Peanut Butter and Snickers Brownies and a Giveaway!

I decided to try yet another adaptation of my beloved best brownies in the whole wide world! And as I'm really into Snickers at the moment, I decided to pair it with peanut butter (naturally) and voila! - another great brownie. One thing I would do differently is chop up the Snickers into larger pieces as they disappeared in the baking process and people were surprised to learn that they contained any. I have recommended slicing them in the recipe below.

Speaking of baking (yup I know - as if we would be speaking of anything else on my BAKING blog ;p), I've got this great book 'Baking Bible' to give away. It is a great first baking book as it has recipes for EVERYTHING! From muffins to cakes and biscuits. It is a pretty hefty book too! Here is an excerpt from the Amazon blurb:

"There's a special joy that comes from creating home-baked treats. And there's nothing quite so satisfying as sharing them, fresh from the oven, with your friends and loved ones ... Boasting more than 470 recipes and 200 gorgeous colour photographs, it provides an outstanding resource for any kitchen. 'Baking Bible' has a recipe for every cake, pudding, tart, pie, slice and muffin you'll ever want to cook. There are loads of old-fashioned favourites, as well as plenty of inspired new ideas. Whether it's rich chocolate rum cake for a family birthday party, moist apricot and almond muffins for a weekend morning tea, sun-dried tomato and cheese slice for a lunchbox snack, or butterscotch date biscuits for the school fete, there's something here for every occasion"

For details of how to enter, see below the recipe. Good luck!

Ingredients
300g dark chocolate (At least 70% cocoa solids)
250g unsalted butter
4 x regular (58g) bars of Snickers, each bar sliced not too thinly, not too chunkily
175g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
325g caster sugar
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
3 tablespoons smooth peanut butter (I only had crunchy at home as you can probably tell in the photos)

Here's how NOT to chop up your Snickers

1. Preheat oven to 170C/325F/Gas Mark 3
2. Grease and flour a 30x20cm baking tin
3. Break the dark chocolate into pieces and melt with the butter in a bain marie
4.  Combine the flour and baking powder in a bowl and set aside
5. When chocolate and butter is melted, remove from bain marie and stir in sugar and instant coffee granules
6. Stir in the eggs and vanilla essence
7. Fold in the flour
8. Lastly, fold in the Snickers pieces, give it one turn and pour mixture into the prepared tin. Do not stir too much as you don't want the chocolate to melt
9. Put your peanut butter in a microwaveable bowl and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds or until it  is soft and easy to stir. Using a spoon, drop dollops of peanut butter randomly on your brownie mixture until all the peanut butter is gone
10. Using a table knife, drag it lightly across the surface of your brownie batter marbling the peanut butter in with the brownie mixture
11. Bake in the oven for 25 - 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out pretty much clean
12. Allow to cool in the tin and then cut into squares

I'm giving away a copy of 'Baking Bible'. There is one mandatory way to enter and additional ways to gain entries into the giveaway (Tip: Each comment only counts as one entry so you're giving yourself more chances if you leave a different comment for each entry e.g. Answer the question in one comment. Tell me you're following me in a different comment etc)

CLOSING DATE - Midnight on FRIDAY 24TH FEBRUARY

Rules and How to Enter

• The giveaway is open to everyone with a UK mailing address
• For the mandatory way to enter, leave a comment telling me something you would like to bake
• For another entry, follow my blog using the Google Friend Connect 'Follow' button on the right of my blog. Leave a separate comment to tell me you have done this or that you're already following my blog
• For yet another entry, follow me on Twitter @vickii373 and leave a comment here to tell me you're following me on Twitter and your user name. Also leave me a comment if you're already following me on Twitter.

Good luck!

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting

The two things I love trying new recipes for are cupcakes and layer cakes. Because there are so many out there! Chocolate and bacon is pretty popular amongst American bloggers these days and I recently saw a recipe for a cupcake topped with fried chicken. I kid you not! While I'm not going that experimental just yet - 'just yet' being the operative phrase seeing as there is a Nigella bacon and chocolate brownie recipe sitting in my pile just waiting to be tested - I thought I'd make something a bit different for my next cupcake.

For those of us that aren't American and have no idea what a Snickerdoodle is - nope, it's nothing to do with drawing or Snickers bars - I found this definition online to help us along: "Snickerdoodles are an old fashioned cookie that have a sugar cinnamon coating and a sweet and buttery flavour"!

See how helpful that was? Whatever did we do before the Internet?!

These are a light, cinnamon flavoured cupcake topped with marshmallow frosting so the entire thing is lighter, less sweet and less cloying than your average cupcake. They're also a nice, easy cupcake to make, which I have to be honest, was the deciding vote when I was considering which new recipe to try. Some of the recipes out there look I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E but boy oh boy, they've got an ingredient list longer than ... well, something really long!

