Lemon And Blueberry Loaf

Yes you read that right. Lemon? Yes! Blueberry? Yes! Chocolate? No! I thought I would take a break from chocolate in my baking this week...I did eat a whole chocolate bar yesterday...oh dear. I'm poorly, don't judge me, I had to to feel better. Ahem...right?

One of my favourite loafs is a lemon drizzle - expect for banana loaf but that's just due to my weird excessive love for bananas. And my favourite muffins are blueberry muffins - 2nd to banana muffins of course, duh.

So when I saw this recipe on Pinterest for a lemon and blueberry loaf I thought nom nom nom nom. Literally.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed and rinsed

The Lemon Syrup:

1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/3 cup sugar

For the Lemon Glaze:
1 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
• Grease bottom and sides of one 9 x 5-inch loaf tin.
• In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the blueberries with the remaining tablespoon of flour, and fold them very gently into the batter.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake 50 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing loaf to a wire rack on top of a baking sheet.
• While the loaf is cooling, make the lemon syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir together the lemon juice and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved. Once dissolved, continue to cook for 3 more minutes. Remove from the heat; set aside.
• Use a toothpick to poke holes in the tops and sides of the warm loaf. Brush the top and sides of the loaf with the lemon syrup. Let the syrup soak into the cake and brush again. Let the cake cool completely.

I was very nervous past this point as I have never made a glaze before and the loaf looked so pretty and yummy already. But I thought what the hell, let's do it!  So:

• To make the lemon glaze, in a small bowl, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and 2-3 tablespoons of the lemon juice. The mixture should be thick but pourable. Add up to another tablespoon of lemon juice if the mixture is too stiff. Pour the lemon glaze over the top of the loaf and let it drip down the sides. Let the lemon glaze harden, about 15 minutes, before serving.

I didn't do so well with the whole pouring of the glaze properly so the loaf went from looking super delish, to looking...well, not so pretty!

As with most loafs you could of course bake it in different shape tins, make it mini muffin-like or super large. Just remember to adjust the baking time!

So although it didn't look like the prettiest cake in the end, my oh my did it taste amazing! Super fresh and a little zingy and incredibly moist. Just fabulous.

xoxo

Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes

So another week and another baking session gone. I made those on Saturday as we were going to the baptism of our goddaughter on the Sunday and I thought I could take it with us...and completely forgot, but that's another story!

I found this recipe on The Little Loaf, which has some proper yummy recipes (I think I say that a lot about many blogs, but hey it only means that there is an incredibly huge amount of savoury and sweet tasty recipes out there to explore!).

I absolutely love brownies so the thought of making it so that it was bite size was just too much and I had to try it.

Ingredients:

200g dark chocolate, chopped
75g unsalted butter
60g golden syrup
3 medium eggs
75g light brown sugar
110g golden caster sugar
75g plain flour
15g cocoa powder, sifted
Handful of cocoa chips (optional - I used some white chocolate ones as it's Christoph's favourite)

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.

In their recipe they used an eight hole muffin tin but I wanted to have them slightly smaller so I used a cupcake tin with some cute cupcake cases and it made 16 in total!

Melt the chocolate and butter in a bain marie, stir in the golden syrup and leave it to cool.

Whisk the eggs together with the brown and caster sugars until pale and thick, add the chocolate mixture carefully to not add to much air to the mixture. Fold in the flour and cocoa powder.

Pour the mixture into your prepared tin, filling practically to the top as they won’t rise very much. Sprinkle the cocoa bits if using. Although if you are using white chocolate I would recommend pushing them in a little as you can see mine crisped up a little - it was still super yummy and didn't affect the taste but looks wise if I am honest it kinda did. Oh well, Christoph didn't seem to mind!

Bake for 18 – 25 min if using the muffin tin, otherwise bring down the baking time to about 13 minutes and check if it needs more time. You definitely don’t want to over bake these. "The middle should still have some wobble and a toothpick inserted should come out with moist crumbs clinging to it".

Remove from the oven and allow to cool if you can wait!

                                                                              xoxo

An Amazing Banana Loaf Recipe

I am quite sure I have posted about this recipe before but hey, that's just how much I love it.

I love bananas, in case you didn't notice in my banana post, and banana cake/loaf is delish. Add to that chocolate and walnuts and I'm one happy fat bunny!

I found this recipe in A cup of Jo. She does have some nice recipes and I have now tried a few with varying degrees of success. This one is a winner.

In her original recipe she also adsd bourbon - yum yum! - but I didn't have it in the house so I made it without it. And it is still completely delicious.

Ingredients

2 cups of flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
50g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3 mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
170g semisweet chocolate chunks
And if you want the bourbon add 3 tablespoons of bourbon

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F (170C) Butter a loaf tin and line it if parchment if you want!

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Add eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute between each addition. Stop the mixer, scrape down sides of the bowl, and add bananas, lemon juice (and bourbon). Beat until well incorporated.

Turn the mixer to low and add the flour mixture all at once. Beat until almost incorporated. Stop the mixer and remove the bowl. Add the walnuts and chocolate chips and incorporate the last of the ingredients with a spatula.

Batter will be thick. Spoon the mixture into prepared loaf pan. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and allow loaf to cool in the tin for 20 minutes before putting it onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Yeah...ahem...we totally couldn't wait that long...so the first slice was falling apart! 

Enjoy this wonderful loaf with a fresh cup of brazilian coffee. Heaven.

Xoxo

Dinosaur Biscuits

I've been wanting to use my dinosaur cookie cutters for months now, ever since I bought them when we went to the Natural History Museum in London. 

