Left over cream + Blackberries + Digestives = Blackberry Mess.
Less than 5 minutes to make but sooooo good. I whipped the cream with vanilla sugar, added the blackberries and stabbed (to release juices not for violent pleasure). Crumbled over some digestive biscuits say Bismillah and eat.
Sad.
😦
I waited all week for my bananas to ripen, warned the main monkey of the house several times to keep his paws (do monkeys have paws?) off the last three so I could make my favourite banana muffins. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men…
Looks like he spent a little too much time in the sun right? He was baking and the smell from the oven was Mmmm but a mini monkey called out for a night time feed (this was past 9 of course, to allow for maximum concentration). I left directions with Main monkey but 5 minutes later I could smell the scent of sugar burning. My sweet sweet muffins were scorching!
Oh the agony!
I’m not being melodramatic here, I could literally feel my gut wrenching at the though of my ruined bundles of golden joy. I had invested so much thought and planning and to see it all go to pot in the space of 5 minutes was too much for me. You know when you plan something to the very last detail but right at the last hurdle something goes wrong and that feeling of ‘Why does everything have to go wrong?’ hovers above your heart. I was having one of those moments.
“…and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know.”[2:216, al-Qur’an]
I was taking this too seriously, its only a muffin for goodness sake. And even if it wasn’t a muffin and this was something that was actually serious then I should still have remembered that Allah is the best of planners.
Moral of the story always check the oven before you attend to children! And know that everything happens by the will of Allah and things might not be as bad as you think 🙂
They actually tasted pretty good. Alhamdulillah.
It’s not even summer but I still occasionally crave a cold dessert. I’ve got nothing suitable in my freezer, a gone wrong chocolate cake, some chicken and mince, frozen veg and some chopped coriander. After some googlin’ around I decided to try a sorbet, I don’t think i’ve ever eaten a sorbet in real life but i’ve seen it on the telly (O woe is me). Here’s what I decided on doing in the end
Ingredients
200ml grapefruit juice (the juice of two large grapefruits, squeezed by my own fair hands)
470ml water
220g sugar
Method:
Knife off some of the grapefruit zest (about a finger length) and add to a saucepan containing the water and the sugar. Heat at medium heat and stir to allow sugar to dissolve. Let boil for 2 minutes, empty into another conainer and allow to cool.
Add the grapefruit juice to the sugar-water mixture (doesn’t matter which way round you add it) and pour into a shallow metal or glass container. Put into freezer and every 40 minutes stir and break up ice crystals until frozen.
Before serving leave it out for a couple of minutes so that you can actually get some in a bowl. Et voila.
Looks like ice cream, tastes like ice cream but its technically frozen yoghurt. I saw the original recipe on Jamie Olivers 30 minute meals but I could not rememer the recipe, its not online and I don’t have the book so i just hadvto improvise.
Ingredients
500g frozen berries
500g fat free vanilla yoghurt
150g golden caster sugar
1 tbl spoon honey
Method
In a food processor combine all the ingredients.
Pour into a shallow container and freeze, removing every 40 minutes to churn and break up ice crystals. Once fully frozen feel free to serve.
Fat free frozen yoghurt. You can substitute for full fat, greek or natural yoghurt just remember to up the sugar content if its not sweetened.
More blueberryey then bananarey but low fat, which is good for all.
Slightly changed recipe courtesy of BBCgoodfood
Ingredients
* 300g self-raising flour
* 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
* 120g light muscovado sugar
* 50g porridge oats
* 2 medium bananas , the riper the better
* 284ml carton buttermilk
* 5 tbsp oil
* 2 egg whites
* 150g punnet blueberries
Method
1. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper muffin cases. Tip the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. Mix the sugar with the flour and 50g oats. Make a well in the centre. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas until nearly smooth. Stir the buttermilk, oil and egg whites into the mashed banana until evenly combined.
2. Pour the liquid mixture into the well and stir quickly and sparingly with a wooden spoon. The mix will look lumpy and may have the odd fleck of flour still visible, but don’t be tempted to over-mix. Tip in the blueberries and give it just one more stir. Divide the mix between the muffin cases – they will be quite full. Bake for 18-20 mins until risen and dark golden. Cool for 5 mins in the tray before lifting out onto a rack to cool completely.
