Classic Boston Brownies (and a simple formula for great chocolate glaze)

Boston Brownies, or simply brownies to those who live in the States, are just pure, chocolate indulgence: buttery, dense, squidgy slabs of chocolate cake with a paper thin crust, usually dotted with nuts or dried fruit to make the baker feel a little less guilty by including something ‘healthy’. These rich cakes are best enjoyed with some kind of warm beverage (coffee, for that truly Stateside feel) to wash down all the morsels that have attached themselves to your teeth.

Brownies were never really something I made over all my years of baking. The fifteen years that I’ve been baking overlapped a little with the fifteen years that I was allergic to chocolate; in fact, I never really developed my skills as a chocolatière because of said allergy. But around this time last year, I began experimenting with wheat-free brownies.

A few factors make a classic brownie: degree of squidginess, filling-to-cake ratio and richness of chocolate. If a brownie is too cakey, it’s just chocolate cake, if there’s too much filling there’s not enough squidge (all technical terms, of course) and the chocolate can’t be too dark. I know, I know people usually recommend dark chocolate for brownies, but in my experience using dark chocolate makes them too rich and intense, and in my mind a brownie is supposed to be sticky sweet. I recommend using half dark (60 – 70%) and half milk (25 – 40%), or if you can find semi-dark chocolate (45 – 55% cocoa), use that.

Obviously, you need to know a little bit about the filling. Here are a few tips on how to fill your brownies. You could leave them plain, though, if you want.

• Nuts: traditionally, brownies include walnuts or pecan nuts (being American) but almonds and hazelnuts work very well, too.
• Dried fruits: any fruit that would traditionally pair with chocolate in dried (or fresh if you don’t intend for your brownies to last long) form, like cherries, strawberry, or pear, oddly enough.
• Crystallised fruits: my favourite brownies in the whole world have crystallised ginger in, but you could also add crystallised citrus peel. Mango works well, too.
• If you want a complete sugar fest, you could include some chopped up bars: I made these once with chopped up Mars and Milky Way bars, and the way that they melt in the middle is absolutely magical.

Now, to business.

INGREDIMENTS
For 36 brownies

• 5 ounces (140 grammes) white spelt flour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
• 2 medium eggs, at room temperature
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, melted
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 3½ ounces (100 grammes) chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) brown sugar
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) filling of your choice: chopped nuts, dried fruits, chocolate chips, sweets, etc.
• Pinch of salt
• NO RAISING AGENT, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND GRACIOUS

HOW-TO

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mark 4). Grease and thoroughly flour a 10 inch (20 centimetre) tin, or line with non-stick baking paper.
• Melt the chocolate, butter, and oil together either in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, or in the microwave on the 'Defrost' setting in one minute bursts. Set aside.
• Put the eggs and sugar in a heatproof mixing bowl (preferably glass) and set over a pan of simmering water. Beat the mixture with an electric hand mixer or balloon whisk until pale, thick and doubled in size. You could do with without the water bath, but it’s take too long to beat out the lumps in the brown sugar; the heat speeds this process up a little.
• Beat in the melted chocolate and butter, a little at a time, until you have a nice moussey mixture.
• Using a rubber spatula or metal spoon, fold in the filling and then sieve in the flour and salt; fold through completely. Folding the filling in first ensures that a) the filling is evenly distributed throughout the mixture, and that b) the flour doesn’t get overworked.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, and firmly tap it a few times off the kitchen top to release any trapped bubbles.
• Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until spongy to touch and a cocktail stick stuck in the middle comes out with two or three sticky crumbs are clinging to it.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the tin. This is why making sure the tin is well floured, or lined with non-stick paper, is very important. Turn out and cut into squares.

If you want, you could ice them with some chocolate glaze. Chocolate glaze is really easy to make, really easy: just melt 4 parts chocolate and 1 part butter together in a bowl over simmering water, or in the microwave in 30 second blasts. For this quantity of brownies, I’d say use 4 ounces (115 grammes) milk chocolate and 1 ounce (30 grammes) of butter. If you can’t eat butter, don’t use margarine: its water content is too high, and it seizes the chocolate. Use block vegetable fat like Cookeen, or Crisco if you live in the States. Sprinkle liberally with chopped nuts, or hundreds and thousands.

Orange Bourbon Creams (Wheat Free)

For those of you have been reading my blog so far, you’ll probably have absorbed the fact that I absolutely love Bourbon creams. But I don’t like them just because they’re chocolatey and creamy, but there’s a story.

