Fluffy Scotch Pancakes

This recipe isn't quite baking. Like the crumpets I made a few weeks ago, it involves making a batter, using bicarbonate of soda as a raising agent and then cooking said batter in a frying pan.

"But this is supposed to be a baking blog," is what you're saying now, in a rather whiny tone. Look at my face. Is this the face of a woman who cares about your narrow definition of the word 'baking'? No, this is the face of a woman who wants to eat pancakes.

Usually on Pancake Day I would go for the humble crepe, no questions asked. A French style pancake, crisp round the edges and dressed in lemon and sugar is still my favourite. But it's also what I have every year, so I decided to make scotch pancakes this year. I'm glad I did, even if it means I didn't get to showcase my skills as a champion tosser.

A tosser of pancakes, that is.

There are the last of my batch of pancakes, which I finished Friday morning with a drizzle of honey, blueberries and my daily americano. They very nearly made up for getting up at 6:30 to do the early shift at work. Nearly.

Like crumpets, scotch pancakes are something you can either eat warm from the pan or keep and refresh in the toaster before serving. I'd recommend eating them with maple or golden syrup, honey, fruit or just butter. This recipe makes 6 and is based on a recipe by Nigella Lawson.

You will need:
110g plain flour
150ml milk
half a tsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 egg
1 tbsp olive oil

1. Put the milk and vinegar into a jug and whisk in the egg and oil.

2. Weigh out the flour and whisk into the wet ingredients along with the bicarbonate of soda.

3. Leave uncovered for 20-30 minutes, then whisk again.

4. Heat a large frying pan over a medium flame without oil and use a ladle and the jug to ladle large dollops of batter into the pan, spreading them quickly into 6-8cm circles with the back of the ladle.

5. When bubbles appear in the pancakes and the undersides are golden brown, flip them with a spatula and cook until the other side is the same golden brown.

6. Serve.

Easy, quick and results in pancakes that are crisp on the outside with a warm fluffy centre. Lovely!

I will bake 'properly' again soon, promise.

Ellie
xxx

Raspberry Mousse Heart Cakes

I rather think I aired my grievances about Valentine's Day a couple of years ago on this same blog, so I won't go into it now.

Let's just say I never pass up an opportunity to make cake. There's a charity bake sale at work tomorrow so I have dutifully churned out nearly 20 of these little cakes.

Aren't they cute? You know they are. And surprisingly easy to make. You may in fact recognise some of this recipe from my raspberry and chocolate entremets, which I made for French patisserie week of the Great British Bake Off. Bake smart, not hard.

I ended up with a lot of raspberry mousse left over - it is lovely by itself or with the remaining cake bits after you've cut out your heart-shaped sponges.

You will need:

For the sponge:

250g softened butter

250g caster sugar

4 medium eggs

200g plain flour

50g cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

A splash of milk, if needed

2 shallow rectangular baking trays, lined

small heart-shaped biscuit cutter

For the mousse:

225g raspberries

1 sachet gelatine or vege-gel

500ml double cream

70g icing sugar

1 piping bag or cone of greaseproof paper

To decorate:

handful of raspberries

icing sugar, to dust

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream together the butter and caster sugar with a wooden spoon.

2. Weigh out the cocoa, flour and mix together with the baking powder. Begin beating the eggs in one at a time, adding a tablespoon of dry ingredients with each egg to stop the mixture from curdling.

3. Fold in the remaining flour and if the mixture is slightly stiff (it should ribbon off the spatula or spoon) beat in a little milk to loosen the mixture.

4. Split the batter across the two baking trays and spread it evenly with a spatula or palette knife. The mixture will look thin but don't panic - we want that.

5. Bake the sponge for 8-10 minutes until risen and cooked through (check the middle particularly carefully) and leave to cool.

6. While the sponge is cooling, mix together the raspberries, gelling agent and icing sugar for the mousse together in a own and leave to simmer for 10 minutes over a medium heat.

