King Cake Crepes

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // February 15, 2015 // 33 Comments

Crepes with a cinnamon filling, drizzled with cream cheese sauce and lots of sprinkles. Perfect for breakfast or dessert

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This Tuesday, February 17th, is what we in the UK call Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday – it’s the day before lent and pancakes are eaten to use up all the rich foods in the house ready for fasting. In other parts of the world it’s called Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday and is marked with parades and celebrations – the same principle applies, it’s about a last hurrah before the lenten season. I knew I wanted to make something to celebrate the day and decided on crepes, a very thin French pancake. When I was deciding to what to put in the crepes I was thinking about Mardi Gras and a big tradition in New Orleans on Mardi Gras is to eat something called King Cake – which is kind of like one big, round cinnamon bun with yellow, green and purple sprinkles. And so these King Cake Crepes were born! King Cake Crepes – try saying that three times fast!

In the UK we traditionally will make pancakes that are similar to crepes, but a bit thicker and with less rich ingredients, then we serve them with lemon juice and caster sugar – it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s honestly so good! I shared British pancakes on the blog last year actually. Crepes are a little trickier to make since they’re so thin, it took me a few goes to get the hang of frying them but once you get into the swing of things it becomes pretty easy – if it’s your first time making crepes, just be prepared for a few practice pancakes first! A good non stick frying pan is key here, because you really don’t want to use a lot of butter when greasing. Since crepes are so thin, you don’t actually need to fry them both sides so if you’re worried about flipping you can skip that – I like to cook them through on one side and then flip and fry the other side for 15 or so seconds to get a bit of colour on both sides.

How fun are these crepes though? I always love taking a type of food and recreating it with something completely different, it’s a lot of fun and you get all the yummy flavours of the food you love, but with different textures and ways of eating it. Now I have never actually eaten a King Cake before, but I’ve eaten more than my fair share of cinnamon buns over the years and I can tell you that these crepes really do do the flavours justice. The sweet cinnamon filling rolled up in the thin pancakes and smothered in sweet, tangy cream cheese sauce is so good, and the soft crepes, thick filling, creamy sauce make for amazing textures, particularly when you add in the crunch of the sprinkles! You’ve probably noticed I’ve used pink sprinkles here, I didn’t have any purple!

Since I was only making these for me, the recipe only makes about 8 crepes (depending on how big you make them), but it’s easily doubled if you have more people to serve. Or halved if you don’t want 8 – although if it’s your first time making crepes I would keep the quantities the same because you’ll probably lose your first few while you get the hang of it!

As I said before, Pancake Day and Mardi Gras are celebrated the day before lenten season starts – traditionally Christians would fast during Lent but these days most people give up a bad habit or certain foods. I don’t tend to observe lent, although some years I do like to use the time to take up something new, kind of like a new years resolution I guess, something to improve my life or mind. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to pick something up this year. What about you? Are you giving up anything for Lent? Or are you planning on taking up a new hobby or practice?

These crepes are going to be super yummy no matter what time of year you make them – take off the sprinkles and you have cinnamon roll crepes, amazing! Whenever you decide you want crepes, you definitely need to try these ones, they’re so good! You need them in your life, trust me!

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Red Velvet Pancakes

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // February 13, 2015 // 63 Comments

Happy Galentine’s Day! No, that isn’t a typo! Those of you who are fan’s of the awesome show, Parks & Recreation, know what I’m talking about. Galentine’s Day is celebrated on February 13th and is a day for women to leave significant others behind and hang out with their lady friends and have breakfast (if your S/O is also a lady, you can bring her along too) – ladies celebrating ladies! That’s my kind of holiday – breakfast foods and supportive female friendships! And is there anything more wonderful than female friendships? Or just women supporting other women? Us ladies have got to look out for each other, particularly when a lot of the world is constantly trying to tear us down by telling us we’re too fat or too thin, we wear too much make up or not enough, be attractive but don’t have any self confidence lest you be vain, don’t be a prude but don’t be too sexual either… the list goes on! It can be hard being woman sometimes, so today is about celebrating the unequivocal love and support that empowered women give other women – from genuine compliments given without strings attached, to unwavering emotional support, to dedicated commitment to friendship, and everything in between. Uteruses before duderuses!

