Strawberry and Almond Crumble and Being a Bonafide Marathon Runner

I did it! I did it! I did it, did it, did it! If you're wondering what 'it' is, duh, 'it' is the Virgin London Marathon 2012. I did it! Ran it (with a bit of walking ;p), completed it, crossed the finish line and am currently in possession of a nice bit of  gold bling (medal) to show for my efforts as well as a t-shirt which I've slept in every night since and intend to sleep in for the rest of my life!

It was tough! I walked more than I would have liked, and sooner than I would have liked but I expected it to be tough. What I didn't expect it to be was fun! When people talked to me about the atmosphere and enjoying it, truth be told I was thinking "It's a marathon crazy person! How the heck am I supposed to enjoy running 26.2 miles?!" But I did! I really did! The first 15 miles were honestly fun! Running through residential areas where everyone had come out of their houses with sweets, music, banners, home baked treats and orange segments, hi fiving outstretched children's hands as we ran past, singing along to "I'm Slim Shady, yeah I'm the real Shady, all you other Slim Shadies are just here maintaining so won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up" and running next to my sister who pretty much danced the whole way, I honestly felt like I was at a party. Albeit a party full of crazy people whose idea of a good time is running!

And then mile 17 hit and it got hard. I was way past halfway and felt like I was almost there till I did the math and realised that I had 9 more miles to go. And it was kinda a long hard slog from then but you know what? The good definitely outweighed the bad! Or maybe it's like childbirth and the adrenalin has made me forget how tough it was?  Whatever. All I know is there are definitely more marathons in my future!

I made this the day before the marathon as part of our huge carb-loading lunch. It's from the lovely Nigella Lawson's book 'Kitchen'.

Ingredients

For the filling
500g strawberries, hulled
50g caster sugar
25g ground almonds
4 tsp vanilla extract

For the topping
110g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
75g cold butter, diced
100g flaked almonds
75g demerara sugar
Double cream or vanilla ice cream to serve

1 - Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6. Put the hulled strawberries into your pie dish (approx. 21cm/10in diameter x 3cm/2in deep and 1.25 litre/2 pints capacity) and sprinkle over the sugar, almonds and vanilla extract. Give the dish a good shake or two to mix the ingredients.

2 - Now for the crumble topping: put the flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl and rub in the cold, diced butter between thumb and fingers (or in a freestanding mixer or food processor). When you've finished, it should resemble rough, pale oatmeal.

3 - Stir in the flaked almonds and demerera sugar with a fork.

4 - Tip the topping over the strawberry filling, covering the strawberries in an even layer and pressing the topping in a little at the edges of the dish.

5 - Set the dish on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, by which time the crumble topping will have darkened to a pale gold and some pink-red juices will be seeping and bubbling out at the edges.

6 - Leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving.

7 - Serve with chilled double cream or vanilla ice cream.

Tip: The crumble can be assembled one day ahead. Cover with cling film and store in fridge until needed. Bake as directed in the recipe, but allowing an extra 5 - 10 minutes' cooking time. Check crumble is piping hot in the centre.
Crumble topping can also be made and frozen in resealable plastic bags, for up to 3 months. Sprinkle the topping direct from the freezer over the fruit, breaking up large lumps with your hands.
Alternatively, the assembled but unbaked crumble can be frozen, wrapped in a double layer of cling film and aluminium foil, for up to 3 months. Defrost for 24 hours in the fridge and bake as above.

White Chocolate Chip Blondies

Happy Easter all! And if you were about to accuse me of being late to issue those wishes, I'll have you know that today is Greek Easter and as I'm half Greek, I'm in fact right on time :)

How did you all spend your non-Greek Easter? I have to say it actually passed me by as I was in New York and lots of people over there don't have the Friday and Monday off work like we do here and on the Sunday, we were making our way back to NYC from a wedding in Maryland so yeah, I barely even noticed it was Easter. I didn't even get a chocolate egg :(

NYC was amazeballs as usual! I stayed with the amazing Onada and her husband (thanks again!) My time there flew by and I wasn't ready to come back but not to worry, while I was there, I sampled lots and lots of cupcakes! See my list below! This is in no particular order as they were all really good!

1) Sprinkles: I had the Brown Sugar Praline cupcake and it was yummy! Caramel cake with brown sugar frosting and topped with crunchy praline! Their cake was light and fresh and the frosting not too sweet!
2) Magnolia: I went to the shop in Bloomingdales and had a lemon cupcake! It was filled with lemon cream and tasted exactly as a lemon cupcake should! I'mma search through my two Magnolia baking books in search of this recipe!
3) Crumbs: Seriously huge cupcakes! And soooo many flavours! If you're intending to buy only one (like I was), this could be one of the hardest decisions you ever have to mae! Did I mention that they're almost all filled cupcakes? I can't remember what I had but it was really good!
4) Two Little Red Hens: This is a really cute bake shop with wonderful looking layer cakes. I had a yellow cake with meringue frosting which I wasn't too keen on. It's the meringue frosting which is so popular in the US that was the problem. It tastes like butter! Give me good old buttercream or cream cheese frosting any day! But I went back and had a Boston Cream Pie cupcake which was very good! The sponge fluffy and light, the pastry cream tasty and covered in chocolate ganache.