This recipe is adapted very slightly from my amazing Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book and the marshmallow frosting is from Marthastewart.com . Photos are courtesy of the amazing Onada.

Makes: 28

Ingredients

Cake
3 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, plus 1/2 teaspoon for dusting
227g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for dusting
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups milk

Frosting
8 large egg whites
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Cake
1 - Preheat oven to 180C / Gas Mark 4 / 350F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Combine together both flours, baking powder, salt and 1 tablespoon cinnamon.
2 - With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk, and beating until combined after each.
3 - Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester/toothpick inserted in centres comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored up to 2 days at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.
Frosting
4 - Place egg whites, sugar and cream of tarter in the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer. Set over a saucepan with simmering water. Whisk constantly until sugar is dissolved and whites are warm to the touch, 3 - 4 minutes.
5 - Transfer bowl to electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and beat, starting on low speed, gradually increasing to high, until stiff, glossy peaks
6 - To finish, combine remaining 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 2 tablespoons sugar. Using a pastry bag fitted with a large plain tip, pipe frosting on each cupcake. Hold bag over cupcake with tip just above top, and squeeze to create a dome of frosting, then release pressure and pull up to form a peak. Using a small, fine sieve, dust peaks with cinnamon sugar

Best of 2011

Better late than never eh? :) These are the bakes that stood out for me in 2011. Either because they were challenging, or new, or particularly enjoyable to bake and more importantly, particularly enjoyable to EAT!

Please let me know which of my recipes you tried in 2011 and how they turned out. Which ones made you go 'wow!' (hopefully there were some ;p), and what you want to see me bake more of in 2012 and I promise to try and oblige as many of you as I can.

Thanks for your support in 2011!

Irish Car Bomb Cake 

I made this cake for my 'Great British Bake off' audition and both Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood loved it :) It's Guinness chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache and frosted with Baileys buttercream frosting. It's yummy! Even if I do say so myself.

The Best Brownies in the World. Ever!

I swear I'm not just tooting my own horn - these brownies really are amazing! And trust me, I've eaten A LOT of brownies - ahem, only in the name of research of course. Obviously *cough*. I intend to experiment with them a lot, throw some cookies in them (like in the entry below), swirl some peanut butter and throw in some chopped Snickers bars (coming soon) etc so watch this space.

Oreo Stuffed Brownies

I tried some cookies and cream brownies but I was left underwhelmed. And let's be honest. 'underwhelmed' is a word that shouldn't even feature when we're talking about brownies AND Oreos! Together! So when I saw a recipe for Oreo Stuffed Brownies, I decided there and then to just adapt my recipe slightly and throw some Oreos in them and voila! A friend told me two days ago that whenever he goes to markets and sees a brownie stall, he goes up to them and starts telling them all about these amazing Oreo brownies that his friend Vickii made - that's how cool these brownies are! And easy! Try them!

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Brown Butter Frosting

2011 will go down in history - well, my history anyway. The history in my head which is oh so important to me and I'll recount to my kids over and over again - as the year when I discovered how amazing pumpkin in baking tastes! And also that when you cook butter till it melts and starts to burn slightly, it's an actual technique that makes everything taste amazing; brown butter! I also used brown butter in these Snickers cookies.

Red Velvet Cake Pops
Cake pops were 2011's cupcakes. Remarkably easy to make and not to mention smooshing a cake you've just baked is strangely satisfying :) I need to make some more in 2012!

Triple Layer Oreo Cake
The natural choice of cake for my mum's birthday as she is a chocolate fiend. There's no such thing as too chocolatey in her book! A vanilla sponge layer speckled with Oreo cookies sandwiched between two layers of intense, rich chocolate cake with the aid of a light and creamy filling containing large Oreo pieces. All covered in a rich fudge frosting and decorated with Oreos ... *sigh* ... sorry, I just had a moment there recalling the taste - it was kinda like chocolate and Oreo heaven.

Mojito Cupcakes
A cupcake inspired by my favourite cocktail - what's not to like? ;p

Puffy Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip and Golden Oreo Cookies
This had to be the year of the cookie for me! Turns out I'm not genetically incapable of baking cookies afterall. In fact, I'm pretty good :) I made Cinnamon Roll Cookies, Lemon Sugar Cookies, Lofthouse cookies and Snickers Cookies but these were my favourite! They were also the easiest to make and the most versatile. You can throw whatever you want in them!

My Beautiful Cupcakes
I'm still in love with how amazing Onada made my cupcakes look so of course they made the list! The recipe for the Snickerdoodle cupcakes (the ones with plain white frosting and a dusting of cinnamon sugar) will be posted next week.

