Baked White Chocolate, Mascarpone & Passion Fruit Cheesecake from Giraffe

We went out to dinner last night with some friends visiting from the states! Since we had our Mini-Bakers with us I choose a family style restaurant: Giraffe. Maybe not exactly authentic British cuisine but it was good. This cheesecake was good! My husband decided on the Chocolate Chunk Brownie, the little ones had a scoop of ice cream (strawberry of course), and our friends shared the Toffee Apple Crumble!

Where have you had a good dessert from recently??

Chocolate Brownie Bowls!!

We had these for Christmas dinner dessert! 

They were soooo good! 

Great chocolate flavour without being too chocolaty allowing the opportunity to choose a variety of toppings!

We decided on ice cream.

After a big roast dinner we didn't want anything too heavy and over whelming! These were perfect!

It is a special tin for these chocolate bowls, but my mind is already thinking of all sorts of cakes and toppings that these would be great for!! 

Fresh fruit and cream ... or jam and cream like a scone? What would you fill yours with?

Chocolate Brownie Bowls with Ice Cream: 

125g soft unsalted butter
125g caster sugar (superfine sugar)
15g malted milk powder (Horlicks)
15g cocoa powder
125ml boiling water, easiest from a kettle
125ml buttermilk or runny plain yogurt
1 egg
1tsp vanilla extract
150g plain flour
1/2tsp bicarb of soda

Plus whatever you want to fill them with! I used ice cream this time around!!

1. Pre-heat oven 200C/gas mark 6 and lightly grease your dessert shell tin
2. Melt the butter over a low heat and add the sugar, stirring to help it dissolve. Turn off the heat.
3. Whisk the malted milk powder, cocoa, and boiling water until smooth.
4. Combine with the butter/sugar mixture. Mix it up!
5. Whisk the buttermilk, egg, and vanilla together before adding to the pan.
6. Whisk in the flour and bicarb.
7. You should have enough mixture to fill all 6 cavities three-quarters the way up.
8. Bake for about 12 minutes. They should feel slightly bouncy if you press on the surface.
9. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin before turning them out.
10. Then fill as desired!

turned out and cooling for another minute before filling

the 6-cavity dessert shell tin; dirty

Mini-Bakers strawberry ice cream with strawberry topping!

My brownie bowl with coffee ice cream!

note: from Kitchen by Nigella Lawson -- With all tins and pans that have a different textured surface, you want to make sure that you cool them for the time recommended. If the cakes are too warm they will stick to your pan or tin no matter how well you greased them.

Sugar, Sugar: Every Recipe Has a Story (a book review)

Hop on the Sugar bus!! The Sugar Mommas, Kimberly Reiner and Jenna Sanz-Agero, have written a book titled Sugar, Sugar: Every Recipe Has a Story. Both ladies had made different career choices, but came together to write this book that follows handed down classic recipes from all over the USA.
This is one of the baking books I received for Christmas. I have yet to bake anything from it but a few of the recipes I can't wait to try are:

Shoo-Fly Cake
Lucinda Bell's $100 Pecan Pie
Buffalo Chip Cookies (cover picture)
Peach Queen Cobbler bars
Seaside Toffee

I don't just skim bakery books, I read them cover to cover. This is a perfect book for reading as each 'recipe has a story' attached to it. I hope that with all my baking I someday perfect a dish to be able to call it mine! One that my grand kids will talk about to their grand kids and then give them the recipe of my infamous dish! I really enjoyed this book and can't wait to share a recipe or two with all of you!

resources: Sugar Momma's website, amazon.com, amazon.co.uk

Butter Rum Cake!!

taken from All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray

I'm using my bundt pan again! :0)

2 sticks (1 cup/225g) unsalted butter, room temp

1 cup of sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

4 large eggs (4 medium eggs for UK bakers)

1 tbsp Bacardi rum or other light run

3 cups cake flour (sponge flour for UK bakers)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 cup buttermilk

1. Pre-heat oven 325F or 170C, prepare your bundt pan or whatever dish you choose to use!
2. Cream butter on a medium speed and gradually add both sugars, beat well.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beat well after each egg.
4. Add rum.
5. While those are mixing in a separate bowl dry whisk the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together.
6. Slow the mixer down to low and add 1 cup of flour, beat. Add 1/3 cup of the buttermilk, beat. When it’s all added in increase speed to medium-high and beat until well incorporated.
7. Pour batter into pan. Remember if you’re using a bundt pan it’s recommended to pour the batter into one side and let it slowly fill the pan up.
8. Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer of your choice comes out clean.

batter all ready to go

for the glaze:

1/3 cup unsalted butter

¾ cups sugar

3 tbsp water

2 tsp Bacardi rum

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan
2. Add sugar, water, and rum and stir until smooth.
3. Remove from the heat.

