Tag: #food

Eggless Honey Chocolate Oat Cookies

I could drone on about the wonders of a cookie and the definite importance of all the components needed to make it, well, wonderful. But to sum this entire post up: Holy shite, little did I know that miracles are within reach without the use of an imperative baking ingredient– eggs.

It was hard not to panic, because the cookie craving was kicking strong. An impatient unborn child raging in my abdomen. I just wanted a cookie, and no, I didn’t want to walk all the way to Sainsbury’s just to buy more basic life needs. That’s for Saturdays, and I don’t mind waiting.

Took my chances.

I was even lacking on the sugar side, and that’s where the honey stepped in. Oh, the honey. Without much sugar left, this was the main sweetener, and surprisingly the biggest flavourer. I didn’t think the flavour would be so profound in the final result, but the first thing that popped into my head when I took a bite was, heck, this is a honey cookie. Which is why the word honey comes before chocolate in the title, and that’s highly, highly unusual. It’s right there, it says everything. It’s fact.

The first batch was not a total failure, but I didn’t quite get what I was looking for. The flavours were all there, but everything was an absolute mess. The overly spread out cookies ranked 10 on the edibility scale but about a 2 for aesthetics. After tweaking the baking temperature and proportion of flour, things were looking up. It’s a little messy, and you end up needing to wait a little longer than usual for a proper set in the middle before tucking into a thin, soft stomach of chewy batter. I thank all that honey and zero egg. It’s grossly divine when you get a bit of chocolate and a bit of oaty chew. Yes, chewy is a key descriptive word here.

Happy mistakes.

Eggless Honey Chocolate Oat Cookies (makes 10-12 medium cookies)

Ingredients

130g (around 1 cup) all-purpose flour

23g (1/4 cup) whole rolled oats

40g (slightly less than a half cup) white sugar

100g (3/4) cup chopped chocolate

1 tsp vanilla extract

113g (1/2 cup) butter, softened at room temperature

8-ml (1/3 cup) honey

1 tsp baking soda

pinch of coarse salt

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350F (177C) and grease 2 large baking sheets. In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients– flour, oats, baking soda and chopped chocolate (not the salt!). In a large bowl, whisk together the room temperature butter, white sugar, honey, vanilla and salt. Pour the dry mix into this large bowl and stir together with a spatula or wooden spoon, just until everything comes together. Dollop tablespoonfuls of the mixture on the baking sheets, leaving at least 2 inches in between the cookies. Bake for 15-18 minutes in the preheated oven. Once done, leave to cool for at least half an hour.

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Chocolate Banana Mascarpone Sandwich

Sundays can be more magical than you ever think them to be.

A quickie, because I want you to make it now, or at least soon, before the magic of what you see above dissipates. Chocolate and banana is a sworn classic, at least to me anyways, and this sandwich has all the goods and more. I wouldn’t call it ‘chocolate and cheese’, because that juxtaposition looks and sounds sacrilegious, because I might as well say ‘chocolate and cheddar’ and make you all gag.

Saturday night made me too pink from the drink. With a late start on Sunday, something easy but lush was much needed. Thrown together in haste, but well astonished afterward. I must thank the gooey, perfect, sinful result of melting chocolate, mascarpone and gooey ripe banana mashed between commercial brioche.

Easy sin.

Chocolate Banana Mascarpone Sandwich (serves 1)

Directions

Heat a pan on medium high heat and ready a generous knob of butter. On one slice of brioche, spread a thick layer of chocolate spread (nutella/chocolate peanut butter/chocolate spread) and layer on slices of banana. On the other slice, spread a thick layer of mascarpone, and then layer on either one big square of dark chocolate or many small chunks of chocolate. Sandwich the slices together. Place butter in preheated pan, spread around a little, then place one side of the sandwich on the hot pan. Leave for 2 minutes, then flip to cook the other side. The surface should be a golden-brown.

Slice on the diagonal (it’s a rule), admire the oozing chocolate and then bite right into the middle while still hot and moist.