7. When the mixture has simmered down to a fruity red liquid, force it through a sieve to remove all the pips.

8. Meanwhile, whip the cream for the mousse to soft peaks.

9. Once the raspberry mixture is lukewarm, fold it into the cream until fully combined.

10. By now the sponge should be cold. Use the biscuit cutter to cut heart shaped sponge layers out of it. 

11. Place the biscuit cutter on top of a sponge heart and use the piping bag or greaseproof paper to fill the space with mousse, then smooth it down with the back of a teaspoon and carefully lift off the cutter. Repeat until half the sponge hearts are topped with mousse.

12. Put the remaining sponge hearts on top of the mousse layers on the other sponge hearts, forming sandwiches with mousse as the filling. Scatter around some raspberries on the serving plate and dust with icing sugar.

There you have it. A perfect romantic treat and if you're single, all that means is there's no one to judge you when you scoff three in a row.

As this recipe contains fresh cream, remember to refrigerate your cakes if you're not eating them straight away and eat within a couple of days. If they hang around that long. 

Happy Valentine's Day,

Ellie

xxx

Orange Blossom and Pistachio Madeleines

Those of you who know me well will know that I have a weakness for baking equipment. Is that cake tin an inch smaller/bigger than all my others? I want it. Did I see that spatula on the Great British Bake Off? Gimme. Does that implement fill a need I never knew I had? Mine.

So when I went into Lakeland with a £5 voucher that required me to spend £30 to use it, there was only one way it was going to end.

Expensively.

I bought a duo icing set, which allows you to pipe 2 colours at once (2! There is a God!), a small cake tin, a cake lifter (don't ask), some posh flavourings, a madeleine tin and some other bits and pieces.

I won't tell you how much it all cost, but rest assured it was too much. Reeling out of the shop in slight shock, I decided I'd better start making use of my new equipment straight away. I promptly went home and made a batch of madeleines.

They were a great success - light, fluffy with the distinctive shell shape of a classic madeleine.

But I love to meddle with things that already work. My motto is less "if it ain't broke don't fix it" than "if it ain't broke cover it in icing. It is broke? Cover it in more icing!"

So I have meddled around a bit in the kitchen and this is what I came up with - orange blossom and pistachio madeleines. That's the recipe I'm giving you, if you want to make plain madeleines I used Michel Roux Jr's recipe. If you aren't lucky enough to own a madeleine tray then use a muffin tray.

Quick tip for skinning the pistachios - cover them in boiling water, leave for 2 minutes then drain and rub with kitchen towel - the skins should slip off. If your madeleine tray is the same as mine this will make around 30 madeleines.

You will need:
150g butter, melted and then cooled slightly (still fully liquid) plus extra to grease
100g plain flour plus extra to dust
100g caster sugar
100g pistachio nuts, skinned and chopped finely
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp orange blossom essence
2 medium eggs
icing sugar, to dust

1. Prepare your tray by greasing it with melted butter and dusting liberally with flour, tilting the tray to get flour into all the corners.

2. Whisk together the caster sugar and eggs until frothy.

3. Whisk in the remaining ingredients (except icing sugar) and leave to stand for 20 minutes. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200C.

4. Whisk the mixture again then drop a heaped teaspoon of the mixture into each madeleine mould.

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown and risen. Dust liberally with icing sugar and serve.

How easy was that? I'll show you the other side of the madeleines too, which should have a little peak in the centre.

Apart from their elegance, simplicity and tastiness there is another reason I enjoy madeleines. The eating of madeleines allows me to make a literary allusion. In his book "In Search of Lost Time" Marcel Proust refers to an incident when the sensory experience of eating a madeleine dipped in tea suddenly and involuntarily makes him remember doing the same thing during his childhood.

I had to read this book for my English literature undergraduate and although I found it pretty boring, I have since always enjoyed referring to eating a madeleine as a Proustian moment, when I know full well that a Proustian moment is actually a moment of involuntary memory. It allows me to show off about being well read while wilfully using a well known phrase for my own, wicked, cakey means.

