Recipe: Pancakes

Just a quick post today since I haven't quite finished the other Valentines posts yet and this post is seasonal anyway.

Today is Shrove Tuesday and in the UK at least that means one thing... pancakes! Shrove Tuesday in the UK is also known as Pancake Day; basically we start Lent by eating as much sugar as possible.

Pancakes are so simple to make and yet I know an awful lot of people who use packet mixes. Those things baffle me, loads of them tell you to add an egg or milk which means you’ve spend a couple of pounds on a bag of flour! That makes no sense to me at all (and don’t get me started on the ones that just involve adding water, they taste disgusting.)Well as a protest against packet mixes I’m sharing this recipe! This is the pancake recipe my mum always uses and in my opinion it makes the best pancakes.

Ingredients
100g/4oz plain flour
2 eggs
250ml/half pint of milk
pinch salt
1 tsp caster sugar (optional for sweet pancakes)

Method
Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl, then make a well in the centre of the flour. Add the eggs and a splash of milk. Beat until the flour is all incorporated, then keep beating while gradually adding the rest of the milk. You should end up with a smooth batter with bubbles of the surface, leave to rest for a while before cooking. You may need to stir the batter gently before cooking.

My favourite pancake topping has to be maple syrup but you can’t beat the classic combination of lemon and sugar. What’s your favourite topping?

Monday Recipe: Inca Berry Cupcakes

Ok so this recipe isn’t particularly Valentines in theme, but now seems as good a time as any to post this.

I stumbled across Inca berries (also known as physalis) while reading James Wong’s new book, Homegrown Revolution. As the title suggests this book is all about growing your own foods but this book focuses on distinctly more exotic fare rather than the traditional (and not cost/space effective) crops like potatoes and tomatoes. I have never had an interest in gardening until I read this book and it has given me some great new cupcake ideas, including this recipe. Seriously I suggest checking this book out it’s amazing.

Anyway I discovered lots of interesting new foods, including Inca berries and before I invested in a plant it seemed sensible to find out if I actually liked Inca berries first. Luckily my local Tesco supermarket happens to sell them and for only £1 a bag! Happily I do like them and thus set about playing with them. The result was the following cupcake recipe.

I decided to top these cakes with a cream cheese frosting mostly because I made these at the same time as the Red Velvet Cupcakes and I had made an awful lot of frosting... James Wong describes Inca berries as having a flavour like a ripe gooseberry with a hint of tropical fruit, followed by a bittersweet aftertaste. And I find the creamy flavour of the frosting makes a great contrast to the tangy flavour of the berries.

As usual this recipe is designed for use in a cupcake maker and will make 6 fairy cake sized cakes, the recipe can easily be scaled up and should work in an oven equally well. The quantities given for the frosting should be enough to cover 12 cakes but this is dependent on how you choose to cover them.

Ingredients
Cake
1 large egg
50g/2oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5-6 Inca berries, leaves removed and chopped into quarters

Frosting
100g/4oz full fat cream cheese
50g/2oz softened butter
300g/12oz icing sugar, sifted
Vanilla extract

Decorations (optional)
6 Inca berries, leaves folded up

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar; then beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour and then mix in the chopped berries. Divide evenly between the cake cakes and bake for about 10 minutes in a cupcake maker  or for about 15 minutes in the oven at Gas Mark 4/180 C. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting, first cream together the cheese and butter, then add the vanilla extract. I used about a teaspoon but add to your personal taste.  Then gradually add the icing sugar and beat it in, the frosting will look quite runny at first but it will thicken up. Once you’ve added all the icing sugar cover the cakes as you want and top each cake with an extra berry. If the frosting seems a little runny add a tiny bit more icing sugar or chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Well that’s it for now; if you try these out I’d love to know what you all think. Later in the year I hope to post some more recipes using crops I found through this book. 

Recipe: Chocolate and Caramel Cupcakes

Chocolate is a fundamental part of Valentine’s Day commercialism, but who wants plain chocolate when you can have chocolate caramels?

Yet again a flavoured hot chocolate that smells lovely but tastes kinda horrid has come into my life; this time it’s a caramel one. But like the raspberry one I’ve mentioned here before it’s basically just coco powder with flavoured sugar, so that means one thing, CUPCAKES!!! No pictures of these cakes as I didn’t bother to frost them before eating them, and un-iced they just look like normal chocolate cakes...

This one is currently available from Whittards, and can be acquired here.