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Pumpkin Pecan Chocolate Chip Muffins

This is a special dedication to the one and only Emily Olivia Tapp, AKA the girl I’ve been meaning to see for more than a year…? Or a sister-like figure who’s finally on the same continent as me. Blessings are real.

As we sat in Mildred’s in Soho consuming all sorts of outrageously delicious vegan fare (cue sweet potato fries, roasted cauliflower!!, colourful salads and a pretty memorable apple crumble), it suddenly occurred to me just how long it’s been since I’ve seen her, or since I’ve written her a letter, for that matter.  But next to Em, it felt as if not much time has passed between us. In the middle of a million lectures, lab reports and walking everywhere all the time, Tuesday night was peace. Peace and Happy.

So, pumpkin. With chocolate, granola, and pecans. Everything lovingly encased in a golden batter, speckles of everything in each bite. Not a particularly daring experiment, but armed with a new baking pan, cupcake liners and instinct, I did my best. The rooty, earthy pumpkin marries well with the chocolate, and who doesn’t love gooey hot chocolate pockets in the middle of a warm, fluffy muffin?

Pumpkin Pecan Chocolate Chip Muffins (makes 6 muffins)

Ingredients

95g (3/4 cup) (95g) plain all-purpose flour

100g (1/2 cup) white sugar

120g (1/2 cup) pumpkin puree

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

pinch salt

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

30ml (1/8 cup) vegetable oil

1 egg

1 tbsp whole milk

1/4 cup granola or rolled oats

45g (around 1/3 cup) chopped chocolate

30g (around 1/4 cup) chopped pecans

Directions

Preheat your oven to 180C. In a medium bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients, except for the last 3 (chocolate, pecans and oats/granola). In a larger bowl, mix together all the wet ingredients– egg, oil, pumpkin, milk and vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients, and just before everything is incorporated, mix in the remaining 3 ingredients. You really only need 2 clean bowls and a wooden spoon for this entire process!

Divide the batter amongst 6 cupcake liners (double the recipe of you want of course), then bake for 25-27 minutes (mine took 25) in the preheated oven. Let cool once finished baking and tuck in. Any uneaten ones can be stored at room temperature for a couple of days, or in the freezer for however long you want.

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White Chocolate Caramel Banana Bread

Because we all know banana bread is actually cake.

Side note: I’m back!!

An apology is necessary and expected. The past few weeks have been an absolute blast, busy busy busy, what with moving to London to embark on a very science-y and exciting adventure. Early lectures, lots of note-taking, and the constant fear that I’ve done nothing to deserve a place in this wonderful university. The people are amazing, the work intriguing, and nothing beats the nighttime kitchen adventures, midnight study sessions and later-night parties. Nothing I say here could ever fully justify the experiences that have been thrown at me as well as those which I have yet to encounter. It’s still incredibly surreal; like a dream come true, yet somehow better.

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A modification on one of my previous banana bread recipes, this one has a gallant twist with the incorporation of white chocolate and caramel. If ever I do this again, I’ll be sure to add in a nuttier texture or more earthy flavour component to up the ante of everything else going on in the picture. It’s the sweetest pick-me-up, and a one-bowl wonder. Don’t you love the easy stuff? Remember: I’m all about simple. Sometimes. Ok, most of the time. With college matters whirling around my head, this loaf was a nice and easy break, which took no time at all to put together and bake. Feels good to get into mixing, picking ingredients and experimenting again in the kitchen. Made it with one of the sweetest people I’ve met here, and everyone loved (and then attacked) it. Crowd-pleaser. Bananas. White chocolate. Caramel. Good play.

Now, it feels like home.

White Chocolate Caramel Banana Bread (makes 1 loaf)

Ingredients

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 1/2 cups (190g) plain white flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup (76g) melted unsalted butter

2 tbsp milk

2 heaping tbsp caramel sauce

1/3 cup (68g) white sugar

3/4 cup white chocolate chips (I cut up a good bar)

Directions

Preheat your oven to 180C (350F). In a large bowl, mix together the mashed bananas, milk, sugar, melted butter, egg, salt and vanilla. Then add in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, milk, caramel sauce. Finally, gently stir in the white chocolate chips. Pour into a greased loaf and bake for 50-55 minutes. This one was ready by 53 minutes.

