Guest Blogger: Anna’s Raspberry Buns

Anna, over at beepbeepdesigns, has kindly baked us some raspberry buns! Thanks for all your hard work!

This recipe is from my mother-in-law. Raspberry buns are not really cakes, but are more like scones. They are more efficient than scones, though, because the jam is already inside! Perfect for picnics and teatime and whenever you feel a bit peckish.

Ingredients:

240g/8.5oz plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

90g/3oz margarine

90g/3oz caster sugar

1 lemon

1 egg

some milk

raspberry jam

Instructions:

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Preheat your oven to 200C or foreign equivalent.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a big bowl.

Wash your hands well, then rub the margarine into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then wash your hands again. A nailbrush might be helpful.

Zest the lemon. I hate this part. I use the side of a box cheese grater and all the rind gets stuck and I have to scrape it off with my fingers. But you should end up with this:

And then you can wash your hands again.

Add the sugar and lemon rind to the bowl and mix in. Add the egg — I like to live dangerously so I always crack it straight into the bowl, but you might want to crack it into a cup and then pour it into the bowl after checking for eggshell.

Mix in the egg, and enough milk to make a soft dough. You don’t need very much milk; I always add too much and have to put in extra flour. You don’t want it to be sticky, just soft and maybe looking like this:

Now for the complicated bit! But don’t worry, it isn’t very complicated. And if you get it wrong it doesn’t matter because it’s only baking.

Prepare yourself with a floured board, an open jar of jam with a teaspoon, some milk in a cup with a pastry brush (you might not need this if your dough is too sticky like mine), and your lined baking tray. If you didn’t line your baking tray at the start, now is a good time to do it.

(the baking tray is over to my right, please ignore cheese grater and nude lemon)

Make a ball of dough about 3cm across, and squash it flat on the floured board.

Put a little bit of jam (not too much! Don’t be tempted to make them extra-jammy, unless you like scrubbing jam off the bottom of your oven. About half a teaspoon is plenty) in the centre of the circle.

Pinch the edges of the circle upwards to cover the jam. If your dough is not sticky enough, brush some milk on the edges to make them stick together.

Then in one swift movement, flip the whole thing upside-down and dump it on the baking tray.

Once you have done a trayful, sprinkle them with caster sugar. Also you might need to wash your hands.

Then put them in the oven for 18-20 minutes, or until they’re just starting to go brown and are just a bit hard on top. Then put your new buns on a rack to cool.

Mmm, raspberry buns.

A note of caution though — like scones, these are especially delicious while still war. But biting hot jam is…. unpleasant. So let them cool down for a few minutes even if you have to sit on your hands at the other end of the house. Then tuck in!

These look great, Anna. I’m sure I’ll try them myself soon enough…

Ginger Biscuits

I made these for my husband, because ginger biscuits are his favourite. Since we have plenty of ginger in the cupboard now, I didn’t have to buy anything special for the recipe. The recipe is from a hand-written booklet produced by a local church that I bought for 25p. Three cheers for granny recipes!

The Recipe

4 oz margarine

1 Tbs Golden Syrup

pinch of baking soda

1 tsp ground ginger

3 oz sugar

6 oz self-raising flour

Method

Grease 1 or 2 baking trays and set oven to Gas 4 (that would be 180C/350F). Melt together to syrup and margarine, then stir in the rest of the sifted ingredients. With wet hands (keep a bowl of water on the table) roll into balls the size of a large marble and place wide apart on the baking trays (they spread). Cook for about 15 minutes or until done.

My Alterations

Well, I didn’t have any self-raising flour, so I took a really lazy short cut and just upped the baking soda to a full teaspoon. It seems to have worked. I kept everything else the same; Americans can use corn syrup or light treacle, if you can get it. The taste won’t be exactly the same, but it will work just fine.

I didn’t sift the ingredients because again: lazy. The whole wet hands thing didn’t seem to matter much, but my fingers got a little bit sticky.