“We need to remember what’s important in life: friends, pancakes, work. Or pancakes, friends, work. Doesn’t matter, but work is third.” – Leslie Knope (kind of)

I thought about baking something for Valentine’s Day but I don’t really care for the holiday, but Galentine’s Day I am all over! And what better way to celebrate than with red velvet pancakes? They’re full of love and yummy goodness! I wanted to cut them into heart shapes but my heart cutter seems to have gone walkabouts, so questionable rounds it is! And you can’t have red velvet without cream cheese, so it has a sweet cream cheese topping to really push it over the tasty top.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that doesn’t stop being true on special holidays, these red velvet pancakes will definitely be a winner for your loved one(s) whichever of the two loved filled holidays you’re celebrating – or both! I do encourage you to try celebrating Galentine’s Day though, it doesn’t have to be on February 13th – just any morning you and your lady friends can get together and enjoy breakfast foods and good company – and you’ll totally impress them with these yummy pancakes! I won’t be offended if you choose to make these for Valentine’s Day breakfast though, your S/O will be a very lucky person! Valentine’s Day also happens to be my cat’s birthday, which is it’s own reason to celebrate

And hey, if you’re single this Valentine’s Day and not too happy about it, these bright and delicious pancakes will be sure to cheer up your morning and make the day ahead a lot easier! Although I do feel obliged to tell you that you are awesome and you don’t need another person to validate how awesome you are, so treat yourself this weekend and celebrate you, you deserve it! P.S. It’s totally okay to want somebody to share life with you in a romantic way though, just know you’re wonderful by yourself too!

Now, let’s talk about these pancakes – they’re soooo good. They’re moist and fluffy with a wonderful vanilla flavour and that subtle hint of chocolate – it really is like eating red velvet cake for breakfast, but in a less frowned upon form than a big slice of cake (I fully support cake for breakfast though). And the sweet and tangy cream cheese topping drizzled all over compliments the buttery sweet pancakes perfectly, this really is a mouth watering breakfast or brunch. And the colour is just so fun and festive, they’re sure to make you and your loved ones smile – what a fun, special breakfast for the kids too!

To make these amazing pancakes buttermilk is an absolute must, there’s no way around it I’m afraid – but worry not, it’s easy to make your own, just add 1 tbsp of lemon juice or white vinegar to each 500ml of milk, whisk and let stand for 5-10 minutes, then you’re good to go! The acidity combined with the bicarb/baking soda is what makes these pancakes so fluffy, and it also gives you that unique red velvet taste! These pancakes have red food dye in them to make them a fabulous bright red, but the first hint of redness comes from the acidity of the vinegar reacting with the cocoa powder – you can make red velvet without need for dye at all (it just won’t be very bright!).

I only wish my photos did these pancakes justice, my photography skills were lacking more than usual when trying to take these I don’t know what it was! I bought a tripod and a wire shutter release for my camera and this was my first time using them, I think I just need to get the hang of them a little better maybe. I also need a better staging area, but that’s always been true! I’ll get there eventually, I’m sure. In the mean time, you’ll just have to make these pancakes yourself so you can fully appreciate them in all their glory – see what I did there?!

I’m going to bring these delicious pancakes along to Fiesta Friday today to celebrate Galentine’s Day with all those wonderful people (if you’re not a lady, you can have some of these pancakes as a Valentine’s treat instead!) So happy Galentine’s Day y’all and happy Valentine’s Day for tomorrow. An extra special Galentine’s greeting to our wonderful host Angie and co-hosts this week – Suzanne and Sue 😀

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Red Velvet Pancakes with Cream Cheese Topping

2015-02-11 23:06:47

Yields 12

Delicious moist and fluffy red velvet pancakes with a sweet and tangy cream cheese topping

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For the pancakes

250g plain flour (all purpose)
40g cocoa powder, sifted
70g caster sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
280ml buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp white vinegar
100 unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled (plus extra for greasing griddle)
Red food colouring, approx 1tsp gel

