All posts tagged baking

Cookies for Uncle Mark

I’d like to talk to you for a moment about my brother-in-law, keeping my fingers crossed that he won’t mind too much that I’m doing so. The recipes I’m about to present won’t really make much sense without hearing just a little of his story.

Uncle Mark, as he is known by my children, has been seriously ill over the course of the last two years. A grueling combination of surgery, intensive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, whilst largely achieving its goals, has unfortunately also had some unwanted consequences. Considering Uncle Mark’s passion for cheese and chocolate, it seems to be especially cruel that he is now no longer able to digest fats.

Low-fat and fat-free cooking throws up its own challenges, none felt more keenly than in the area of baking. At Christmas last year, I made a fatless chocolate/raspberry cake that Uncle Mark (perhaps politely?) complimented by carrying home the left-overs. It may have been the brandy syrup with which I laced the cake … but Aunty Lucy emailed me to ask for the recipe.

Following this apparent success, I wondered whether he might also like a couple of low-fat cookie recipes and decided to do a spot of online research to discover the principles of fatless baking. I stumbled upon a goldmine of information on fruitful fat substitutes by Sandra Woodruff, excerpted from her book, The Best-Kept Secrets of Healthy Cooking. Rather than reproduce her insights here, I’ll leave you to find out which conversions give the best results, how to calculate the amount of fruit to use, how to avoid toughness when eliminating fats, how long to bake your fat-free goodies for and at what temperature by clicking on the links above.

And when you’ve done that, please do return here for some As-Fat-Free-as-Possible Banoffee Cookies and Melt-in-the-Mouth Gingerbread.

To Uncle Mark, with love.
xxx

Errr … yes, that photo does have chocolate chips in it, and no, they’re not fat-free. Sorry. It’s just that I wanted to test out the cookies on my children before offering the recipes to Uncle Mark, and T helped with the baking … I’m sure you get the picture. You could pretend that they’re brandy-soaked raisins, if that helps …

Banoffee Cookies

3 1/2 oz mashed banana
5 1/2 oz granulated sugar
6 1/2 oz light muscovado sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg whites (3 1/2 oz without shells)
2 oz porridge oats, blitzed to a flour in a food processor
8 oz plain flour
4 oz rice flour
1 tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
7 oz raisins, soaked for 10 mins in a little hot water or brandy, then strained

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Beat together the banana and sugars in a large mixing bowl.

Add the vanilla and egg whites gradually, beating to incorporate.

Stir in the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Add the drained raisins and stir to incorporate evenly.

Drop generous tablespoons of the dough onto parchment-lined baking trays (allow room for spreading). The dough is very sticky, so the parchment lining really helps here when removing the cookies after baking.

Bake for 8-9 minutes (8 minutes gives toffee pools, whilst 9 mins gives a drier cookie).

Remove with a spatula and allow to cool on wire racks.

Makes c. 23 cookies.

Gingerbread Cookies

1 oz pitted dates, finely chopped
2 1/2 oz sweet potato purée
5 oz castor sugar
7 oz dark muscovado sugar
1 tsp whisky
2 eggs (3 1/2 oz without shells)
2 1/4 oz porridge oats, blitzed to a flour in a food processor
9 oz plain flour
4 oz rice flour
1 tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp ground ginger

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Beat together the dates, sweet potato and sugars in a large mixing bowl.

Add the whisky and eggs gradually, beating to incorporate.

Stir in the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.

Roll generous tablespoons of the dough into balls. Place on an ungreased baking tray and squash to a 3/4 inch thickness with a spatula, the heel of your hand or the back of a fork.

Bake for 8 minutes.

Remove with a spatula and allow to cool on wire racks.

Makes c. 23 cookies.

17 Comments

by amerrierworld on January 31, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in biscuits and cookies, cookbooks

Tagged baking, cooking, food, recipes

Posted by amerrierworld on January 31, 2011

https://amerrierworld.com/2011/01/31/cookies-for-uncle-mark/

White Christmas Cookies

This post started out nearly three months ago as an exposition on sugar.

