Scones - Sweet or Savoury

I thought it was about time I contributed to this blog, so I've chosen something simple and versatile. Something my children enjoy making and eating!

Basic Plain Scone Recipe:
8oz Self Raising Flour
Pinch of Salt (optional)
2oz Butter
1oz Caster Sugar
150ml Milk

For a sweet variation, add 1oz Raisins/Dried Fruit (Glace Cherries work well)
For a savoury variation, omit the sugar and add 1oz Cheese or 1oz Walnuts.

Preheat oven to 220'C.

Mix together the sifted flour and salt and rub in the butter. Stir in the sugar if you're making the sweet variety.

Add your sweet/savoury ingredients (Dried Fruit/Cheese/Walnuts).

Add the milk and mix to form a dough - it's really important not to knead the dough like you would bread. Try to handle it as little as possible.

Turn out onto a floured surface and roll out to about 3cms thick. Cut out circular discs of about 6-7cms diameter.

Place on greased/floured baking tray and brush with egg or milk
Oven cook for 12 - 15 minutes.

To serve: Slice in half, add butter to the cheesy or walnut ones. Serve the sweet ones with whipped cream and strawberry jam.

Delicious!

Mince Pie Muffins

300g Plain Flour
1 tbsp Baking Powder
115g Caster Sugar
1/2 tsp Ginger (I would say optional)
1/4 tsp Grated Nutmeg (I would say optional also, but thats because I didnt have any!)
175ml Milk
2 tbsp Grand Marnier (Optional as I didnt have any!)
1 Beaten Egg
115g Melted Butter
Finely Grated Zest of 1 Lemon (surprise.... didnt have any!)
About 6 tbsp Luxury Mincemeat

Preheat oven to 200'c /400'F/Gas 6. Grease or line a 12 hole muffin tin.

Combine flour, baking powder, caster sugar, ginger and nutmeg and sift into a large bowl.

In a seperate bowl or jug, combine the milk, Grand Marnier, egg, butter and lemon zest. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir together until just combined. Half fill each muffin cup with the mixture, top with a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat, nestling it down into the mixture, then top with another dollop of muffin mixture to cover.

Bake for about 20min until risen and golden. Leave to cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To serve, dust with icing sugar, decorate with a holly leaf and sprinkle with a little silver glitter.

I would add that you need to try and judge where the very middle of the mixture will be as if the mixture is seen above the top of the mixture it can be charred when being cooked. So ensuring that it is quite far down, but yet not too far down as I guess it might come out the bottom?

'Baking Magic' by Kate Shirazi

Beetroot and Choc Brownies

250g Good Qual Choc
250g Cooked and Grated Beetroot
250g Caster Sugar
250g Butter
150g Self Raising Flour
3 Eggs

Pre-heat oven to 180'c. Grease a 20 x 30 x 3cm (ish) tin and add parchment to the bottom of the tin. Whisk together the sugar and eggs. Melt choc and butter and blend in with the egg mixture.
Gently fold the flour and then the beetroot to the mix (add chopped nuts or chunks of white choc if you wish). Poor into tin. Stick in the oven for 20 mins ish. Dont over cook or it'll be tough. Its ok to have a slightly sticky skewer when poked in the brownie, nice and stodgy :-).

Courtesy of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall

Brownie-and-Tiffin Tipper Truck Birthday Cake

The cake:

The Brownies: 

This recipe is from Jamie Oliver's "Little Book of Big Treats"

250g unsalted butter

200g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids, Green & Blacks type stuff)

80g cocoa powder

65g plain flour 

1 teaspoon baking powder

360g caster sugar

4 eggs

Optional: Jamie suggests 75g dried sour cherries and 50g chopped nuts. I used 50g of white chocolate (chopped into chunks) and 50g of walnut pieces, but I think it could have taken twice that amount of additions!

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degC. Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper. Jamie suggests a 25cm square tin. I didn't have one of those, and neither did Tesco, so I used what Tesco called a 31cm tin. It's rectangular and about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, and did the job perfectly.

In a large bowl over simmering water, melt the butter and the chocolate and mix until smooth. In a separate bowl, sift together the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder, then stir in the sugar. Add this to the chocolate/butter mixture. Stir together well. Beat the eggs and mix in until you have a silky consistency. I added the optional chocolate chunks and walnuts at this point (although Jamie says to add them to the melted chocolate), because I wanted half-and-half. I split the mixture in two and added chocolate chunks to one half and walnuts to the other, then...

Pour the brownie mix into the baking tray (half at one end and half at the other - they'll meet in the middle and some folk will get both), and place in the oven for around 25 minutes (I cooked mine for 30). Unlike cakes, a skewer shouldn't come out clean, because they need to be gooey in the middle. Once cooked, allow them to cool in the tray then transfer to a chopping board and cut into squares.

I baked these on Friday afternoon, cut them up and assembled the cake on Saturday, and they were still gooey and delicious on Monday evening, when we finished them up.

The Tiffin (Sookies):
Made following this recipe for sookies (last recipe in the post). I made double quantities with a few extra biscuits thrown in and this filled an A4 size baking tray. I then melted a bar and a half of dairy milk (large bar, and only because the posh chocolate went grainy rather than melting) and spread it over the top. The texture is more biscuity and crunchy than tiffin. These also lasted until Monday evening.

Dairy Free Brownies

These are very yummy & gooey! Great for egg or dairy allergy suffers!

Ingredients:

250g plain flour
350g demerara sugar
65g plain cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
250ml water
250ml vegatable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C / Gas 4

In large bowl stir flour, sugar. cocoa powder, baking powder & salt.