Anyway, back to reality - where I have to bake my own desserts.

These blondies were supposed be funfetti (American word for sprinkles) blondies but I guess my sprinkles were too small (unlike the probably massive sprinkles the Americans have - y'know, with everything being bigger there and all) and melted into the batter. Head on over to Beantown Baker's blog to see what they look like with sprinkles. They were very very good though! The almond extract gives them a really special flavour. I can't wait to make them again!

Ingredients

198g butter, melted
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 180C / Gas Mark 4 / 350F
2. Line a 9 x 13inch pan with greaseproof paper and grease lightly
3. In a large, microwave safe mixing bowl, melt the butter. Allow to cool for 5 minutes
4. Mix the sugars with the melted butter and beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then the extracts.
5. Add salt, stir in flour and baking powder. Stir in white chocolate chips.
6. Pour into prepared pan and use a greased spatula to evenly spread mixture in pan and level the top. Bake for 24 - 28 minutes or until set in the middle. Cool on rack before cutting.

Red Velvet Cupcakes (Take II) with Chocolate Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting

These days, I feel like I'm always apologising for being tardy at updating my blog. And while that is definitely the case now, instead of apologising yet again, I'll try and distract you with what I've been up to since the last time you heard from me ... deal?

I turned 30! I know, I know, you're thinking I don't look a day over 21 right? Ah, I blush, you're far too kind :)
I mentioned in this post that I had been tricked into registering for the London  2012Marathon. Well, when I returned from holiday (a time when I did no exercise except eat abundantly... Oi! What do you mean eating isn't exercise? Ever heard of competitive eating? See? It is a sport!) I went straight into week 4 of my training schedule and two runs in, I developed Tendonitis in my Achilles. Painful! And worse, it meant I couldn't run for almost 6 weeks. I started training again two weeks ago - leaving me with only 8 weeks to train for my first every marathon - but hey, what can I say? I like a challenge!

By the way, if anyone would like to sponsor us, we'd really appreciate it! We're raising money for the Salvation Army - which is a great charity - and specifically their work with young people. You can read more about it and sponsor us here.

While I've previously posted a recipe for red velvet cupcakes, I much prefer the Martha Stewart recipe below. Using oil instead of butter makes for a far moister cake (is 'moister' even a word? Should it be 'more moist'? Ah well, I say it is a word and my blog, my rules!).
For the frosting, in place of regular boring ol' Philadelphia cheese, I used the amazing new Chocolate Philadelphia Cheese which I was sent a sample of.

Of course, before I used it in frosting, I tried a bit (a teaspoon or two full to be exact) and I really like it! I don't think it bears any similarity to regular Philly at all! It's lighter and tastes almost more like a mousse than something which you'd spread on bread.
When I spent a semester in Canada on an exchange program, I was introduced to Strawberry Philadelphia Cheese which was heaven on a bagel! So Kraft UK, if you're taking this whole expanding the sweet Philadelphia range thing seriously then please please do me a solid and at least consider a strawberry version. Thanks :)

Cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (I sift mine as I always find it leaves little lumps in the mixture otherwise)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon red gel-paste food colour
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

1.  Preheat oven to 180C / Gas Mark 4 / 350F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. 
2. Whisk together flour, cocoa and salt
3. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, whisk together sugar and oil until combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
4. Mix in food colour and vanilla
5. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and whisking well after each. 
6. Stir together the baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl (it will foam); add mixture to the batter, and mix on medium speed 10 seconds.
7. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each halfway to three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centres comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes.
8. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

Cream cheese frosting recipe adapted from this Hummingbird Bakery recipe

Ingredients
250g icing sugar, sifted
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
200g Chocolate Philadelphia

1. Beat the icing sugar and butter together in a free standing mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk) on medium-slow speed until the mixture comes together and is well mixed.
2. Add the Chocolate Philly cheese in one go and beat until it is completely incorporated. Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed  and continue to beat until the frosting is light and fluffy, no more than 5 minutes as cream cheese frosting can become runny if beaten for too long.
3. Frost cupcakes. I often make my cream cheese frosting a day before and leave it in the fridge overnight so that it is harder and pipes better.

Giveaway Winner Announced

Sorry I've been tardy in announcing the giveaway winner!

The winner of 'The Baking Bible' is ..... *drumroll*...

(apologies for the weird formatting)

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:13...... ChristineL. Congratulations!!!

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.