Flapjacks

I finally got to try a recipe from Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy. I picked flapjacks as I was baking them for a bake sale event and wanted something simple that would appeal to the masses.  I omitted the ground ginger and lemon zest from her recipe and just made them plain. They are really easy to make and delicious. I'm sure you can make many variations by adding fruits and/or nuts or drizzling with chocolate. The possibilities are endless! What's your favourite flapjack? 

melt butter, sugar and golden syrup.

 pack it down in the baking tray

freshly baked

 delicious! I personally love the end bits :)

175g butter

175g muscovado sugar

175g golden syrup

350g oats

Optional

finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon

pinch of ground ginger

• Preheat the oven to 150C. Grease and lie and 20cm square baking tin. 
• Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over a low heat. 
• Dip a brush in the butter and brush the baking tin with a little bit of it. 
• Add the golden syrup and sugar to the butter and heat gently.
• Once the sugar is dissolved and the butter is melted, remove from the heat and stir in the oats. Add lemon zest and ginger if using. 
• Pack the mixture into the baking tin and squash down. 
• Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.
• Remove from the oven, allow to cool for 15 minutes then turn out on to a chopping board and cut into squares. 



Apple Crumble

I made these quite a few months back but have only got round to blogging about it now. A good friend of mine came to stay with me earlier this year and she bought me these cute Le Creuset minis which are absolutely adorable. Thank you again Angie! 

I decided to make apple crumble as I had leftover apples from making apple and olive oil cake for my friend's birthday. The same friend also loves apple crumble and could not believe I've never made my own. Yes I don't know how but fortunately I can now say I have made my own crumble and I'm wondering why I've not made it earlier! It's really simple to make and extremely tasty especially with a big scoop of ice cream (or cream or custard but we didn't have any of those). 

Another friend was moving house and a few of us helped him move. I cooked dinner and made apple crumble as dessert which was well received after a hard day's labour. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for recipes in my mini Le Creuset? (preferably sweet but I could probably manage savoury as well) 

 my lovely mini Le Creuset 

 Apple with cinnamon and sugar 

 Add the crumble 

 freshly baked 

 served with ice cream 

For the crumble

150g plain flour

75g brown sugar 

100g butter (My friend recommends equal butter to flour but I resisted!) 

For the filling

4 bramley apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks

50g brown sugar 

1 tablespoon flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon 

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• Place the flour and sugar in a large bowl and mix well. 
• Cut the butter into cubes.
• Rub a few cubes of butter into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. 
• Repeat until all the butter is used up. 
• Place the apples in a large bowl.
• Sprinkle over the sugar, flour and cinnamon and mix well. 
• Spoon the apples into the dish and sprinkle the crumble mixture on top.
• Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the crumble is browned and the fruit mixture is bubbling. (You will need to increase the baking time if you are using a large dish instead of small ramekins like mine)

Ham, cheese and mushroom muffins

This is the carnivorous version of the spinach and cheese muffin I made earlier. In fact I've been making quite a few batches of these muffins to freeze as they are so simple to make and so convenient to have for breakfast or for a snack. I've also added some cherry tomatoes to a batch which worked really well.

 cook the mushrooms in butter 

 chop up the ham 

 I had some leftover spinach leaves so added that to a few of my muffins 

 delicious! 

50g butter

1/2 small onion, finely chopped

80g button mushroom, chopped

350g plain flour

2.5 teaspoons baking powder

250g cheddar cheese, grated

220ml whole milk

1 egg

80g smoked ham, finely chopped

sea salt and freshly ground pepper

• Preheat the oven to 170C.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, then fry the onion and mushrooms until cooked. 
• Season with sea salt and black pepper. Set aside.
• Put the flour, baking powder and cheese in a large bowl.
• In a separate bowl, mix the milk and egg together, then slowly pour into the flour mixture and beat with an electric handheld whisk until all the ingredients are well mixed. 
• Stir in the onion, mushrooms and chopped ham with a wooden spoon until evenly dispersed. 
• Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two-thirds full and bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until deep golden and the sponge bounces back when touched. 
• Leave the muffins to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely. 

Apricot, cherry and white chocolate oat cookies

Apologies for the long absence everyone. I don't know where July has disappeared to. I have been baking albeit very sparsely this month and haven't had time to blog about any of my creations yet but hopefully all in good time. Anyway I'm glad that I've just managed to make it for the we should cocoa challenge this month. When I first found out that the special ingredient for this month is apricots, my heart sank a little as I don't really like apricots and couldn't immediately think of an apricot and chocolate pairing. However, in a flash of inspiration at the weekend, I found this cookie recipe which has apricots and cherries (yet another fruit I'm not too fond of). So you can imagine my excitement at making these cookies! I was honestly surprised at how well they turned out and how delicious they are. They are quite addictive and I had a quite a few when it came out of the oven :) The cookies are quite buttery with a slight crispy edge and soft chewy bits of apricots and cherries. Plus I'm pretty sure they contribute to my 5 a day! :)

 lovely apricots

 cherries 

 cookie batter 

 yum! 