For cream cheese topping

100g cream cheese
100g icing sugar (powdered/confectioners)
1 tbsp milk

Instructions

Put the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, bicarb and salt on a bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.
In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla and vinegar. Add butter (it can be warm, but not hot) and whisk again to combine.
Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and whisk to combine well. Add the food colouring, how much you add depends on what type you use and how bright you want it, add a little at a time until you get your desired colour. The colour of the pancakes will turn out pretty much the same colour as the batter, so it's a good indicator.
Heat griddle/pan on a medium heat/flame and grease with a little butter. Pour batter on griddle, use about 1/4 cup batter per pancake, and cook for about 1 and a half minutes, when the edges are bubbly and starting to look dull, flip and cook for another 1 and a half minutes.
Keep pancakes in warm oven while cooking rest.
To make the topping, put all ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine. Pour generously over stack and serve

Notes

Pancakes will keep well wrapped in the freezer for up to 2 months

By Michelle @ Giraffes Can Bake

A Tipsy Giraffe https://www.atipsygiraffe.com/

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Parsnip and Raspberry Cupcakes with Raspberry Swirl Cream Cheese Frosting

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // September 22, 2014 // 26 Comments

Last week (September 15th-21st) was National Cupcake Week in the UK and I only found out on Saturday, this happens to me every year! So yesterday I decided to celebrate the last day by developing a new cupcake flavour – and so parsnip and raspberry cupcakes with raspberry swirl cream cheese frosting were born!

I love putting vegetables in cake, they give the cake a moistness you can’t really get any other way. The parsnip in these cupcakes also give them a depth of sweetness you just can’t get with sugar, they lend themselves really well to cupcakes and I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to bake with parsnips! It’s weird though, when I told people I was putting parsnip in cake they were confused – the same thing happened when I made sweet potato cupcakes – yet nobody bats an eyelid at the idea of carrot cake! I made my mum taste these cupcakes before I would tell her what was in them so her opinion wasn’t swayed by the unusual ingredient – she loved them. She said she could taste something but couldn’t put her finger on what it was, when I told her it was parsnip she was surprised but definitely a convert!

I didn’t want to use just parsnip and raspberries really compliment the parsnip and spices in this cake, it’s definitely a winning combination. The raspberry flavour comes from a homemade raspberry sauce and raspberry cider. I’ve been baking a lot with raspberries at the moment, I want to use them as much as possible while they’re still in season, and Tesco’s raspberries have been really good lately! I’ve bought a bunch that I’ve frozen to use in smoothies later!

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Peach and Basil Cheese Danish

by giraffescanbake // May 16, 2014 // 83 Comments

Peach and Basil Cheese Danish

Yummy cheese danishes with a twist. Perfect for my second Fiesta Friday and my first FF Challenge!

After attending Fiesta Friday last week and having a blast, I knew I would be back! I met so many great bloggers and found so many lovely recipes, it feels great to be a part of it. For my second week I’m bringing along some lovely peach and basil cheese danish, I approached these very cautiously but they came out so much better than I ever could have imagined. The anise flavour in the basil compliments the juicy peach so perfectly, it’s a combination I’ll definitely be using more in the future! The danish pastry is so flaky and buttery, I had to give myself a pat on the back for making it so well on my first attempt! I am very happy to be entering these into the first FF challenge and I can’t wait to see what everybody else has made for it!

I have never made Danish pastry from scratch before, in fact I very rarely make any kind of pastry from scratch. My only excuse for that is that I’m lazy and the pre-made stuff turns out just fine. So approaching this bake was a bit of a nerve wracking one, I was sure something would go horribly wrong. However, one the required ingredients for the challenge is yeast so I knew I had to make this from scratch! I was pleasantly surprised by how easy the process is, I mean sure it’s labour intensive and it takes a long time but it certainly isn’t complicated. And despite it’s simpleness, successfully making it from scratch on my first attempt sure does make me feel accomplished. I want to make myself a little medal that says “made danish pastry from scratch and it was yummy” and wear it all the time! So if, like me, you’ve never done this before and you’re a bit unsure I say go for it! It’s easier than you think and the bragging rights are totally worth it!

