S'mores Bars

I thought I'd let you know about the latest recipe I've tried out. This one is a good 'un! They taste amazing. If found the recipe here on Sugar Cooking's blog and adapted it just a little bit as some of the listed ingredients are not available here in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Instead of Mashmallow Fluff I just used ordinary marshmallows and lined them up over the chocolate as you can see in the picture above. The other ingredient not available here is Graham Cracker Crumbs. Instead I used a local breakfast speciality called Plazma. If you can't get Plazma or Graham Crackers where you live then just smash up some kind of plain biscuits such as digestive biscuits and use that instead.

Chocolate and Cookie Dough Muffins

After some experimenting on Monday evening I came up with this recipe. They are yummy and they  taste even better the day after, so don't eat them all right away! The cookie dough has a slightly salty taste compared to the muffin which makes a great contrast.

To make the cookie dough:
90g butter
100g sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
200g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
100g chocolate chips


In one bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and salt and leave to one side.
In another bowl cream the butter and sugar. Then mix in the egg and vanilla.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter and eggs, mixing all the time. At this point I usually use my hands to knead the dough. If the dough feels very sticky you can add more flour, a little at a time. When the dough is a good consistency add in the choc chips. Put in the fridge whilst you make the muffins.

This will make more cookie dough than you will need for the muffins - but when is too much cookie dough ever a problem? Wrap up whatever is left and put it in the freezer ready for a day when you feel the need for cookies!

To make the muffins: 
200g flour
75g cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
175g sugar
2 eggs
100ml sunflower oil
175ml milk
2 tsp vanilla essence



Heat the oven to 170C and put paper cases in a muffin tin.
In one bowl beat the eggs.
In another bowl put the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix. Add the sugar and mix.
Add the eggs, sunflower oil, milk and vanilla and mix until it is all combined and looks like the picture above.



Put one teaspoon of muffin mixture into each paper case.

Put a small ball of cookie dough into each paper case.











   
Put 2 teaspoons of muffin mix into each paper case so that the cookie dough balls are completely covered.

Then put them in the oven for 20 minutes.
            
Once they are done, take them out of the oven and leave them to cool on a wire rack.





Once they are cooled, eat them!










I shared this post on the Back for Seconds link party.

Christmas Tree Muffins

Two and half weeks til Christmas and it's time for some festive baking! These Christmas Tree Muffins are really tasty with a lovely spongy texture. Just what you need to brighten up your table at a Christmas party.

Ingredients:

Bottom part - Tree trunk

125g flour

15g cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

88g sugar

90ml milk

1 egg

50ml sunflower oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

Top part - Branches

125g flour

1 tsp baking powder

88g sugar

90ml milk

1 egg

50ml sunflower oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

green food colouring

Instructions:

1.Heat the oven to 170C

2.Prepare the muffin tin with paper cases.

3.Bottom part:

a. Beat the egg and leave it to one side.

b. Mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder.

c. Add in everything else, including the egg, mix well and leave to one side.

4. Top part:

a. Beat the egg and leave it to one side.

b. Mix together the flour, sugar and baking powder.

c. Add in the milk, egg, oil and vanilla essence. Mix well.

d. Add in the green food colouring and mix well. Amount of colouring depends on what kind of colouring you are using. Make it as green as you can!

5. Pour one big spoonful of the 'bottom part' mixture into each paper case. 

6. Pour one big spoonful of the 'top part' mixture over the top of the 'bottom part' mixture in each paper case.

7. Bake for approximately 20 mins.

8. Leave to cool.

9. Enjoy :) - they taste even better when they've stood for 24 hours, if you can be patient and wait that long!

Raspberry Smores Cheesecake Recipe

 It worked this time! So here's the recipe as promised.

Pie Crust:
185g biscuit crumbs
70g melted butter
55g sugar
a pinch of salt

Add the biscuit crumbs to the melted butter and stir until the crumbs are coated in the butter. Add the sugar and salt and mix well.

