Nothing's ever simple . . .

There is a saying which goes 'Nothing is ever simple . . .'

There is a cake sale at school tomorrow, so I had to make something to bring in. Before I tell you about this baking disaster I am going to mention two things; one I am not good at baking under pressure or time constraints and two anything that I bake for my school always turns out awful. (Evidence: I made and iced 32 cupcakes for my sister to take into school and they turned out perfectly. I made and iced 17 cupcakes for my brother to take into school, and they were amazing.After all this success I decide to make 12 cupcakes to bring to my school and disaster strikes - the cupcakes don't rise evenly and the icing turns out lumpy. There are many examples I could tell you but this was the most recent!)

So with that positive thought I raided the pantry for ingredients, to decide what to bake. I settled on making flapjacks as they were the only thing I had all the ingredients for. In theory they should be 'fool proof' to make and be quick and easy!

I usually use Lorain Pascale's recipe (which always works for me!) which is equal amounts of butter, light muscovodo sugar, golden syrup and then double the amount of oats and a pinch of ground ginger. I followed the recipe to the letter as I always do, cooked the flapjacks for the correct amount of time, let them cool in the tin for 15 minutes before cutting them and low and behold it was a catastrophe. The flapjacks were crumbly and didn't stick together. They should have been described as sticky granola.

As well as the frustration and disappointment that the flapjacks didn't work out, I was confused. I followed the recipe exactly as I always have but this time it didn't work out for me. It could just be a curse I have on making things for school but I don't believe in witches and wizards!

Does anybody know what I have done wrong or what causes flapjacks to not stick together?

Mary Berry's Brownie

After trying Martha Stewart's recipe with the espresso coffee, I wanted to try another recipe which had espresso coffee in it. Then I would be able to compare the effect the addition of espresso coffee had on the brownies. I found a recipe by Mary Berry which had the same amount of espresso coffee as Stewart's recipe.

Mary Berry's brownie recipe produced brownie which were very dense and very chocolaty! The flavour of the brownie was amazing! The only problem I had was the texture, I found that the brownies were very cakey (similar to a flour less torte).

The recipe used a raising agent and equal amounts of margarine and sugar.

Another interesting comparison is that the brownies used margarine and not butter.

Mary Berry's Brownies Recipe
Makes 16 large brownies

Ingredients:

350g dark chocolate, broken

225g margarine

2 teaspoons instant water

2 tablespoons hot water
3 extra large eggs
225g Castor sugar
75g self raising flour

Method:

1. Preheat oven to C190. Line and grease a 12 x 9 inch baking tray.
2. Melt the chocolate and margarine in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, slowly. When melted allow to cool.
3. Dissolve the espresso in the hot water.
4. In another bowl mix together the coffee, eggs and sugar at a low speed. Gradually beat in the chocolate mixture. Fold in the flour.
5. Pour the mixture into a prepared tin. Bake in the oven for 30 minuites to 45 minutes or until firm to the touch and a dull crust has formed.
6. Leave to cool in the tin and then cut into 16 squares.

Martha Stewart's Brownies made with Margarine

Martha's Brownies wrapped in a bow



After reading Marry Berry's Brownie recipe which uses margarine. I wanted to try another recipe that originally use butter so I could substitute it with margarine to see how this effected the texture of the brownies.

I decided to use Martha Stewart's recipe. I followed Martha Stewart's recipe the same as before when I made it with butter but substituted the butter with margarine.

 After cooking the brownies I found that when they came out of the oven there wasn't the same cracked top. Also the texture was very different. These brownies were more gooey and cakey inside and not chewy like the ones made with butter.


Martha's Brownies with a Daffodil

Overall I preferred Martha Stewart's brownies made with the butter due to the more chewy texture which I preferred for brownies.

Even though I didn't love the brownies  . . . I still had fun photographing them!



Martha Stewart's Brownies

Martha Stewart's Brownies

The next recipe I decided to try was Martha Stewart's. I figured that her recipe was a very classic American recipe. The brownies were chewy and had that lovely cracked top.

The recipe had a low flour content, no leavening and the butter was melted rather than creamed, so the brownies were dense and fudgy in the middle. There was a high sugar content so they were also chewy at the edges.

Another interesting part to this recipe is that it includes instant espresso. Personally I did not like how strong the coffee flavour came across  when the brownies were cooked as it detracted from the chocolate flavour.