Pumpkin Cake with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

Happy New Year all!

I made this cake twice for Christmas gatherings a week apart. I'll let the reviews I got do the talking ;)

"I dare say your pumpkin cake is currently my most favourite thing in the world.
The sweetness of the caramel frosting perfectly counterbalances the pumpkin moistness and density of the cake with a little bitter chaser" (She should be a food writer right?!)

"I thought Hummingbird was good but ... this cake, oh my God"

"Possibly the best cake I've tasted of yours so far"

"Had a slice, smuggled out and carried across state lines. One word; sublime"

"Someone just screamed OH MY GOD. Can you get me her details?"

I'm not touting my own horn; it's the cake!

This incredible recipe (changed very slightly) is from Food & Wine.

Ingredients

Frosting
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
170g unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons double cream
455g cream cheese, cut into small cubes

Cake
2 cups plain flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 425g can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup whole milk

For the frosting
1 - In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, water, vanilla bean and seeds. Cook over high heat, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved. Using a wet pastry brush, wash down any crystals from the side of the pan.
2 - Cook over a medium-high heat without stirring until a medium-dark amber caramel forms, about 15 minutes (Don't worry if it takes longer). Remove from the heat and immediately stir in the butter and double cream. (Don't worry if the butter separates). Discard the vanilla bean.
3 - Transfer the caramel to the large bowl and using a mixer, beat at low speed until the caramel cools slightly and comes together, about 5 minutes.
4 - With the mixer, beat in the cream cheese, 1 cube at a time and beating well between additions (until the cube you've just added has completely disappeared into the mixture), until silky. It should be cool by the time you've incorporated all the cream cheese. Transfer the frosting to a bowl and refrigerate until very firm, at least 6 hours.
For the cake
5 - Preheat the oven to 180C / Gas mark 4 / 350F. Butter and flour two 8-inch round cake pans. (Note: I made 1 1/2 half times the recipe to make a triple layer cake).
6 - In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves.
7 - In a bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the brown sugar and eggs at medium-high speed until fluffy, 3 minutes. Beat in the oil, then beat in the pumpkin puree. Alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk in 3 batches, beating well between additions.
8 - Pour the batter into the prepared pans and smooth the tops. Bake for 20 - 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
9 - Let the cakes cool on a rack for 20 minutes. Run a knife around the edges to loosen the cakes, then invert them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
10 - Place one layer on a plate and spread with 1 cup of the caramel cream cheese frosting. Top with the second layer and frost the top and side.

Refrigerate the cake for 2 hours before serving.
Make ahead: The cake can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 days. Serve cold or at room temperature.
Notes: The cake can be garnished with candied nuts

Thank to Philippa Brady for the lovely Christmassy photos!

DAMN! Don't my cupcakes look good?!

Wow! I know I'm supposed to be modest and all that but wow! My cupcakes look gooooooood! And that's all thanks to my wonderful photographer friend Bola who I put to work on her short trip to London a month ago! Who would've have known all those years ago when we met in school that she'd come in handy one day? ;p

If she makes my cupcakes look this good, you can only imagine what she does with people! Actually, you don't have to imagine, go check out her work here NOW!

I'm afraid this is it from me till January. Have a WONDERFUL Christmas all and an incredible New Year! And not just the 31st of this year but an incredible whole of next year!

Thank you so much for reading my blog and commenting and I'll be posting lots of new and interesting stuff in the new year!

Puffy Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip and Golden Oreo Cookies

Lemme tell you something about these cookies.They're great! So great that ...

1) They have turned mere mortals into baking converts! I first made these with Susan (She's obsessed with peanut butter, carrot cake and thinks she is amazing ;p). She wanted a total peanut butter hit so we put peanut butter chips, peanut M&Ms and Reese's Pieces in them (That's another great thing about these cookies, feel free to swap the chocolate chips and Oreos for other things - smarties, m&ms, chunks of your favourite bar of chocolate, anything!).
They were so simple to make that when they were all ready and in the oven, she kept saying: "But that can't be it. We can't be finished already". But that was it. We really were finished. They really are that simple! Half an hour after you start, you've got hot cookies!

And FYI, Susan has gone on to bake white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies, peanut butter banana bread and a French yogurt cake. All because of these cookies ;p

2) God himself endorses these cookies! Well, I like to think He endorses everything I bake but I made these for Church and got a text from the Pastor's wife (Monica) that evening saying how good they were. And then a couple of days later, the Pastor himself (Mark) texted to say he really enjoyed them. I don't think Mark has eaten any of my baking before and I just assumed he didn't have a sweet tooth but a couple of weeks later, Monica asked for the recipe as Mark had been hassling her to make them.