Photograph: D Morrison/Express/Getty Images

More specifically, I planned to write about the new Fairtrade sugars of Tate & Lyle and the 6000 small-scale sugar cane growers in Belize who have benefited from this conversion of the sugar giant’s retail range. I wanted to tell you how the farmers now receive a Fairtrade Premium in the region of US$60 per tonne for their crop as a result of the certification. This really has significant effects on investment in environmental and economic changes. Raynaldo Aban, a sugar cane farmer from San Joaquin village in Corazal, Belize, described how crucial this premium is to his community:

“The income that we will get will help us in many projects, such as infrastructure, and community development. I would like to tell the people from Great Britain that Belize has a good quality of sugar, and that farmers in Belize will benefit a lot from being certified as Fairtrade.”

I should mention that, whilst I had noticed the Fairtrade logo on bags of Tate & Lyle sugar more than three months ago and had already mentally added them to the list of brands I will put in my shopping trolley, I hadn’t planned to post about this switch until I received an email from the agency representing Tate & Lyle. The cynical among you might now be thinking, “Aha – I thought you said you didn’t do advertising on your blog.” Well, no. I actually said that I rarely find anything to inspire me in the sort of generic, ‘write-about-this-and-we’ll-send-you-loads-of-freebies’ emails that seem to do the rounds in the food blogging world. I’m more than happy to receive suggestions that attune with my own passions and views however, and I welcomed an opportunity to delve further into the background behind Tate & Lyle’s conversion to Fairtrade.

I have to confess that I find Tate & Lyle’s new Fairtrade website more interesting than their Facebook page, We Love Baking, but that’s probably because I still don’t really ‘get’ Facebook. With three children, I struggle to find time even to check my email once a day, so I’m an unlikely candidate for becoming part of an active online community anymore. But that’s not Facebook’s fault, and the Tate & Lyle baking group certainly appears to be motivated and encouraging.

So why has it taken me so long to get around to writing this post? Well, as I just said, I’m slightly tied up in the taxi-driving madness of motherhood these days, so any job that doesn’t directly involve placating screaming children tends to be relegated to the bottom of the to-do list. But Tate & Lyle very kindly sent me a package of their Fairtrade sugar samples in a follow-up to their original email, so surely I could have kicked my ass into gear before now? Okay, okay, I know – but you see, the problem wasn’t solely a time-issue thing. I couldn’t decide exactly which recipe I most wanted to write about.

First of all, there was the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. The one that used Tate & Lyle’s Fairtrade granulated sugar.

Then there was the one for the white chocolate and cardamom cookies we made for the children’s ballet teacher at the end of term. Drizzled with melted white chocolate, the rich cardamom mingled with the perfumes of vanilla to create almost lemony overtones. Besides, I also wanted to tell you about the ballet school’s show and urge anyone within distance to hurry to the Manor Pavillion in Sidmouth on January 15th/16th next year to see The Lost Girl and other ballets.

Then the snow fell, fairy lights twinkled in the trees and we found ourselves racing headlong towards a breathtakingly beautiful white Christmas. We mixed together the seasonal colours and created orange-spiced cookies bursting with pistachios, cranberries and white chocolate chips for our neighbours.

It might have been three months in the making, but I would finally like to conclude my overdue exposition on sugar with perhaps the best gift of all (depending on your aversion or otherwise to cookies) – the recipe for the best-ever chocolate chip cookie with variations for white chocolate cardamom and seasonal colour varieties.

Enjoy – and Happy Holidays 🙂

Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies (by me and according to my children)

7 3/4 oz butter, softened
5 1/2 oz Fairtrade granulated sugar
6 oz Fairtrade light brown muscovado sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs (3 1/2 oz without shells)
12 3/4 oz strong white (bread) flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
12 oz plain/milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl.

Lightly beat the eggs together with the vanilla and add gradually to the creamed mixture.

Mix together the dry ingredients, then stir into the dough until just combined.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop large tablespoonfuls of the dough onto ungreased baking trays, leaving plenty of room for the cookies to expand during baking. Bake for 8-10 minutes in the pre-heated oven (9 minutes in my oven gives the best results for a crunchy-on-the-outside/soft-in-the-middle texture).