And now, I am off to have a Proustian moment with one of these madeleines and a cup of tea.

Au revoir,

Ellie
xxx

Baked Chocolate Mousse with Ginger Biscuit Base and Lime Cream

Are you a chocoholic?

I am. Every now and then there comes a moment, whether it's a hangover, a 4pm energy crash at work or a low point in my love life (don't laugh, I had a love life once) where I need chocolate with every fibre of my being.

And I mean NEED. Woe betide anyone who gets between me and chocolate when this happens. Nothing else will cut it at these times.

Luckily, this hasn't been one of those weeks. So far. But when a friend invited me round for a girls' night in on Friday, with vegetarian lasagne, prosecco and Netflix, I just knew I had to make a dessert worthy of the occasion.

I went to my Hummingbird Bakery recipe book for inspiration and lost myself for a while in pictures of cakes so chocolatey I could scarcely believe the bakers there get through the week without at least one major coronary incident.

At first I was going to make a baked chocolate cheesecake, but then Elena pointed out she didn't like cheesecake. So instead I decided on chocolate mousse. But as you know, only baked products end up on here, so I did a bit of research and discovered that there is such a thing as a baked chocolate mousse.

I found a basic recipe and then added a gingernut biscuit base and some lime cream for added flavour factor. Here it is:

You know you want this recipe. Come on, give it a try. Also, if you have a gluten free diet, leave the biscuit base off and it's the perfect cake substitute.

You will need:
300g dark chocolate
250g butter, diced
200g packet of gingernuts (or plain digestives if you don't like gingernuts)
6 eggs
55g caster sugar
300ml cream
juice and zest of 2 limes
mint leaves, to decorate
icing sugar, to decorate

1. Seal the biscuits in a sandwich bag and hit repeatedly with a rolling pin until biscuits are crushed to fine crumbs, then pour into a bowl. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Melt 100g of the butter over a low heat in a saucepan. Mix into the biscuit crumbs and press into the bottom of a well greased 8 inch cake tin.

3. Melt the chocolate and the remaining butter in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. When completely melted, turn off the heat and leave to cool a little.

4. Carefully separate the eggs, setting aside the whites. Beat together the egg yolks and caster sugar until pale, then fold into the chocolate.

5. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

6. Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and pour into the prepared tin.

7. Bake for 20 minutes until well risen, then cool in the tin before placing in the fridge to chill. In the meantime, add the lime juice and zest to the cream and whip to soft peaks. I managed to overwhip my cream. I always do.

Serve dusted liberally with icing sugar and decorated with mint leaves and a splodge of lime cream.

Can I just assure you, this is every bit as good as it looks. Silky smooth, rich and so chocolatey.

If there's such a thing as death by chocolate, this is double homicide.

Laters,

Ellie
xxx

Hot Buttered Crumpets

It pains me to admit that I haven't yet mastered this recipe. After all, what is more quintessentially English than a hot, buttered crumpet? Even Dickens was always wittering on about them. Mind you, he was good at wittering on in general, it wasn't specific to baked goods.

And let's face it, crumpets are amazing. I used to have them with butter and Marmite spread on top (other yeast-based spreads are available) and leave them just long enough so it soaked through the honeycombed structure. Then I'd squeeze them to make the Marmite/butter mixture ooze out the top. I'm not sure why, but then I've always been easily amused. Now I usually have them with a little spinach and a poached egg perched on top - mainly because as a frequent runner and a vegetarian I need my protein and iron.

That is why I wish I could tell you this recipe was foolproof. But it most definitely isn't, because I tested it on a fool (myself) and I'm at a loss to what made some of attempts work and some of them fail miserably.

So all I can really do is offer you the original recipe, along with some of my observations on it. It's a Paul Hollywood recipe and will make 10-12 crumpets.