Press this mixture into a 24cm flan tin and refrigerate for 45mins.

 Interesting Fact: Biscuit crumbs with milk is popular for breakfast here in Bosnia and Herzegovina so you can buy them ready made - there's no need to buy biscuits and smash them for recipes like this!

 Cheesecake Mixture:
250g chocolate cream cheese
1 egg
50g sugar
2 tbsp sour cream
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
40g melted marshmallows
120g raspberries

 Chocolate Cream Cheese - another local ingredient!

Instructions:
Whisk the cream cheese to get some air into it. Add the egg and keep whisking. Add the sugar, sour cream and vanilla and mix well. Add the raspberries and stir them into the mixture. Melt the marshmallows and then pour them into the mixture and stir well.

Pour the mixture into the flan case and bake for 20-25mins at 180C

Leave to cool on a wire rack. When cool, refrigerate for 1 hour and then serve and enjoy :)

Raspberry Smores Cheesecake Fail!

Last week I experimented with a new recipe - which, as you can see from the photo, didn't really work. The marshmallows started to burn so I had to take it out of the oven before the cheese had set so it ended up a watery, gooey, but yummy mess! I'm going to try it again today with a few alterations. If it works I'll post the recipe here on my blog asap.

Apple and Cinnamon Doughnuts with Maple Syrup Glaze

I made these at the weekend as we had a guest who has given up eating chocolate for lent and so I needed to find something yummy but un-chocolatey to make. I found the recipe for the doughnuts at peaceloveandfrenchfries.com and the glaze I just made up. I changed the recipe a bit to fit with ingredients we have available here and I changed it to European measures.

Ingredients

Doughnuts:
340g apple sauce
1 egg
1 tbsp sunflower oil
100g brown sugar
280g all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp cinnamon

Glaze:
6tbsp maple syrup
250g icing sugar

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 200C and thoroughly grease your doughnut pan.
In a large bowl mix together the apple sauce, egg, oil and sugar.
In another bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well.
Add the vanilla essence and mix well.
Pour the mixture into the doughnut pan making sure each doughnut hole is filled to no more than half way.
Put them in the oven on the middle shelf for about 8mins or until they have risen and are springy to the touch.
Remove them from the oven and leave them to cool on a wire rack.
This should make around 24 doughnuts.

When the doughnuts have cooled mix together the maple syrup and icing sugar until it is thoroughly combined and then spread the glaze onto the doughnuts.

Enjoy :)

Raspberry Cheesecake Flapjacks

Cream cheese is currently my favourite ingredient. I love the combination of cheese and sweet, of cheese and cake. A while ago we were in a restaurant which offered for dessert 'cheesecake of the day'. We asked the waiter which cheesecake they were offering . He was foreign and perhaps the concept of cheesecake was foreign to him because his answer was, 'it's a cheese and a cake!'. Even after we asked him a few times, trying out different wordings of the question, he still kept saying, 'it's a cheese and a cake!' We ordered it anyway and it turned out to be a very good honeycomb cheesecake.

Last night I made these Raspberry Cheesecake Flapjacks. It's an idea I've been mulling over in my mind for a few days and last night the idea made it into reality. Once again I think the combination of cheese and cake makes these a very yummy, possibly kind of healthyish snack.

Raspberry Cheesecake Filling:
125g low fat cream cheese
100g raspberries
100g icing sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2 a vanilla bean.