 Martha Stewart's Recipe

Martha Stewart's Brownies



Makes 16 large brownies

Ingredients:

225g butter

225g dark chocolate

5 large eggs

700g sugar
2 teaspoon instant espresso powder
185g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

• Preheat the oven to C200. Line and grease a 9 x 13 inch and set aside.
• In a double boiler over a pan of simmering melt the chocolate and butter together. Stir with a rubber spatula until smooth. Set aside.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the eggs, sugar and espresso at a high speed for 10 minutes.
• Reduce to a low speed and pour in the melted chocolate and butter. Mix until combined. 
• Slowly add the flour and salt; and beat until just combined.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tine and put in the oven on a middle shelf. Cook for 30 minutes until the edges are dry and the middle is still soft.
• Cool and then cut into 16 squares.  

Lowney's Brownie Recipe

This was one of the first published brownie recipes (below) - see 'History of the Chocolate Brownie'.  I decided to test this recipe out as it used ingredients which were readily available in today's supermarkets! I did however leave out the 'nut meats' due to me personally not liking nuts in brownies. I think that a brownie should be pure chocolate with no nuts or other tastes conflicting the chocolate flavour. It is interesting though how the very first recipes included nuts and it is a modern thing to exclude nuts.

Before I made this recipe I compared it against other Brownie recipes. I found that Delia Smith's 'American Brownies' recipe was basically the same but included baking powder as well. The only other difference was that the butter and chocolate was melted together and than the other ingredients folded in, compared to creaming the butter and than the other ingredients.

The first test I did was to make this recipe in two different ways; one using the creaming method (as the Lowney recipe says) and two melting the chocolate and butter together and than folding in the other ingredients, as Delia Smith does.  For each test I would use the same ingredients, same cooking pan (20cm x 20cm), same oven temperature (Lowney's recipe did not specify any temperature so I went with C180) and the time amount of time in the oven (30mins).

Lowney Brownies (Lowney’s Cook Book 1907)

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 squares Chocolate

2 eggs

1/2 cup nut meats (nuts with the shell removed)

1/2 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

 Cream the butter, add remaining ingredients, spread on buttered sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Cut in squares as soon as taken from the oven.



Brownies made by Lowney's Method



Brownies made by Delia's Method





The batter for the creaming method was much paler than the melting method. This was due to there being more air in the creaming method mixture. The air pockets also made the mixture rise quiet a lot even though there was no rising adgent in the mixture.

Once both brownie mixtures were cooked and cooled. I did a taste test. Personally I found that the brownie mixture which had the melted butter and chocolate was better tasting which a richer chocolate flavour. The batter which was creamed was much chewery which I liked but the flavour was not to my liking.

This little experiment showed that the order in which the ingredients are combined alters the end product. Which is why all recipes have a method!  

History of the Chocolate Brownie

Next I looked at the history of the brownie. There was a recipe for a treat called brownies in the 1896 Boston Cooking School Cookbook, but it does not include any chocolate in the recipe. Instead there were molasses which made the mixture brown, so they were called brownies.

1896 'Boston Cooking School Cookbook' Brownie Recipe

 1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup Porto Rico molasses
1 egg well beaten
7/8 cup bread flour
1 cup pecan meat cut in pieces
Mix ingredients in order given. Bake in small, shallow fancy cake tins, garnishing top of each cake with one-half pecan.

There are many tales on how the first brownie was created; a chef mistakenly added melted chocolate to a batch of biscuits...a cook was making a cake but didn’t have enough flour. The tale which is the most highly regarded is one about a housewife. The first brownies came about when a house wife, from Bangor Maine forgot to add leavening to her chocolate cake. Some say she didn't  want to admit her mistake or that she didn't want to throw out a cake which didn't rise. So she cut it into bars and served it. This theory is thought to be true as 6 years later (1906) a nearly identical recipe (to the housewives who forgot to add the baking powder) for brownies was published in a cookbook from Bangor, by one of America most famous cookbook writers Fannie Merritt Farmer.

1906 'Boston Cooking School Cookbook' Brownie Recipe

 1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup Porto Rico molasses
1 egg well beaten
7/8 cup bread flour

2 squares of melted chocolate
1 cup pecan meat cut in pieces
Mix ingredients in order given. Bake in small, shallow fancy cake tins, garnishing top of each cake with one-half pecan.

The second brownie recipe was created by Maria Willett Howard, who was trained by Fannie Merritt Farmer. Farmer added an extra egg to Howard's recipe to create the Lowney Chocolate Company brownie recipe. According to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink this is the recipe which was most often reprinted in New England community up to 1912. 

Here are the two recipes which were published in Lowney's Cookbook in 1907. The two recipes are similarie but the quantities for each ingredient are slightly different.