The Result

I mis-read the recipe a bit, and rolled the dough into small marble-sized balls rather than large ones, so I ended up with a ton of itsy bitsy biscuits. They were cute, though, and they cooked faster than 15 minutes; more like 8 or 9 minutes.

They came out lovely. I let them cool for a few minutes on the tray, so they were a bit crisp. Be careful not to overcook them, especially if you make them small.

The Verdict

These were great! They had just the right amount of gingery taste, and the texture was very similar to my husband’s favourite store-bought brand. My kids adored them and we all happily munched on them for our dessert. The recipe was easy to follow, and the biscuits were very attractive when baked. I love their cracked tops.

The Rating

5/5

Not only were they cute and bite-sized, they were very tasty. The recipe was easy, and I liked the fact that my adjustment of throwing in a bit of extra baking soda didn’t ruin anything. We’ll definitely be making these again!

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

After taking a break from baking for a few days, I was in the mood for cookies. Not to be confused with biscuits, cookies are large and (ideally) a bit chewy. The best place to look for a decent chocolate chip cookie recipe is, of course, Cookie Madness. In the end, I used a recipe that was posted by one of her readers in the comments section. Thanks for posting it, Heidi!

The Recipe

These truly chewy chocolate chip cookies are delicious served warm from the oven or cooled. To ensure a chewy texture, leave the cookies on the cookie sheet to cool. You can substitute white, milk chocolate, or peanut butter chips for the semi- or bittersweet chips called for in the recipe. In addition to chips, you can flavor the dough with one cup of nuts, raisins, or shredded coconut.

Makes 1-1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies

2-1/8 cups bleached all-purpose flour (2 cups plus 2 tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1-1/2sticks), melted aand cooled slightly
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet)

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

3. Form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough�uneven surface. Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined 20-by-14-inch lipless cookie sheets, about nine dough balls per sheet. Smaller cookie sheets can be used, but fewer cookies can be baked at one time and baking time may need to be adjusted. (Dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month

My Alterations

I used all the same amounts as listed for each ingredient, and added dark chocolate chips for the cookies themselves. I then halved the dough, adding a handful of coconut and white chocolate chips to one half of the dough, and leaving the other half as-is. The pictures above show the plain chocolate chip cookies on the left and the coconut, dark & white chocolate chip cookies on the right.

I did not do the formed dough thing to the cookies, partly because I couldn’t be bothered, and partly because the dough didn’t turn out the way I expected.

The Results

The dough was surprisingly soft and sticky. Perhaps it needed to be chilled before trying the formed dough thing in step 3, but I don’t know. I’m not a big cookie maker, so I’ve never heard of this method before. I always just scoop, dump and bake.

I made the cookies a bit larger than called for in the recipe, and they took about 10-12 minutes to bake at 180C (which was probably a bit too low). I let them cool on the pan, mostly, until I needed it again for the next batch. I made 12 coconut cookies and 6 regular ones, and froze the rest of the dough for another day.

The Verdict

These cookies are brilliant. The regular chocolate chip cookies were really rich, with a slightly crunchy outside and a lovely soft inside. The addition of white chocolate chips and coconut sent the cookie into WOW territory for me, and I couldn’t keep my mitts off of the dough before they were even baked. These cookies will not last long at all; the only reason they haven’t totally disappeared already is because I’m too full to eat them. I’ll try again in a few hours! I’m really happy I froze the rest of the dough because now I will have freshly baked cookies with minimum work.

The Rating

5/5

These cookies have an excellent flavour and texture. I’m very happy with this recipe and can’t wait to eat more.

Day 30: Coconut Cake

After baking so many cakes, I was kind of running out of ideas at this point. After surveying my baking ingredients cupboard, I noticed that I had a lot of coconut left over. Thus, coconut cake.

This cake travelled by train and tube all the way to a London park for a picnic with friends. It is an annual get together, and one of our group is expecting a baby, so we created a throw-it-together baby shower as well. I didn’t make the sugar baby, just in case you were wondering.

Recipe found on Sainsbury’s recipe forums, posted by seth25. Thanks!