When I was about five or six years old, my parents noticed that when I ate chocolate bad things happened: not only would I get hyperactive, but I would get very, very angry; the kind of angry that incited rock throwing and hair-pulling of older brothers. Behavioural difficulties aside, chocolate would cause me to have severe stomach upset. I have this very vivid memory – whether it’s faithful or a blend of several different instances, I’m not sure – of asking my father for a chocolate biscuit or something of the like, and the conversation went something like this:

“Anna, you know that when you eat chocolate you get upset and a sore tummy?”
“Yes, Daddy,”
“So, do you think eating chocolate is a good idea anymore?”
“Not really.”

And, I didn’t eat chocolate again. I didn’t eat it for about fifteen years; I did have a few lapses, I will admit, and every time I ate chocolate in those fifteen years it resulted in severe migraine headaches that would have me bedridden for at least a day, sensation loss in limbs and extreme endless nausea included.

However, one day, somewhere between being twenty and twenty-one, I was offered a chocolate biscuit by a work colleague. He was a nice guy, and his English wasn’t fantastic, and I didn’t want to offend him, so I took the biscuit; he walked away, happy in his work. I looked at the biscuit… it looked back at me… so I looked at it again… and played with the thought of what would happen; then ate it anyway, out of curiosity.

Nothing happened. Well, I probably digested it, but that’s not the point.

As you can imagine, I’ve been making up for a lot of lost time between now and then. Still, though, if I eat too much I get a little twinge in the top right corner of my head, and I get a little stomach upset, but it’s nothing compared to what used to happen.

So, now when I eat a Bourbon, which was one of my favourite biscuits as a little girl, I get this feeling of reunion with a long lost love: I thought I’d never be with it again when I left it, all those years ago, but when I returned it was still as sweet and chocolatey as it had always been. Dunk, bite, nom! And even though this darned wheat intolerance business has made enjoying the odd Bourbon a tad more difficult, it hasn’t stopped me yet. In fact, it is the wheat intolerance that spurred me into trying to make my own Bourbons. Even if I do say so myself, my version is just as awesome.

Here’s the biscuit recipe.

INGREDIMENTS
For the biscuits:

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• ½ ounce (15 grammes) cornflour
• ½ ounce (15 grammes) cocoa powder
• 3 ounces  (70 grammes) white spelt flour
• Pinch of salt

For the filling:

• 7 ounces icing sugar
• 1 ounce cocoa powder
• 5 ounces butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• Grated zest of ½ orange
• 1 tablespoon milk

HOW-TO
First, make the biscuits:

• Sieve together the cornflour, spelt flour, cocoa powder and salt into a bowl and set aside for later.
• Cream the butter and sugar together using an electric hand mixer, wooden spoon, or rubber spatula, until pale and fluffy.
• Beat in the egg and vanilla essence until fully combined. Try not to be too vigorous, as you’re not trying to incorporate much air, just mix the ingredients.
• Add the sieved flour and cocoa mixture and mix with a wooden spoon, or just get in there with your hands. If you’re starting with the spoon, make sure you finish it with your hands so that it’s nice and smooth. Don’t use an electric mixer, as this will make the dough tough. 
• Roll into a ball and flatten into a disc, 1 inch (2½ centimetres) in thickness. Chill in the fridge for about half an hour.
• Preheat the oven to 160°C (320°F, Gas Mark 2½). Line one or two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
• Take the dough from the fridge and work a little with your hands to make it malleable. Roll out to an ⅛ inch (3 millimetre) thickness and cut out shapes. You could make them round using a 2 inch (5 centimetre) cutter, or just use a knife to cut squares or rectangles, like I did.
• Arrange the biscuits 1 inch (2½ centimetres) apart on the trays. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes. Obviously, with chocolate biscuits you can’t tell doneness by browning, so when the biscuits are set and firm to the touch around the edges, they’re done.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the trays for 5 or so minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Then fill them:

• Make the buttercream using this method: of course, you need to add the orange zest in with the butter at the beginning, and then sieve the cocoa in with the icing sugar. Adding the orange zest at the beginning means that the friction of beating draws the oil out gradually over the whole procedure. 
• Using a piping bad fitted with a ½ inch (1 centimetre) nozzle, pipe one half of the biscuits with the filling and sandwich with the remaining biscuits. 

