Banoffee Pie

by giraffescanbake // March 16, 2014 // 6 Comments

As you probably know, yesterday was Pi Day. I’ll take any excuse to eat pie and it has no calories if I make it myself, right? I went with Banoffee Pie because it’s so yummy and there’s no need to fuss with any pastry if you don’t want to. Banoffee Pie is an English dessert, it’s made from bananas, toffee and fresh whipped cream. Mine also has an oreo crust and shaved chocolate because I’m a firm believer that chocolate makes almost everything better!

In case you hadn’t guessed it yet, it gets its name from smooshing banana and toffee together, like a perfect marriage that rivals even your biggest OTP!

I did make this pie on Pi day, but we had a busy day yesterday and after stuffing our face with these amazing black bean flautas (I know this is a baking blog, but you definitely need to try them they’re so good) it was 11:30pm by the time I finished baking the pie, hence why you’re getting this post a day late!

It’s been a very stressful few days for me. I’m in Atlanta right now and I was supposed to fly home to the UK on Thursday night, but I got to the airport only to be told by the checking in agent that they wouldn’t allow me to fly because my passport had been damaged! And I can tell you this now, it’s a very scary thing to be told you’re being denied permission to fly! It’s going to work out okay, I’m still in the US but I’m taking a trip to the British Embassy on Tuesday to get an emergency travel document so I can fly home without a valid passport on Thursday. It’s going to cost me a small fortune and I’m missing a Fall Out Boy concert, but that’s where pie comes in to make me feel better!

The caramel toffee in a banoffee pie is traditionally made by boiling cans of condensed milk but I have never made it that way, it’s not that hard to do but I’m too impatient to wait the few hours it takes – plus there’s also a danger the can could explode if you don’t keep it fully submerged and that sounds like something that would happen to me! I made my caramel by cooking butter, brown sugar and condensed milk until a caramel formed. I’ll be honest with you, I did over cook mine a little and so I ended up with a very hard caramel, which isn’t necessarily bad it’s just a bit hard to eat in pie form! You want to remove it from the heat once it turns thick and golden.

I used an oreo crust, which I just made by crushing whole oreos and mixing them with melted butter (you can crush them in a food processor or, if your food processor is full of spicy avocado dip like ours was, you can get your happy helper to crush them in a bag like I did, thanks Leah!). Then you press it into your pan and allow to cool and harden. You then pour in the caramel and top with a few banana slices (I like some of the banana to get all set in the set caramel yum) and put in the fridge for at least an hour, until completely cooled. Then top with more sliced bananas, whip up some cream and stir in yet more sliced bananas and spoon it over the pie, then just decorate with shaved chocolate

You can, of course, present this much more neatly. You can pipe on the whipped cream and arrange the bananas on top in pretty patterns instead of stirring them into the cream, but I like it all mixed up in the cream. And honestly, I like the messy rustic look for this pie! You obviously want to keep it chilled, just take it out of the fridge about 15 minutes before you plan to serve it. If you’ve never had banoffee before, trust me you’re gonna love it. There’s something about banana and toffee together that tastes so good, honestly toffee without banana just tastes wrong to me! It’s the perfect end to a very stressful week!

[recipe title=”Banoffee Pie”]

Ingredients

For the base:

300g Oreos, finely crushed
90g melted butter

For the toffee:

100g butter
100g light brown sugar
1 can of sweetened condensed milk (396g can)

For the topping:

3 ripe bananas, sliced
250ml double cream
Shaved chocolate

Method

Grease a 22cm springform tin and line the bottom with parchment paper.
Mix the butter and crushed Oreos and press into the tin to make the crust. Place in the fridge while you make the toffee caramel
To make the toffee, melt the butter and sugar in a non stick pan over a low heat, stirring continuously.
Once the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved, add the condensed milk and mix well.
Bring to a rapid boil, stirring constantly, until you get a thick golden caramel (about 5 mins)
Pour onto the Oreo base and press a few banana slices into the toffee, allow to cool, chill for at least an hour
Remove the pie from the tin and transfer to your serving plate
Place more banana slices over the top, lightly covering it
Whip the cream until you have stiff peaks and gently stir in the remaining sliced bananas
Spoon the cream over the top and sprinkle shaved chocolate over the top (you can use a grater to do this or, to get curls, run a potato peeler down the edge of a bar of chocolate)
Keep chilled and remove from fridge 15 minutes before serving

[/recipe]

Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Pudding Cookies

by giraffescanbake // March 11, 2014 // 14 Comments

Possibly the best cookies in the world!

