Pistachio Macarons

by giraffescanbake // April 5, 2014 // 2 Comments

I have a baker’s confession to make; I have lived in the south east of England for the majority of my life and I have never once been to Paris. It’s shameful, I know. I’m just a train ride away from so many beautiful and classic baked delicacies and I’ve never taken advantage of it. I don’t know how I live with myself to be quite honest (Note: I have been to France, once, but not Paris). It’s okay, I understand if you want to publicly shame me for this, you can do so in the comments!

My second confession as a baker is I’m not a huge fan of macarons. You can argue with me about the correct spelling, but in England a macaroon is a coconut cookie (see here). Okay, back to the French cookie, I don’t dislike them but they’ll never be my first choice and I don’t really get what all the fuss is about. Yet, I still made it my mission to make successful macarons – just to prove I could. Baking is kind of a competition to me, where I’m competing with my own self doubt. And when my self doubt wins, well I tend to throw a little tantrum and refuse to attempt it again for years! The first time I tried to make macarons it was a bit of a disaster, that was about 3 years ago. Fast forward to 2014 and here I am, a successful macaron baker! Yay me!

Okay, so they’re definitely not the prettiest macarons but they ARE macarons. These pistachio macarons are light and fluffy, they have feet and they’re super tasty (according to the macaron lovers I had taste test them!). My biggest issues in making this were trying to grind the pistachios in a mini food processor (I definitely didn’t have a smooth enough batter) and my oven temperature in Atlanta is a bit wonky so baking time was a guessing game! Overall though, I’m very pleased with how they came out. I had planned to never make them again after I got them right, but I think a couple people may have something to say about that unfortunately! Oh well, I bake to please!

Before making these I did lots of internet research to find tips on how to make them successfully and found an excellent post from Food Nouveau. That post is definitely your one stop shop on the world of making macarons, it has everything you need to know with really clear instructions! They also have a link to a bunch of different flavour recipes too! One of the tips they give is to make plain macarons your first time out, of course I didn’t listen! I really like pistachio and I thought this was going to be my only time making them. I’m a rebel, what can I say! That being said, if this is your first time making macarons, I implore you to read that whole post before attempting this recipe as I won’t be able to go into as much detail as they did.

Another rule I didn’t follow is the ageing of the egg whites. I’m an impatient fool and I wanted to make them right then! Honestly I don’t think it’s entirely necessary (but who knows, maybe I would have had a smoother batter if I’d aged them). What I did was place the whole eggs in warm water for about 3 minutes before separating them. One tip that is important to follow though is exact measurements for the cookies, you need a scale rather than cups to be as accurate as possible.

[recipe title=”Pistachio Macarons”]
Ingredients

For the cookies:

3 egg whites, room temperature
205 g icing sugar
125 g powdered almonds (almond flour/meal)
20 g unsalted and shelled pistachios
30 g caster sugar
Green gel food colouring

For the buttercream:

45 g unsalted and shelled pistachios
1 cup icing sugar
6 tbsp butter, unsalted
½ tsp vanilla extract

Method

To make the cookies:

Finely grind the pistachios in a food processor. Add the icing sugar and powdered almond and grind for a few minutes. Sift the mixture into a large bowl to ensure no larger lumps remain, throw away anything that doesn’t make it through the sieve. Set aside.
Whisk the egg whites on a medium/high speed in a stand mixer for a couple of minutes, then add a tablespoon of the caster sugar. Continue to beat while you slowly add the remaining sugar. Beat until the egg whites are stiff and creamy.
Fold in the food colouring gently with a rubber spatula, add a few drops at a time until you get your desired colour.
Very delicately fold in the nut and icing sugar mixture in a few additions. Make sure no pockets of dry ingredients remain but do not beat!
Prepare your baking sheet by lining with parchment paper. I also slipped a template underneath to get my cookies evenly sized (this is the template I used), just make sure to slide the template out before placing the baking sheet in the oven
Spoon your batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip and pipe rounds of batter, evenly spaced. They can be close together as they won’t expand much.
Let your macarons rest on the baking sheet for a minimum of 20 minutes, I left mine for about 45 minutes. Make sure a skin has formed before baking. Preheat the oven to 300F/150C.
Bake macarons for about 15 minutes. You can test them by gently tapping the top, they are ready when they are firm on their feet.
Leave the cool while you make the buttercream

To make the buttercream:

Finely grind the pistachios in the food processor. Add the icing sugar and grind some more.
Cream this mixture with the softened butter until you reach a buttercream like consistency.
Blend in the vanilla extract. If the mixture is too thick, add a little bit of cream or milk until you get the right consistency (and vice versa)
Pipe the buttercream onto the flat side of one cookie and sandwich with another, repeat for all cookies
Store at room temperature in an air tight container. They’ll taste even better the next day!