As you can see, I’ve made them a little more exotic by adding some orange zest to make orange-chocolate cream, but you could just leave out the zest if you like and have plain Bourbons. The good thing about making them from scratch is that you can fill them with whatever.

As you can see in the pictures, I also made little patterns on the top. Because these biscuits don’t have any raising agent or liquid in them, they don’t spread that much or change shape a lot. This means, they hold onto imprints very easily. Use the tip of a small round piping nozzle to print patterns into the top, or you could use anything that you like to create any pattern you like; push them about half way in for the best-lasting pattern.

Unfortunately, homemade sandwich biscuits don’t stay crispy for as long as the shop-bought ones. Naturally, the moisture from the icing permeates into the biscuits and they go softer over time. They’re not stale, don’t worry, as these will keep for up to a week in an airtight container.

Coconut Custard Creams (Wheat Free)

I admit it: I’m currently suffering from a fixation with recreating biscuit barrel staples. I think I’ve reached the heights (or depths) of baking anorakness. Moving swiftly on!

These ones are very easy, though: just two plain cut out biscuits stuck together with traditionally vanilla buttercream. This time, they’re a little different: I’ve added desiccated coconut for a little interested. The nice thing about the cut-out biscuit recipe I use is that it holds its shape very well, and anything pressed into the top of the biscuit comes out pretty faithfully; so, you could press little patterns, or even words, into the tops of the biscuits like the shop bought ones.

Here’s the biscuit recipe.

INGREDIMENTS
For the biscuits:

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
• 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• 1 ounce  (30 grammes) cornflour
• 3 ounces  (85 grammes) white spelt flour
• Pinch of salt

For the filling:

• 8 ounces icing sugar
• 5 ounces butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 tablespoon coconut milk, or normal milk if you can’t find coconut milk
• Some desiccated coconut, for decoration

HOW-TO
First, make the biscuits:

• Sieve together the cornflour, spelt flour and salt into a bowl and set aside for later.
• Cream the butter and sugar together using an electric hand mixer, wooden spoon, or rubber spatula, until pale and fluffy.
• Beat in the egg and vanilla essence until fully combined. Try not to be too vigorous, as you’re not trying to incorporate much air, just mix the ingredients.
• Add the sieved flours and mix with a wooden spoon, or just get in there with your hands. If you’re starting with the spoon, make sure you finish it with your hands so that it’s nice and smooth. Don’t use an electric mixer, as this will make the dough tough. 
• Roll into a ball and flatten into a disc an inch (2½ centimetres) in thickness. Chill in the fridge for about half an hour.
• Preheat the oven to 160°C (320°F, Gas Mark 2½). Line one or two baking trays with non-stick baking paper.
• Take the dough from the fridge and work a little with your hands to make it malleable. Roll out to an ⅛ inch (3 millimetre) thickness and cut out shapes. You could make them round using a 2 inch (5 centimetre) cutter, or just use a knife to cut squares or rectangles, like I did.
• Arrange the biscuits 1 inch (2½ centimetres) apart on the trays, and prick with a cocktail stick. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until set and very lightly browned.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the trays for 5 or so minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Then fill them:

• Make the buttercream using this method and then, using a piping bad fitted with a ½ inch (1 centimetre) nozzle, pipe one half of the biscuits with the filling and sandwich with the remaining biscuits. 
• Sprinkle the edges with desiccated coconut, or you could use coloured sprinkles for the cute factor.

As you can see in the pictures, I also made little patterns on the top. Because these biscuits don’t have any raising agent or liquid in them, they don’t spread that much or change shape a lot. This means, they hold onto imprints very easily. Use the tip of a small round piping nozzle to print patterns into the top, or you could use anything that you like to create any pattern you like; push them about half way in for the best-lasting pattern.

Unfortunately, homemade sandwich biscuits don’t stay crispy for as long as the shop-bought ones. Naturally, the moisture from the icing permeates into the biscuits and they go softer over time. They’re not stale, don’t worry, as these will keep for up to a week in an airtight container.

Why Bake Everything Myself?

Before I attend to the business of the day, I'd like to announce that my Facebook page is up and running, as well as my Twitter. Find them at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweetie-Pie-Bakes-Stuff/149724028448663
http://www.twitter.com/sweetiepielmk/

I’ve had a few people ask me over the past few days why I bother making everything from scratch. As I mentioned in my post on homemade sprinkles, there are a few reasons. Of course, one gets the satisfaction of having made your sweets and baked goods from scratch, which is a good enough reason by itself before you consider any others, but also I a) get to control the exact ingredients in my products, which is important for someone living a life with any kind of restricted diet (wheat intolerance, lactose intolerance, veganism, organic living, et cetera), and b) it’s much, much, much, much cheaper.