Bangor Brownies (Lowney’s Cook Book 1907)

1/4 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

3 squares chocolate

1/2 to 3/4 cup flour

1 cup nut meats (nuts with the shells removed)

1/4 teaspoon salt

 Put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat until well mixed. Spread evenly in a buttered baking pan. Bake and cut in stripes.

Lowney’s Brownies (Lowney’s Cook Book 1907)

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 squares Chocolate

2 eggs

1/2 cup nut meats (nuts with the shell removed)

1/2 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

 Cream the butter, add remaining ingredients, spread on buttered sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Cut in squares as soon as taken from the oven.

The Road to the Perfect Chocolate Brownie

Brownies are an all time favorite. Everybody has their own personal favorite type of brownie; from cakey to fudgy to chewy. The basic brownie recipe ingredients are butter, sugar, eggs, flour and most importantly chocolate.

I have so many different brownie recipes so I thought I would start a quest to find the perfect recipe. I couldn't narrow my perfect brownie recipe to one as there are so many different types. I decided to find the best recipe for each type of brownie; fudgy, cakey and chewy. The first thing I needed to do was look at the science behind a Brownie. This would initially help me separate my recipes into the three categories.

Fudgy brownies have a minim amount of flour and no leaving (such as baking powder). The butter is melted rather than cream as this gives a denser brownie.

Cakey brownies usually have a low butter content but a higher flour content and include baking powder. This makes the brownie softer and lighter. The butter and sugar is creamed together, which adds air to the mixture and causes the brownies to rise higher.

Chewy brownies normally include a mixture of chocolate contents and have an extra egg and have a high sugar content.

Day 4: Pain aux Raisins

Today we are off to France, to have some pastries. I made a Pate a Brioche Feuilletee (which translates literally to mean a Flaky Brioche Dough, but it is a french quick sweet puff pastry). I choose to use this pastry to make Pain aux Raisins, but you could make croissants, pain au chocolate and most pastries.

Firstly I made a simple puff pastry. After hearing the words 'puff pastry' some people might run in the opposite direction, but please don't. Again this is a simple dough to make but is time consuming. If you want to make these for breakfast, I suggest you make the dough and almond cream the night before so all you have to do is construct the pastries, let them rise and cook them in the morning.

My pastires were not amazing, due to them spreading. This could be beacause i didn't leave the pastries in the fridge for long enough.

 

Pain aux Raisins Recipe

Pate a Brioche Feuilletee

Prep time: 60 minutes

Rising time: 3 hours and 30 minutes

Ingredients: 

7g instant dried yeast

1 egg

250g plain flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

15ml cold water

100g unsalted butter 

Method:

1. Place the yeast, egg, flour, sugar, salt and water in a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Mix together at a medium speed, and stop as soon as the dough is smooth. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the freezer for 30 minutes to cool.
2. Cream the butter until soft.
3. Remove the dough from the freezer and roll out into a rectangle 3 times as long as its width. Place half the butter on the bottom edge of the dough. Using your palm push the butter evenly over two thirds of the dough.
4. Fold the dough into thirds, folding the un-buttered third down first. Chill in the freezer for 30minuites, than refrigerate for 1 hour. Repeat steps 3 and 4 with the other half of the dough.
5. The dough can now be refrigerated until it is needed.

Almond Cream

Almond cream is similar to a creme patisserie, but does not use the hob. It is traditionally used to fill cakes and pastries.

Prep time: 30 minutes

Ingredients: 

80g unsalted butter

80g icing sugar

5g cornflour

80g ground almonds

1 egg

100ml creme fraiche

Method:

1. Cut the butter into squares and place in a bowl. Cream the butter with a spatula to soften it. It is important to cream the butter without making it fluffy. If air is beaten in, the almond cream will rise during baking but will collapse and lose its shape when it comes out of the oven.
2. Add the icing sugar, cornflour and ground almonds to the butter mixture. Cream this into the butter mixture with a wooden spoon. Fold the egg into the butter mixture. Pour in the creme fraiche and mix until smooth.
3. The almond cream will keep in the fridge for 36 - 48 hours or can be frozen until required.

