Anna's Peanut Butter Cupcakes

These are actually called 'Reese's Peanut Butter Cupcakes' but I've named them after my friend Anna who first made them, and gave me the recipe and is a whole load of unfulfilled baking talent in one little person. Anna can bake, won't bake. Oh occasionally, a couple of times a year, just enough to leave you wanting more, she'll churn out a spectacular coconut and raspberry cake (that she just 'threw' together from two different recipes) or chocolate filled cookies or these amazing cupcakes but it is only usually after months of begging, pleading and threatening then resorting to throwing a tea party (and asking everyone to bring something) before she'll actually bake. My hope is that she'll read this and be guilted into baking for me once a week. Okay, okay, once a month.


These are really lovely! The recipe is actually by Gizzi Erskine and was featured in a sunday paper as part of a 'We heart SATC' feature (so you know they're going to be good!) The cupcake is chocolate flavoured with bits of Reese's cups in them and the frosting is peanut butter flavoured ... yum! 


Makes: 18 (I found it made 12)
Prep time: 15 mins
Calories per cupcake: 328 (Why you need this info I have no idea! But they've supplied it, so I'm giving it)
Fat per cupcake: 21g (All you need to know is I took out all the calories and fat before I wrote down this recipe so no need to worry about that ;D)


Ingredients
170g softened butter
170g golden caster sugar
3 large free-range eggs
170g self-raising flour
3tbsp cocoa powder
1tsp baking powder
3-4tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla extract (I use flavouring so I used 2 tsps)
6 Reese's peanut butter cups or 1/2 Snickers Bar, chopped into small pieces


For the peanut butter frosting
200g peanut butter
170g icing sugar
150ml full-fat cream cheese


To decorate 
Reese's Peanut Butter cups or peanuts (I used 3 Reese's cups, chopped up)


1 - Preheat the oven to 170ºC/325ºF/Gas Mark 3.
2 - Put 18 Cupcake cases in the holes of 2 Yorkshire pudding or muffin tins
3 - Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric whisk for around 5 minutes, or until pale and creamy.

4 - Whisk in the eggs, one by one. you may find the mixture curdles a little when you pop in your last egg but it should come together again when you add the flour.
5 - Sift over the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and stir in. Loosen the mixture with the milk and the vanilla extract. You want the batter to fall off the spoon easily - if you think it's too thick, add another tbsp on milk.

6 - Stir in the chopped Reese's Peanut Butter cups or Snickers. Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden and cooked through. You can check this by sliding a skewer into the cake - if it comes out clean, they're done.

7 - Leave the cakes to cook in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer them carefully to a wire rack to cool completely.

8 - To make the peanut butter frosting, beat the peanut butter with the icing sugar and cream cheese for a few minutes, or until smooth

There are no rules when it comes to icing a cupcake except to pile it on thick, so whether you want to use a knife or piping bag, give them some shape or make them smooth, the choice is yours. Decorate with chopped Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or peanuts.

Banana Wholemeal Muffins

I have an embarrassing confession - I can't bake muffins and cookies. And I know you're all thinking what all good muffin bakers say to me; 'Muffins are the easiest thing to make, you just put all the ingredients together and don't over stir!'. Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before and I personally think that is all just a ginormous conspiracy to make me realise how inadequate a baker I am! Okay, so in actual fact I've only attempted muffins once before now so perhaps I judged myself to hastily. But I can make three-layer cakes dammit! I can't believe I was stumped by a silly orange muffin! (In case you're wondering what was wrong with it, it tasted good but was hard as a rock cake!). And I've only made cookies once too,  a very long time ago, and I can't even remember how bad they were but I'm going to go with very bad if I blocked it out of my memory - forgetting food is not something I do often!

On a related aside, when I worked at Penguin, there was this thing called a pulp shelf - basically, all Penguin books that weren't sold in book stores are returned to the publisher and it was cheaper to get rid of (pulp) them than it was to take them back to the warehouse and sort them out so our pulp shelves were stocked every day and we were allowed to take 2 books a day. That was probably the best perk of the job for a bookaholic like me! However, all the books usually went within 10 minutes of the shelves being stocked so luck played a part too. My friend Ben saw and took this book 'Muffin Bible' before I did but after some shameless begging, he let me have it on the condition that I bake them all muffins from the book - bet he regretted that when I brought in my chocolate orange rock cakes muffins! It's an amazing book with lots of different recipes that all look great! Now that I've made my first successful batch of muffins, I might give some of the others a go.

