Things that astonish me (and chocolate chip tiramisu)

I've been in Rome for three weeks now and some things continue to astonish me every day. 

This is my view! My actual, genuine view from my bedroom if I go and stick my head out the window. Surely they reserve this sort of spectacle for actual residents, or the Pope, or something. It boggles me to the core every single time I wake up. 

Chewy, Gooey Chocolate Meringues

You need to make these. Sure, there's a little fuss, a little faff but seriously, make them, then come back and tell me it wasn't worth it. Go on, dare you.

I spotted the recipe here at bakerella and if I'd actually bothered reading the entire recipe before I started, I almost definitely wouldn't have bothered. Swiss meringue? No chew-inducing cornflour and lemon juice? It just didn't seem right. 

But I digress.

Playing swapsies with white chocolate, macadamia and cranberry cookies

Yes, that’s right, my first ever cookie swap, (actually, my first time sending anything edible in the mail- must carry on correcting that!) went without a hitch. 

Chocolate orange

My swap experience kicked off before I’d even made a single batch with a parcel from foodiebob. His crunchy chocolate orange cookies were gorgeous with a cup of tea- the perfect texture to hold up to a good dunking! These cookies were moreish and so easy to nibble on, they vanished the fastest of all three boxes. Generally, I make cookies with a little more squidge in them, which could explain why Tom made four of them vanish lickity-split; variety being the spice of life and all that.

triple chocolate-ginger biscotti

Speaking of spice, the most beautiful package I received was from Soup Tuesday, ginger and triple chocolate biscotti. I’ve actually never had biscotti before but they’re definitely something I’d have a bash at now, they kept for ages in a tin and stood up amazingly well after a morning in my bag, to be ready, unbroken, to have with my lunchtime coffee. The ginger was totally delicious too and, although, as a non-milk drinker, I couldn’t verify myself how good they are with the recommended glass of milk, Tom was happy to test (with over half the box) and reckons the combo couldn’t be beat.

beautiful biscotti wrapping

The last package I received was from Bakery Cottage and contained what was voted the house’s favourite overall (although out of the three of us, each had a different top choice, how diplomatic of us!) This hazelnut cookie, dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in chopped nuts, was so smooth and rich that one really should have been enough. That totally didn’t happen though, so these disappeared faster than anyone could say ‘So, when’re you making these then?’ You could almost taste the butter that’d been worked into these, and they just melted away.

hazlenut melts

And me? I made my brand new favourite squishy cookie recipe. I did try very, very hard with Florentines, but with a success rate of about 60% and Tom on hand to tell me that if he’d gotten fruit and almonds on a bit of chocolate when he was expecting cookies, he’d call trading standards, I scrapped that idea two days before the deadline and mass catered with my favourite flavour combinations. White chocolate and cranberry is a partnership I can be boring about for a long time (and already have been on this site), but the added crunch of macadamias was something new and I loved it!

White chocolate, macadamia and cranberry cookies

(makes about 15, so I had plenty left over from 3 batches!) 

250g of the chocolate, nut and fruit mixture. 

 (I used a choc:nut:berry ratio of 2:1:1, but really start mixing in a

separate bowl and see what looks good.)

300g sugar

(a mix of brown/white- I used 200g light brown and 100g golden caster)

170g butter

250g self raising flour

1/2 tsp salt

2tsp vanilla extract

1 egg, 1 yolk 

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C

2. Melt butter with the sugars. Let it cool.

3. Add vanilla and egg

4. Drop in the flour and salt and fold it in. 

5. Add in the bits.

6. Bake heaped tablespoons of the mixture for about 15 mins.

The cookies firm up a lot after they come out, so don't let them bake til set. If they look too underdone to get off the tray, chances are they're just peachy!