I don’t even feel bad about making that statement, I mean look at them! They are soft, rich chocolate pudding cookies filled with tonnes of chocolate chips and chunks and stuffed with a sweet and salty peanut butter filling. I sent some with the bestie to work with her and one of her colleagues said they were the best thing she’s ever eaten, so you don’t have to just take my word for it!

I adore pudding cookies, they’re so much softer and fluffier than regular cookies, the pudding keeps them nice and light despite all the chocolate and peanut butter that’s packed into them! And in terms of chocolate these cookies have it all; cocoa powder, chocolate pudding mix, chocolate chips and chopped chocolate. I like to mix chocolate chips and chopped chocolate as it gives you a nice variety of textures and melting. Normal chocolate will melt and ooze, whereas chocolate chips have stabilisers in them to help them keep their shape. We don’t really get pudding mix in the UK but as I’m in the US right now I’ve stocked up on a few boxes and am bringing it back with me so I can have pudding cookies whenever I like!

The peanut butter stuffing is your standard peanut butter filling mix; peanut butter, icing sugar and vanilla. It’s a classic mix and doesn’t need any changing. I mixed up a batch and put in the fridge for 30 minutes to stiffen up. Then just scoop the cookies and roll them into balls, about 2 tbsp per cookie, and flatten them into disks. Roll up a small ball of peanut butter filling, about 1/2 tsp, and place in centre of the cookie disk, roll the cookie around the peanut butter and roll into a ball so none of the filling can be seen. Place on cookie sheet and flatten ever so slightly. Repeat with all cookies. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours – chilling is an important step as it stops the cookies from spreading too much and flattening out.

Bake for about 15 minutes until just set around the edges and tops. It’s easy to over bake dark cookies but you really don’t want to do that with these, so remember that cookies firm up as they cool and there’s nothing wrong with cookies that are slightly under baked!

These are definitely my favourite ever cookies and they’re so versatile. You can stuff them with whatever you like and add nuts, different types of chocolate, marshmallows, anything – the cookie world is your oyster! I’ve made a Nutella stuffed version of these too and I’ll post those up another day. Play around with them though and let me know the results and what you do with them, I’d love to hear about and see your pudding cookie creations!

[recipe title=”Peanut Butter Stuffed Chocolate Pudding Cookies” servings=”Makes approx 24 cookies”]

Ingredients:

2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 box instant chocolate pudding (NOT sugar free or cook-and-serve)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 eggs
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
6oz chopped dark chocolate, chopped

For the Peanut Butter stuffing:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Method:

Mix the peanut butter, icing sugar and vanilla together in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Mix the flour, bicarb and cocoa powder in a bowl and set aside
Combine butter, sugars, pudding mix and vanilla in a mix bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy. Beat in the eggs one at a time until fully combined. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat until just combined, scraping down the sides to make sure all is incorporated.
Stir in chocolate chips and chopped chocolate by hand until evenly dispersed.
Scoop about 2 tbsp of cookie dough per cookie and roll into balls. Place onto lined cookie sheet and flatten into disks. Take peanut butter filling and roll into small balls, about 1/2 tsp per ball, and place in centre of cookie disks. Roll the cookie around the peanut butter filling, ensuring no peanut butter can be seen and roll back into balls. Place on cookie sheet with about 2 inches between each cookie, they shouldn’t spread too much but you want to leave plenty of room either way.
Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours, this will stop the cookies from spreading and flattening out too much.
Preheat the oven to 350F and bake for about 15 minutes, until cookies are just set around edges and tops.
Leave to cool on wire rack. They are great eaten when still warm though (just make sure you let them cool enough so you don’t burn your tongue!)

