I hardly ever bake cupcakes, as I find them overrated and not that special. But if there is nothing sweet to have with a cup of tea in the evening I get annoyed, so this morning I searched mojewypieki.com for something simple and yummy to have after dinner. I found these in a posh version, with dried pineapple flowers on top, which I couldn’t be bothered with. So I reduced Dorota’s recipe by half and made 8 small muffins, which is a perfect amount- we enjoy them, nothing’s wasted and there is no time to be bored with the flavour.

I creamed 60 g of soft butter with about 4 tbsps of sugar, added 1 whole egg, 1 mashed ripe banana,  110 g of plain flour, less than half a tsp each of bicarb soda and baking powder, 1tsp of cinnamon and at the end just added 2 chopped, drained, canned pineapple rings. And baked 8 small cupcakes, 160 degrees, about 22-25 minutes.

Yummy and LOW CALORIE buttercream, as in the name consists of 25 g of soft butter, 2 tsps of icing sugar, 90 g of Philly cheese and a splash of vanilla paste.

They’re sweet, not not sickly and there are 3 left. 🙂

By a certain Nigella.  Made specially for Florek, who’s been busy these days making plans and thinking about stuff, but first of deciding to take us  on holidays next Monday. He deserved a chocolate cake.

I made half a portion, as making  a cake of 8 eggs for 2 people did not seem like a good idea. First melted 100 g of dark chocolate, 70 g of milk chocolate in 90 g of butter. Whipped 4 egg yolks with 50 g of caster sugar and 50 g of muscovado, while kitchen aid was busy whipping the whites stiff. Added the chocolate and butter mix into the yolks, a pinch of salt there too. Then egg whites in, bit by bit and gently. What makes this cake different and better from the other ones is the way it baked- in bain marie. 180 degrees, tin secured with aluminium foil, about 50 minutes. It rose like a soufflet, but came down significantly when out of the oven. Still, it did not affect the quality of it, the cake is fantastically light and super moist. And by now, half eaten. 🙂

Best ideas come to my head in bed either right before I fall asleep or early in the morning. This is one of them, a macaroon that’s a bit like Black Forrest Gateaux, a chocolate shell and cherry filling. I baked the shells usual way, but replaced 35 g of icing sugar with cocoa. And that was the colour sorted, as well as a lovely, comforting taste. For the filling I cooked 200 g of frozen cherries with some sugar, but should have skipped the sugar really, because as I blitzed the cherries with half a mascarpone and 50 g of melted white chocolate- I could hardly taste the cherries. The colour was there, lovely and purple, but I had to spike it all with lemon juice and a few fresh strawberries to bring it to life.  And the result is much to my satisfaction. The shells are nearly perfect, like those for Lisa, the filling could have been more cherry than berry, but once Florian is home, the macaroons will be going. Quickly. 🙂

I’ve done my first ever “order”. I haven’t taken a payment for it, as it’s for Lisa, but I’ve made over 60 rather perfect macaroons, that will be served on Bessie’s christening tomorrow. Lemon-yuzu, blackcurrant and raspberry.  Facing an audience tomorrow, rather just family and friends. It does feel good, I have to say. 🙂

Florek bought me a book by Michel  Roux called “Eggs”, a nice little book that changes my idea of what a good crepe should be, how to posh up scrambled eggs, a few good desserts that I’ll surely try etc.  And a recipe for macaroons,  which was about a quarter of the length of the one I normally use. I read it with disbelief, I thought it was far too simple; no Italian meringue, an ordinary one instead. No drying time. No weighing egg whites. But for scientific purposes I had to give it a go, especially having some leftover blackcurrant curd. So I did. It was a refreshing method, but I’ll be sticking with more fancy Italian meringue. It seems to make the mixture a lot more stable and the texture of a ready macaroon thicker, more enjoyable to eat. Not to mention that the absolute majority of them cracked in the oven, while with another method it’s a sad few that do it.  Having said that, we’ve just had 5 between us with Izzie, who now says “more cake please”, so they will certainly not go to waste.

I used 180 g of icing sugar, 100 g of ground almonds, 3 egg whites which I whipped with 40 g of sugar, added food colouring and that was all.  Piped them onto the trays and shoved into the oven warmed up to 160 degrees. Michel recommends baking them for 7 minutes, mine were not baked after 7 minutes, mine took about 11.

Nice little experiment, but next time back to fancy stuff. 🙂

I still have a headache after making those.  I thought this morning that if I want to have a go at making them for a living, I better get practising.  Made the shells the same method as always, but instead of 150 g of ground almonds I used 105, the remaining 45 g were ground hazelnuts. And no food colourant, 115 g of icing sugar, 35 g of cocoa.