Say hello to my 'You're not a failure' muffins! I liked to think they are pretty healthy as they don't have much sugar (and what they do contain is brown) and they use wholemeal flour so I had them for breakfast for a week! They're not too sweet and were soft and fluffy, just like other people's muffins are! Yay me! And perhaps all those bakers are right, they were very easy to make ;p

Ingredients

2 ripe banana
1 egg
75g butter, melted
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup hot milk
1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
2tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sultanas

1 - Mash bananas and add egg, butter and baking soda dissolved in milk
2 - Add remaining ingredients and mix until just combined
3 - Three-quarters fill well-greased muffin pans and bake at 200ºC for 15-20 minutes.

I Miss Blogging. Oh, and ‘Me’ in 52 sentencees.

I was reading through my old blog; I’m not most girls - which I haven’t done for years! – and it made me realise how much I miss blogging! It was probably the most committed relationship I have ever had with a body of writing and reading it back almost felt like reading a diary as it reminded me of significant events in my life, and what was important to me. I read a few of my regrets,  how confused I was about a guy who I really liked then but who I absolutely have no interest in now and remembered my sister's wedding.

I know that my baking blog is also a blog but I think I’m going to try and write more non-baking/cooking related stuff too.

One of the things that was huge in Blogville back in the day was Memes. I have no idea whether ‘Meme’ is an acronym or if it is an actual word and what it means but you don’t need to know any of that stuff to enjoy it! It was basically like a chain blog. So you blog about something and challenge everybody that reads your blog to write about the same thing on their blog. Now there were a lot of Memes going round so I tried to be rather discerning about which ones I did. This was one of the only ones I did and I even did a follow up. Clearly, I love talking about myself! So here I am, doing it again … apologies to anyone who read the first two as there might be some overlap. Oh and apologies to anyone who doesn’t give a damn about me and just came here to look at pictures of cakes!


Here goes …


I don’t keep a diary. I have attempted to about 4 times but each time, I lose interest after a few days. I think diaries are amazing because they capture how you felt on a particular day, or in a moment. I am currently reading ‘Oliver Twist’. I finished reading Oliver Twist since I wrote that last sentence. I have two tattoos. If I go to Vegas this summer, I’m getting a third one. On my wrist. I don’t have any qualms about turning 30 whatsoever. If I got married tomorrow, I’d have 7 bridesmaids. I’m extremely into the world cup at the moment. I am supporting Greece, Nigeria, England and Slovenia (sweepstake not by choice). Ultimately, I want England to win. I started writing this before England lost woefully to Germany. I’m wondering if my heart can take the constant disappointment. I love nicely scented body lotions and butters. I genuinely believe Ben & Jerry’s (yes, the ice cream company!) hate me. They discontinued my three favourite flavours; Dublin Mudslide, Chocolate Therapy and Fossil Fuel. And finally after a few years of so-so flavours, they’ve come up with Cheesecake Brownie but it is hardly sold anywhere! I am openly jealous of other mixed race people with lovely, soft, curly hair. As a child I wanted to be an architect. After University, I decided that journalism was where it was at. Then I was convinced that book publishing was the perfect career for me. Perhaps it still is, though maybe not in the same way that I thought. I have an Amazon wish list. I add more books to it than I buy from it. I’ve spent New Years Eve in Lagos every year for the last five years. I think the best smell in the world is the smell of frying onions. I also love the smell of petrol. My favourite film is ‘The Notebook’. I’ve seen it at least thirty times! Close favourites are ‘American History X’, ‘My Name is Sam’ and ’10 Things I hate about You’. I have never been in love. With a person I mean; I have been in love with food, and films, and songs and all sorts of other things! I have a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. I’ve only done about 12 of them and my 1001 days is up in January 2011. I go to the gym or for boot camp on average 5 times a week. I ran a half marathon in 2009. I’m doing another one this October. I want to run a marathon one day. Preferably the New York marathon. I speak Greek. I want to learn Spanish. I would like to learn how to play the guitar. My favourite city in the world is New York. I think Greece is the most beautiful country in the world. I’m committed to my celebrity crushes; Joshua Jackson and Josh Hartnett – I’ve loved them for years! I have the biggest sweet tooth of anyone I know. I am strangely proud of that fact. I love theme parks but when I’m on a ride, all I can do is imagine the headlines if anything goes wrong. I make sure I read at least four classics a year. I have no idea if this is exactly 52 sentences :D

Sesame Peanut Noodles

I have bad news and good news. The bad news; I'm back at work :( I no longer spend my days doing all the things I really love to do. The good news however, is that having a job pays better than spending my days doing all the things I really love to do!