MY version hasn’t got any oats on the top coz i’m not bothered with that faff and it has more sugar. Reading the reviews I think it needed it. It still wasn’t very sweet but thats how I prefer my sweets. If you don’t have buttermilk low fat yoghurt will do fine inshaAllah.
There were 12…
Mooooooooorish, you’ll eat one, then another then another. But its allright coz its low fat – that is my justification and i’m sticking to it.
If I spread them out a bit…You can’t even tell that i’d already started eating them.
Duuuuuuuuuuuudeeeeee….I totally flopped!!!
Well not entirely.
This sunken chocolate mess is the base for chocolate cloud cake. Sounds yummy ah? The original recipe can be found here on Nigella’s website. The version I made is minus the orange flavour (why?) and minus the alcohol (Yay!)
In case you haven’t realised yet its supposed to sink. Yes supposed to. It’s a flourless cake which uses whisked egg whites to get a luverly soft texture.
Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients
* 250g dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids
* 125g unsalted butter, softened
* 6 eggs: 2 whole, 4 separated
* 175g caster sugar
* 23cm springform cake tin
* 300ml double cream
* 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
* 1/2 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder for sprinkling
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
2. Line the bottom of the cake tin with baking parchment.
3. Melt the chocolate either in a double boiler or a microwave, and then let the butter melt in the warm chocolate.
4. Beat the 2 whole eggs and 4 egg yolks with 75g of the caster sugar, then gently add the chocolate mixture.
5. In another bowl, whisk the 4 egg whites until foamy, then gradually add the 100g of sugar and whisk until the whites are holding their shape but not too stiff.
6. Lighten the chocolate mixture with a dollop of egg whites, and then fold in the rest of the whites. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 minutes or until the cake is risen and cracked and the centre is no longer wobbly. Cool the cake in its tin on a wire rack; the middle will sink as it cools.
7. When you are ready to eat, place the still tin-bound cake on a cake stand or plate for serving and carefully remove the cake from its tin. Don’t worry about cracks or rough edges: it’s the crater look we’re going for here. Whip the cream until it’s soft and then add the vanilla and continue whisking until the cream is firm but not stiff.
8. Fill the crater of the cake with the whipped cream, easing it out gently towards the edges of the cake, and dust the top lightly with cocoa powder pushed through a tea-strainer.
Serves: 8-12.
This is yummy, very yummy. Its quick, easy and disgracefully morish. Feel free to add more cream if he crater is bigger, mine doesn’t sink as much as the picture Nigella has. Oh well. It might serve 8-12 according to nigella but for me it serves 2.
Or on somedays 1.
I did just wanted to smoosh my face into creamy chocolate goodness but I had a guest so I thought I should at least put it on a plate.
Yes I did add raspberries, you have to have your 5-a-day.
Pretentious? Your just jealous you didn’t have a slice.
A few weeks back the market had 2 blueberry punnets for £2! Bargain considering how much they usually go for in the supermarket so I decided on embarking on a blueberry adventure, facilitated by BBC Good Food of course. I tried this recipe for a Blueberry and soured cream cake with cheesecake frosting.
It got great reviews on the website and I was very pleased with it but it wasn’t like WOWWWWWW. I think I would have prefered ordinary creamfor the topping instead of soured, even though it didn’t taste sour at all really. I very much liked it, but I didn’t love it.
Visually though, I think its look great and when you make it, its just like the picture! Which doesn’t usually happen for me. The husband liked it, in fact he wouldn’t stop raving about it.
Maybe it was as good as he said, I am my own harshest critic to be honest…
Whilst i’d love to bake a special cake
filled with cream and strawberry jam
I’m afraid my baking is on hold
As I wait for my old man
As my kitchen cupboards are almost bare
and my fridge is cold and empty
As the man indoors has to do the shop
And fill the house a plenty
I have flour, sugar, margerine
well its actually low fat spread
but the one thing I am missing now
Is an adequate supply of eggs
Well yes, you may say I do have one
Thats breakfast for the eldest baby
And anyways, our friend just called
and ur getting one from sainsburys.
buttercreamanddeen original.
You like poems?