Take this example. When I first began living a wheat-free lifestyle, I went to my local supermarket to get some shopping. At first I thought “this whole wheat-free thing isn’t too bad: I like rice and potatoes, and sure can’t I get maize pasta. No biggie-smalls!” I didn’t worry too much about buying wheat-free bread because I don’t really eat sandwiches or toast, and making soup from scratch to avoid wheat-based thickeners is no skin off my nose. I then thought “you can buy pretty good wheat-free biscuits now, I’m told”, so I went to the ridiculously titled ‘Health Food’ aisle, where things like dairy-free and gluten-free products are hidden. 

Having found the shelf where the biscuits were kept, my heart skipped a beat: not only was the selection as exciting as a magnolia wall, but a packet of Bourbon biscuits, my favourite biscuit, was €2.49. A few weeks previously, I could have bought a normal-person packet of Bourbon biscuits for less than a euro, and that would have enough biscuits in it to make me sick, but this wheat-free packet of biscuits had eight biscuits in it; just eight. Once I had engaged my maths brain, I worked out that this meant the wheat-free ones were over 30c per biscuit, and the normal wheaty ones were less than 5c per biscuit. I left the shop with no biscuits, and a bad taste in my mouth.

However, all was not lost. I discovered a few weeks later that I could eat spelt and not abreact, and once I had done my research, I began happily baking as I always had; and it meant a much cheaper lifestyle.

Let’s crunch a few numbers. Here is an example of a cost sheet; these are the prices as of today, obviously subject to change:

Bourbon Creams	Euro per packet	Grammes per packet	Grammes used in recipe	Cost of grammes used
for biscuits
Spelt flour	2.89	1000	115	0.33
Cornflour	1.19	500	30	0.07
Cocoa Powder	3.45	250	25	0.35
Butter	2.19	450	115	0.56
Icing sugar	1.09	500	55	0.12
Vanilla essence	3.99	60	5	0.33
for fillling
Butter	2.19	450	115	0.56
Cocoa Powder	3.45	250	25	0.35
Icing sugar	1.09	500	255	0.56
Milk	0.75	1000	15	0.01
Vanilla essence	3.99	60	5	0.33
			Total Cost	1.80
			Pieces	18 – 20
			Cost per item	0.10 – 0.09

Compare that to the aforementioned €2.49 packet of eight Bourbon creams. See? You could even make these cheaper again by using margarine instead of butter, omitting the vanilla essence, et cetera, without massively impacting the taste. It will a little, obviously, but not enough to make a huge difference.

Of course, what you save in money your trade for time. But if you get into baking as a hobby, it’ll become a fun way to pass time and save money at the same time. This allows you to make all kinds of different and interesting baked goods that you wouldn’t even be able to get in the shops; I haven’t yet come across a wheat-free gingerbread man, for example, but I can make as many gingerbread men as my wallet will allow at home.

Now, for ingredients: if you buy a packet of biscuits from the shop, there will more than likely be a long list of ingredients which are difficult to pronounce. Glucose syrup, hydrogenated vegetable fat, humectants, surfactants, emulsifiers, a few vaguely titled ‘flavourings’, dehydrated reconstituted egg protein, and whey powder are all commonplace in mass-produced biscuits, and God knows what else; as you may have guessed, none of these is particularly good for you. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that biscuits and sweeties and lovely things aren’t supposed to be good for you, and are just fine enjoyed in moderation, but there is such a thing as damage control. It’s good to know exactly what has ended up in your biscuits and, if you make them from scratch, you can. You can ensure that nothing but a hundred percent natural everything has been used, you can even make sure that the ingredients are organic and fair trade, if you so please. Obviously, that will make them a little pricier.

So go ahead, become like me: an obsessive baker and saver of money. You know it makes sense.

Bake Sale Madness: Raising Funds for Christian Aid

Last Thursday, my church hosted a coffee morning bake sale in support of Christian Aid Week. It was moderately successful, as successful as a coffee morning can ever be in a city where the Protestant community is very small. We made a few hundred euro, which is a few hundred Christian Aid didn't have before last Thursday!