The one thing I do like about working is that because my work day is much more structured, my eating habits automatically follow suit. I have three meals a day and snack on fruit and cherry tomatoes in between. Because I try not to eat a huge dinner, my biggest meal when I'm working is usually my lunch and though I love to cook, I can't be bothered to cook every day so I tend to cook up a big batch of something on Sundays and eat that three or four days in a row - I really don't have a problem eating the same food day after day; so long as it is something I love. I don't always cook something healthy for lunch but I do try to make sure it is not too carb laden (huge bowl of pasta = 2 hour struggle post-carb fest to keep my eyes from closing!) and that it contains vegetables and protein. I tend to try out most of my new recipes for lunch too! 

Last week, I decided to try out another recipe from Nigella Express; Sesame Peanut Noodles. I was considering stir frying some seasoned chicken breast to add some more protein to this recipe but decided that it wasn't necessary as I eat protein at breakfast and dinner. So Ms Afropolitan, this is a completely vegetarian recipe. Don't say I never gave you anything! :D

Don't be daunted by the list of ingredients; you will have a lot of them already and some can be substituted, for example, I used stir fry oil instead of garlic oil though I'm sure garlic oil would have given it that lovely garlicky  hint which I love. And a lot of the ingredients are pretty cheaply bought, e.g. beansprouts, a lime... give it a go, it's simple, healthy and pretty tasty!

Ingredients

For the Dressing

1 x 15ml tablespoon sesame oil

1 x 15ml tablespoon garlic oil

1 x 15ml tablespoon soy sauce

2 x 15ml tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

100g smooth peanut butter

2 x 15ml tablespoons lime juice (about the juice of 1 lime)

For the Salad

125g mangetout

150g beansprouts, rinsed

1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into small strips

2 x spring onions, finely sliced (I love onions so I used 3)

2 x 275g packets or 550g ready-prepared egg noodles

20g sesame seeds

4 x 15ml tablespoons chopped fresh coriander

1 - Whisk together all the dressing ingredients in a bowl or jug.

2 - Put the mangetout, beansprouts, red pepper strips, sliced spring onions and the noodles into a bowl

3 - Pour the dressing over them and mix thoroughly to coat everything well.

4 - Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and chopped coriander and pack up as needed

Serves 8

Happy Birthday Mum!

My mum is always on a diet and she absolutely loves chocolate, and specifically chocolate brownies. You don't have to be a math whizz to figure out that diets and brownies don't go together and so she usually (very admirably) abstains. So when I told her I was going to make her a cake for her birthday, she instantly requested 'those chocolatey things'. 'Brownies?' I asked. She nodded vehemently.


One of the main reasons I decided to blog about baking was so that it would motivate me to try out new recipes. So instead of making our (mine, my sister and my cousin's) tried and tested brownie recipe which I love, I decided to try out these 'Cream Cheese Swirl Brownies with Heath Bars and Pecans' (but without the pecans) from the 'At Home with Magnolia' cook book.


I think Heath bars are like Daim bars but I forgot to buy some so I just used white chocolate instead. My verdict? Hmmm - they were nice and very fudgy but way too sweet, and this is after I reduced the sugar and used brown sugar instead. The whole point is that the brownie bit is sweet but the cream cheese topping not so much and they balance each other out but I still think the brownie bit is way too sweet, and this coming from me; someone whom the term 'sweet tooth' defines better than any other! Also, they took forever to bake, at least twice what the instructions said!
Actually, I think I'll just try my regular recipe with this cream cheese topping next time.  Saying that though, everybody else really liked them so they're not terrible, I just personally think there must be a better recipe for these out there. I'll try and perfect it myself and let you all have my amended recipe.


Cream cheese swirl brownies with heath bars 


Ingredients
Cream Cheese Filling
227g cream cheese, not softened
28g sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour


Brownies
106g all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
170g unsalted butter
113g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
200g sugar (I prefer brown sugar in brownies, I think they give it a better rounded flavour rather than just sugary sweetness)
3 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tablespoons whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
85g chopped Daim bars


Preheat oven to 170ºC / Gas Mark 3. Grease and lightly flour a 13 x 9-inch baking pan
1 - To make the cream cheese filling: In a medium size bowl, beat the cream cheese with the sugar until smooth.
Add the egg and flour and beat well. Set aside.