So there you have it. Make these cookies!

Quick aside - Isnt' it funny how in this post, I was lamenting my genetic inability to bake cookies and muffins and now I'm like the cookie queen! Cookie queen is a title I'm trying on for size and I really like it!

Adapted from How Sweet It Is

Makes about 20 cookies

2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
113g butter
6 tablespoons of creamy peanut butter (I bought crunchy by mistake and I like to think it gave it a little sumthin' sumthin')
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup Golden Oreos broken into bits. Regular Oreos would work too.

1 - Preheat oven to 170C / Gas Mark 3 / 325F. Line your baking trays with grease proof paper.
2 - Add peanut butter and butter to a microwave safe bowl, then heat in 30 second increments until melted. Let cool completely.

3 - Mix the flour and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.
4 - In another bowl, mix the the cooled butter/peanut butter and sugars until they are combined. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and stir until mixed.

Gradually add flour and mix until a dough forms - it will look crumbly at first, but it will come together. Use your hands to bring it all together if you want.
5 - Fold in chocolate chips and Oreo bits.

6 - Shape the dough into balls the size of a golf ball.

Place on your baking tray two inches apart and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown. The centres should be soft and puffy. Do not over bake. Let cool completely.

Orange Marmalade Rolls

Happy belated Thanksgiving y'all! (Please don't ask why I'm pretending to be from the American South  - it just seemed right so I went with it)

As usual, I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving; despite saying EVERY SINGLE YEAR that I will start a tradition of cooking Thanksgiving fare and inviting friends round. Perhaps I should make that 2012's resolution?

I also really should get my act together and at least celebrate holidays on my blog! Surely, I could have made something Thanksgiving-y and posted it on Thanksgiving day right? Okay, adding 'celebrate holidays on my blog' to my non existent New Years Resolutions list!

I wasn't going to post this because as you can see, my orange marmalade rolls didn't look exactly as they were supposed to. I decided to because imperfection is a part of everything. Even baking. Especially baking. Hopefully you'll learn from my mistakes and you and I can do it better next time!

I know you guys think I'm perfect, and I never get anything wrong ... right? Oh you don't? Moving swiftly on :) Seriously though, people do think that everything I bake turns out perfectly and I never have disasters but that couldn't be further from the truth! My only saving grace is that I am often able to salvage (read: hide) those disasters. And other times, like now, something may not look as it should but it still tastes damn good! And isn't that the whole point of baking after all? :)

FYI, I think my mistake with this was rolling out the dough too thin so I struggled to roll it up and cut it into slices. I love everything in the 'roll' family so I'll be making lots more of these. And hopefully they'll be better looking!

If you're anything like me, you find recipes with yeast slightly threatening but believe me when I say these were very easy to make! And so yummy!

Recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks


For the rolls
473ml Whole Milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
7g active dry yeast
4 cups (plus 1/2 cup extra, separated) plain flour
1/2  teaspoon (generous serving) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (scant serving) baking soda
1/2 tablespoon (generous) salt
8 tablespoons orange marmalade
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Orange Glaze
900g icing sugar
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup orange juice
1 dash salt

1 - Mix the milk, vegetable oil and sugar in a pan. Scald the mixture (heat until just before the boiling point). Turn off the heat and leave to cool for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

2 - When the mixture is lukewarm to warm, but NOT hot, sprinkle in the yeast. Let this sit for a minute. Then add the 4 cups of all-purpose flour. Stir mixture together.

Cover and let rise for at least an hour.

3 - After rising for at least an hour, add 1/2 cup of flour, the baking powder, the baking soda and salt. Stir mixture together. (At this point you could cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you need it - overnight or even a day or two, if necessary. Just keep your eye on it and if it starts to overflow out of the pan, just punch it down).
4 - When ready to prepare rolls, sprinkle rolling surface generously with flour. Take half the dough and form a rough rectangle. Then roll the dough thin, maintaining a general rectangular shape.

5 - Spread marmalade over the top. Pour on butter, and then sprinkle the brown sugar evenly. Sprinkle with salt

6 - Beginning at the long side furthest from you, roll the dough into a long roll toward you; being careful to keep it tucked tightly. Pinch edge to seal.

7 - Cut rolls into 1 to 1 1/2 inch rolls and place into buttered pans. Allow to rise for at least 20 mins.

8 - Bake at 190C / Gas Mark 5 / 375F for 15 to 18 minutes, or until golden brown (but not overly brown).
9 - While baking, mix together the ingredients for the orange glaze, thinning with more milk or orange juice to make mixture thin enough to be pourable.
10 - Immediately drizzle orange glaze over the top. Serve warm or at room temperature.