To serve, slice up and serve with more caramel, marmalade (a touch I personally adore) and more chopped chocolate. I’m guessing whipped cream or ice cream would sort out any lonely evening, too.

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Lemon Curd Muffins

If there’s anything I’m a true sucker for, it’s lemon anything. No really. I love chocolate and a lot of other sweet things, but when it comes to citrus-based desserts, my salivary glands go haywire and my head fills with buttercups and sunshine.

Fluffy, white lemon muffins with a lemon curd belly, topped with a lemon curd-sugar coating

What do I like about these muffins? Well. You mix the wet ingredients together, you mix the dry ingredients together, pour one into the other and voila, you have perfect golden muffins in a matter of 15 minutes or less. I mean it’s really not any harder than perusing the morning paper or making a cup of coffee. If you can tie your shoelaces, these are a piece of cake (got that). Wake up, make your coffee, work, take a half-hour break, and maybe during that time you can make these without breaking a sweat. There is just no excuse now.

I had to satisfy the lemon fiend in me a couple of days ago, and did so well with these muffins. I had an incredibly hard time labelling this either a muffin or cupcake, because although this one ticks the boxes for all things which make a muffin, well, a muffin, the insides reminded me more of a cupcake than anything– light as air, pale, tender and not as dense as any muffin you might come across. It’s 80% muffin and 20% cupcake in technique, but 100% cupcake in texture. The crumb is neither robust or rigid, but holds up enough to provide the perfect amount of bite. Add this to the mix of half-molten lemon curd centre and sugar-crusted, sharp-tongued top and you’ve got yourself a winner.

Just for general info, muffins generally:

  • have a domed top (as is evident above)
  • a denser crumb
  • little if any frosting (usually a sugar coating such as this one)
  • require the wet and dry ingredients to be mixed separately before one is added to the other, instead of the typical creaming method utilised in the making of cupcakes.

Therefore, I present to you the cuffin.

Delight is a synonym for that wonderful lemon curd-sugar topping, which once again couldn’t be easier. Delight is also a synonym for the feeling you get when you bite into a soft, white, lemony bit of cake, rounded off with the sharp notes of homemade (or store-bought, that’s good too) lemon curd. Sharp on soft. White and black. It’s meant to be.

Lemon Curd Cupcakes (makes 10-12 cupcakes, adapted from here)

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

200g self-raising flour

100g white castor sugar

pinch salt

1 egg

75ml vegetable oil (canola/sunflower is good here)

zest of one lemon

juice of half a lemon

120ml whole milk

60ml (1/4 cup) lemon curd, homemade or store-bought

For the lemon curd topping:

60ml (1/4 cup) lemon curd

70g white sugar (granulated/castor)

Directions

Preheat your oven to 190C (375F) and grease a cupcake or muffin tin. In a large bowl  whisk together the whole milk, egg, oil, lemon zest and lemon juice. In a medium bowl, briefly whisk together the self-raising flour, sugar and salt. Pour the dry into the wet mix and mix everything together until just combined with a wooden spoon. Using a tablespoon, half fill a mould in the tin with some batter, then use 2 teaspoons to put a small dollop of lemon curd in the centre, then fill to the 3/4-mark of the mould or case with more batter. Repeat for the rest of the cupcake moulds. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes (mine took 13 minutes exactly). Check at the 12-minute mark; a wooden skewer inserted into the side (because the centre has lemon curd) of one should emerge clean. They should be nicely domed with a golden top, and no cracking on the surface.

Whilst these are baking, make the topping (YUM). In a small bowl, microwave the lemon curd until warm but not totally liquidy. Put the white sugar in a shallow dish and set these two aside until the cupcakes are done baking. Once they are fully baked, leave to cool for 5 minutes before rolling the tops in the lemon curd, then rolling again in sugar.

Devour, and know that life is good.

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