Chocolate Brownie Sunday!

Today was chocolate brownie day! 

400g caster sugar
230g butter, melted
60g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
230g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
50g of chopped chocolate

Add the ingredients in the order written. Spread evenly into a greased baking pan. Bake at 170c fan/180c oven for 30 minutes. Leave to cool before cutting.

Crusty Brown Bread

This week I made a lovely crusty brown bread to go with dinner. I really like baking in the cast iron pan lately, it gives the bread such a good crunch.

The Recipe

100g strong white bread flour

220g strong wholemeal flour

100g seeded malt flour, or similar

275ml water

1tbsp oil

1tsp salt

1tsp brown sugar

1 crushed vitamin C tablet

7g yeast (1 ½ tsp)

I used a dough cycle on the machine. Add the ingredients as per your machine's manufacturers instructions. When the dough cycle is finished, shape the dough into a ball and pop in a well-floured proofing basket to rise. Put the basket into a plastic carrier bag (5p bag charge from your local supermarket) and tie it up and leave for an hour or so until doubled in size.

Put a cast iron pan to heat in the oven at 245c or 225c fan oven. Remove the pan when the oven is up to temperature, then tip the dough upside down into the pan. Don't worry if the dough isn't straight, it will bake fine. Put the lid on the pan and then bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for a further 15 minutes. Carefully remove the bread from the pan and leave to cool on a wire rack. 

Cheese-topped Rolls

Do you know what goes well with Sunday? Cheese topped rolls with bacon. Or my husband likes them filled with grated cheese, dipped in cream of tomato soup. Hell, they even go well with butter and Marmite. Whatever fills your cheese-topped roll boat!

The Recipe

275ml water
450g strong white bread flour. 
1 tbsp oil
2tsp salt
2tsp caster sugar
7g yeast

I made the dough in the bread machine on a basic dough setting. Then shape into 10 rolls, place on oiled baking trays, covered in oiled cling film and let rise for half hour. 

Grate cheese over them and bake at 220c (200c fan oven) for 15 minutes.

Cinnamon rolls with a sticky glaze

There's nothing that says "autumn" and "binge eating because it's colder" like cinnamon rolls. I used simple cup bread machine recipe to make the dough on a basic dough setting. 

Rolls

1 cup warm milk

2 eggs, room temperature

1⁄3 cup melted butter
4 1⁄2 cups strong white bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 cup caster sugar
2 1⁄2 teaspoons dried yeast

1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup softened butter
2 tablespoons cinnamon

Glaze

2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoons milk

Roll the dough out into a rectangle on a floured surface. Spread with softened butter and then sprinkle with a brown sugar and cinnamon mix. Roll the dough up, cut into slices (for me the dough made 15) and lie flat in a greased roasting dish. Cover with cling film and let rise for half an hour. 

Bake at 190c (fan oven) or 210c (normal oven). 

Tell husband that the dough only made 9 rolls and deny all accusations.

Cheat's Cherry Pie

INGREDIENTS

1 roll of shortcrust pastry
450g cherries
300g sugar
60g cornflour
Butter for greasing dish

METHOD

Roll out your pastry so that it covers the bottom and sides of your greased pie dish (a dish about 8 inches wide will do). Don't forget to roll out enough pastry too, to cover the top of the pie. Or if you haven't got enough left, roll out a few strips and adopt the old favourite "rustic lattice" look.

On a medium heat, simmer the cherries in a saucepan until there is plenty of juice in the bottom of the pan. Then add the sugar and cornflour. The cornflour will help the sauce thicken, creating that lovely sticky cherry jam.

Put the cherry filling into your pastry lined pie dish. Put the pastry top on and crimp the edges together with your fingers. Put a slit in the pastry top to let the steam out. Sprinkle the top of the pie with extra sugar.

Pop your pie into the oven at 190c (170c fan oven) for 50 minutes.

HEALTH AND SAFETY NOTE
When you remove the pie from the oven - Caution! The filling is hot!

Homemade Blackcurrant Cordial - Ribena!

So Tesco has banned Ribena. Whatever is the world coming to? What next? Are they going to ban cake? Turns out however that blackcurrant squash is incredibly easy to make and you can pass it off quite easily to the boys as being Ribena. Parents - one. Boys - nil. Makes up for the "hidden vegetable" pasta debacle.

Ingredients

450g Blackcurrants
500ml Water
250g Caster Sugar
1 Lemon

Method
Put the blackcurrants, water and caster sugar in a pan. Don't worry about removing any stalks. Simmer for 10 minutes. Then add the juice of the lemon, and the lemon skin. This will give the cordial a lovely taste. Simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes - until the liquid starts to become slightly thicker.

Strain the cordial through a fine sieve and pour into a sterilised bottle. I have used a wine bottle (don't judge). To sterilise a bottle simply give it a good thorough wash, then pop it in the oven to dry.

That's it. You won't miss Ribena at all, and can feel quite self righteous about it it all. Goes very well with sparkling water. And how about putting a splash in with a vodka and lemonade? You heard it here first.

My blackcurrants came from the fabulous Cammas Hall Fruit Farm in Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex. It's a great afternoon out for the family, with a wide variety of Pick Your Own fruit. www.chff.co.uk/

Crunchy Chocolate Fridge Bars

I love things I can make with the boys (who let's face it, don't have the best attention span). These crunchy chocolate fridge bars don't need baking. They don't utilise every pot and pan in the house. You don't really have to be too accurate with the measuring. And ultimately they taste great!

INGREDIENTS

400g unsalted butter
150ml Golden syrup
50ml honey
100g cocoa
800g of Digestive biscuits (the value ones will do)
180g sultanas

METHOD

Melt the butter, syrup, honey and cocoa in a large warm saucepan. Break up the biscuits, then add them, and the sultanas, into the melty chocolatey mixture. Mix everything up and then transfer into a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Squish the mixture down. Put another sheet of baking paper on top and then on top of this something nice and heavy - I use a cast iron roasting dish. This will compress everything together as it cools.

Refrigerate for a few hours, even better overnight. Remove from fridge and cut into slices. All the bits that fall off the edges are yours. Don't let anyone else have them!! Oh and the bits that fall off the edges have absolutely no calories. Everyone's a winner.