Flapjacks:
100g yoghurt butter (you can use normal butter, this is just lower fat)
100g brown sugar
300g oats
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 190C and line a brownie tin with baking paper.
In a large bowl mix together the cream cheese and icing sugar. Add the vanilla essence and vanilla bean seeds and mix well. Add the raspberries and mix until you have a deep pink creamy mixture.
In a saucepan melt the butter and sugar until they are combined. Take the pan off the heat and add the maple syrup and vanilla essence and mix well. Add the oats and mix until they are totally coated in the syrupy mixture.
Pour half the flapjack mixture into the cake tin and press down so it is evenly spread across the whole tin.
Pour the raspberry mixture over it and spread it out so it is evenly spread across the whole tin.
Add the rest of the flapjack mixture on top. Press it down lightly so it spreads evenly across the whole tin, but doesn't sink into the raspberry mixture.
Place it in the oven on the middle shelf and cook for 20mins.
Leave to cool.
When completely cold, cut into squares.

Chocolate and Cinnamon Doughnuts

A couple of months ago I saw a doughnut baking pan in the random everything shop across the road. I didn't buy it, but I did start thinking about making doughnuts. Recently I've seen a lot of lovely looking baked doughnuts on Pinterest and on Thursday we were out shopping and I bough the pan. This morning I read a lot of different baked doughnut recipes and with a bit of mix and match, came up with my own recipe. The main recipes I learned from were this one by Lara Ferroni and this one by loveveggiesandyoga.com.

My recipe goes like this:

Doughnuts - makes 12
100g flour
40g cocoa
80g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
30g sour cream
60g natural yoghurt
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
14g butter, melted.

Grease your doughnut pan thoroughly and preheat the oven to 180C.

In a large bowl mix the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt until it is all combined.
Then add the sour cream, yoghurt, egg, vanilla and butter and mix well. At first I thought I would need to add more liquid, but persevere with the mixing and it will come good! It should end up looking like this:

Then you need to put the mixture into the pan. Most of the recipes I read recommended using a piping bag so you get a nice neat circle of dough in each space in the tin. I don't have on so I just used a spoon. You need to fill each space between 1/2 and 2/3 full. If you overfill the hole will disappear when the dough rises.

Put the pan into the oven on the middle shelf and bake for 6-8 minutes. If the dough springs back when pressed, they are done. I was really surprised by how quickly they were ready. They only took 6mins in my oven.

Loosen them round the edges with a knife and then pop them out and leave them to cool on a wire rack. Whilst they are cooling it's time to make the glaze.

Vanilla Glaze
120g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
5 tsp milk
sugar sprinkles

Add the vanilla to the icing sugar and then add the milk a teaspoon at a time, mixing constantly. When the glaze is liquid enough to drip off a spoon, drip it onto the doughnuts. Beware - this can be very messy! When you have iced all the doughnuts pour sugar sprinkles over them. Leave them for a while so that the icing can set.

And then eat and enjoy!

Lemon and Poppy Seed Muffins with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

This is another great recipe I found on Pinterest. You can read all about it here on joyofthebaker.com. I have converted the recipe into European measures, so if you're American and reading this then make sure you click the link above to find the recipe in your language!
The texture of the muffins is amazing - firm and moist all at the same time. I decided, rather than make a glaze for these muffins as is suggested in the original recipe, that I would make lemon cream cheese frosting. It worked very well! So here is the recipe...


Muffins:
150g sugar

zest and juice of 1 lemon
250g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
170g sour cream
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
113g butter, melted until browned and cooled
2 Tablespoons poppy seeds
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar (for topping the batter before baking)

Preheat the oven to 200C.  Line a 12 holed muffin tray with paper muffin cases.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest together until the sugar is slightly yellow and sented with lemon.  Add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and mix. In another bowl whisk together the eggs, sour cream, vanilla, melted butter and lemon juice.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix. Add the poppy seeds and mix well.  Spoon the batter into the muffin cases and sprinkle a little bit of sugar on the top of each one.

Place the muffin tin on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until the tops are golden. Put a cocktail stick into the middle of a few of the muffins. If it comes out clean they are done. Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting:

100g cream cheese

60g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
zest of half a lemon
375g icing sugar

In a bowl mix the butter and cream cheese until they are fully combined. Add the vanilla and lemon and mix well. Add in the icing sugar little by little, mixing constantly, until you have a stiff and creamy texture. Frost the muffins, and then take a bite!