Zesty orange and white chocolate cookies

Remember this post, anyone? No? Well let me summarise. White chocolate and cranberries are beautiful, gorgeous lovers, in the style of Scarlett and Rhett or similar and must ne'er be parted.
Well, forget that. Orange and white chocolate is where it's at. 
'No!' I hear you cry. But sadly, when one forgets one's cranberries somewhere (there's a strong possbility I left them in North Wales) and it is raining very hard outside, one must make do. I'm sorry cranberries, but you just got cuckolded.

These are the chewiest, biggest and fattest cookies to come out of my oven. They're moreish, about the size of my face and I just can't stop breaking bits off them. The orange is strong but perfectly mellowed by creamy white chocolate. Yum yum. 

I am the Queen of Choux

I promise I'll stop banging on about Portugal soon...

...But not before a little Port Wine.
Now, me and Tom are pretty into our Port, which is one of the reasons we went to Porto in the first place. And we drank cheap port, expensive port and mostly everything in between. The priciest glass we shared would have set us back over £100 to buy the bottle. Extravagent stuff, wine. 

We even splashed out on a vintage port tasting on our last night, where they gave you little chocolate to match to the different ages of port. Dark chocolate for the oldest and most honeyed, milk for the young and fruity ones. 
Oh, since you ask, I can be very boring for a very long time on the subject of port wine. 
 

But no, since you beg so nicely, I'll restrain myself here. 
Suffice to say that tawny port (my own favourite love!) is supposed to pair with chocolate and cream or egg based desserts. You have to love an alcohol that demands to be drank with pudding. And who am I to ignore the demands of such tasty drink?

 Chocolate Eclairs
Adapted from James Martin's "Desserts"

You see, the eclair is the perfect answer to the question- what is both creamy and eggy and chocolatey? The choux pastry is eggy; just underbake it if you don't believe me, you get a rich, eggy Yorkshire Pudding sort of affair. The cream, obviously, provides the creaminess and the topping is bitter dark chocolate, sweetened just enough to take the edge off.
I had a slight crisis of confidence when I realised that there was, per se, no eclair recipe in my James Martin bible of all things sweet. But then my brain woke up a little bit and I used the profiterole recipe, with my own chocolate sauce.

Minor piping imperfections make big knobbly buns. But they taste just as good!

1. Heat 125ml water, 120g butter and 125ml milk in a pan, don't boil it but do ignore it long enough to get 170g flour measured out. Also preheat the oven to 210 degrees C.
2. Take off the heat and  dump all the flour into the bowl at once. Mix like a woman posessed. (or man, I'm all for equal opportunities patisserie)
3. Go do something else for 5 minutes.  
4. When its nice and cool, add an egg and mix until it doesn't look gross anymore. Repeat. Then repeat. Finally, repeat. That's four eggs for the slower amongst us. 
5. Leave it for a sec and quietly congratulate yourself on not scrambling the eggs. 
6. Pipe big sausages onto a baking tray. Use baking paper if you're cool, like me. Use a wet finger to dab the little flicks where you stopped piping. 
Seriously, choux pastry is magic. Wet finger= no sticking. Dry finger= mixture stuck to anything you touch for the next couple of minutes. What is with that shizzle? 
7. Put them in the oven, and chuck a cupful of water on the floor of the oven. 
8. Five minutes later, open the over door up wide to let all that steam out. We don't want no steamy pastries. But seriously, the steam helps the rise, then we want it gone because it makes our choux soggy. 
9. After another 20 minutes or so they should look a nice brown. Or golden, if you'd like to sound nicer. Whack 'em out and snip them open down the middle. Then whack 'em back in the oven to dry the innards. Another 5 mins should do it. 
10. Let cool, whip cream to soft and peaky perfection (I added a little sugar and vanilla) and smother in chocolate sauce. Mine is 100g bitter dark chocolate, 50g caster sugar, 20g butter and about 20ml milk to stop it setting too hard on the eclairs. Obviously melt the chocolate before you do all the mixing.    
The chocolate sauce will look really dodgy when you add the milk at the end. Have faith though, it does come together with mixing. Again, let it cool before you slather it all over, becasuse hot sauce and cold cream makes a runny mess and no one likes unnecessary running. Not even Paula Radcliffe. 