250g butter

150g soft brown sugar

150g self raising flour

225g porridge oats

100g glace cherries, cut into pieces

100g soft dried apricots, cut into pieces

100g white chocolate chips 

• Preheat oven to 180C. 
• Line 2 baking sheets with greaseproof paper. 
• Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Add in remaining ingredients and mix well. Use your hands at the end to give it a really good mix. 
• Place a tablespoon of dough or use a small ice cream scoop onto the baking sheet and flatten slightly. 
• Bake for approximately 15-20 minutes. 
• Remove from the oven, cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Spinach and cheese muffins

I decided to dabble in the savoury side for once. In fact I was getting a bit bored of smoothies for breakfast and thought muffins would make good breakfast food. I went to my trusted hummingbird bakery cookbook for a recipe and it turned out great. They're really simple to make and freeze well too! I tired the ham and cheese version which was even better in my book. 

30g butter

1/2 small red onion, finely chopped

360g plain flour

2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cayenne powder

250g cheddar cheese, grated

220ml whole milk

1 egg

130g baby spinach leaves

• Preheat oven to 170C.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat, then fry the onion until cooked.
• Set aside.
• Put the flour, baking powder, cayenne and cheese in a large bowl.
• In a separate bowl, mix the milk and egg together, then slowly pour into the flour mixture and beat with a handheld whisk until all the ingredients are well mixed. (I used a spatula)
• Stir in the onion and spinach with a wooden spoon until evenly dispersed. 
• Spoon the mixture into muffin cases until 2/3 full and bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until deep golden and the sponge bounces back when touched.
• Leave to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

Chocolate Strawberry Shortcakes

I was really excited when I saw that this month's We Should Cocoa Challenge is strawberries. I love strawberries especially in the summer.  I've been watching quite a bit of Top Chef Canada recently and one of the wins was with a strawberry shortcake.  I decided immediately that I wanted to make a chocolate strawberry shortcake for this month's challenge and almost ran out of time but I'm glad I made it! The dough was very easy to make but it took a while to roll and cut the dough, bake and then assemble the shortcake.  It was well worth it though as it was really delicious - chocolatey goodness in the shortcake which is a little heavy with the light freshness of fresh strawberries and cream. Perfect for summer. 

 mixing ingredients for dough

 freshly baked 

 to assemble 

 voila! 

Makes approximately 21

400g plain four

60g cocoa powder

4 teaspoons baking powder

120g unsalted butter, diced

120g caster sugar 

2 large eggs, beaten

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

10-12 tablespoons of milk

450g fresh strawberries

300ml double cream, whipped

icing sugar to taste (for the cream) 

• Preheat the overn to 230C. 
• Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a bowl.
• Add the butter and rub in with the fingertips.
• Stir in the sugar.
• Beat the eggs with the vanilla extract and stir in.
• Add enough milk to form a soft, but not sticky dough. 
• Knead gently until smooth. 
• Flour a work surface.
• Roll out the dough to about 1/2 inch thick. 
• Cut out rounds with a cookie cutter, rekneading and cutting the trimmings as necessary. 
• Place on a lined baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes until risen and the bases sound hollow when tapped. 
• Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 5-10 minutes.
• Hull and slice the strawberries.
• Whip the cream with icing sugar if desired. 
• Place some cream on the base of a shortcake, top with slices of strawberries and top with another shortcake. 
• Top with some cream and decorate with another strawberry slice on top.

Brookies

Here's one I made quite a few months back now but still remains in my memory. This is the perfect recipe for when you can't decide between a brownie and a cookie. It's really chocolatey with a dense brownie texture but a slight crunch of a cookie. Simple and delicious.

 melt chocolate (I added cooking chocolate as I ran out of chocolate chips) 

 brookie mixture 

 freeze for 15 mins before baking

1 tablespoon oil

approximately 5g (1 teaspoon) of butter

365g chocolate chips

2 large eggs

150g light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

60g plain flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

• Melt oil, butter and chocolate chips in a bowl over a pot of simmering water. 
• In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract.
• Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture. 
• In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. 
• Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture and stir until combined. 
• Pour the batter into a shallow pan and freeze for 6 to 8 minutes until the batter sets and hardens slightly (Do not exceed 15 minutes freezing time otherwise the batter will be too frozen)
• Preheat oven to 180C. 
• Line 2 baking sheets with greaseproof paper.
• Scoop out the cookie dough using a small ice cream scoop or a tablespoon and place on the prepared baking sheet.
• Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until the top looks dry and cracked. 
• Allow to cool completely.