The Recipe

4oz butter
4oz caster sugar
2 large eggs
6oz self raising flour
2oz desicated coconut
Approx 2 tablespoons of milk

Cream butter & sugar till soft and pale, beat eggs and add to mixture. Gradually fold in coconut, then flour. Add milk to give soft dropping consistency. Sprinkle top of cake with coconut and caster sugar and bake at Gas mark 3 for 1 to 1 and a quarter hours.

My Alterations

I was really tempted to add more coconut to the recipe, just because I wanted to use it up. I didn’t, because I was worried about messing up the cake. Normally, I wouldn’t mind taking the risk, but this was going to be on public display, so I played it safe.

The Result

This cake was very easy to put together and bake. It took a long time, which surprised me, but I just kept a close eye on it.

The Verdict

This is a yummy cake! It’s not a strong coconut taste, but it’s very soft and moist. I only managed to eat a small slice, but the others at the picnic seemed to like it.

The Rating

5/5

Easy, simple recipe with great results. Can’t go wrong!

Oven temperature conversion chart

Centigrade……………… Fahrenheit……………….. Gas Mark

130 ………………………..250…………………………. 1

150 ………………………..300 ………………………….2

170 ………………………..325 ………………………….3

180 ………………………..350 ………………………….4

190 ………………………..375 ………………………….5

200 ………………………..400 ………………………….6

220 ………………………..425 ………………………….7

230 ………………………..450 ………………………….8

240 ………………………..475 ………………………….9

Tutorial 2: Separating egg yolks from whites the easy way

A few years ago, when I watched all those fancy-pants cooking shows, I saw Nigella Lawson separate her egg yolks with an incredibly easy and simple method. If you are at all squeamish about touching the slimy innards of chicken eggs, beware: this may not be the best method for you.

Simply put, you just dump the egg into your hand (over the mixing bowl) and let the egg white dribble through your fingers. I used to pass the yolk from one half of the broken shell to the other, letting the white fall out on its own a little bit at a time, but the yolk would sometimes break on a sharp shell corner and all my hard work was ruined.

Gently holding the egg yolk in your hand, with fingers slightly apart to let the egg white escape, but not enough to drop the yolk, and you have easily and quickly separated the two. No hassle, but unfortunately, a lot of mess.

I don’t particularly enjoy the cold slimy egg whites leftover on my hands, but it works so I’ll stick with this method for now. The sacrifices I make for my cakes….

Day 29: Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

My kids’ schools were asking parents this week to bake cakes for their respective cake tables at their summer fairs. I wanted to do something a bit different, so decided to relive my own childhood by making ice cream cone cupcakes. I wanted to make several versions — vanilla, chocolate and strawberry — so I needed a white cake recipe that I could easily colour to my liking.

Recipe from About.com’s archives.

The Recipe

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 1/2 cups sifted cake flour (sift before measuring)
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 8 egg whites, stiffly beaten

PREPARATION:

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy; stir in vanilla. Sift flour with baking powder. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with the milk, beating well after each addition.

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites, incorporating evenly.

Spoon batter into three greased and floured round cake pans. Bake in preheated 350° oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until cake tests done. Frost with custard frosting (below), if desired.

My Alterations

I followed the recipe exactly. I was really tempted to not bother sifting the flour before measuring, but it was worth it, because I would have ended up with half a cup of extra flour. The egg whites were sort of hard to fold into the batter, but they eventually mixed in.

Obviously, I didn’t use cake pans to bake the cake. I split the batter into thirds, mixing a tablespoon of cocoa into one bowl (chocolate “ice cream”) and 1/8 teaspoon of red food colouring into another bowl (strawberry “ice cream”). I probably could have poured more batter into each ice cream cone, but I was worried about them spilling over in the oven.

They took longer than I expected to bake; about 18 minutes, with me checking every few minutes towards the end.

The Result

These didn’t turn out as picturesque as I had hoped, but they are pretty cute. The cake rose well and took the colouring nicely. There were a lot of bowls and spoons to clean up afterwards, but it was worth it, I think!