'Mind the Gap' with white chocolate and cranberry cupcakery

This is not the post that should be here. This is more of a stopgap, a little waystation, if you will, before I go off on one about 'my summer so far'. 

Summer, whichever way you look at it, is blooming amazing. We get sunshine, then just when the average Englishman is running out of weather based gripes, we have the sort of rain that not only soaks all the washing you optimistically put out to dry, but throws it around your garden too, such is the force of its fury. The weather, in Britain, in summer, isn't just unreliable, it's positively malevolent!

But I don't want to talk about the weather. I want to talk about food. And there lies my problem. 

I've been around lately. Not in a crude way (I know how your mind works), but to Italy and London, as well as back to the good old Midlands to visit my family. I want to make the sort of food I ate in these places, as much as an evocative travel memento for me as a way to challenge myself to something more exotic than blackberry and apple crumble. 

(Which I made last week, incidentally and it was lush. But I digress).

It hasn't happened yet, and in some ways that's a good thing. Writing about my take on wartime London grub seems a little off beat with all the troubles lately, and at my parents house is so definitely not the place to tackle my first Italian pud, which will almost certainly be tiramisu- all over my face, the worktops, the walls and my face again. So, eventually, I reach the point. This is a quick stop, so please mind the gap between the train and the platform when alighting. 

If you've stuck with me this far, thank you, you shall be rewarded with cupcakes. 

This is a cupcake with inner beauty. Not  ugly of course, but if she was a girl at school, probably not a looker. Never mind though, because this is one tasty lady. 
I'd also like the record to show that, for once, I got my food in focus.
White chocolate and cranberry cupcakes could not be simpler. Make cupcake batter, add cranberries and white chocolate chunks (remember, chunks>chips) and bake. Melt white chocolate, add a little milk and drizzle on cold cakes. And I mean only 'a little milk', and I mean 'cold cakes'. I will not be held responsible for sloppy drizzles.


Creamy, dreamy 'I'm not really chocolate' white chocolate and sharp dried cranberries.These two ingredients love each other, so please, be nice and keep them together. Sour cherries would work too though. We'll call it an illicit affair. I still believe cranberry is the white stuff's first love. You need something a little sharp anyway, so don't you dare try and use raisins or anything. Your white chocolate deserves better.

If you need a little help with the part where I said 'make cupcake batter', Google can always help. But here's a quick and easy fix for anyone who owns a set of scales. 
1. Weigh two eggs. Or three, for more batter, or one for not very much batter.
2. Remember how much the eggs weighed. We'll call this the magic weight.
3. Add that magic weight of butter + magic weight of sugar to a bowl and cream together until pale
4. Add eggs, mix a little after each one. Add a little vanilla extract.
5. Add the magic weight of flour. Mix until combined.
6. Chunk up some chocolate.  I like about the same ratio of chunks:cranberries but for actual quantities, go nuts until you're happy. 
7. Bake at 180 celsius for about 20-25 mins, or until done. 

To this day, this is the only recipe I have actually managed to commit to memory. Don't worry, I am ashamed.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies; because chunk > chip

You might know that for the last 5 weeks, (and for the next 4); I’ve been placed in Wrexham, North Wales. It’s not what I would have chosen, especially with Tom placed down in Swansea, which is a bit of a trek just to go and watch Doctor Who on a Saturday night with some hot chocolate and the duvet pulled up, the way I want to.  But I thought that while I’m up in the best of the beautiful Welsh countryside, I’d try and make the most of the fresh air, and the opportunity to bake. 

What you probably don’t know is that while I’m here, I am living with two fluent speaking Malaysian boys, we’ll call them S. and A.,  and one of them at least seems like a lovely man, but we have absolutely nothing in common.

