Month: April 2016

The berry crumble cake

Back to one of my favourite baking websites for inspiration – BBC Good Food. I saw this recipe called blackberry and coconut squares and decided to give it a go. I used black current instead and substituted half with blueberries. This recipe is very easy to follow however, my hands were sore and tired from the rubbing of the butter into the flour. It is truly a workout! Nutrition per slice (serves 20) Ingredients for the cake 200g self raising flour 50g almond meal 25g rolled oats 140g brown sugar 150 butter (cold) 75g desiccated coconut 2 medium eggs beaten 200g black current 200g blueberries Directions Preparation time: 15 min Baking time: 60min or when the top turns golden brown Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Place parchment paper or grease a 21cm square tin Tip the flour, oats and sugar into a large bowl Rub the butter into the flour mixture using your fingertips until it looks like little bread crumbs Mix in the desiccated coconut Add the beaten eggs in and mix well Pour half …

My favourite carrot cake recipe

Carrot cakes are one of my favourite cakes – especially with cream cheese frosting. The important thing about carrot cake is that it needs to be moist and jam packed with flavours. I like my carrot cakes without any sultanas and with lots of walnuts. This time, I’ve decided to experiment on cream cheese frosting and I had to cut down the sugar like crazy because most recipes call for more than 400g of icing sugar, which is insane! I’ve tried to cut down the sugar as much as I can without compromising the texture of the cake, hope that you’ll enjoy it as much as I did! Tips for making the perfect carrot cake Make it a day in advance – it takes time for the flavours to come out so let the cake rest in the refrigerator for a day before serving. For the cream cheese frosting, make sure that the butter and cream cheese are at room temperature To make the cream cheese frosting, add the sugar in by batches then beat …

The classic cakey brownie

There are many different kinds of brownies – fudgy brownies, the dense rich brownies (check out my rich chocolate brownie cake for the recipe), the chewy brownie and the cakey brownie. Regardless of which you prefer, a good brownie recipe is a must-have for every single baker. Today I’ll be sharing with you my classic cakey brownie. It requires the use of sour cream which makes the cake light and fluffy. One of my favourite things to do is to warm up my brownies and serve it with vanilla ice cream! Yum! I made this cake twice – one with chocolate chips on top and one without it. There is a difference in the texture of the cake after leaving it in the fridge overnight (as shown in the picture below). The cake becomes denser and the taste more flavourful. Hence it is always better to make brownies a day ahead. A few tips about brownies: They get better with age – so always make them a day ahead Let them cool completely in the …

Soft & chewy chocolate chip cookies

I was surprised by the number of attempts it took for me to finalise this recipe. Most of my recipes takes about three attempts before I am happy with the results, but this recipe took five different attempts. I was reading up on different recipes to find out what is the trick to getting a soft and chewy cookie and here are the tips that I’ve gathered. Use melted butter – yes, in liquid form, this gives the cookies a nice soft texture. The kind of sugar used – in this recipe I used raw cane sugar but some recipes call for brown sugar. I guess they both work the same – but definitely not with caster sugar (tried it in one of my attempts, the cookies turned out hard). Slightly beaten egg – don’t over beat the eggs because it changes the protein structure and makes the cookies harder. Dough resting time – For better tasting cookies, let the dough rest overnight. Baking time – cookies should be slightly under baked because they tend to …