The Verdict

The cake itself is lovely. It was very light and fluffy, like a boxed cake mix. The flavour was enjoyable and it was pretty easy to put together. The sifting and egg separating was a bit of a hassle, but it made all the difference in the end.

I don’t particularly like the combination of cake and ice cream cone, but my kids loved it and it’s a fun little treat for the novelty factor at least!

The Rating

4/5

I really liked the cake itself. It’s a bit of extra work involved, and most of the time I’m not up for it, but if I’m in the mood for a light, fluffy cake, this is it. Not a big fan of cake in a cone, though.

As a point of interest, the ladies at the cake table set the price on these cakes at 10 pence each. Ten pence! I’m slightly offended at that; I would have thought they were worth at least 25p. I guess some American foods just don’t translate well across the pond.

Day 28: Better than “Homework” Cake. Yeah… “homework”…

I freely admit that this is a cop-out sort of cake for this blog. The foundation is from a boxed cake mix, and the only fancy things that I had to do were decor-type things. Can you blame me for choosing an easy recipe? This is the 28th cake!

I have mostly heard this cake called “Better than Sex Cake” but I really didn’t want to google that term, so I found this version instead on About.com’s forum, posted by Pamiam12.

The Recipe

1 pkg, 2 layer-size German chocolate cake mix
1 - 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 - 12 to 12.5 oz. jar caramel ice cream topping
1 - 8 oz. carton frozen whipped topping
3 - 1.4 oz. bars chocolate covered English toffee, chopped

Prepare and bake the cake mix according to pkg. directions for a 13×9 inch baking pan. Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack.
Using the handle of a wooden spoon, poke holes about 1 inch apart over the surface of the cooled cake. Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the cake.
Pour the caramel ice cream topping over the cake. Spread the whipped topping evenly over the top of cake. Sprinkle the chopped toffee bars over the whipped topping.
Serve immediately or chill up to 24 hours.

My Alterations

I had a bit of evaporated milk left over from a previous cake recipe, so I just used whatever was left in there. I didn’t measure it. I also bought some cream and whipped it up myself, but didn’t add any sugar to it because I figured this cake would be sweet enough!

The directions aren’t entirely clear. Should I have poked holes in both layers of cake? Only spread the caramel topping in the middle of the cake? My husband suggested that I spread whipped cream in the middle of the cake, making it prettier for the pictures (good idea, actually), but that wasn’t stated in the recipe. I just sort of did what I thought it said, which was to poke holes in the bottom cake layer and pour the milk in, spread the caramel on top, and left the top layer for whipped cream and chopped candy only. I used Dime Bars for the topping.

The Result

Very easy to make and put together. The cake itself came out soft and fluffy, as one would expect from a boxed cake mix. No problems with any of it, really.

The Verdict

I like this cake, but I wouldn’t classify it as better than sex. Homework? Of course! But not sex.

It tasted much better warm than cold, and because it has to be stored in the fridge to keep the cream, I wasn’t very happy with it. I don’t like my cakes cold.

The Rating

4/5

Good, but not AMAZING. A lazy cake that’s easy to put together and that will please the crowds. Nothing wrong with that!

Day 27: Jelly Roll

I was really excited to make this cake, because it is a big hit with my family and I’ve always been kind of intimidated by the idea of making it. My baking confidence has increased a lot since starting this blog, so I felt like I could tackle it!

My English husband tells me that this doesn’t qualify as a cake — “It’s a pudding, dear!” — but whatever. It’s a rolled up cake and that’s all there is to it!

Recipe courtesy of Allrecipes.com.

