Autumn days when the grass is jewelled and the........

Autumn is officially here and winter is hot on its heels. Weather like this always puts me in the mood for pyjama days, baking, home made soup and mulled beverages. Thanks to hubby taking little J to Who let the dad's out this morning, I had plenty of free time for baking. I finally got round to making the cheese and ham muffins I mentioned the other week and can report they were a success.


I did however learn that forgetting to grease the muffin tin is a major error as they are now glued to the cake cases!

Way more exciting than the muffins is the very autumnal apple cake that I made. I thought I would share the recipe with you all, so here it is:

Apple Cake

125ml vegetable oil (original recipe says double that but I found it way too much and experimented a little)
2 medium eggs
200g caster sugar (original recipe says 250g but I found it too sweet. Extra sugar gives it a nice crust though)
275g plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp salt
500g apple (peeled, cored and diced)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C
2. Mix the oil and eggs until they go white and foamy
3. Add the sugar, flour, bicarbonate, cinnamon, vanilla essence and salt and mix it really well. You'll end up  with a super thick sticky mixture.
4. Fold in the diced apple. (Might be a bit of a challenge cos the mixture is so thick - certainly will work those arm muscles!)
5. Put it in a 20cm x 30cm tin that has been greased and floured. I didn't have one that size so used a 10 inch round tin instead and it turned out just fine.
6. Put it in the oven for about 40 mins and go put your feet up with a cuppa tea.
7. Check it's cooked through and then leave it in the tin for 10 mins before you take it out. (Just enough time to make another brew ready to enjoy with a nice warm slice of fresh cake!)

For other great baking ideas, check out my beer bread recipe or Christmas cookies recipe.

Happy baking

Mmmmmmm brownies!

For Christmas Josiah got one of those bouncer thingys you hang from the doorway and he LOVES it. Unfortunately the only doorway in our house that it fits on is in the kitchen meaning I now spend much more time in the kitchen than I used to. As a result the washing up is being done a lot more regularly (probably a good thing!) and I've been doing a lot more baking.


This week I've been experimenting with chocolate brownie recipies. I've discovered a great recipe for Microwave Chocolate Brownies that's super quick and easy and thought I would share it with you all.

1. Melt 150g butter in the microwave
2. Add 200g sugar. Doesn't matter if it's caster sugar or granulated - I've done it with both and either is good.
3. Add cocoa powder. The original recipe says 65g but I found that too rich. For todays batch I tried 45g instead and that seemed much more reasonable.
4. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.
5. Add two eggs, stirring thoroughly after each one.
6. Add 100g plain flour.
7. Pour into a microwave safe baking tin and microwave on full power for 4-5 mins depending on your microwave. Basically when it just starts to pull away from the sides of the tin it's done. Take it out and leave to cool before cutting up.

I've been experimenting to try to get the right texture on them. So far mine turn out pretty cakey but I'm aiming for chewy. I read that for chewy brownies add more flour and for fudgey brownies add an extra egg yolk. And apparently the crispy top to brownies is a result of whisking the mixture lots after adding the eggs.

I will continue to experiment to get the perfect brownie and let you know my findings. It's a tough job but I'm willing to make the sacrifice for you all.

'Tis the season to be grumpy!

What is worse than going shopping in December? Going shopping in December with a pushchair!!!

It's hard enough to manouvre around shops without hundreds of Christmas shoppers in the way. And everyone seems to be in their own little world completely oblivious to the fact they're about to walk into my child. You know what really irritates me? That people have the cheek to scowl at me as if it's my fault when they walk into us. Oh I'm sorry, is my walking in a straight line interfering with your zig zaggy wandering around looking at the floor and/or texting - how thoughtless of me!?! Grrrrrr.

And what's with the loud music blaring from shops? Do they not understand I have a sleeping child with me and the success of my shopping trip is reliant on him staying that way.

And New Look - really? A DJ in the corner?! Is that really necessary? I don't come to your store to party, I come to shop. Or maybe that's just me and I'm no longer young and trendy enough to shop in your store.

Ok rant over.

Hubby is away for the weekend at an interview so it's just me and the boy. Figured since it's the first day of December we should probably start introducing Josiah to the whole idea of Christmas. In town his eyes lit up when he saw the Christmas lights and watching people ice skating had him transfixed. As well as attempting Christmas shopping, we spent the morning making these....

 

They are officially yummy and there is a strong chance there won't be any left by the time Josh gets home tomorrow!

If you would like to make your own yummy Christmas biscuits then here's what you need to do:

1) Cream together 100g of butter and 100g caster sugar

2) Add an egg yolk and a teaspoon of vanilla essence

3) Stir in 200g plain flour and kneed into a dough

4) Roll the dough out to 5mm thick. Using an 8cm star cutter cut out 24 stars. Then using a 2cm cutter cut the middle out of 12 of them. Put them all in the freezer for 10 mins.

5) Remove from the freezer. Spread jam on the whole stars and sandwich the ones with the middle missing on top.

6) Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 10-15 mins until golden.

7) Sprinkle with icing sugar to make them look a bit more fancy if you like.

Beer Bread

Today I made two new discoveries:

1) My belly is now so big that when I'm sat at my desk at work my belly is actually sat on my lap!
2) Beer bread......

Baking bread is one of those things I've always wanted to try but it sounded like a lot of effort and I wasn't sure if my culinary skills were up to it.  Then a friend gave me a recipe for beer bread. It's so insanely easy and yummy I thought I'd share it with you all. Just a few simple ingredients involved and zero skill. Best of all, as it's an America recipe the measurements are in cups so I can still make it when the batteries in my kitchen scales are dead (digital scales seemed like such a good idea when we got them - not sure I fully thought it through).  For those of you that don't have measuring cups don't worry as I'll include ml measurements too so you can just use a measuring jug (yes that's right use a measuring jug to measure out flour - I know, Americans bake funny, but I kinda like it).

What you need:
3 cups/700ml self raising flour
1 cup/230ml sugar
1 bottle Newcastle Brown Ale or similar
1/4 cup/60ml melted butter

Mix together the flour, sugar and beer and pour it into a buttered loaf tin.  It'll be runny like cake mix but don't let that worry you.  Put it in the oven at 350F (that's 180C) for 40 mins.  Pour the melted butter over the top and put back in the oven for another 10 minutes.  I found mine was still a little doughy in the middle and needed a little longer but I'm not convinced by the accuracy of my oven thermostat so yours may turn out just fine.

It tastes sooooo good - I can see it's not gonna last long!  I hope you enjoy it too. Happy baking :)