Pour in water, vegetable oil and vanilla.

Mix until blended and spread evenly into 23x33cm / 9x13in baking tin.

Bake for 25-30min until top is no longer shiny.

Cool for 10mins before cutting into squares.

*hazelnuts, walnuts or sunflower seeds can be added to dry ingredients*

Banana Bread

This recipe goes down well every time with Matthew.

• 1 ripe banana
• 3 dessert spoons sunflower oil plus a little for greasing
• 50g golden caster sugar
• 110g plain flour
• 1 level teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg
• 3 ish rounded dessert spoons of raisins (I also added glaze cherries)
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

First peel the banana and put it into one of the bowls. Use the fork to mash up the banana. Add the sunflower oil. This is now called the 'wet bowl'.

In the other bowl, put the golden caster sugar and mix together with the flour and baking powder to make a 'dry bowl'.

Break the egg in the cup and beat with the fork then add it to the wet bowl. Add the raisins too.

Measure the vanilla extract into the wet bowl. Stir all of the wet ingredients together. Now tip the 'dry bowl' into the 'wet bowl'. Give your mixture a big stir.

Oil a loaf tin with sunflower oil and pour in the mixture. Now put it on a baking tray and into a pre-heated oven at 180ºC fan/ 200ºC/Gas 6 for 30–40 minutes, or until completely cooked through.

Cool and slice

I have frozen this and defrosted it overnight when required and it still tastes good, if not nicer.

Chocolate treats

I've taken these from my other blog

Chocolate cake (makes 2 cakes)

CAKE:
½ lb unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup sour cream
2 cups sifted self-raising flour
3-6oz dark chocolate
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup black coffee

ICING:
4oz dark chocolate
4 cups icing sugar
Milk
1 tbsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350F / 180C / Gas mark 4
2. Grease cake tin
3. Melt chocolate and cool until tepid
4. Cream butter and sugar
5. Add sour cream, eggs & choc and beat until smooth
6. Add flour in small amounts, mix until smooth
7. Over the bowl, add baking powder to coffee (it fizzes) then add to bowl, mix until smooth
8. Bake for 30 mins, until mixture pulls away from the side. Do not open the oven until the last 5 mins
9. Cool on wire rack
10. Beat together all icing ingredients. Ice cake.

Gravity-field chocolate torte

For grown-ups only

Smash up a packet of Maryland hazelnut cookies (or cookie of your choice). Melt some butter and mix with the biscuit crumbs, then press this into the bottom of a 8 inch springform tin. Put in the fridge.

Melt 3 bars of Lindt 70% cocoa dark chocolate and a good chunk of butter in a bowl over boiling water. Allow to cool slightly before adding a small pot of double cream and two beaten egg yolks. Fold together and don't think about the calories

Pour chocolate mixture over hardened biscuit base and chill in the fridge. Dust with cocoa powder and cut into slices with a warmed knife.

As a variation you could add a white chocolate layer - 2 bars of Lindt white chocolate, butter, double cream and vanilla extract.

Sookies

Also known as chocolate tiffin.

This is a recipe which has been hanging around, hand written in my Mum's cookbook, for as long as I remember. I could have come from Blue Peter.

5oz digestive biscuits, crushed, but not to a fine powder. Leave some lumps.
4oz chocolate (my recipe actually says plain cooking chocolate, but I'd be dubious)
1tbsp sultanas
1oz butter
1tbsp golden syrup

Melt the butter and syrup until frothy, then remove from the heat and add the chocolate. Stir until it melts. Add the biscuits and sultanas and mix well. Put into paper cases or press into a (greased) baking tray. Leave in fridge for half an hour.

Old, New & MishMash recipes:

Today I have a poorly boy, so we'll be in most of the day. Which means more time for cooking!

Old recipe: Blueberry Muffins, I halved the amounts in this recipe to make 6 good sized muffins & I mash the fruit instead of slicing, it then 'bleeds' nicely into the muffin.

New recipe: 3 Minute Spelt Bread, the idea of a quick (lazy) loaf appeals greatly so we will have to see how this one comes out! I've used wholemeal spelt.

MishMash recipe: Carrot, Potato & Butternut Squash Soup, because that's all I have in the cupboard.

Coffee & Walnut Cake

I've been promising to pass this recipe onto Anna for ages. This recipe is more for the Mummies than the Little Ones...

Ingredients:
180g butter, at room temperature
180g caster sugar
3 eggs (I always use large eggs)
180g self-raising flour
60g walnut pieces
2 teaspoons of instant coffee dissolved in 2 tablespoons of boiling water
Walnut halves to decorate

Icing:
2 tablespoons of single cream
2 teaspoons of instant coffee
90g butter, at room temperature
180g of icing sugar

2 x 20cm sandwich tins, greased & base lined with greaseproof paper

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C (350F Gas Mark 4)

Beat together the butter & caster sugar in a large bowl until pale & fluffy, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift the flour into the butter mixture and fold in, then stir in the nuts and dissolved coffee. Divide between the prepared sandwich tins and spread out evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden & the sponge springs back when pressed gently. Cook on a wire rack & remove the greaseproof paper.

To make the icing, warm the cream and coffee in a small saucepan, stirring until the coffee has dissolved. Pour into a bowl, add the butter and sift the icing sugar into the mixture. Beat together until smooth and creamy.

Slice a thin slither off the top of one of the sponges to create a flat surface. Spread with slightly less than half of the icing, then place the second sponge on top. Spread the remaining icing on top & decorate with walnut halves.

Source: 'Easy British Cooking'