And S. and I can’t even go and air out our differences over a pint, as his religion forbids him to drink. Not a big deal for me, you understand, but another cultural barrier in us going out in the evenings? There’s only so far daily chats over cups of tea can get you, when even cooking together is fraught with the hazards of haraam (unlawful) food. I’d never even considered before that I’d need to check my cheese carefully before including it in a veggie lasagne! In the last week or so, we had our results and unfortunately, both my new housemates have to resit in order to continue studying, so even my daily cups of strong loose leaf tea with S. have taken a back seat to revision. We'll not talk about A., except to say Raw.Chicken.Bits.Wiped. EVERYWHERE. I think that covers our relationship. Dirty the kitchen, make me an enemy.

All these cultural, social and (occasionally) language barriers mean that life in Wrexham for me is very isolating, and it’s something I was totally unprepared for. I had no idea what it would be like to go for several days without really speaking a word to a single soul. I’ve become a constant presence online, devoured books in a single long sitting and I’ve been baking. But I’m out of practise in meeting new people and intimidated by the thought of going out alone with the express purpose of finding someone new. Evenings are especially bleak, and it’s sometimes all I can do not to fall into a pattern of being generally slovenly and staying in bed all hours. 

In conclusion, I'm moving here when I retire!

Daytimes are better and I’ve been exploring the towns around me lately. Going with my camera makes me feel less like an obvious loner and gives me a purpose as I march around some very pretty streets. 

(The advantage of being alone; I can spend hours around charity shops and no one can complain.)

My latest find is a thin little book called ‘1 Dough, 50 Recipes’ for 70p. At first I doubted the deliciousness of a volume of recipes that can supposedly be chewy or crispy, fruity, chocolaty, nutty, ice-creamy or spicy, all from the same basic dough. But then, why not substitute my ‘go-to’ dough for a particularly chewy or crisp cookie as needed and just use the book as an ideas board for new flavours. It only took me a day to crack out a big knife and board and start chopping the hazlenuts!

My current cookie favourite is this David Leite recipe, which I’ve adapted a little to allow for me being an impoverished student and all those other excuses I have for not buying really good chocolate (or buying it then scoffing it all myself, whichever really). And I skip the Kosher salt too because, well, I’ve never salted anything in my whole life and I’m damned if the first thing I do is going to be something chocolaty. I know, foodie snobs, I know. I’m working on my own ignorance, I promise. Plus, I use salted butter as a vague compromise. Pfft, it’s cheaper. 

I added about 50g chopped milk chocolate, 50g chopped hazelnuts and 50g oats. I can’t even explain in words how much better a chocolate chunk is than a chocolate chip, it’s just one of those undisputed laws of the universe and is not to be trifled with.  So kindly don’t, just chop your own or use pre bought chunks, and we'll be just fine.

I halved David’s dough recipe, because the volume of dough gained from the two egg version is simply too eggstravagent when baking alone.

Chocolate chunk hazelnuts oaties

 (adapted from David Leite (for the dough) and ‘1 Dough, 50 cookies’ by Linda Doeser)

 

1.     1.  Cream 8oz butter, 4oz granulated sugar and 5oz brown sugar like your life depends on it (ie a lot).

2.     2.  Add one egg, a swipe of vanilla essence and stir.

3.     3.  Add 5 oz cake flour, and 4 oz bread flour. Stir just enough to combine.

4.     4.  Add chunky bits and give it a quick mix. I tend to just use my hands here, the dough is getting pretty heavy for my arm (+wooden spoon) to cope with.

5.      5. Fridge for AT LEAST a day. Up to three days ideally, I’ve done up to a week without anything too bad happening to me, my oven or my cookies. Just bake enough for your day each time, so they’re always fresh and lovely. For me, that’s a four cookie batch, or six if it’s raining, but scale up if you’re expecting company, or down if you have a modicum of restraint.

6.      6. Bake at 190C for about 15 mins in little balls straight from the fridge. I say about because not all ovens are created equal, so just go with it.

These are very nom-worthy. And with so many oats and nuts, they nearly feel good for you. No honestly, you’ll be telling yourself your body’s thanking you right into your fifth cookie of the day.

