I've had a bit of a craving for madeira cake for quite a while now. Every so often while grocery shopping in my local Tesco I would oh so casually find myself in the aisle that stocked cakes, so how could I not wander over to the madeira cake and gaze slightly longingly at it just sitting there, looking so deliciously moist and dense and sweet? I always somehow managed to resist the temptation to buy it though. Even with J on numerous occasions catching me red-handed and then exclaiming "why don't you just buy it??". I think it helped that I expected that one day, I would be able to satisfy my craving on my own and not have to rely on the supermarket version full of unwanted preservatives and other unknown substances. It is a little strange that I have been craving madeira cake at all, given that I despise butter on its own, but stranger things have happened.
Since my failed attempt a few months ago I was beginning to wonder if it was actually possible for me to bake a satisfactory madeira cake, especially since most madeira cake recipes online talked about adding lemon. I decided that this was a big no no - if I want a lemon cake, I'll make my own lemony lemon cake. So then I thought that maybe I should be looking for pound cake recipes. I was going to try Martha Stewart's recipe, but I had buttermilk to use and I figured could find a recipe that used buttermilk. I settled on this, and decided to make just half the quantity. But while I was halfway through measuring all the ingredients (having already put the sugar and butter in the bowl) I realised that I had halved the sugar, but not halved the butter. And then I realised that the recipe in its current proportions would most likely not have yielded me a moist, dense madeira cake at all! So I set about modifying it and hoping for the best. Surprisingly, the end result was a decent madeira cake - it actually tasted fantastic to me when I ate it freshly baked (but then what baked good freshly removed from an oven doesn't?). However when I ate it the next day, I found the taste of butter to be rather overpowering. But J assured me that it was perfect just the way it was, so here is the recipe.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/8 tsp baking soda
225g butter
1 3/4 cups caster sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla essence
Method
Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between after each addition.
Mix in the vanilla essence
Gently mix in flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk.
I found this was enough mixture for 1 loaf tin (approx 9 x 11 inch) and 1 round 18 inch tin.
Bake for 40 minutes.
And something I discovered as a result of baking this cake, and the chocolate cake (not yet blogged) - buttermilk makes the tops of cakes very crusty.
Thursday, 21 April 2011
choc chip cookies - m&s style
The perfect cookie is very subjective - some like their cookies hard and crunchy, some like them soft and chewy, some like them thin and crispy, I'm sure there are many more variations. For me, the perfect cookie is soft and chewy and perhaps a bit sweeter than most normal people would prefer :). I think the best example would be the cookies you find at Millie's Cookies, and the best example of the perfect choc chip cookie would be the ones from the M&S bakery.
Last year, I decided I wanted to recreate the M&S choc chip cookie at home - how difficult could it be? Easier said than done. I think I tried 3 or 4 different recipes - one batch turned out thin and crispy. Another batch came out chewy but the mixture had spread out so much during baking so they were almost paper thin. After trawling through the internet I found this site which has some fascinating information about how to get the style of cookie you want. From here, I found the recipe for the perfect thick and chewy choc chip cookie.
Now, I baked the cookies following this recipe, and was very impressed with how close they came to the M&S perfection. My big mistake however was not noting down the method I used, because it seems as though I did not follow the recipe to the letter! As can be evidenced from my post here. Using soft brown sugar instead of golden caster sugar yielded me a cookie that was more cake-like, which is more of the Ben's Cookies style - not my preferred style of cookie (although I do know people who rave about Ben's).
So here is my recipe for producing choc chip cookies, that are *almost* as good as the ones you get from M&S.
Choc chip cookies
(makes about 24)
Ingredients
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.
In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and brown sugar until well blended. Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
In another bowl, mix flour, baking soda. Stir or beat into butter mixture until well incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.
Drop dough in 1-tablespoon portions, 2 inches apart, onto lined baking sheets.
Bake in the oven until cookies are lightly browned, for about 6 to 8 minutes.
With a wide spatula, transfer cookies to racks to cool.
Last year, I decided I wanted to recreate the M&S choc chip cookie at home - how difficult could it be? Easier said than done. I think I tried 3 or 4 different recipes - one batch turned out thin and crispy. Another batch came out chewy but the mixture had spread out so much during baking so they were almost paper thin. After trawling through the internet I found this site which has some fascinating information about how to get the style of cookie you want. From here, I found the recipe for the perfect thick and chewy choc chip cookie.
Now, I baked the cookies following this recipe, and was very impressed with how close they came to the M&S perfection. My big mistake however was not noting down the method I used, because it seems as though I did not follow the recipe to the letter! As can be evidenced from my post here. Using soft brown sugar instead of golden caster sugar yielded me a cookie that was more cake-like, which is more of the Ben's Cookies style - not my preferred style of cookie (although I do know people who rave about Ben's).