I love bake sales and church fetes. The spectacle of a table laden with all kinds of baked lovely things is genuinely a sight for sore eyes, and there’s something deeply pleasing about watching folk munch away on cakes and biscuits and drinking tea. Then again, I may just be a born entertainer; the feeding and hosting kind of entertainer, not the face-paint and black spandex kind of entertainer. The aforementioned sight of cake consumption is made even better knowing that the proceeds are going to charity!

But  hosting a bake sale comes with a bit of a crisis: how much do I make? What do people like? What will I make? Oh, the confusion! Do not let your hearts be troubled. Here’s some tips.

• Personally, I’ve found that variety bests quantity at bake sales: people like a selection of things, and one batch of everything seems to work, as opposed to several batches of the same thing. When there’s a variety, people like to have a little of everything and this means a little of everything will be worn away by everyone. If you make loads of the same thing, people will take a little and be happy with that; also, some people might not like that one thing of which you made loads.
• As for what people like and what to make, this is even trickier, but I’ve found three things always go down a treat: chocolate, biscuits, and cake that’s in small form, whether fairy cakes or sliced cakes.
• Always make things that you would eat yourself. If you make a load of stuff that you wouldn’t eat, or that no-one in your household will eat, what happens when you have leftovers that have to follow you home? If you make things you like, taking home leftovers won’t ever be a problem (unless you’re on a diet, then it will be).
• Beware of exotic flavours! I always have to rein myself in when it comes to cooking things for a bake sale, because – as I’m sure you all know already – I like being experimental with flavours. Sometimes, the flavour combinations are a real smash, other times not so much.
• Similarly, mind how dark your chocolate is. Everyone likes chocolate, men and women and children alike, but a tip to bear in mind when it comes to chocolate is that not everyone likes the same intensity or darkness of chocolate. Steer away from making things too dark or bitter: use milk chocolate.

Last time I did a bake sale, I made ginger brownies, caramel coffee slices, and stained glass gingerbread biscuits. I assumed the coffee cake would be more popular, however, the brownies were all gone within the first twenty minutes, and I had to bring some of the coffee slices home with me at the end of the day. I expected that people would punch the candy middles out of the stained glass biscuits, and I was right; the gingerbread biscuits were all eaten, though.

The time before, I made traditional treacle gingerbread (the cakey-tea-bread kind) and mini butterscotch meringue tarts; they both went down very, very well, even though the gingerbread was very rich and spicy. I’m quite stubborn: I don’t like resorting to cupcakes. Not that I mean any disrespect to cupcakes, but sometimes people can rely on them as a lazy crowd pleaser if they’ve left baking to the last minute. I apologise for my snobbery: when cupcakes are done well, with the love and effort they deserve, they are fantastic!

This time, my culinary endeavours are:

• Coconut Custard creams
• Orange Bourbon creams
• Mint Toffee cake

Once again, I’m not shying away from flavour. The ginger brownies will be making a reappearance, as they were so popular the last time, and I’ll also be making some iced gingerbread hearts.

I’ll be getting the next few blogs’ worth of material out of this one day. Not bad! Recipes for all the deliciousnesses will be uploaded over the next few days!

Jammie Dodgers (or Linzer Biscuits) (Wheat Free)

Today and yesterday have been baking madness for me! Tomorrow, I have a bake sale for which I'm concocting delicious things. But, I've found time to post about something I made earlier in the week: wheat-free Jammie Dodgers!

Jammie Dodgers are the quintessential biscuit barrel favourite, bested only by Custard Creams and Bourbon Creams: two vanilla biscuits sammidged together with tooth fusingly chewy ‘fruit-flavour’ jam. They are the business, so how awesome is it that they can be made very easily at home?

This is a nice, simple recipe to have up your sleeve, the only downside is that they are quite time consuming; there’s a lot of waiting involved, but it’s the same with any kind of sandwich biscuit (make the dough, chill the dough, cut the biscuits, bake them, cool them, make filling and then sandwich, there's a lot involved; but it's all worth it). You can use any good biscuit recipe, as long as the recipe yields dough that doesn’t change its shape much in the oven: for example, shortbread would work well, or any plain cut-out biscuit recipe would be fine, too.

The key to this recipe is the jam you use. Whether it’s blackcurrant, raspberry, strawberry, or whatever, make sure it has a nice high fruit content. I use jam that is about 60 percent fruit, as this makes the jam full of flavour without being sickly sweet, as you need to add a little sugar later to make it the appropriate stickiness. More on the jam later!

