Royal Wedding Cookies

Wedding Cake Sugar Cookies

In honour of the Royal Wedding I made some wedding cake shaped cookies.
Wedding Cake Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:
200g unsalted butter
200g Castor sugar
1 medium egg
400g plain flour

Method:

1. Cream together the butter and sugar, until light and fluffy.
2. Add the egg and mix on a very low speed until just Incorporated. Over mixing will cause the cookies to spread when they cook.
3. Next add in the flour. Mix at a low speed until the mixture comes together as a dough. This will take about 5 minutes.
4. Cling film the dough and refrigerator for at least 1 hour. The dough can stay in the fridge for up to a week.
5. Preheat the oven to C200. Take the dough out of the fridge about 5 minutes before it is needed. This gives the dough time to warm up slightly so it is able to be rolled out.
6. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a centimeter thick. Cut out you desired shape, I used a wedding cake cutter.
7. Place the cut out dough on a greased baking sheet and cook in the oven for 6 - 11 minutes or until slightly golden.
8. If you want to ice the cookies cool for at least 45 minutes. Ice with royal icing or simple icing (icing sugar and water).

Brownie Recipe: Trail 2

So I made the Brownies from trail 1. I was a little disappointed, but it was only my first test recipe so I couldn't expect to much!

When I made the brownies I beat the eggs and sugar quite a bit which gave the mixture air, so it rose slightly. With hindsight this was not the correct thing to do as it made the brownies have a cakey texture instead of the desired fudgy and chewy texture. The brownies took 50 minutes to cook, which was a very long time!When the brownies came out of the oven the middle sunk slightly - again not a good sign!

Next was to taste the brownie. The flavour of the brownie was very good. The texture in the middle of the brownies were more like a flour less sponge, then a brownie. But at the edges the desired chewy texture was achieved. From this I think the sugar content and chocolate content are correct.

Trail 2
INGREDIENT:
Butter - I increased the amount of butter slightly from 110g to 150g. To make a cakey brownie a low butter content is needed. I did not want cakey brownies so increased the butter content to move away from that.
Eggs - To make a chewy brownie there should be an extra egg to the recipe, which I have already added. I was going to add another egg which would hopefully help make the brownies more chewy (4 eggs in total).
Sugar - I felt that the previous brownies had enough sugar so wanted to keep the same proportions. I therefore increase the sugar to 400g so there was 100g of sugar per egg.
Chocolate - The flavour of the brownies was very good, so I am not going to alter the amount of chocolate but keep it at 200g.
Plain Flour - I did not like the flour less chocolate cake texture of the previous brownies, so I increased the amount of flour to 100g.

METHOD:
As I said above beating the sugar and eggs was a mistake due it adding air to the mixture which causes the brownies to rise. Therefore I was going to just mix the sugar and eggs until incorporated, and try to keep any mixing at a minim. This should make the brownies more fudgy and chewy and not cakey. Except from that alteration the rest of the method I kept the same.

Brownie Recipe: Trail 1

Well I feel as though I have eaten and examined a lot of Brownie recipes and so now it was time to create my own recipe. So far, my favourite recipe for fudgy brownies was the Baker's Manual's Recipe, for cakey brownies the Mary Berry's recipe and for chewy brownies the Lowey recipe. After testing out the different recipe I wanted to follow the method of melting the butter and chocolate, whisking the sugar and eggs and then folding the ingredients together with the flour.

I decided to take aspects from each of the recipes to start testing out different combinations of the 5 main ingredients; butter, sugar, chocolate, eggs and plain flour.

For my first test recipe I added the same amount of butter (110g) and plain flour (75g) as Lowey's orginal recipe, but alter the amount of sugar, chocolate and eggs. The low flour and butter content is suppose to make the brownies fudgy, which I really like! To make the brownies chewy an extra egg was added and there was a high sugar content. I therefore increased the amount of sugar from 225g to 300g which works out similare to Martha Stewart's proportion of eggs to sugar. Stewarts was around 150g of sugar to each egg whereas I chose to use 100g of sugar for each egg. I don't really have any guidlines on how much chocolate to add, but wanted to have a high amount to give the brownies a rich flavour. So I am going to take a flyer and add 200g as the chocolate I like to buy comes in 200g bars!

Well I have figured out the recipe so now all I need to do is try it! Wish me luck!

The Baker's Manual's Brownies



Baker's Manual's Brownies

For dense, rich and fudgy brownies these are it!



This recipe uses the same amount of sugar and flour as the Lowey's recipe but has a higher amount of butter, chocolate and eggs. Which makes them so fudgy and rich!

These brownies are also great or even better the next day, so can be made ahead of time.



Baker's Manual's Brownies

Ingredients: 

170g butter

300g chocolate, chopped

225g Castor sugar

4 eggs

75g plain flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

Method: 

1. Grease and flour a 9 inch square baking pan. Preheat the oven at C180. 
2. In a sauce pan, over a low heat melt the butter and then stir in the broken up chocolate. Still over a low heat mix the chocolate until it has all melted.
3. In a bowl mix together the sugar and eggs.
4. Stir in the melted chocolate and butter. Fold in the flour and salt until just combined and then pour into the prepared baking tin.
5. Cook for 35 - 40 minutes  or until a skewer inserted two or three inches from the centre comes out with only moist crumbs clinging to it.
6. Cool the brownies before removing from the pan and cutting.

Help, my ganache has separated!

Every cook has had the agonising moment when they pour the cream over the chocolate and as they whisk it together it separates. The ganache changes from a smooth creamy mixture to a  grainy mixture with an oil/fat liquid on top of the chocolate mixture in a matter of seconds.

When I make ganache I either melt the chocolate and pour over room temperature cream (not straight from the fridge as this will cause the ganache to separate) or I boil the cream and pour it over the broken chocolate. I find the results of both of these methods are very hit and miss. This is due to that fact that it is very difficult to get the cream and chocolate at the correct temperatures.

If the very cold cream is poured over the melted chocolate than it will seize. If the ganche is put straight in the fridge after it is made then it will also seize. The key is to get similar temperatures between the chocolate and cream. Chocolate has a low melting point between C31 - C32 (average room temperature is C27) so the cream doesn't have to be that hot.

My grandmother's method of making a ganache is to heat the cream first. Once it starts to boil take it off the heat and let is cool for about a minute or two (so it is at a luke warm temperature to the skin). Then the slightly cooled cream is poured over the broken up chocolate and whisked together. She also showed me a way to save a separated ganache. Pour the cooled separated ganche into a food processor and whiz it, slowly pouring in some more cool double cream until the ganche comes together again as a smooth mixture (think of the lint ads!)