So here is my recipe for producing choc chip cookies, that are *almost* as good as the ones you get from M&S.
Choc chip cookies
(makes about 24)
Ingredients
- 125g butter
- 3/4 cups golden caster sugar
- 1 large egg (I may toy with using a medium egg next tim)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup choc chips
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.
In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and brown sugar until well blended. Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
In another bowl, mix flour, baking soda. Stir or beat into butter mixture until well incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.
Drop dough in 1-tablespoon portions, 2 inches apart, onto lined baking sheets.
Bake in the oven until cookies are lightly browned, for about 6 to 8 minutes.
With a wide spatula, transfer cookies to racks to cool.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
banana cake
I have been very quiet of late. This is mostly because I put myself on a baking hiatus, after realising that my dedicated visits to the gym were not making much of a dent in my expanding waistline. And when you stop baking, you lose interest in blogging about it. However, I have started running again (fingers crossed I can keep running), and so I am very tentatively emerging from my self-imposed hibernation.
A group of us at work have been celebrating our birthdays by organising a cake and card for the happy birthday girl (or guy). So we've only had 2 so far, but I'm sure it will continue! I missed out on the first one, due to being insanely ill, but for the second one, one of the girls asked if I'd be able to buy the cake. Now, why buy a cake when you can bake one...? :)
We'd already had chocolate cake, and while another girl and I knew Sarah would love a carrot cake, I figured that after already having force fed the girls two different types of carrot cake, that I should probably not go for it a third time. So I decided on a deliciously moist banana cake with white chocolate frosting instead, which I found here.
You'll notice in my photo below that I also made my first attempt at cake writing :) Not a bad first attempt, ignoring the fact that I had fully intended to write 'happy birthday Sarah' and not 'Sarah happy bday'... Anyway, the photo was actually taken before I smudged some of the letters while trying to make space for the cake in the fridge, so if any of the girls are reading this that would explain why it may not look *exactly* how you remember it :)
Ingredients
2 very ripe bananas (of large-ish size)
125 ml sour cream
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
170g caster sugar (or soft brown sugar)
125ml vegetable oil
200g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Method
1. Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
3. Sift together the flour, salt and leavening.
4. Mash the bananas and mix in the sour cream and eggs, with electric hand beaters.
5. When the mixture is smooth, beat in the oil and sugar. Then add the dry ingredients and beat on high speed for 2 minutes.
6. Pour the mixture into the pan, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the cake tests done.
7. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto a wire rack.
8. Frost.
And for the white chocolate cream cheese frosting...
Ingredients
200g full fat cream cheese
200g white chocolate
Method
1. Melt the chocolate and cool slightly.
2. Stir in the cream cheese.
(for the letters I made a cone out of baking paper, cut a hole in the tip of the cone, melted some dark chocolate, added some icing sugar, spooned some of the chocolate into the cone, and hoped for the best!)
A group of us at work have been celebrating our birthdays by organising a cake and card for the happy birthday girl (or guy). So we've only had 2 so far, but I'm sure it will continue! I missed out on the first one, due to being insanely ill, but for the second one, one of the girls asked if I'd be able to buy the cake. Now, why buy a cake when you can bake one...? :)
We'd already had chocolate cake, and while another girl and I knew Sarah would love a carrot cake, I figured that after already having force fed the girls two different types of carrot cake, that I should probably not go for it a third time. So I decided on a deliciously moist banana cake with white chocolate frosting instead, which I found here.
You'll notice in my photo below that I also made my first attempt at cake writing :) Not a bad first attempt, ignoring the fact that I had fully intended to write 'happy birthday Sarah' and not 'Sarah happy bday'... Anyway, the photo was actually taken before I smudged some of the letters while trying to make space for the cake in the fridge, so if any of the girls are reading this that would explain why it may not look *exactly* how you remember it :)
Ingredients
2 very ripe bananas (of large-ish size)
125 ml sour cream
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
170g caster sugar (or soft brown sugar)
125ml vegetable oil
200g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Method
1. Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
3. Sift together the flour, salt and leavening.
4. Mash the bananas and mix in the sour cream and eggs, with electric hand beaters.
5. When the mixture is smooth, beat in the oil and sugar. Then add the dry ingredients and beat on high speed for 2 minutes.
6. Pour the mixture into the pan, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the cake tests done.
7. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto a wire rack.
8. Frost.
And for the white chocolate cream cheese frosting...
Ingredients
200g full fat cream cheese
200g white chocolate
Method
1. Melt the chocolate and cool slightly.
2. Stir in the cream cheese.
(for the letters I made a cone out of baking paper, cut a hole in the tip of the cone, melted some dark chocolate, added some icing sugar, spooned some of the chocolate into the cone, and hoped for the best!)
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