For the biscuits, I used this almond shortbread recipe:

INGREDIMENTS

For the biscuits

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) caster sugar
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) butter
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) spelt flour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) ground almonds
• Pinch of salt

For the jam

• 4 to 5 ounces (115 to 140 grammes) good quality jam
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) caster sugar
• ½ teaspoon (2.5 millilitres) cornflour
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) cold water

HOW-TO

First, make the biscuits

• Preheat the oven to 160°C (320°F, Gas Mark 2½, very moderate).
• Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla essence.
• Mix in the dry ingredients and form into a soft dough.
• Unlike the usual kinds of shortbread biscuits, this dough has to rolled and cut-out before chilling in the fridge. This mixture is too delicate to be chilled beforehand, as it just crumbles because of the ground almonds.
• Roll to ⅛ inch thick (3 or 4 millimetres) and cut out with a 2 inch (5 centimetre) round, fluted cutter. Using an icing nozzle or small circle cutter ½ inch wide (1 centimetre), punch small holes out of the centres of half the biscuits. Re roll the trimmings and continue making until you have an equal quantity of full and ring-shaped biscuits.
• Lie them on a flat surface, such as a baking tray, and chill uncovered for 15 minutes.
• Take the biscuits out of the fridge and arrange 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) apart on baking trays lined with non-stick paper. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until very lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make jam filling

• Press the jam through a sieve to remove any pips or tough skins. Put the jam in a small saucepan.
• In a glass, mix the sugar, water, and cornflour into a paste. Add this to the jam.
• Cook the jam gently until it begins to bubble, about 5 minutes. Cool slightly, then sandwich the biscuits together – one full, one ring – with a teaspoon of jam filling.

This whole recipe yields 16 to 18 sandwiches (32 to 36 little biscuits in total). If you want to make them look more like the shop-bought ones, you can sprinkle the little jammie windows with granulated sugar and tip off the excess. These are nice and crunchy the day they're made, but the day after they soften up a little as the biscuit absorbs the moisture from the jam, and this is perfectly normal.

Experiment: Homemade Sprinkles

Firstly, happy Coeliac Awareness Week! As you all know, this blog is dedicated to the pursuit of making wheat-free goodies that are as good as any wheat-ful kind you’ll buy in the shops. Please, utilise these recipes to enjoy a few sweeties this Coeliac Awareness Week, just substitute all the spelt flour for gluten-free blend, as spelt is not suitable for a gluten-free lifestyle, just for a select lucky few who are just wheat-intolerant.

Anyway: moving swiftly on.

I’ve always wanted to make my own sprinkles. Why, you ask, would you want to go to all that bother if you can get them in the shop relatively inexpensively? Two reasons: one, when one gets into the mode of making everything themselves from scratch to accommodate for a wheat-free lifestyle, it starts to become less of a necessity and more of a challenge to see how many shop items one can recreate as faithfully as – if not better than – the original version; two, because shop-bought sprinkles have loads of very suspect ingredients in, and my version has only four. Those four ingredients are icing sugar, egg white, lemon juice, and food colouring; if you can get your hands on natural food colourings, you can make completely natural sprinkles.

Also, when you make your own sprinkles, you can make them any shape you want, as long as your piping skill and array of icing nozzles facilitates. I had some left over royal icing from the other day, so I decided to try my hand at making some, and I did a few different shapes. They’re all quite pretty! I think for a first go, they’re pretty awesome...

• For the traditional, sugar strand style sprinkles, I piped long straight lines of royal icing onto a piece of non-stick baking paper. Once they were completely dry, having been left to set overnight, I cut them into shorter pieces using a sharp knife. You could also break them up with your fingers.
• I piped a large amount of little dots, and they were pretty cute. They weren’t flat enough to be confetti, but I think they were quite nice in their own right.
• I also piped some teardrop shapes for added interest; I wouldn’t do that again, to be honest: I didn’t like them as much.
• 
  

And there they are. I did two different colours and mixed them up, which was a nice touch. You could do any combination of colours: you could have a rainbow mix, or a pink mix with different shades of pink, or green or blue or whatever. Hell, go crazy!


As for the creation of these little beauties, the consistency of the royal icing itself is key. Here are a few tips:

• Use the recipe in my iced biscuits post, but whip the royal icing to firm peaks. A flowing consistency will be too thin, and the sprinkles won’t keep their shape; very stiff peaks stage is a little too far, but firm peaks stage is just right.
• Also, when colouring the icing, bear in mind the colour will deepen as the icing dries. Your delicate pink may turn out neon if you’re not careful, but maybe that’s what you want.