[/recipe]

Devil’s Food Cake

by giraffescanbake // March 30, 2014 // 12 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day everybody!

Today is Mother’s Day in the UK and to celebrate I made my mum a yummy devil’s food cake, complete with fresh whipped cream, chocolate ganache and chocolate truffles! If you’re gonna do chocolate, you may as well go all out! This recipe will be for the devil’s food cake, you can pair it with whatever you like of course (white cloud frosting is an excellent pairing)!

I got this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction, and I can tell you right now I didn’t change a thing! I adore her blog and all of her recipes (her cookbook is on my wish list on amazon too!), you should definitely check her out.

This recipe calls for a cup of strong, hot coffee. Coffee is one of those things that brings out the flavours in chocolate, you add it to your chocolate cake recipe and instantly you’ve intensified your chocolate goodness! This is actually the first time I’ve added coffee to chocolate cake, which is terrible I know, but I have this crazy aversion to coffee I violently hate it. And although I knew in theory that I wouldn’t be able to taste the coffee, I was convinced I would be able to! Of course, I couldn’t taste it at all in this cake and I’m now cursing myself for being such a baby and not doing this sooner. This cake is so rich and fudgy and just delightful, everything a devil’s food cake should be!

I said above that I didn’t change anything in this recipe and there’s good reason for that. Every single ingredient is perfectly matched with what you want this cake to come out like. The oil makes it lovely and moist, butter would only distract from the deep chocolate flavour. You want to use natural unsweetened cocoa for this cake, do not use dutch processed or the bicarb won’t react with the cocoa and you won’t get that gorgeous reddish tint and that distinctive flavour. And if you take away the buttermilk you won’t get such a moist crumb (Sally said to trust her on that and I did!). Then of course without the coffee that chocolate certainly won’t hit you so hard. All that’s left are your sugar, flour and eggs – you of course need the eggs to be room temperate as is true with pretty much any baking. If, like me, you always forget to take your eggs out of the fridge you can bring them to room temperature by letting them sit in warm to hot water for about 5 minutes.

This cake has a nice quick bake on it too, you definitely don’t want to over bake it and take away any of that moistness (count how many times I’ve said “moist” in this post!). Share the batter between two 9″ sandwich tins and bake for about 25 minutes or until your cake tester comes out clean. My cake is actually a 6″ as I made cupcakes out of it too! You can then fill and ice it with whatever you love with chocolate, my pairings definitely made it all that much richer but I think this cake would be great with milk chocolate frosting as Sally had it or even vanilla, yum!

This one’s for you mum, thanks for being the best mum ever! (and she enjoyed it very much!)

[recipe title=”Devil’s Food Cake”]

Ingredients

1 and 3/4 cups plain flour
1 and 3/4 cups caster sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not dutch processed)
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 tps salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed strong hot coffee

Method

Preheat oven to 350F/170C. Grease and line two 9″ cake pans
Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt and set aside
Combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla using a stand mixer or hand mixer then gradually add the dry ingredients with the mixer on low. Add the coffee. You will have a very thin, water like batter – don’t worry, it’s supposed to be like that!
Pour the batter evenly between the tins and bake for approx 25 mins or until your cake tester comes out clean.
Leave to cool in pan for 5 minutes, then turn out on wire rack and leave to cool completely before filling and frosting

[/recipe]

Happy Birthday to Me!

by giraffescanbake // March 29, 2014 // 1 Comment

Yep, today is my birthday. I’m a little upset about creeping closer and closer to the big 3-0, but it’s nothing a little cake can’t fix!

That’s right, I did make my own birthday cupcakes, but that’s okay. Really it’s just an extra treat for me! These are some beautiful fudgy devil’s food cake cupcakes, but the recipe I’ll be sharing with you today is the devilishly sweet frosting on top. It’s called white cloud frosting and it tastes like marshmallow in frosting form! I won’t lie to you, I’m definitely more of a buttercream girl but this is still a yummy one! If you like your sweets teeth achingly sweet, this is definitely the one for you!

The sweetness of the frosting is a great compliment on the deeply chocolatey devil’s food cake too. Don’t worry, I will be posting the cake recipe tomorrow. Two posts in one weekend, I’m going wild I know! But tomorrow is Mother’s Day here in the UK and I will be making my mum a special devil’s food cake with fresh whipped cream for the occasion! So you won’t have to wait long if you want to pair these two beauties together like I did!