The Recipe

1 cup sifted cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons 2% milk
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar for
dusting
1 cup strawberry jam

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line a 10×15 inch jellyroll pan with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. Stir in the vanilla and milk. Stir in the dry ingredients gradually. The batter will be thin. Pour into the prepared pan.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until the center springs back when pressed lightly. Don’t over bake, or it may crack.
4. Generously dust a clean dish towel with confectioners’ sugar. Turn the cake out onto the towel, and peel off the parchment paper. Gently roll up the cake using the towel, and let cool for about 10 minutes.
5. Unroll the cake, and spread an even coating of jam onto the top. Roll the cake back up into a tight spiral, and remove the towel. Dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

My Alterations

I cut the amounts in half, mainly because I remembered to this time! I need to keep doing that. The recipe wasn’t a simple mix it together and throw it in the oven sort of thing, but it was still pretty simple to put together. The cake rose a lot more than I expected, and it stuck to the baking paper a bit, but I think that was because I got sidetracked with the children and peeled the paper off after the cake cooled for a few minutes.

I think the amount of jam required for this cake is crazy. I just spread some jam on the cake like I would on toast, and probably used about 1/4 cup, if that. I didn’t measure.

The Result

This is a very photographic cake:

I was so pleased with how easy it was to put together, and even though the outside cracked a bit when I rolled it up, I think it is very visually appealing.

The cake itself tastes much like the Victoria Sponge that I made back in the beginning of the month, and is very light. It’s a snacky sort of cake.

The Verdict

I love it! I really enjoyed baking it, and plan on reusing this recipe in the very near future for my children’s school cake table. This recipe will be regularly featured in my home, once we are done eating the cakes I already have in my freezer….

The Rating

5/5

Simple to put together, surprisingly easy to roll up, with a very visually pleasing result. Pretty and tasty. You can’t go wrong there!

Day 26: Amazing Corn Cake

I thought this recipe looked interesting. Corn cake? Surely that is only an ingredient for spicy bread! So I thought I’d try it out.

Recipe from recipe-ideas.co.uk.

The Recipe

1 can (17 ounces) cream-style corn
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp baking powder
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped nuts caramel frosting:
4 tbsp butter or margarine
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar (or mo, re)

Directions

In a mixing bowl, combine corn and sugars. Add eggs and oil; beat
until well blended. Combine dry ingredients; add to batter and mix
well. Stir in raisins and nuts. Pour into a greased 1 3-in. x 9-in. x
2-in. baking pan. Bake at 350! for 30-35 minutes or until cake tests
done. Cool thoroughly. For frosting, bring butter and brown sugar to
a boil over medium heat. Remove from the heat. Stir in milk. Stir in
confectioners’ sugar until frosting is desired consistency. Frost
cooled cake. Yield: 12-15 servings. From the files of Al Rice, North
Pole Alaska. Feb 1994

My Alterations

I actually managed to find creamed corn in my grocery store; I swear that at Thanksgiving time last year, it could not be found anywhere! Perhaps there are more Americans living around here than I thought. I was pleased to find it; this meant I didn’t have to make creamed corn myself just for a cake. Whew!

I didn’t have a pack of raisins on their own, so I used “mixed dried fruit.” This is a combination of raisins, sultanas, and candied orange peel. Possibly something else, but I’m not getting up to look right now.

I made the frosting as stated in the recipe. I was feeling adventurous, what can I say.

The Result

I had forgotten how gross creamed corn looks and smells. When I dumped that can into the bowl, I was really, really tempted to forget this recipe entirely and try something different. Ugh.

I stuck it out, though, and the final batter didn’t taste half bad. The sugars and spices cut down on the gooey corn taste and texture, so that was a relief.

The frosting got really hard when cool, which makes a change from the runny glazes that I normally end up making! It is overpoweringly sweet, but it had a very strong caramel taste to it. The recipe makes far too much icing (as usual) and I only ended up using half of what I made.

The Verdict

Thankfully, this cake doesn’t taste bad at all. Like I said, I was really concerned about the outcome when I opened that can of creamed corn, but the final product was good. I can’t eat more than a small piece, though — the cake is very rich, and the icing is even richer. It would probably taste great alongside a cup of tea or coffee, but I don’t drink them so someone will have to try it out and let me know!

The Rating

3/5

It’s not bad, as such, but I really don’t like it much. Luckily the creamed corn taste isn’t very strong and works well with the other ingredients. Anyone willing to pay for shipment for the rest of the cake in my freezer, you are welcome to it!