Om nom nom. Not for a traditional white wedding mind you, this was for a walima. Okay i’m not a professional, I don’t think I even meet the rank of an amateur baker but a sister asked! How could I refuse. The cake in question was a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. Dreamy…
Yes, it is in a car.
On my lap.
I did say I wasn’t a professional.
Here is the recipe I used for the actual cake. Next time I will use a ‘tougher’ cake as his was too soft and my handling skills leave a lot to be desired. And here is the recipe I used for the crusting buttercream, which gives a smooth (or not so smooth in my case) finish. It’s an american recipe so here’s the UK version (rounded of course.)
Crusting buttercream icing
300g Butter
140g Cookeen (solid vegetable fat aka ‘shortening’)
910g icing sugar
60-120mls milk
2 tsp vanilla essence
Combine the butter, essence and cookeen together until smooth. Add the icing sugar slowly (or get a big icing cloud hovering over you and up your nose). If too thick add milk tablespoon by tablespoon. My kitchen is very warm with a side of boiling so I didn’t have to add much milk. A stand alone mixer is the best for this job but if you haven’t got one like me you got a grin and bear it with a hand whisk.
This makes a lot of icing for a normal cake but for a wedding-ey two tiered cake with a crumb coating I had to double, had some left over though.
“What are those flowers?” you say, well they are chocolate. Yes, completely edible and delicious, white, milk and dark chocolate roses. UK recipe here:
100g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
29g of glucose syrup
Melt chocolate in a double boiler or in microwave (DON’t BURN IT!) Add the glucose syrup and mix, it will start to come away from the bowl and become rather solid. Wrap in cling film and let cool on side or fridge for a couple of hours until its workable. There are loads of chocolate rose tutorials, I kind of used a mix of different methods, I preferred using my hand as it just stuck when rolling it out.
Here, here and here
The milk and white chocolate proved a little more difficuilt for me, what with my tropical kitchen I used a 1.5 teaspoons for my white chocolate and my milk was a disaster so have a google and see if you can find better quatities then I did. They tend to be all in US so get up a converter so you can check it quickly.
You can find the glucose syrup from supermarkets, its dr oetker brand I believe. If not you could try golden syrup.
So it wasn’t completely smooth and the cake board I used was too small but considering it was the first time I’d ever used a piping bag! And the first time I’d made a tiered cake! And the first time I’d covered a cake in anything! And a lot of other first times I think I did all right. All thanks and praise belongs to Allah swt!
May Allah bless the happy couple and increase them in goodness! Make their lives happy and fulfilling and their offspring pious and healthy, Ameen.
Here are some more pics of the cake in progress:
Strapple = strawberry and apple.
I could have gone for appleberries but it doesn’t have the same sort of randomness that strapple conjours up. These delictable little cupcakes are REALLY delicious, I just used normal eating apples and 150g of chopped up strawberries. The original recipe actually asked for raspberries but as I didn’t have any and was craving a morning cake fix I though they’d just have to do…
Straple cupcake recipe:
125g butter or margerine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
165g caster sugar
2 eggs
225g self-raising flour (sifted)
125ml whole-milk
150g strawberries, chopped into 1-1/2 inch pieces
1 large apple (200g) peeled and finely chopped
1 teaspoon icing sugar for dusting
1.Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/160 for fan-assisted. Line 12-hole cupcake tin with paper cases.
2. Beat butter, essence and sugar in bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in sifted flour and milk in two batches. Stir in apples thoroughly then stir in strawberries.
3.Divide mixture into paper cases and bake for 30 mins. Leave to cool in pan for 5 mins hen empty onto wire rack to cook. Dust with sifted icing sugar.
I don’t use paper cases unless its for company :p. I just grease the muffin/cupcake tin and put the batter in directly. I also use essence as extract contains alcohol (Harami like pepperami). I didn’t have a large apple so two small apples were fine, don’t worry if its not exactly 200g, I certainly didn’t. I’m sure semi-skimmed milk would work fine, but why do you drink semi skimmed milk?!?!?! This time I used margerine instead of butter and they still came out lovely so don’ worry if you haven’t got any butter in. You don’t have to leave it out to soften as well which is a time saver.
(Its also cheaper, shhhhhhh!)
buttercreamanddeen 