As usual this recipe is designed for use in a cupcake maker and makes 6 fairy cake sized cakes. However it should work in the oven and can easily be scaled up to make more. 

Ingredients
1 large egg
30g/1oz Self-rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz Caramel Hot Chocolate, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg. Fold in the flour and hot chocolate, divide evenly amongst 6 cake cases then bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean! Leave on a wire rack to cool.

The caramel flavour is quite subtle so when frosting these I’d suggest a caramel flavoured buttercream (I have a recipe for salted caramel buttercream, when I get the hang of making it I’ll share it here). 

Recipe: Red Velvet Cakes (Cheating method)

I love Red Velvet Cake, the contrast between the bright red cake and the white frosting always looks amazing. And it’s a chocolate flavoured cake so what’s not to love? And the colour is pretty appropriate for Valentine’s Day. Sadly I find making it to be a bit of a pain in the backside. I struggle to balance the ratio of coco powder to food dye, and more often than not I don’t use enough dye. The result is usually a chocolate cake with a vaguely pink tint if you squint a bit.

But Lakeland has come to the rescue, as they now stock Star Kay extracts. These extracts come in a huge range of flavours and include a chocolate flavour. The extracts are quite expensive, but I’m given to believe that they are a very high quality brand so I don’t mind paying so much for them (and Lakeland have them on 3 for 2 at the moment). So armed with this and some red gel food dye I went into battle and made some adorable cupcakes for Valentine's Day.

Check out my shiny new backdrop! Much nicer than my messy kitchen!

Star Kay Chocolate Extract is available here. I’ve also found some Star Key extracts in Tesco so if you have access to a large store I’d suggest looking there. However Tesco will have a fairly limited range of flavours.

Naturally these are topped with cream cheese frosting; the quantities given below should provide enough frosting to cover 12 cupcakes. Obviously this is dependent on how you choose to cover the cakes, if you pipe the frosting like I did you’ll probably need more. As for the cakes the usual rules apply, this makes 6 fairy cake sized cakes in a cupcake maker. This recipe can be scaled up to make more and also works in the oven. I’m not sure how well the colour will come out when baked in the oven though.

Now isn't that a fabulous colour?

Ingredients
Cake
1 large egg
50g/2oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
2 teaspoons chocolate extract
Red gel food colouring

Frosting
100g/4oz full fat cream cheese
50g/2oz softened butter
300g/12oz icing sugar, sifted
Vanilla extract (to taste)

Decorations (optional)
Red/pink heart shaped sprinkles
Pink edible glitter

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar; then beat in the egg and chocolate extract. Fold in the flour and then mix in a little of the food dye. Gel dyes are highly concentrated so you don’t need much! Divide evenly between the cake cakes and bake for about 10 minutes in a cupcake maker  or for about 15 minutes in the oven at Gas Mark 4/180 C. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting, first cream together the cheese and butter, then add the vanilla extract. I used about a teaspoon but add to your personal taste.  Then gradually add the icing sugar and beat it in, the frosting will look quite runny at first but it will thicken up. Once you’ve added all the icing sugar cover the cakes as you want and decorate. If the frosting seems a little runny add a tiny bit more icing sugar or chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Valentines Preview

Hi sorry for the lack of updates everyone, I've been so busy working on new posts/other projects that I haven't had time to get anything finished or posted. But to make it up to you all there shall be a flurry of new posts over the next few days as I try and get all the Valentines themed stuff up before next Thursday! So yeah my normal posting schedule of recipes on Mondays and Friday Reviews shall be ignored for the next week.

So what do I have in store for you all?
There shall be 3 new cupcake recipes, a review of the book "Kinky Cupcakes", Valentines decorating tips and some other stuff. Oh and there might even be pictures of my brother's 21st birthday cake.

I'm not really a fan of Valentines, being single it kinda sucks to have an entire day dedicated to reminding you of that fact and I do believe that you should show people that you love them all year round not just on a day created by cards companies. But I am a fan of hearts and pink... so I can happily embrace that element of Valentine's Day (and I love buying tons of cheap chocolate/flowers on Feb 15th!!)  so this year I'm shaking things up. In my world Feb 14th 2013 is "Love Everyone Day, Especially Youself"
We all need a bit more love in our lives especially us girls, so this year I vote that us single girls reclaim Feb 14th for ourselves. Eat cake, get a makeover, whatever just do something that makes you happy and share the love with everyone you care about.