2 - To make the brownies: In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a medium size saucepan over low heat, melt the butter with the chocolate, stirring occasionally, until smooth.
Remove from the heat, transfer to a large bowl, and allow to cool to lukewarm, about 5 minutes.

.

Stir in the Sugar
Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla and beat well.

Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.


3 - Stir in half of the chopped Daim bars. (white chocolate in my case)
Reserve 1/2 cup of the brownie batter.
Spread the rest of the batter evenly in the prepared pan.
Drop the cream cheese mixture by tablespoons over the batter.
Next, drop the reserved brownie batter by teaspoonfuls in between the cream cheese filling.
Using a small knife, swirl the two batters together, forming a decorative pattern.
Sprinkle the remaining Daim pieces (white chocolate) over the top, and using a spatula, gently press into the batter.

Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the pan comes out with moist crumbs attached.
Do not overbake.
Allow to cool overnight before serving.

SATC 2 and Pineapple Cheesecake with White Chocolate Sauce and Macadamias

It was my mum's birthday on Thursday and we decided to have a joint BBQ family dinner for my sister and her on the Saturday. On Friday, we went to see SATC2 on the first day of it's UK release. There was no way I'd wait a day or a couple of days to see it, it had to be on the actual day of its release; that's how much I love SATC!

But I came out of the cinema feeling deflated, disappointed, underwhelmed, unenthused and unimpressed ... ha ha, I'm sure you get the message! Don't get me wrong, I loved the fashion and the decadence of Abu Dhabi but not in place of actual story lines and the glamour of Manhattan! As my dad (who really dislikes all forms of chick flick my mum tries to drag him to) gleefully quoted from a review he'd heard on the radio, 'there was no sex (yup, it was weird to hear him say that) as only the one who normally gets lots of sex got some and even then; once??? and there was no city, only the desert'. As we came out, my brother in law who was dragged there against his will said, 'It was entertaining, but just really frivolous and superficial', and I had to agree but also clarify that Sex and the City might be frivolous and fun to watch but it usually also has substance! My friends and I reference their numerous dating and life dilemmas because they are so relevant. In conclusion, I'm really sad :( On the bright side, there were some fabulous dresses from Carrie (but who wears a dress with a train at home to watch TV????) and some laugh-out-loud moments so it's not all bad!

Okay, so I promise that there's a link between SATC and today's baking endeavour. Magnolia bakery - I made it a must stop on my last trip to NY after hearing about it on the show and now have two of their cookbooks. This and my next post are recipes from 'At Home with Magnolia' - which is the only one of their books which is not just a cake/desert book. It's also the only one of their books with lots of pictures which is usually a must for cookbooks for me ... so if you're reading Allysa Torey, please make sure all of your upcoming books (and I hope there'll be plenty) have lots of pictures of your beautiful cakes!

This was my sister's birthday cake and I'll post my mum's next. This recipe has been adapted as there are some things we just don't have in the UK (like graham crackers!) and I've changed all the measurements to g and ml from cups and ounces.

Ingredients

Crust
98g unsalted butter, melted
130g ginger nut biscuit crumbs
92g chopped toasted macadamia nuts (see note)
55g sugar

Filling
908g cream cheese (left at room temperature for a few hours to soften)
250g sugar
5 large eggs, at room temperature
2 x 227g tins of pineapple chunks, drained thoroughly! I drained them in the tins then drained small portions in my fist, using my fingers to cut them into smaller pieces before putting in the filling.
2 tablespoons double cream
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

White chocolate sauce
340g white chocolate, coarsely chopped
200ml double cream
90g coarsely chopped toasted macadamia nuts, for garnish (see note)

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/Gas Mark 4

1 - To make the Crust: In a medium-size bowl, combine the butter, ginger nut crumbs, macadamia nuts, and sugar.
Press into the bottom of a 10-inch spring form pan.
Bake for 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven, and allow to cool on a wire rack.
Reduce the oven temperature to 165ºC/Gas Mark 3.
2 - To make the filling: In a large bowl, on the low speed of an electric hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until very smooth. Gradually add the sugar. Add the eggs one at a time.
To ensure that the batter has no lumps and that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom of the bowl, stop the mixer several times and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Stir in the pineapple, double cream, and vanilla.

