Chocolate Dipped Meringues

I love meringues – you can hardly believe how low in calories they are for something so sugary and delicious! After making semifreddo a few weeks ago, I attempted making meringues with the left over egg whites. They were simply a disaster.I had to throw the mix away because I under-whipped the whites but didn’t realise until after adding the sugar.

I hate failure, so today I asked my Nan her recipe and tips and I had another attempt:

Okay, they’re far from perfect. Nan’s rules are simple:

2 ounces of sugar for every large egg

Whip the whites until they form stiff peaks – the mixture shouldn’t move about the bowl when tilted

Add the sugar slowly – about an ounce at a time

Don’t over-whip the whites – they’ll flop

My mixture was much better than last time, but I think in an effort to add the sugar slowly, I over-whipped the whites. It was thick enough to pipe into lovely little droplets, but 2 minutes later my beautiful mini meringues had sunk into little puddles.

I put these in the oven at 140C for 30 minutes, turned off the heat and left them in there to cool. I then dipped them in dark chocolate to make them look a bit prettier, but it also makes them taste more luxurious!

The size of the meringues meant that they cooked in much less time than my grandmother recommended – instead of an hour, they were colouring within 30 minutes. However, this was such a blessing! When bitten in to, they were soft and marshmallow-y in the middle, and lovely and crunchy on the outside! Perfect!

Although they tasted great, I won’t rest until I have a perfectly shaped meringue!

Giant Chocolate Orange Jaffa Cake

I wanted to treat my friends this weekend – it’s been a long week so we deserved it! I was racking my brains for the perfect revision week bake when I decided to make a giant, gooey version of my boyfriend’s favourite revision week snack: The Jaffa Cake.

I found a recipe on the trusted BBC Good Food website, and after a read I decided it sounded doable. The cake is a dense, moist orange sponge, made with natural Greek yogurt, topped with a layer of orange jelly (I cheated and bought a packet mix) and then covered in a rich, creamy chocolate ganache.

 

It wasn’t until the cake was in the oven that I decided to read the comments – apparently it falls apart on assembly. And they were right! The cake came out the oven, and it looked and smelled delicious as I left it to cool. The top has to be painted with apricot jam – it’s supposed to act as a glue. Then, I carefully (and surprisingly) managed to flip the orange jelly out the cake tin in which I left it to set and on to the top of the cake. At that point, the jelly began to slip and slide off the top of the cake, even though I had turned the cake upside down so that it was perfectly flat! Nonetheless, I soldiered on and covered it in chocolate. Aesthetically, it was a disaster (please don’t mock the photo!) – my beautiful cake was now covered in a pool of chocolate mixed with jelly. I was pretty sad.

Luckily, never has the saying “never judge a book by its cover” been truer. Wow.The cake was moist, rich and had a deep orange flavour running through it. What’s more, it was a beautiful bright yellow colour as a result of the orange zest. The jelly was nothing special (24p for a packet mix…shhh…), but somehow it added a delicious freshness to the cake. And all that covered with melted chocolate ganache: mmmmm!!

I served it with ice cream. It made for a really delicious, rich, but fruity desert! If I were to make it again (which I will), I’d abandon the Jaffa Cake idea – if it weren’t for the jelly the cake would have tasted and looked like a beautiful chocolate orange sponge.

Find the recipe here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/giant-jaffa-orange-cake

 

Orange Polenta Cake with Orange Cream

It’s revision time at uni. And when I revise, I bake – I call it procrastibaking.

I had some fine polenta in my cupboard, so I decided to modify a BBC recipe and make myself a treat. The original recipe can be found here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/12341/orange-polenta-cake

I love cooking with polenta – it adds a rich yellow colour to bakes, as well as a fantastic crumbly texture and a fantastic moistness.

I used self raising flour rather than plain flour with baking powder, purely for convenience. The cake rose so much, with the batter almost tripling in thickness. Yum. Other than that I kept the recipe the same, it was so simple and so easy:

• Cream 250g caster sugar and 250g butter until light and fluffy (I maintain that this is the most important part in any cake recipe)
• Add 4 eggs, 1 at a time
• Fold in 200g SR flour and 140g polenta
• Once combined, mix in the juice and zest of 2 oranges (the smell is fantastic!)

The recipe says it will be ready in 45 minutes (160C oven), but it actually took over an hour.

Whilst it was cooking, I made an orange cream. It’s unbelievably simple and just adds a hint of orange, but really lightens up the cream. All you need to do is gently mix 150ml double cream with juice from 1/2 an orange. The pectin in the orange will thicken up the cream to a whipped consistency without the need for whipping!

This is a great cake for sharing – it’s simple but different. Although it sounds fancy, it can be really cheap to make (polenta can be picked up in Asian supermarkets for 50p / 500g). As a student, I couldn’t ask for much more!

Happy baking xo

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Birthday Cake

This cake is the one.

3 layers of chocolate cake, sandwiched together with creamy and light peanut butter frosting, all topped with a rich dark chocolate ganache. Peanut butter is one of the few things I can resist, but when whipped with cream, butter and icing sugar, I could eat it by the bucket load.

I found this recipe online at http://www.browneyedbaker.com – this site always has the best ideas! The presentation looked so simple but very effective, and even I managed to copy it problem-free!

I did, however, change the sponge recipe. I find cakes made with buttermilk or oil too heavy, and this recipe had both. Instead, I went for my family’s tried and tested, highly adaptable sponge recipe. The rule is simple – 2oz of caster sugar, flour and butter for every 1 egg used – impossible to forget. For a birthday cake, I usually make a 4 egg cake. But, since this was 3 layers, I added an extra egg (so that’s 5 eggs and 10oz caster sugar, flour and butter), and it was whopper.

If you have a hand mixer (I picked mine up for £5 from Wilkinson’s – http://www.wilko.com/blenders-mixers+food-processors/wilko-everyday-value-hand-mixer/invt/0228910?VBMST=hand%20mixer), simply place all the ingredients into a large bowl and whisk on a high speed for around a minute. Add 1 – 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder and an equal quantity of whole milk, and mix again on a slow speed.

Divide the mixture into 3 tins, and cook for 20-30 minutes. Once fully cooled, I returned to following The Brown Eyed Baker’s instructions for the frosting and ganache.

This really is a celebration cake worth trying for any chocolate lover!

Happy baking xo