This frosting doesn’t contain any butter or icing sugar, it’s sweetened with syrup and of course the meringue like texture comes from whipped egg whites. Most recipes you find online will call for corn syrup, that’s not something we have much of in the UK so I used golden syrup. You could also use maple syrup or liquid glucose. I used liquid glucose in my first batch, which failed miserably because I have a really terrible stand mixer (if anybody wants to donate me a kitchenaid or other decent stand mixer, please feel free!!) I used up all my glucose in the first lot, so the second batch I used golden syrup. I was worried I would lose the bright white colour you want with this frosting, but while it was slightly golden at first it went white once it was finished!

It’s nice and quick to whip up too, especially compared to my fave – swiss meringue buttercream. You beat egg whites until foamy and then slowly add a little caster sugar, beating until soft peaks form. Then you boil the syrup and pour into the egg whites and beat until stiff peaks form. The heat of the syrup will cook the egg whites enough so you don’t have to worry about raw eggs in your frosting! Then just stir in vanilla and you’re done! This recipe makes enough to frost about 12 cupcakes, it doesn’t keep very well so you want to use it all up! Don’t be shy with that frosting!

Today I don’t think I’ll do much else but eat cake and drink some wine. I think I’ll cook up some black bean and kale burgers too! I’m getting boring in my old age, I know!

[recipe title=”White Cloud Frosting”]
Ingredients

2 egg whites, at room temperature
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup golden syrup
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

Method

In a clean, dry bowl beat the egg whites and salt on a high speed until foamy. You’ll want to use a stand mixer if possible, but I used a hand mixer with my second batch and it works just fine (you just might get a bit of arm ache!)
While the mixer is running, slowly add the sugar. Beat until it forms soft peaks.
Put the syrup in a small saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Once its come to boil, remove from heat. While the mixer is running on high, slowly pour the syrup into the egg mixture (be careful, the last thing you want is boiling syrup on your skin – trust me!). Beat the mixture until stiff peaks form, this will take about 5 minutes.
Add the vanilla and stir to combine.
Use the frosting right away. Add sprinkles asap as a thin layer will form and your sprinkles won’t stick (and what’s a birthday cake without sprinkles?)

[/recipe]
Have a great day, I’ll see you all tomorrow!

Cocoa Brownies

by giraffescanbake // March 23, 2014 // 7 Comments

These are super fudgy and chocolatey brownies that are made with cocoa powder rather than solid chocolate, crazy right?

I was having a major brownie craving but I didn’t have your traditional brownie ingredients in the house. I did however have cocoa, so I threw caution to the wind and these were born! It was the best decision I’ve made in recent history.

Like most of you probably are, I was put off by the idea of making cocoa brownies. What’s the point in eating brownies if they’re not perfect! But when the craving becomes too strong, you can’t be held responsible for your actions. After some searching on the internet I found this recipe that was adored by so many blogs I came across, the recipe is originally by Alice Medrich and since trying it by myself I can see why everybody was raving! It ticks every brownie box and then some, fudgy delightfulness in every single bite!

I have a shameful history with brownies. I tried to make them many, many years ago and they came out rock solid (I’m pretty sure J K Rowling modelled Hagrid’s rock cakes on my brownies) and I was distraught. That was about 10 years ago, this is only the second time I’ve made them since (I don’t deal with failure well!), and what a way to restore my brownie making faith in myself! I really do urge you to give these a go the next time you have a real brownie craving and only have cocoa in the cupboards, you won’t regret it and neither will your tummy!

These brownies are made pretty similarly to your regular brownies and you can do it by hand. You melt the butter, sugar, cocoa and salt together. Let it cool if it’s hot and add the eggs and vanilla, beat the mixture until it’s smooth and shiny and add the flour. Beat hard for a couple of minutes, giving you a pretty thick mixture. I had some m&ms laying around so I mixed those in too. Then bake for no more than 30 minutes and voila, yumminess is in your hands (make sure they’re gloved hands, no burns please!).

[recipe title=”Cocoa Brownies”]
Ingredients

140g unsalted butter
250g caster sugar
75g unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
60g all purpose flour

Method

Preheat the oven to 325F/160C and grease and line 8×8 baking pan.
In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, cocoa and salt and melt in the microwave in 30 seconds intervals, stirring between until all melted.
If the mixture is hot, leave to cool slightly as you don’t want to cook the eggs!
Using a wooden spoon, stir in the vanilla. Then beat in the eggs one at a time, combining each time until batter is thick and shiny.
Add the flour and stir vigorously for a couple minutes. Stir in any nuts or chocolate chips you may be adding.
Pour into pan and spread evenly.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until a skewer comes out almost clean, a few moist crumbs is good, you just don’t want them still wet and you definitely don’t want to over bake them!
Leave them to cool on a wire rack before cutting into squares. Put them in the fridge for a few hours to get nice clean lines when you cut them!

[/recipe]

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]