Remove the cookies carefully with a spatula and cool on wire racks.

Makes c. 30 cookies.

White chocolate and cardamom variation: replace the plain/milk chocolate chips with white chocolate chips or chunks and add the ground seeds from 3 cardamom pods to the dry ingredients.

Seasonal colours variation: replace the plain/milk chocolate chips with 6 oz white chocolate chips or chunks and also stir in 4 oz dried cranberries, 4 oz chopped pistachios and the grated zest of 1 orange.

7 Comments

by amerrierworld on December 23, 2010 • Permalink

Posted in biscuits and cookies, chocolate

Tagged baking, food, recipes

Posted by amerrierworld on December 23, 2010

https://amerrierworld.com/2010/12/23/white-christmas-cookies/

Mrs Mayall’s Banana Chocolate Cake

I was lucky to have some excellent teachers when I was at school. Among the most inspirational, I remember those who taught music to me for more than their ability to get me through A-level aural and harmony examinations. After all, who could possibly forget being served a slice of perfect banana chocolate cake at the end of a particularly demanding class by Mrs Mayall?

It was no small wonder that we begged her for the recipe. I still have my original handwritten copy, the final lines scrawled hurriedly onto the paper as the bell for the start of the next class was sounding.

Beat in vanilla essence and leave frosting in cool place 3-10 mins til thick nuf for sprding.

You have to remember that I wrote those lines in the days before text messaging!

The recipe for the cake itself is so good that I have never (and neither did Mrs Mayall, at least on the day she brought her cake to our music lesson) felt it necessary to follow the instructions I so eagerly scribbled for the frosting.

I never imagined when I copied Mrs Mayall’s recipe twenty years ago that it would become one of my children’s favourite ways of using up those inevitable left-over bananas. Unlike many banana cakes, these slices are moist without being claggy and heavy. They are also deliciously chocolaty.

Which is also why I particularly wanted to share this recipe with you on the third anniversary of A Merrier World.

Happy Birthday, dear blog!

Banana Chocolate Cake (adapted from a recipe by Mrs Mayall)

6 1/2 oz/190 g plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
5 oz/150 g caster sugar
2 tbsp Golden syrup
2 eggs, size 3, beaten
1/4 pint/150 ml vegetable oil
14 pint/150 ml milk
2 bananas, mashed (5 oz)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F/170 degrees C.

Grease and base-line a shallow 8″ x 13″/20 x 33 cm baking tray.

Sift together the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and beat for c. 2 minutes until well combined.

Pour into the prepared tray and bake in the centre of the oven for 30 to 35 minutes until springy to touch.

15 Comments

by amerrierworld on August 9, 2010 • Permalink

Posted in fruit, traybakes and slices

Tagged baking, cooking, dessert, food, recipes

Posted by amerrierworld on August 9, 2010

https://amerrierworld.com/2010/08/09/mrs-mayalls-banana-chocolate-cake/

Parmesan Thyme Shortbread

Today is the last day of term for L and M. It is also their last day at the village school as they will be moving to a specialist music school in September.

Standing in the playground for the final time this morning, they clutched presents for their teachers and received gifts from friends they have known for most of their young lives. It was a particularly poignant moment tempered only by the knowledge that whilst their classmates may be changing, their long-standing friends at home in the village will still be around for after-school play dates.

To thank all of the staff at the school for their hard work and dedicated teaching, I made a batch of savoury shortbreads flavoured with Parmesan, thyme and pepper. I arranged these around a block of perhaps the creamiest, tastiest Cheddar cheese ever –Barbers 1833.

Hopefully, these nibbles will provide an antidote to the many sweet, chocolatey treats that I am sure are now filling the staffroom!

Parmesan and Thyme Shortbread

8 oz unsalted butter at room temperature
7 oz Parmesan, freshly grated
1 1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
9 1/4 oz plain flour
2 1/4 oz potato starch

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Beat the softened butter until it is creamy and billowy.

Stir in the grated Parmesan, thyme, salt and pepper, mixing at low speed until combined.