At the bottom of this post I have included step-by-step instructions, with photos, on how I made it to help you along. I read a lot (A LOT) of blogs and recipes for danish pastry dough before making this and while most of them follow a similar vein, the one I found most helpful was by Joe Pastry, for the most part I used his recipe (with just a few tweaks) and his instructions on how to laminate the pastry (i.e. fold it to create layers) were super easy to follow. There’s a lot of great tips on his site so I definitely recommend checking it out. Most resources will tell you to use Danish butter to get an authentic Danish pastry taste, and while the Danish butter may be higher in fat and have a slightly tangier taste I personally don’t think it’s necessary if you don’t have easy and cheap access to it, a high quality butter will work fine I am sure. I, however, did use Danish butter because I live in the UK and it’s readily and cheaply available to us here.

The other required ingredient for the challenge was a herb. I knew I wanted to make something sweet because that’s what I do best (I’ve yet to post a savoury recipe to this blog!) and basil was the first thing that came to mind. Basil is a staple in Italian cooking but due to it’s sweet anise like flavour, it can be a great addition to a sweet dish. I’ve never actually had basil with peaches before, but the idea of the sweet, juicy peaches combined with the fragrant basil really struck me as great. And I wasn’t disappointed. This is a flavour combination you just have to try to understand how yummy it is.

I used canned peaches in this recipe for two reasons. The first being that my local supermarket didn’t have any fresh peaches and the second being that I have a bad history with trying to peel peaches – Leah (the BFF) and I made peach cobbler once and while the results were scrummy, it took us a very long time to peel the peaches. The quickest way to apparently peel a peach is to drop them in boiling water for 30 seconds and then immediately transfer them to ice cold water, the skins are supposed to slip right off. It didn’t work out that way for us and we had a very frustrating hour removing all the skins! So I decided not to risk that fiasco again and went for the can! Fresh peaches may have produced a fresher result and please feel free to use them instead, but the canned ones worked out great and it left me with lots of peach juice to use in the glaze!

There then is, of course, the cream cheese filling. I’m a huge fan of cream cheese in any dessert and there’s no better dessert to pair it with than a Danish! The beautiful pastry is oozing with the sweet cheese filling, it also has a peach and cream cheese glaze to top it off and create my new favourite Danish pastry! Honestly, these are so yummy I’m having to force myself not to eat them all up! My mum is also pretty mad at me because she’s just started a new diet so she can’t have any!

I will be bringing plenty along to FF16 so I hope you guys enjoy them as much as I did! I can’t wait to try what everybody else brought along. And of course a big thank you to Angie for hosting this and Catherine for co-hosting the challenge! You should definitely check out their blogs if you haven’t already, so many wonderful things you’ll be there for days! Thank you to Stacey and Elaine for co-hosting this week’s Fiesta Friday with Angie, I have only been introduced to their blogs today but already I can see they are wonderful, please do check them out if you haven’t already – I’ll be delving deeper once I’ve finished with this post!

And now for the recipe! A step-by-step photo guide for the pastry will follow the initial recipe.

[recipe title=”Danish Pastry Dough”]
Ingredients

2/3 cup milk, room temperature
2 tbsp caster sugar
7g package instant active yeast
2.5 cups plain/AP flour + 2 tbsp (plus more for flouring the surface)
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, room temperature
250g butter, room temperature

Method

Combine the milk, sugar, yeast, 2.5 cups flour, salt and egg using a dough hook in a stand mixer. Mix for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth, it will be pretty sticky still. Place the dough in a bowl and cover, leave to rise at room temperature for 30 minutes. Then place in fridge for at least 1 hour.
When you’re ready to start folding and layering your dough, you need to make your butter slab. Lay out a double layer of plastic wrap and place the butter on top, cover with the 2tbsp flour. Place another double layer of plastic wrap over the top. Using a large rolling pin beat the butter until it is mostly flat. Pull up the plastic wrap and roughly cut the slab into a square, placing the cuttings back on top. Repeat the beating process! You’re done when the butter is a play-doh like consistency, and not greasy looking at all. Once you have this, use the rolling pin to push it into a rough square and set aside.
Remove your dough from the fridge and on a floured surface roll it into a rough square, slightly bigger than your butter slab. Place the butter slab on top and fold the dough around it like an enevelope. Seal all the seams.
Now you want to grab your rolling pin and lightly beat the edges of the dough/butter packet to encourage the butter to come to the edge. Then roll out it into a rectangle.
Fold the dough like a letter – bring one side in the centre and then fold the other side over that. Place back in the fridge for 20 minutes. Then roll out into a rectangle and fold again. You’ll want to repeat this process until you’ve folded it four times.
Place the dough back into the fridge for at least 30 minutes (up to 3 days) or until ready to use. You could also freeze some of the dough to use at a later stage if you wish.