Enjoy :)

Cookie Dough Brownies

Don't they look good? I made these last night. I got the idea from a recipe on www.chef-in-training.com, but I didn't stick exactly their recipe. I decided to use my own favourite brownie recipe for the bottom part, and because I use a smaller baking tin I changed the amounts for the topping. I also converted the recipe to European measures. If you want to try making it my way, here's how:

Brownie:
140g butter
280g sugar
120g cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
62g flour

Preheat the oven to 160C and line a 20cm x 20cm baking tin.
In a microwave safe bowl put the butter, sugar, cocoa and salt and then put in the microwave until the butter is melted. Remove from the microwave and mix it all together until it is all combined.
Add the vanilla and mix well.
Add one egg and mix it in completely, then add the second egg and do the same.
Add the flour and mix well until all ingredients are combined and then mix a bit more for good measure.
Pour the brownie mixture into the pan and place on the middle shelf in the oven for 20-25mins.

Cookie Dough Filling:
113g butter
100g brown sugar
56g sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
125g flour
80g chocolate chips (or 80g chocolate bar cut into small pieces!)

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar.
Beat in the milk and vanilla.
Gradually add the flour and mix well.
Finally add the chocolate chips.
When the brownies have cooled, spread this mixture over them and refrigerate until the cookie dough is firm.

Topping:

160g chocolate

15g butter

Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave and mix until combined.

Spread over the cookie dough and leave to cool.

Once the topping has hardened you can cut the brownies into squares and eat!

Red Velvet Brownies with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting

We've been back home in Bosnia and Herzegovina for 5 days now. It's cold and there's lots of snow. Everything looks beautiful but whilst we were away the pipes froze in our house which means we have no water except in the kitchen. As well as the pipes freezing, the water in the toilet froze and cracked the toilet bowl! All of this means that for the last 5 days and probably for at least the next 5 days we have no toilet and no shower. At first it was kinda fun, but now as there is no sign of a thaw coming the reality of it is annoying. To make up for the annoying-ness I decided it was time to do some baking. 


Red Velvet Brownies with Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting:
The recipe for the brownies I got from smells-like-home.com Here it is converted into European measures:


3 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp red food colouring
2 tsp vanilla extract, divided
113g unsalted butter at room temperature
340g granulated sugar
2 large eggs
160g all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt


Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line a 20cm x 20cm tin with baking paper.
In a small bowl, stir together cocoa powder, food colouring and 1 tsp vanilla to make a thick paste and leave to one side.
In another bowl cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at a time and keep mixing. Add the remaining 1 tsp vanilla and mix.
Now add the cocoa paste and mix until the mixture is one uniform colour - red!
Slowly add the flour and salt, mixing until everything is combined.
It should look like this:

Pour the batter into the already prepared tin and cook for 30-40mins, until a toothpick stuck into the middle comes out clean.


Leave to cool in the pan for 30mins. Take them out of the pan and add the frosting, then cut into squares as desired.


I got the recipe for the Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Frosting from chaosinthekitchen.com. I halved their amounts and converted it to European measures:


100g cream cheese
60g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean pod
375g icing sugar


Slit open the vanilla bean with a sharp knife and use the tip of the knife to scrape out half the paste.
Beat the butter and cream cheese together in a bowl until they are combined.
Add the vanilla pod paste and the vanilla extract and mix well.
Add the icing sugar slowly and keep mixing until you have the consistency you like for frosting. It should end up looking something like this:

Blackberry Crumble

Sometime last week a lady came to our door selling blackberries. They looked pretty good and juicy, and we knew she needed the money so we bought a bucket. We then had to decide what to do with them, as there were too many to eat in a day and they wouldn't last longer than that. She had suggested we make tea or juice or jam, but I have no idea how to do any of those things. In the end I decided to make a crumble - which I also had no idea how to do! But I found a recipe online and it turned out so good that today, when I saw a girl selling blackberries on the side of the road, I had to buy some more and make it again!