Add the flour and potato starch. Continue to mix at a low speed for about a minute until the dough holds together in clumps.

Press the dough together with your hands and place on a floured surface.

Roll out to about 1/4″ thickness (it helps to place a piece of clingfilm/plastic wrap on top of the dough whilst rolling).

Cut circles using a round biscuit cutter (1 5/8″ diameter). Place on ungreased baking trays and bake in the oven for 10 minutes until slightly puffed and golden.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes enough for a staffroom of Primary schoolteachers (about 60 to 70 biscuits … I’m afraid I lost count).

8 Comments

by amerrierworld on July 23, 2010 • Permalink

Posted in biscuits and cookies, cheese

Tagged baking, food, recipes

Posted by amerrierworld on July 23, 2010

https://amerrierworld.com/2010/07/23/parmesan-thyme-shortbread/

Fairy Cakes

This is the true story of how we were given the food of fairies.

A long time ago when people believed in enchantment …

… a young man was sauntering down a country lane. The hedgerows were brimming with tangled wild roses while the oppressive heat of the midday sun beat down from overhead. The young man hummed a jaunty tune to himself and smiled as he remembered his daughter’s soft features and gleeful delight when she had opened her birthday gifts earlier that morning.

As he approached the bend where a stony farm track crossed the country lane, he became aware of a sobbing noise that seemed to be coming from somewhere in the long grass on the other side of a rickety iron gate. He paused with one hand on the rusted latch but, seeing nobody in the field, turned back to continue on his way.

All of a sudden he heard a mournful cry.

“I’ve broken my spade, I’ve broken my spade!”

The man’s brow knotted in puzzlement as he turned once again to see who would be working at such a sultry time of day. A gentle breeze parted the long blades of grass and the man glimpsed a small girl sitting on a pale, round stone. She was the prettiest fairy the man had ever seen.

The fairy held her broken spade in one hand and in her other some shining nails and a hammer. She raised her eyes to meet the man’s gaze. Smiling at him, she displayed her tools as though asking for his help.

For a long while the young man could only gape in wonderment, his hand frozen in mid-air with fingers outstretched towards the gate.

“I’ve broken my spade!” the fairy called again, breaking into the man’s trance.

It wasn’t difficult for him to mend the broken spade. With a few carefully aimed taps of the hammer, he drove the nails through the sockets and pinned the small rectangular blade onto its worn, wooden handle.

With a smile, the fairy took the mended spade from the young man’s hands and disappeared in a shimmering flurry of wings.

Later that day when the blackbird’s evening song sounded through the encroaching dusk, the young man was astonished to discover a plate of tiny cakes on his kitchen table. He understood immediately that these miniature treats were a gift from the fairy in gratitude for his help in mending her broken spade.

The young man was wise in fairy ways and knew that saying thank you would be impolitic. So he and his family simply shared the sparkling fairy cakes among themselves, savouring every bite and commenting aloud on their tastiness.

When the last crumbs had been licked from the plate, the young man opened the door to the cool evening air and wished the fairies goodnight.

Fairy Cakes (adapted from Mary Berry’s Ultimate Cake Book)

4 oz (100g) soft butter or margarine
4 oz (100g) caster sugar
2 eggs
4 oz (100g) self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C/400 degrees F. Line about 18 holes in bun trays with paper liners.

Place all the ingredients together in a large bowl and beat well for 2 to 3 minutes until well combined and smooth.

Half fill each paper liner with the batter.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes until the cakes are well risen and golden.

Transfer each cake to a wire rack to cool.

Decorate with icing, silver balls, pink and white miniature marshmallows and sparkling pink fairy dust.

With grateful thanks to Ruth Lawrence of Party Pieces for providing such a wonderful party for my own 5-year-old fairy on her birthday in June this year.

11 Comments

by amerrierworld on July 6, 2010 • Permalink

Posted in cakes, muffins and cupcakes and scones

Tagged baking, food, recipes

Posted by amerrierworld on July 6, 2010

https://amerrierworld.com/2010/07/06/fairy-cakes/