[/recipe]

More fancy cookies – Viennese Whirls

Pistachio Pudding Cookies – just as yummy!

Love peanut butter? Try these Chocolate and Peanut Butter rolls!

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes

by giraffescanbake // February 28, 2014 // 4 Comments

The chocolatey, hazelnutty goodness of a Ferrero Rocher, all wrapped up into a yummy cupcake

Chocolate and Hazelnut are a match made in heaven, it’s true, I read it in the bible; “and on the 6th day, God created chocolate and hazelnut in His own image, to spend eternity together. However some old dudes heard Him wrong and wrote it down as Adam and Eve”. That’s how it goes in my bible anyway!

And that is why Ferrero Rocher’s are so yummy. And Nutella. And all things Chocolate Hazelnut. The only way to make them better is to put it in a cupcake. Like I said, heaven!

I promised you guys these cupcakes when I shared my Valentine’s Day cakes, sorry it took me so long I’m the worst, I know! The recipe I used was my fave chocolate cake recipe, in this post I’ll give you the recipe for the chocolate hazelnut swiss meringue buttercream and chocolate hazelnut ganache.

What you wanna do is make up a batch of chocolate cupcakes and let cool. Make up the ganache, which is double cream, chocolate and Nutella and leave to cool for about 10 minutes, meanwhile cut circles out of the centre of each cupcake, saving the cut outs. Fill the cupcakes with about a teaspoon of the ganache and replace the centres, trimming them where necessary. Make up the swiss meringue buttercream, it takes a while to make but it’s so so worth it. Before you add the Nutella when making it, set about a quarter of it aside to decorate with. There’s a lot of butter in swiss meringue so make sure you’re working in a cool environment when decorating with it. Swirl the Nutella SMBC on top of the cupcakes and drizzle with some of the ganache. Put a swirl of the white vanilla SMBC on top and place half a Ferrero Rocher on top. Yum!

[recipe title=”Chocolate Hazelnut Ganache”]
Ingredients

115g Nutella (or other chocolate hazelnut butter)
120ml double cream
55g dark, good quality, chocolate, chopped

Method

In a medium saucepan, heat cream over medium low heat.
Stir in Nutella and stir until smooth and combined
Add chocolate and stir until melted
Leave to cool

[/recipe]
[recipe title=”Chocolate Hazelnut Swiss Meringue Buttercream”]
Ingredients

5 large egg whites
1.5 cup sugar
2 cups unsalted butter, cut into cubes and softened
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup nutella

Method

Whisk together the egg whites and sugar in your stand mixer bowl and place it over simmering water. Heat to about 160 degrees F (about 7 minutes), whisking occasionally
Transfer bowl to stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment and beat on medium high speed until mixture cools, doubles in size and forms stiff peaks. This takes about 10 minutes,
Switch to the paddle attachment and add butter one piece at a time, mixing to combine after each addition. The mixture may curdle but keep mixing and it’ll come back together don’t worry.
Add salt and vanilla and mix to combine. Set aside quarter of the frosting aside for the vanilla portion (if you want just Nutella SMBC obviously you don’t need to do this)
Add Nutella to remaining frosting and beat to combine. Use asap.

[/recipe]

Favourite Frostings!

My Favourite Chocolate Cake!

Happy Valentine’s Day

Cadbury Chocolate Fingers Birthday Cake!

by giraffescanbake // February 20, 2014 // 4 Comments

Cadbury fingers make the best kind of birthday cake!

40th Birthday Cadbury Fingers Cake

A friend asked me to make a cake for her friend’s 40th birthday and after some discussion we decided on a cake covered with cadbury fingers. Naturally I was super excited to make it because I LOVE cadbury fingers. She also asked for it to be elegant, and what’s more elegant than roses am I right?! So with the party’s colour scheme in mind I set about creating this cake! It was actually a lot of fun to make and I’m really pleased with how it turned out

40th Birthday Cadbury Fingers Cake

That cake itself is vanilla, filled with fresh whipped cream and strawberry jam. It’s then covered with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, surrounded by the all important cadbury fingers and decorated with fondant roses and flowers! I am sure you’ve seen similar designs many times before, it’s still one of my favourite ways to decorate a cake though! As soon as I can get my hands on a marble slab somehow, I will definitely make a similar cake with chocolate cigarellos. Cigarellos are no match to cadbury fingers in taste, but they definitely have a more dainty, elegant look!