This is only my first adventure in homemade sprinkles, so watch this space for more adventures in Sprinkleville!

A Cautionary Tale on the Dangers of Novelty Cakes: The Dinnersaurus

UPDATE: I've done a newer, more thorough version of this cake here!

Interested in 3D cakes? Check out my most recent 3D cake: a Panda Bear!

I’ve never been one for shaped cakes, or crafting novelty cakes of any kind really. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I made a cake for my mother’s birthday (which is today, incidentally) and I thought I’d take a leap of faith; I knew she would be happy with the usual cakey-cake cut in half with buttercream through the middle and sprinkles on top job, but I wanted – for my own pride – to try something a little different. Thus, the Dinnersaurus was born. And yes, not only have I been going through a biscuit phase, I've been going through a dinosaur phase.

When I was a little girl I had a book called Make a Monster, which was a book devoted totally the art of creating all kinds of representations of dinosaurs: from wooden models, to costumes, and – most importantly to me – food art. There were little ideas for making dinosaurs out of cake, and dinosaurs out of ice-cream, and the cake one has stuck in my mind until this day. It involved making a round cake and, using the first pattern, cut it into the appropriate shapes to arrange into a 3D dinosaur. Any unassigned bits of cake become chef’s perk, of course. My mother had asked specifically for an orange cake, so I obliged.

As you can see, it’s very simple. A lot of people, who probably have never heard of or read that book, do dinosaur cakes like this. The book instructed that one stick all the pieces together with jam, brush with jam, and then cover with marzipan; the decorative touches were added with nuts and dried fruit. But such a natural, ‘healthy’ attitude to this cake wouldn’t wash with me: I went ahead and stuck the whole lot together with buttercream, crumb coated it, and then covered it with luminous fondant icing.

I also used a slightly different template. Given that there would be a grand amassing of my family at this event, all of whom have an inhuman capacity for consuming cake, I made a dinosaur using two cakes. I arranged them like this:

Like was stuck to like, making everything twice the width, and twice the quantity. Each of the two cakes were split and filled with buttercream. I wanted to fill them with orange curd for a little extra richness and not so much toothache, but my mother prefers buttercream to curd when it comes to cake filling.

Of course, covering such a construction with fondant was exceptionally tricky: to make the fondant supple and mouldable enough to wrap around all the nooks and crannies, it needed to be quite thin, but in being thin it was very fragile. Needless to say, I put my finger through the fondant a few times, all of which were followed by a flurry of expletives. But, considering that this was my first proper, shaped novelty cake, I think I did very well.

Having been assembled and covered with fondant, it was time to decorate it and make it look more dinosaur-y. I had cut out some pentagonal shapes from teal fondant and left them to dry, and I used these to make the plates that ran down its back; I can’t officially say that is an exact representation of a stegosaurus, but it’s very heavily modelled on one. Steggies have always been my favourite dinosaur. Then I added some eyes, a smiley mouth, some blushed cheeks and painted on some eyelashes; I used the wide end of a piping tip to print scales all over the fondant. I then place it onto an impromptu cake board (a large piece of heavy cardboard covered with foil) that had been brushed with jam and sprinkled with green-tinted desiccated coconut. This, my friends, was a proper retro treat.


As you can see from the pictures, it was gobbled up in large amounts earlier this evening with great gusto. It’s backside is currently on top of the fridge.

Cake Pops, a Maiden Voyage: Jaffa Cake Pops

So. I made a lovely orange sponge for my mother’s upcoming birthday and after all the cutting and shaping and hacking, the cake took its shape and left me with piles of Chef’s Perks. So much cake, and a little left over icing, all as orangy as each other. As I put all the leftovers into a tin, I thought to myself “I’ve actually never made a cake pop before... maybe I should give it a go!”

Due to the ad hoc nature of this venture, it was done pretty much by eyeballing: I can’t give exact cake to icing ratios as I just mixed it up until it was about right. I also added a little fine shred marmalade just to make it all a little fresher and less rich, and it was a nice addition. I mixed the orange cake crumbs, orange buttercream and marmalade together to the consistency of un-chilled gingerbread dough: mouldable but sticky. I then took tablespoonfuls and rolled them into little balls, arranging them on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper. I left them to chill in the fridge for about half an hour.