Simnel Cupcakes - my first attempt

I saw a recipe for Sminel Cupcakes on the BBC Food website. They looked yummy and I decided to try making some. Then I found out that you can't buy marzipan here. I decided to make my own and then found out that you can't buy ground almonds either! So I ground the almonds in a coffee grinder. Here is the marzipan:

It doesn't look quite as pretty as it does when you buy it in a shop but it tastes pretty good.

If you look at my first photo you will see that my cupcakes did not turn out as things of beauty! I think I put too much mixture into each muffin case. The tops cooked really well and then started to burn while the insides didn't cook at all. I decided to take the tops off and see what happens so what you see above is a plate of tops!

I had some marzipan left over so not to waste it, or the tops I had cut off, I made these! Everything I made tastes great but I'm not going to win any prizes for presentation this time. Oh and I know there are supposed to be 11 balls on a simnel cake but the balls I bought were kinda big and I could only fit 8!

Momiji Fudge

If you have never heard of Momiji dolls then you must check them out. They are awesome! I am on their mailing list and for December they are doing an 'Advent Calendar' where everyday until Christmas they email something like a discount code or a craft tutorial or some other special offer. The other day they emailed a recipie for fudge (click and scroll down to December 8th) so today I tried it out. It tastes great!

The Great Facebook Bake-off #2

This week's challenge for the Great Facebook Bake-off was to make Christmas cookies. Here's my entry - Stained Glass Window cookies. I made them using a normal cookie recipie. I have some cookie cutters that cut a hole from the middle of the cookie and I put 2 boiled sweets into the hole of each cookie and then put the lot into the oven and baked them as normal. Oh - and as you can see, the snow has now all gone.

Cupcake competition

Some of my friends have started a group on facebook called The Great FB Bakeoff and the idea is to bake stuff in whatever category they choose, post the photos and let people vote. The first category they've chosen is Cupcakes. I've never done cupcakes before. I've done muffins which are similar but the don't require the fancy icing that cupcakes do! These are the cupcakes I've made this evening still in their pre-icing state. I think icing will come tomorrow I'm too tired for that now. They are Banana and White Chocolate Cupcakes from my favourite book How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson.

Interestingly I used rubber reusable cupcake cases for the first time today and as you can see those cupcakes came out flat on top whereas the ones I made using paper cases look more like muffins! I'm sure there's a scientific explaination for that but I have no idea what it is! Anyone?

cheesecake and being a domestic goddess

For Matt's birthday I made mini cheesecakes. The recipie is from Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess which has to be my favourite cookbook. It seems that even I can almost seem like a domestic goddess when I bake from the recipies in this book!

Cream Cheese Brownies and Amigurumi

For those of you (is there anyone?) who read my blog regularly you might remember a month or so back I posted something about cream cheese brownies. I posted that because the amigurumi I was working on was for a friend and she didn't want anyone to see it before her and so as I couldn't blog about amigurumi that day I blogged about baking instead! Well I have now seen that friend and given her the doll so I can now show you some pictures. I'm really happy with how she turned out. I think the eyes are great - even though I may say so myself! And the bag is pretty good too :) The doll is about 30cm tall. And funnily enough, today I made some more cream cheese brownies for a Hen night that I'm just about to go to!

The Art of Being a Domestic Goddess

I am certainly not a domestic goddess - my husband cooks dinner most days for a start, but I do love baking and especially baking things from Nigella Lawson's book How to be a Domestic Goddess.

The amigurumi I have been working on this week is for a friend and she doesn't want anyone to see it before she does so I can't post any photos to show you what I've been doing. It's a big doll so it's taken me quite a few days. It's almost finished now and I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out.

So as I have no amigurumi photos to post today I thought I'd post a picture of the cream cheese brownies I made last night. They are very squidgy and yummy.