To construct the Pain aux Raisin:
Ingredients:
150g raisins
50g icing sugar
2 teaspoons orange juice

1. On a floured surface roll out the puff pastry into a rectangle and to 2 cm thick.
2. Spread the almond cream over the pastry.
3. Sprinkle raisins evenly on top of the almond cream.
4. Roll the up like a swiss roll, starting from one of the long edges.
5. Using a separated knife roll into 8 slices, each one being about 2cm thick and place on a greased baking sheet, lined with baking parchment. Make sure the pastries are spread out as they will expand when they are left to rise.
6. Place the pastries into the freezer for 30 minutes and then put them in a warm room to double in size. It will take about 30 - 60 minutes depending on the temperature of the room.
7. Preheat the oven to C180. Cook the pastries for 18 - 20 minutes, until golden.
8. Whilst the pastries are cooking make the icing sugar glaze. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the orange juice. This should make a runny liquid which can be drizzled over the pastries when they come out of the oven.  

Makes: 8 pain aux raisins

Total Prep time:

Cook: 18 - 20 minuites

Day 3: English Muffins

So, I attempted this recipe for English Muffins twice and both times were a disaster! I follow the recipe to the letter, not taking any shortcuts but it still didn't work! After the second attempt I put it down to the recipe and not my baking skills!

The recipe seemed simple enough, the batter was made like a pancake batter (which we all know how to do as yesterday was pancake day!). Once the batter was made, it was left for an hour to form bubbles on the surface. The muffins were cooked on the hob. Metal pastry cutters were put into a pan and warmed. When the pan was very hot, butter was added and batter poured into the pastry cutters (the batter was very runny, so the pastry cutters made sure the batter kept its shape). The recipe said, and I quote "Cook for 5 -7 minuites until the surface is dry and full of holes and the muffins are shrinking away from the sides of the cutters". This is not how it went for me  . . .

Attempt 1: 7 minuites later there are no bubbles on the surface . . . and the batter is not shrinking away from the edges. But 15 minuites later the batter is shrinking away from the edges, the bottom of the muffin is burning and there is no bubbles forming on the surface! The main problem was that they were not cooked inside. It was a disaster!

Attempt 2: Next I tried a slightly lower pan heat so the muffins wouldn't burn, but the muffins didn't come away from the edges or form bubbles on the surface. Also they were still not cooked in the middle. 

After this I felt that the recipe was not correct and I would have to try another recipe! So look back here in the near future to see the results!  

Day 2: Brioche

Golden Brioches

The next thing that I attempted to make was the brioche. The final product was VERY tasty. My little brioches had risen beautifully and tasted buttery, just as Brioche should!

Brioches are sweet breads from France. They are similar to a bread dough but have a higher butter and egg content. They are cooked in a very high oven temperature so they rise quickly and steeply. Brioches are traditionally eaten as a teatime treat with butter and jam. But you can eat them with foie gras or cheeses.

I made individual little brioches dusted with sugar.  You could also add raisins, chocolate or other dried fruits if you wanted to.

Brioche with jam

 The dough for this recipe is super simple, basically you put the ingredients  into a bowl of an electric mixer and mix (but at different stages)! Something to watch out for is that your butter needs to be very soft, otherwise it will not combine well. The thing which takes so long is the rising. It total the dough needs 5 hours rising time, split into 3 different stages. 

For this recipe I suggest you make the dough the night before; the dough can put into the fridge overnight. Then in the morning all you need to do is shape the dough and let it rise for 30 - 45 minutes.

Sugared Brioche Recipe

Makes 18 individual brioches  

Prep 30 minutes plus 5 hours rising

Cook 12 - 14 minutes

Brioche

Ingredients:

250g plain flour

4g instant dried yeast

25g Castor sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
200g unsalted butter, softened

Method:

1. Put the flour, yeast and sugar in a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add one egg and then mix on a medium speed until most of the egg is combined. Repeat this for the other 2 eggs. Mix the dough until the mixture is fully Incorporated and coming away from the sides.
2. At this stage add the salt and softened butter. Mix at a medium speed until the butter it combined. The dough is ready when it starts to come away from the sides. It will be very sticky!
3. Transfer the dough into a large bowl which is dusted with flour. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for 2 - 3 hours, until it has doubled in size.
4. Lift the dough out of the bowl and put onto a floured work surface. Punch the dough with your fist, so the dough deflates and return to it's original size. Knead for 3 - 4 minutes. Then put it back in the bowl and cover in cling film. Put the dough into the fridge for at least 1 1/2 hours or overnight.
5. To make individual Sugared Brioches: Grease 18 six inch fluted tins. Divide the brioche dough between the 18 fluted tins. Leave at room temperature until they have doubled in size, about 30 - 40 minutes.  
6. Preheat the oven to C220. Cut a cross in the top of each brioche. Brush milk over the top of each one and then sprinkle with granulated sugar.
7. Cook for 12 - 14 minutes. Remove from the tins to cool or eat warm!