Languishing in my baking cupboard, I have had a packed of brightly coloured wooden lolly sticks. I bought them about three years ago to make Halloween toffee apples for a party when I was in college, and they have been living a neglected life ever since. I’m quite glad that the garish little things got another outing. I dipped the tips of the sticks into melted dark chocolate and pressed them into each of the cake balls, about half to three-quarters of the way in, and then returned them all to the fridge. I left them in for about an hour, but I’m sure one could get away with half an hour.

I melted some more dark chocolate in a tall, thin mug. I found it helps to melt the chocolate in a tall, narrow container just wide enough to dip a cake pop into, as this means you don’t need to melt gallons of chocolate to cover the balls. I dipped the pops into the chocolate, and tapped them gently on the side of the mug: due to the pops having been in the fridge, the chocolate set pretty quickly on the surface, which was great because it mean I didn’t have to spend forever tapping the chocolate off the sides. I then sprinkled a few multi-coloured sugar strands onto each pop.

Now, unfortunately I don’t have a fancy-pants Styrofoam cake pop holder for allowing them to set, so I improvised. For those who don’t have, or can’t afford, a fancy stand, just take a heavy duty cardboard box – like a fruit box – and use a paring knife to stab holes in the bottom, wide enough to stick a lolly stick into. Turn it upside-down, and stick the pops into the holes – stick-side in, of course – to dry. You could put the whole shebang into the fridge to speed things along.

Despite all the videos online saying what a delicate art cake pop manufacturing is, I found it really easy. There is a subtlety to tapping the excess chocolate off the pops, and that is simply to not be violent with them; I think using wide wooden sticks as opposed to little, thin paper ones put me at an advantage also, as they were more sturdy. My improvised recipe of orange cake and dark chocolate worked out surprisingly well: it was like eating a Jaffa Cake in pop form. I’ll definitely try to make more, in a few different flavours.

How to Use and Abuse Royal Icing, and Wholemeal Gingerbread (Wheat Free)

 

Recently, I’ve been going through a biscuit phase: for months, I’ve been making loads of different kinds of cake, but as of late I’m feeling the biscuits vibe a bit more. First, I made the dinosaur Kimberleys, which sent me down the road to Gingerbreadville, and then for a friend’s birthday I made some vanilla and chocolate shortbread biscuits that were decorated with royal icing in pretty pastel shades (I unfortunately don’t have photos of these ones: my camera ran out of battery). I first tried royal icing flooding a few years back and I was a little disappointed, but this time round – even after years of not practising – they turned out ninety-percent perfectly. Maybe I was suffering from a case of too-many-mind at the time.

One thing I will say, though, is the exact consistency for flood icing is somewhat elusive and tricky to explain to people; it’s something you just kind of work out one day and know thereafter. The following is the recipe I find works quite well. Obviously, atmospheric factors will affect the consistency and drying speed of your royal icing: humidity, heat, et cetera. Keep an eye on the old barometer, if you have one.

INGREDIMENTS

• 1 large egg white, at room temperature
• 7 ounces (200 grammes) icing sugar, sieved
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice, or water if you don’t like lemon juice.

HOW-TO

• Beat the egg whites and lemon juice together until foamy and no longer liquid.
• While still beating, gradually add in the icing sugar in three additions.
• Beat the icing for a minute or two until the right consistency is reached. Soft peaks is a little too far, but if you reach soft peaks stage just add a few drops of water and beat in gently.

This icing colours well, but bear in mind that the colour will get deeper as the icing dries, so bear that in mind when you tint your raw icing: what you thought was a nice delicate pink might end up being neon once dry. As for the flooding technique, there’re billions of videos online for methods; from piping to painting on with a paintbrush, all the bases are covered.

And if you’re here for the gingerbread, you won’t be disappointed. Check out this recipe for the method; the only thing that’s different is the ingredients.

INGREDIMENTS

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• ½ ounce (15 grammes) golden syrup
• 1 ounce  (30 grammes) cornflour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) wholemeal spelt flour
• 1 ounce  (30 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground coriander
• ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
• Pinch of salt 

These biscuits have a nice, vintage kind of feel to them: feathered icing conjures up images of a North English grandma’s biscuit barrel... it does it me, anyway. In my oft-mentioned Sweet Success book, there’s a recipe for feather iced buns, maybe that’s why. It’s a very simple technique that yields very tastefully pretty results.