cook including photos I have taken along the way. I am starting this as a summer project and hope to continue posting as regularly as possible after the holidays.
 I hope you enjoy reading about my ventures in the kitchen. I am no expert in cooking so my results often don't look like the picture on the recipe and I am working with a dodgy oven that has no numbers on the temperature dial, but I hope that you will be entertained by my attempts and (fingers crossed) see some improvement as you follow my blog.
Again, sorry if this introduction has bored you, please read some of my other entries before giving up on Sophie's Spoonful.
(By the way, Great British Bake Off Season 4 starts on Tuesday (20th August) Can't wait!!)