before removing from the pan poke holes in the top (will be the bottom) and pour 3 quarters of the glaze over cake it should seep into all the holes you just poked in it. Which is the whole point!

turned out bundt cake; be sure to grease pan then leave upside down on a towel to drain I then sprinkle a little dusting of flour. these pans should be non-stick, but every little helps. also make sure to wait for the full 10 minutes or more cooling time before turning it out!

pour the rest of the glaze over the top! done!

to finish:

1. As soon as the cake is out of the oven poke holes in it.
2. Then pour a little less then half the glaze over the cake.
3. Let cool in bundt pan for 10-15 minutes
4. Unmold the cake on a cake rack
5. Cool for 10 more minutes.
6. Drizzle the rest of the glaze over the cake.
7. Once the cake has cooled transfer to a cake stand/plate/whatever you want to transfer it to. Who am I to tell you what to do? ;0) Enjoy!!

On my other bundt cake post someone wrote that it looks like a pine cone and they are so right!!

Christmas Cookie/Biscuits!!

Just like the Halloween cookie pan, we bought a Christmas one!! For these you could use any cookie dough really as you're molding them into pan cavity. We used the sugar/butter cookie recipe provided by Wilton!

I didn't buy new cookie decorations in red and green, we just used the same ones from Halloween! It worked for some and for others it would have been nice to have Christmas colors! It really didn't matter as we had a lot of fun decorating cookies for Santa!

note: To see a picture of the pan follow the links below. I could go take a picture of the pan as I didn't when I was making cookies, but I'm sitting comfortably and can't be bothered at the moment! ;0)

Resource: for UK buyers I got my cookie pan at Hobby Craft, but you can get it on amazon.co.uk. For USA buyers I'm sure you could find it at any store that sells baking things or the Wilton brand, but it is available on amazon.com.

Happy Holidays!!

I apologise for being absent the last week. My family and I have been sick! The day of my last post we were all very ill! It took us all weekend and a day or two to recover. As it was so close to Christmas I had lots to catch up on and didn't bake again until this weekend!! So, I have a few things to post in the next few days! I received a few new books for Christmas and will be telling you all about those too!!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend!! What was the most exciting thing you got for Christmas this year??

Candy Cane Brownies!!

taken from Fat Witch Brownies by Patricia Helding

14 tbsp (1 ¾ sticks) unsalted butter, about 200g
½ cup bittersweet chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips

3 large eggs or medium if your in the UK

1 cup granulated sugar

½ tsp peppermint extract

½ tsp vanilla extract

½ cup unbleached flour or plain flour

pinch of salt

½  cup white chocolate chips

Grease your baking pan; I’m using a 9x9inch silicone one, with butter. Dust with flour and tap out excess. Preheat your oven to 350*F

Melt the butter and chocolate chips together. There are a couple of different ways. Microwave safe bowl 30secs to 1 minute stirring in-between and over a pan of water either way just watch it! Set aside to cool.

Beat the eggs, sugar, peppermint and vanilla extract together until smooth. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and mix until well blended.

Sift the flour and salt into the batter. Mix gently until well combined and no trace of dry ingredients are left. Fold in the white chocolate chips.

Pour into you prepared pan and bake for 27 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with crumbs but no batter!!

Let cool for 30-60 minutes.

straight out of the oven

for the icing:

¾ cup white chocolate chips

½ cup confectioners’ sugar or icing sugar

1-2 candy canes crushed- depends on size but about enough to fill 1/3-1/4 cup

Melt the white chocolate chips, using your preferred method, and sift in confectioners’ sugar, whisking until smooth.

Poor over cooled brownies and sprinkle on candy canes. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until set. Cut just before serving!

what I ended up doing: for the icing I tried melting my white chocolate, but once again my icing has gone wrong. I might have to resort to Betty Crocker's Icing, although have you seen the ingredients list? It's got all sorts of random things in it! I had my glass bowl sitting on a simmering pot of water and as I was stirring it started seizing up. It just went hard and wouldn't turn into a nice smooth melted chocolate. So, I added the icing sugar/confectioners' sugar in hopes that it would help. It didn't. So, I melted a handful of chocolate chips and spread over the brownies then sprinkled the bread like crumbs, of white chocolate and icing sugar over the chocolate spread. Finishing it off by sprinkling the crushed candy canes! Might be a little more messy, but still tastes good. On a last note I used UK large eggs in this and it didn't seem to make much of a difference.

picture of the book, showing the smooth white chocolate frosting

These are good, not as good as the Chocolate Orange Brownies, but good in it's own way! The mint flavor is good. Again I think I should have just melted some mint chocolate and make the other recipe! ;0) They are very cool! Pun intended! I think I'll be done with brownies for a while! I have a few other things I'll be making this week!! Then I have a very excessive Christmas dessert list!!