[/recipe]

[recipe title=”Pastry Fillings”]

Ingredients

For the peach and basil filling:

1 can of peaches, drained and juice reserved (or 2 cups of fresh peaches). Chopped into large chunks
2 tbsp corn flour
3 tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped
1/4 cup honey
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg

For the cream cheese filling:

115g full fat cream cheese
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C/350F and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper
Toss the chopped peaches in the cornflour and put in a small saucepan. Add the basil, honey, lemon juice, zest and cinnamon. Bring to the boil and heat on high for 2 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer for a further 10 minutes. Remove from heat and leave to cool
Mix together all the cream cheese filling ingredients using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment or beaters until fully combined.
Remove the pastry dough and cut in half. Replace one half in the fridge until ready to use. Roll the over half out into a long rectangle. Cover half the rectangle in half of the cream cheese filling and fold the non cream cheesed half of the dough over it.
Using a pizza cutter (or pastry cutter if you’re fancy), cut into strips about 1inch thick. Stretch the strips out and then twist them into a spiral. Then coil it around itself to make a spiral/pinwheel. Repeat with all the strips and place them onto a lined baking tray. Create a well in the centre of each pastry. Mix the remaining egg with a splash of water and brush the pastries with them
Fill with about a tbsp of the peach and basil mix.
Bake for 20-30 minutes (mine took 30 as I have a cold oven) until the pastry is golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire rack
Repeat with the other half of the dough.

[/recipe]

[recipe title=”Peach and Cream Cheese Glaze”]
Ingredients

3 tbsp cream cheese
2 tbsp peach juice (reserved from draining canned peaches)
4 tbsp caster sugar

Method:

Mix all the ingredients together until smooth. Spoon into a piping bag and snip off the tip. Pipe the glaze over the cooled pastries, using as much as personally desired

[/recipe]

How to fold the dough and create the pinwheels (apologies for the poor quality of these photos)

Place your butter on a double layer of plastic wrap. Sprinkle flour on top and and place another double layer of plastic wrap over the top. Beat with a rolling pin until flat. Cut into rough square and place cuttings on top, beat again and shape into a rough square

Roll your dough out into a rough square that is slightly larger than the butter slab

Place the butter slab on top like so…

Fold the corners of the dough around the butter slab and seal the edges

Lightly beat the edges of the package with the rolling pin, turning as you do. Do each edge about 5 times, to encourage the butter to the edge of the dough. Then roll out into a long rectangle

Then fold like a letter, like so

Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes, roll out again and fold like a letter again. Repeat this so you’ve folded it 4 times. Then wrap in plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes

Don’t panic when you open the fridge and it’s ballooned up, I was surprised when this happened but it’s normal. The following was after 24 hours in the fridge

Once you’re ready to start shaping your pastries, remove the dough from the fridge and cut in half. Replace one half into the fridge for later (or freeze it if you want to save it – the full dough makes about 12 pastries)

Look at all those lovely layers

Roll out into a long rectangle. Cover the lower half of the rectangle in half of the cream cheese filling and fold the other half of the dough over. Cut into 1inch thick strips and stretch out each strip

Twist the strips into a spiral

Coil into a pinwheel. Place on the lined baking tray and make a well in the centre. Brush with egg wash.

Fill with the peach and basil mix and bake!

I hope these photos helped explain my process better! Let me know if you have any questions. Do check out Joe Pastry’s “How to Laminate” post for more tips and photos!

Have a great Friday everybody!