You will need:

175g strong white bread flour
175g plain flour
14g fast acting yeast
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200ml lukewarm water
350ml milk
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
sunflower oil for cooking and greasing
2-4 non stick baking rings

1. Put the flours and yeast in a bowl together.

2. Warm the milk in a pan, adding the sugar. Do not let it boil, just warm through. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the milk, drawing the flour in with a wooden spoon and then mixing until it forms a dough.

3. Put the dough in a bowl and cover it in clingfilm. Leave it until it has doubled in size and then sunk back a little, about an hour.

4. When the dough has sunk back, mix the bicarbonate of soda with 150ml of the warm water and the salt. Beat into the dough, adding more water if needed, until it forms a thick batter that drops from the spoon. Recover the batter and leave for 20 minutes.

5. Heat a griddle or large frying pan on a low-medium and lightly grease both the pan and the rings. Put a ring on the pan and ladle enough batter in to fill about two thirds of the tin.

6. Bubbles will form in the batter and rise to the surface as the crumpet cooks - pop them with a sharp knife. When the bottom of the crumpet is browned and the top is set, which should take 6-8 minutes, flip it with a couple of spatulas. The bubbles should have stopped filling with batter and stayed open instead. Cook for a couple of minutes upside down until the top is golden brown.

7. Slide the cooked crumpet out of the ring and leave to cool, then return the ring to the pan and refill with batter. You may want to rest the pan for a couple of minutes between batches or it will get so hot that the bottoms of the crumpets burn before the tops set.

Either serve the crumpets straight away or leave them to cool and toast later. Enjoy with plenty of butter and the additional toppings of your choice.

Make sure the pan is thoroughly heated before you begin trying to cook your crumpets. I found that if the pan was not hot enough, bubbles did not form in the crumpets.

However, even if your crumpets don't have holes in, I'm sure they'll be delicious. Mine certainly were.

Ciao,

Ellie
xxx

Gluten-free Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Cookies

I've been thinking about gluten free baking.

Don't panic, I'm not about to go on some crazy gluten-free diet. I strongly believe that such things should be left to those who actually have a gluten intolerance.

But my housemate is one of those people. So, having planned to follow a recipe that doesn't use much flour anyway, I thought "why don't I try making this gluten free?"

I did this by substitung the flour with oats, which I ground to a flour-like consistency. The recipe used oats anyway, so I didn't have to buy any extra ingredients and the result was indistinguishable from when I've used wheat flour - still buttery, rich and delicious.

Now for the science. Apparently a great deal of coeliacs think they cannot eat oats. This is because oats contain a protein similar to gluten, known as avenin.

But my research indicates the actual percentage of coeliacs who cannot tolerate avenin is between about 1-5%. When I say "my research" I mean that I asked Google, rather than giving 100 coliacs a bowl of porridge and seeing how many puked.

If you or anyone you are baking for has a severe intolerance or allergy to gluten, you may want to check that the oats you are using were grown and processed in a way that ensures they did not come into contact with wheat. I understand the Nairns brand is pretty good for this. The same goes for the chocolate chips - make sure they were manufactured in a gluten-free environment.

This recipe makes around 20 cookies, which will keep for a couple of days if stored in an airtight tin. I seriously don't expect them to hang around that long though.

You will need:
130g porridge oats
75g oats, ground to a flour-like consistency using a blender or coffee grinder
125g butter, softened
100g light brown soft sugar
35g caster sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and beat together the sugars and butter until light and fluffy in consistency.

2. Add the egg and beat well to combine.

3. Fold in the ground oats and bicarbonate of soda.

4. Fold in the whole oats and chocolate chips.

5. Drop heaped teaspoons of the mixture onto a lined baking sheet, about 2 inches apart to prevent them from sticking together.

6. Bake for 12 minutes until golden and leave to cool on the tray for 5 minutes.

7. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Best cookies ever and a recipe where gluten-free need not mean awesome-free.

Ciao,

Ellie
xxx