40th Birthday Cupcakes

I also made 60 cupcakes to match, Nasa obviously has a lot more friends than I do! They were all vanilla cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, then decorated to match the colour theme of course. The cupcake toppers were definitely a labour of lover, but they were fun to make and they turned out pretty much how I wanted them too which is always a bonus!

40th Birthday Cupcakes

40th Birthday Cadbury Fingers Cake

40th Birthday Cupcakes

As you may have noticed, this is another post without a recipe attached. I am sorry, I will get up the recipe for the ferrero rocher cupcakes soon, I just wanted to share this cake with you while I don’t have time to write up a recipe or do any baking (“don’t have time” in Michelle language normally translates to “don’t have the energy/am too sick”). I do have plans to bake some chocolate pudding cookies and macarons so maybe I’ll get those up soon too! In the meantime I do hope you enjoy these cakes even if the photos aren’t great!

Have a fab week y’all

Happy Valentine’s Day

by giraffescanbake // February 15, 2014 // 4 Comments

Why have one Valentine’s cake when you can have three!

I bought some super cute Wilton heart pans, they’re only 4″ across but they make for super adorable little heart cakes which are perfect for valentine’s day. Or, if you prefer, “I love me” day! Plus they were only $10 in Target!

I made these for my best friend/other half. I have a terrible track record of messing up cakes I make for her (there’s a certain Mondrian birthday cake we do not talk about) but these turned out really great looking and taste just as good!

All three are the same flavour, I did consider making three different flavours but who has the time for that in one day! They’re chocolate and hazelnut, one of my favourite flavours ever (and also the flavour she chose). Don’t give me access to a jar of nutella and a spoon because the whole thing will be gone in a day! Yum, yum, yummy!

These are my fave chocolate cake recipe with chocolate hazelnut ganache and chocolate hazelnut swiss meringue buttercream. Seeing as I did all three the same flavour, I got creative with the decorating. The first is the Ferrero Rocher cake, the sides are covered with chocolate hazelnut SMBC and chopped hazelnuts and then topped with chocolate hazelnut ganache. There are also a few ferrero rochers hiding inside the cake too!

The second is filled with the SMBC and ganache, then covered in SMBC. Then I surrounded it with Cadbury’s Chocolate Fingers and topped it with V Day themed M&M’s. I know this design has been done by everybody and their mother, but it’s one of my favourite designs and one I’ll never get tired of (There’s a two tier cake I did last month with chocolate fingers that I’ve not shared with y’all yet and it’s one of my favourites!). Besides, cadbury fingers are like crack, how could you ever get bored of them?!

The last is my least favourite. It’s filled with the SMBC and ganache and then decorated with the SMBC in kind of roses. The problem I had here was I was using a large open star nozzle to do the roses (I’m currently in Atlanta so don’t have all my decorating supplies to hand) which is doomed to fail considering the cake is only a 4″! Plus it was snowing and icy outside so the heating was nice and high, giving me a very unworkable buttercream, with the amount of butter there is in SMBC working in warm temperatures is never easy!

I also made some cupcakes to go with them because why not! There’s a lot of cake in this apartment right now (such a horrid problem to have, I know!). I’m gonna do a full post on the cupcakes with the recipe (which I used for all three cakes and the cupcakes) next week. For now here’s a taster:

I hope you all have a lovely Valentine’s Day! If you’re not celebrating it or hate it, then I hope you have a happy Friday with lots of love and happiness! If you’re single today, please don’t be sad about it, go out and buy yourself something nice because you are fab and you deserve it! And whether or not you’re in a relationship, treat somebody you love to something nice, even if it’s just some nice words or some novelty chocolate, while I agree you should love and appreciate those you care about all year round today is a great day to spoil them a little extra 🙂 Have a great day my lovelies, I’ll see you next week!

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