I had been a bit worried about making biscuits though, as I thought they would be very hard to get it right and for some reason using the cutters was quite daunting. Well daunting it is no more! I LOVE it and it's so much fun!

So, I started by looking everywhere on the internet for a biscuit recipe. Took me at least 1 hour to decide on which one to go for, I wanted to make sure it was going to be good. You see those little monsters aren't just for me and making me happy - and they do, trust me, you have only to ask Christoph and he will tell you that I screamed like a little girl when I make my first dino biscuit shape...I got so excited...ahem... - but they are also for our little visitors today. We are super excited as we are going to see our nieces and newphew today for a little picnic on the beach (yes yes the beach, again, we are new in Brighton ok? ;)) and what best for little snacks and a little extra energy - the energy is more for us adults - than Dino Biscuits?

And BBC Good Food turned out to have a good recipe so that's the one I chose. 

It's called Basic biscuit dough as you can add various things to it to make how you want want it. I chose to put some lemon zest in it for a little bit of zing (athough not enough if I am honest, next time I will put the zest of 2 lemons instead of 1). 

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

250g butter , softened

140g caster sugar

1 egg yolk

2 tsp vanilla extract

300g plain flour

Mix 250g softened butter and 140g caster sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon, then add 1 egg yolk and 2 tsp vanilla extract and briefly beat to combine. Sift 300g plain flour and stir until the mixture is well combined - you might need to get your 

hands in at the end to give everything a really good mix and press the dough together.

Roll it out and start cutting! Repeat until you have no dough left. This recipe made LOTS of biscuits.

Bake in the oven at 160C fan (180 non fan) for 11-12min. Then leave it too cool on a wire rack before storing. You can of course make them look very cool by adding colour and extras which I didn' do but maybe next time!

New York Cheesecake

First can I just say I LOVE my new oven! It seems to spread the heat a lot more evenly. The first time I noticed it properly was when I made the flapjacks last week end.

I have some friends coming over tomorrow for dinner and I really wanted to make dessert for us. Adding that to the fact that I really want to get back into baking, having had no time to do much due to the wedding preparations and our move, means that I have really enjoyed baking today. The key to good food is love right?

So I thought: what better dessert to make than cheesecake? Who doesn't like cheesecake right? I have to admit I have done this recipe before but it never came out looking this good!

It's a bit of a long recipe with lots of steps but it is at the same time quite easy. I found it on the bbcgoodfood website (which has great recipes for just about everything!). I copied the recipe below:

New York Cheesecake

Ingredients

FOR THE CRUST

85g butter melted, plus extra for tin
140g digestive biscuits , made into fine crumbs
1 tbsp sugar , granulated or golden caster

FOR THE CHEESECAKE FILLING

3 x 300g/11oz pack Philadelphia cheese , or other full-fat soft cheese
250g golden caster sugar
3 tbsp plain flour
1½ tsp vanilla extract
finely grated zest of 1 lemon (about 2 tsp)
1½ tsp lemon juice
3 large eggs , plus 1 yolk
284ml carton soured cream

FOR THE SOURED CREAM TOPPING

142ml carton soured cream
1 tbsp golden caster sugar
2 tsp lemon juice

Position an oven shelf in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to fan 160C/conventional 180C/gas 4. Line the base of a 23cm springform cake tin with parchment paper. For the crust, melt the butter in a medium pan. Stir in the biscuit crumbs and sugar so the mixture is evenly moistened. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan and bake for 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack while preparing the filling.

For the filling, increase the oven temperature to fan 200C/conventional 240C/gas 9. In a table top mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the soft cheese at medium-low speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. With the mixer on low, gradually add the sugar, then the flour and a pinch of salt, scraping down the sides of the bowl and the paddle twice.

Swap the paddle attachment for the whisk. Continue by adding the vanilla, lemon zest and juice. Whisk in the eggs and yolk, one at a time, scraping the bowl and whisk at least twice. Stir the 284ml carton of soured cream until smooth, then measure 200ml/7fl oz (just over 3⁄4 of the carton). Continue on low speed as you add the measured soured cream (reserve the rest). Whisk to blend, but don't over-beat. The batter should be smooth, light and somewhat airy.

Brush the sides of the springform tin with melted butter and put on a baking sheet. Pour in the filling - if there are any lumps, sink them using a knife - the top should be as smooth as possible. Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to fan 90C/conventional 110C/gas 1⁄4 and bake for 25 minutes more. If you gently shake the tin, the filling should have a slight wobble. Turn off the oven and open the oven door for a cheesecake that's creamy in the centre, or leave it closed if you prefer a drier texture. Let cool in the oven for 2 hours. The cheesecake may get a slight crack on top as it cools.

Combine the reserved soured cream with the 142ml carton, the sugar and lemon juice for the topping. Spread over the cheesecake right to the edges. Cover loosely with foil and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Run a round-bladed knife around the sides of the tin to loosen any stuck edges. Unlock the side, slide the cheesecake off the bottom of the tin onto a plate, then slide the parchment paper out from underneath.

TIPS
Keep everything at room temperature. To avoid lumps and ensure even mixing without over-beating, it is essential to have the soft cheese at room temperature before starting.

Ideally, let it come to room temperature in its pack for 2 hours. If you're short of time, cut the soft cheese into chunks and leave to soften for 1 hour. It also helps to have a tabletop mixer with a powerful motor. But if you don't have one, a hand-held mixer works fine.
The way you blend the ingredients is crucial: under-beating can lead to a lumpy mixture, over-beating can whip in too much air. This can result in uneven cooking, bubbles, and cracking.

Thank you bbcgoodfood! The trick now is to keep Christoph away from it until tomorrow! X