It’s the freaking filling that was a pain in the butt. If I kept it simple, mascarpone + very strong instant coffee, it might have worked hours ago. But I diluted it with Baileys and spent forever waiting for it to thicken. It didn’t.  Gelatine didn’t help.  Freezer didn’t freaking help. At last, the cornflour did, but before I discovered it did, I was heading for the fridge determined to send it all down the bog, if still runny.

It will be stressful, having to make them perfect for a customer, but I will perfect macaroons. Is the plan.

My brother came over for a weekend couple of weeks ago and brought a loaf of his home made bread. Lovely, dark, with crispy skin, lots of sesame seeds on it, we finished that loaf within 2 hours and that wasn’t the only thing we had to eat that evening.  Mariusz gave me the recipe and I tried it this morning. First I thought it was a bit too simple to work, but I followed it and we ended up with a lovely loaf for lunch.

I used 115 g each of spelt flour and plain flour, a pinch of salt, a tbsp of olive oil, around 15 g of fresh yeast, crumbled onto it. Then 240 ml of warm water with 2 tbsps of runny honey dissolved in it. A handful of sunflower seeds. All combined briefly in kitchen aid, then transformed into the tin, which was buttered and sprinkled generously with sesame seeds.  Left to prove for about 45 minutes in the oven, which I keep at about 30 degrees. Then baked in 200 degrees for 20 minutes, 180 degrees for another 30-35 minutes.

The best bread I’ve ever made. 🙂

Just as I’m entertaining an idea of maybe baking these things for a living, today they were less than perfect. They cracked in the oven( too hot oven, according to Dorota), so I reduced the temperature and added 3 minutes to the baking time. And the filling spilled out, though I was confident it was thickened enough to hold.

Macaroons made usual way with a Wilton colourant ” leaf green”. 100 ml of double cream brought nearly to boiling point, 1 tsp of good quality green tea added. 240 g of white chocolate, in, well combined after 2 minutes of melting in the cream.  Chilled in the fridge till thick enough to pipe onto the macaroons.

The taste brings to mind green tea Kit Kats from Japan, really nice. Not too sweet. If only they looked as good as they taste, I’d be happy.

After the recent experience with croissants, instead of picking a recipe for a traditional English scones from a Brit, Mary Berry or maybe Hollywood boy, I didn’t. 🙂 I went to Dorotka’s again and followed her recipe. The result? Nearly perfect scones. I’d have them a touch sweeter maybe, but they’re soft, slightly crunchy on top, delicious and will be enjoyed with coffee tomorrow morning.

I used 400 g of plain flour, 100 g of cold butter, 3 tsps of baking powder, half a tsp of salt, 50 g of sugar and let Kitchen Aid mix it all nicely. 70 g of raisins, 30 g of dried cranberries, 2 eggs beaten and topped up with milk to make 250 ml of liquid. Once added the liquid to the mix, I went to combine the dough by hand, as lots of wise people say that once the scone dough is overmixed, they get tough. Quickly rolled to 1,5 cm, I cut out the scones, brushed them with a bit of egg and sprinkled a touch of cinnamon on. They baked in 220 degrees for 10 minutes.

Had to restrain my child -who was due to have her tea- from scoffing down the whole scone at once. I guess that means she liked them.

Paul Hollywood has got a nice, new series on Food Network, where he travels cities and tastes/makes all sorts of good bakes. Since he visited a place in Paris, where croissants are made daily, I got excited. I thought I must try, it’s not like I have no time for  16 hour bake, right?

Obviously, I chose Hollywood’s recipe. This one:

http://paulhollywood.com/recipes/croissants/

I started yesterday, followed all the instructions, did as I was told. This lunch time there were going to be fresh croissants. I realized they might  not be as spectacular as I’d have hoped when they failed to rise, when the recipe said they’d double in size within 2 hours. After 3 I still placed them in hot oven. They then rose alright, but nowhere near doubled. Lots of butter melted out, the smell was great.  In the end they tasted ok, but they were not light and puffy, like they should have been. Crispy on top, buttery, but not the real deal. I immediately thought- the yeast. Hollywood boy always maintains in his recipes, that dry yeast is BETTER, more convenient, easily. Sorry, Paul,  in my view it’s not better.  Fresh yeast makes doughnuts like clouds, fab pizza dough and probably awesome croissants. I was still chewing on mine, while immediately checking what did Dorota from mojewypieki.com had to say. A lot, she did, she tried 3 recipes and then settled on one from some posh French boy, who recommended FRESH yeast. Which is exactly what I’ll be doing next time I’ll make croissants. Thumbs down Hollywood!