3 - Pour the filling over the crust and set the pan on a baking sheet.
Bake until the edges are set and the center moves only slightly when the pan is shaken, about 1 hour but it could take slightly longer.
At the end of the baking time, turn off the heat, and keeping the oven door slightly ajar, cool the cake in the oven for 1 hour. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to sit at room temperature for another hour. Cover and refrigerate for at least 12 hours, or overnight.
Note: my cake had a couple of cracks in the middle once it cooled but don't worry too much about that, the chocolate sauce is pretty thick and will cover any cracks.

4 - To make the white chocolate sauce: I recommend covering the cake in the white chocolate sauce a couple of hours before you serve it and returning it to the fridge until you serve.
In a small saucepan, over very low heat, combine the white chocolate with the heavy cream.
Stir until the white chocolate is completely melted and the sauce is smooth, 3-5 minutes.
Remove from the heat and transfer the sauce to a glass measuring cup. Allow to cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
Place cheesecake on your serving plate, remove from the tin (you might have to run a table knife round the edge to loosen it from the tin) and pour the sauce over the entire top of the cheesecake (letting it drip down the sides) and garnish with the macadamia nuts.

Note: To toast the macadamias, place on a baking sheet in a 180ºC/Gas Mark 4 oven for 12 minutes, or until lightly browned and fragrant.

Rocky Road Crunch Bars

Nigella Lawson is probably my favourite celebrity chef, and considering I've only watched a total of one of her cooking shows, it is probably a rather high and rash accolade to give out willy nilly but I have good reason for it so hear me out. Her book, 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' has earned her the praise all on it's own! I've tried a few recipes from it and they have all been incredible. The difference between good cooking and Mmmmm I can't-stop-eating-long-enough-to-compliment-you cooking is in the flavours. You can make a perfectly pleasant lemon cake or you can make a lemon cake Nigella stylie with ground almonds instead of flour, which you make three days before you serve it and wrap in foil in the interim to give a moist cake full of lemon flavour with a waft of something familiar which you can't quite place and then you do; hmm it tastes a bit like marzipan. 'A fusion of flavours' was the review from my friend Anna.

Anyway, back to the Rocky Road. They have been adapted from Nigella's 'Nigella Express'. And while I love these Rocky Road Crunch Bars (which I've made at least three times), I don't think the recipes in this book are as flavourful as some of her others. But considering the premise of this book is 'Good Food Fast', I think it's understandable.

These are very easy to whip up for a snack or desert and perfect for children's parties (so long as you remember you have to refrigerate them for at least 2 hours) so give them a go, and let me know how you get on!

Ingredients

125g soft butter
150g dark chocolate, 150g milk chocolate (Nigella's recipe: 300g best-quality dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids) broken into pieces
3 x 15ml tablespoons golden syrup
200g biscuits - mix Rich Tea and Digestive and Caramelised biscuits (Nigella uses Rich Tea only)
100g mini marshmallows
2 teaspoons icing sugar for dusting

1 - Melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a heavy-based saucepan. (I always melt chocolate in a Pyrex bowl which I place in a wok, half filled with water and put on a medium heat on the burner) Scoop out about 125ml of this melted mixture and put to one side.

2 - Put the biscuits into a freezer bag and then bash them with a rolling pin. You are aiming for both crumbs and pieces of biscuits

3 - Fold the biscuit pieces and crumbs into the melted chocolate mixture in the saucepan, and then add the marshmallows.
4 - Tip into a foil tray (24cm square); flatten as best you can with a spatula. Pour the reserved 125ml of melted chocolate over the marshmallow mixture and smooth the top.

5 - Refrigerate for about 2 hours or overnight
6 - Cut into 24 fingers and dust with icing sugar by pushing it gently through a tea strainer or small sieve

Bakers Notes:
 - This allegedly makes 24, I say it makes more like 12 small pieces.
 - I use a mix of biscuits because I love caramelised biscuits and jumped at the chance to use them in a recipe. Nigella suggests Rich Tea so I use those too. And my friend Ben makes spectacular Rocky Road using Digestive biscuits so I also use those. I think using three different types of biscuits adds a little somethin' somethin'.
 - Nigella's recipe only uses 70% cocoa solids dark chocolate; I use a mix of dark chocolate and milk and my dark chocolate usually has about 50% cocoa solids. I think her way tastes good too but I personally think it's a bit highbrow for rocky road, I like mine to taste creamy as well as chocolatey and the only way to achieve this is to throw in some milk chocolate!