And they actually do improve if you leave the dough in the fridge, so don’t skimp. Or if you do, only bake what you absolutely need that second and age the rest. 

This is how my mind sees tea and cookies- in a haze of romantic soft focus....

Brownies with cocoa *and* chocolate

These chocolate brownies could save relationships. Admittedly, this could happen two ways, only one of which involves your man seeing you in a new and worshipful light due to your hitherto underexplored baking talents. The other is, simply, he is now too fat to find anyone new, because he’s stuck to the only chair that can take his burgeoning bulk. I can testify by personal experience part A can start to very closely resemble part B.

These chocolaty little heartstoppers (more on that later) owe their very being to the discovery of two Green and Black’s 100g bars hidden away for a rainy day in my desk drawer. Hidden too well, as it turns out, they were both nearly two years out of date. It seems I’m not nearly so good at treating myself as I thought. I tried pretty valiantly to nosh them down nevertheless, but it was much harder going than any good chocolate should be. The only way these dry and gritty little mouthfuls were going to be salvageable was by bakery. My mind skipped over chocolate cake, mousse or cookie as all too likely to pick up the staleness, and then it hit me- brownie. Surely a dessert with one whole block of butter could never actually be dry. Terrifying, yes, banned from cardiac wards in all known nations, yes, but never dry.

Having said that, I’ve been disappointed in the past by spongy brownies. I find the best way to get around the sheer stodge cakeyness of the whole endeavour, should it even (touch wood!) happen to you, is to microwave them to a slightly collapsing, yielding hot- you’ll know when you open the door, the cake sizzles slightly, so you can hear a quiet fizzing noise, and if you poke it, it falls all over the plate in a mess. A spoon is definitely called for here, and plenty of ice cream. If all else fails, just call it a tray bake and pretend it’s meant to be like that. Maybe consider calling some strapping lads round to polish off the evidence sharpish. 

But I needn’t have worried for a moment, these were so freaking good. There was a dodgy moment when they were cooling and I became so convinced I was going to poison everyone with underdone brownies I had to eat just the tiniest bit. And then another bit, and then a really big bit that I swear fell off when I was transferring to a plate. Then some more that didn’t, but we’ll say it did.  Suffice to say, about a third got eaten while I decided where on the ever wavering line between gooey and undercooked I lay. Luckily Tom came over to end the madness and the brownie was saved. 

Gorgeously Gooey Brownie

I used 100g green and blacks 70% dark and 100g green and blacks cherry, because it’s what I had. But, to be honest, I don’t think I’d refuse these even if they were made with leftover Easter Egg, and I’m a chocolate snob when it comes to baking.

Gooey Brownies

(adapted from Jamie Oliver's "bloomin brilliant brownies)

    1. Melt your 200g chocolate over a simmering bowl of water with one whole block (250g!) of butter
    2. Leave it to cool a bit so your eggs don’t scramble
    3. Add flour (65g), cocoa (80g) and caster sugar (250g). Or do what I did, which is add 100g drinking chocolate and 150g sugar, because I forgot to go shopping. Sprinkle a teaspoon of baking powder. Mix. It’ll take a bit of welly- it’s a thick mix, but this way you’ll feel like you deserve the amazing smell about to waft out of your oven. 
    4. Add 3 eggs, one at a time and mix like a banshee in between. Now you deserve two nice big squares! 

Something funny happens to the mix when you do this, it sort of clumps together in a glossy lump. Its sticky, but it only sticks to itself. My bowl pretty much ended up clean after I tipped it out. Weird, I know, who’d have expected baking to be low on clean up time? But its happened each and every time I’ve made these, so I’m just going to go with it.

          5. Pop in a 180 oven for about 30 mins. Oven times are so peculiar, aren’t they? One man’s overdone is another’s barely hot. So when you can smell the chocolate permeate your very self, stick a skewer or strand of spaghetti in. If it coats it like custard, its raw, if it sticks in patches, take it out.

           6. Try and wait long enough so it won’t burn your mouth, then tuck it. Amazing hot, lovely cold.