What do you mean you don't like peanut butter??!

I've not exactly been showering myself in glory in terms of "mother of the year" lately.  I mean lets take last weekend as a prime example.  Instead of spending the bank holiday weekend with Madam I abandoned her (to her father obviously, I didn't leave a couple of boxes of cold Dominos in the kitchen and tell her "I wont be long") to go cover myself in glitter, don spandex and party in a field near Northampton at the glorious Shambala.  To be fair it was my birthday and at 33 years old it seemed utterly necessary to pop my festival cherry.  God that sounds so pathetic at 33...practically on the "Never Been Kissed" spectrum.  So yes, I had some time out and came back thinking I needed to step up my game this weekend to make up for it. 

Now we, like most of the country and (if Buzzfeed is taken as gospel WHICH IT SHOULD BE) the world, are completely engrossed in The Great British Bake Off.  Pose provides full commentary and critique whilst I sit thinking how I'd quite like to enter GBBO but not sure the BBC would approve of the sweet looking 33yo baker swearing incessantly in the background.  Inspiration peaked by Ugne's PB&J ice cream roll (GET IN MY BELLY NOW), Pose and I decided to do a little mummy-Pose-baking-bonding.

Peanut butter is food of the gods.  Fact.  You simply can't make me think otherwise.  I'm stunned that other than peanut butter cookies I've never really tried baking with peanut butter.  Or I'm just a purist.  I dunno.  Anyway, we thought we'd do something with peanut butter...and jam....and cake...and then wrap it all up in chocolate.  Because why wouldn't you!?

Recipe - PB&J Cake Pops from my own head

Ingredients

Cake pops:
¾ cups plain flour
½ tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
⅓ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
¼ cup full fat milk

Filling:
Peanut Butter
Jam

Icing:
Slab of chocolate covering for cake (or chocolate,  but I had cake covering in the cupboard (as you do))

Equipment:
Cake pop maker
Cake release spray
Sticks (for the cake pops, I don't mean random sticks from the garden obvs)
Tray covered in baking parchment

(makes about 15 cake pops)

Method

1. Turn on the cake pop maker and spray the inside with a little cake release spray.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
3. Using a food mixer (or not, your call) beat the butter until pale and fluffy, then gradually beat in the sugar until its fully incorporated. 
4. Next, reduce the speed and beat in the egg, the egg yolk and the vanilla. 
5. Reduce the speed again to low and gradually add the flour and milk (alternating) to the mix until its all blended.
6. Spoon a little of the batter into each cake "hole" (about ¾ of the way), then dollop a little peanut butter and a little jam into the centre.  Spoon a little more of the batter onto the top (so its about to go over the brim).  Close and cook for about 6mins. 
7. Once the cake pops are cooked, carefully ease them out and put on a wire rack to cool.  Make more batches.

The perfectionist in me is disappointed in the lack of roundness, but what are you going to do eh?

8. Break the chocolate covering into even(ish) chunks and melt in a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water (or microwave it - I just don't have a microwave and yes I am ok with that). Once its all melted, take it off the heat.
9. Carefully put a stick in a cake pop (its a bit fiddly as the filling makes them a little unstable) and even more carefully dump into the melted chocolate and cover the whole thing in chocolate.  Put the cake pop cake side down onto the baking parchment.  Repeat with all the other cakes and let cool.

10. EAT ALL OF THEM AT ONCE.  

Yes that's a steering wheel.  I had a cake pop for breakfast.  Don't judge me.

This was all a bit of an experiment not least because I'd never used a cake pop maker before so I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.  Personally I think the texture of the cake was a bit close so I'll probably switch up the recipe a bit.  It could also be that the PB&J center affected the bake (ooooh I sound all Mary Berry!).  Regardless it'll need some refinement work which will mean a lot of tasting and then more tasting.
 

Damn.

Pride goeth before a fall

A staple in our household is the humble Jaffa Cake.  Unfortunately they are both a firm favourite of mine and the hubby's so they rarely last long and in fact usually lead to a War of the Roses stand off followed by a couples counselling session.

I love Jaffa Cakes. I still practise the "Full Moon, Half Moon, Total Eclipse" mantra but that's just how I roll.

Anyway, so a while ago on Saturday Morning Kitchen I saw Simon Rimmer make homemade Jaffa Cakes.  "Amazeballs!" I thought and vowed to try them.  So this weekend with expectations running high given my recent successes (do you recall the Michel Roux Jr references....?) I set out to making them.

As usual, the recipe has my commentary...

The recipe - Homemade Jaffa Cakes (with thanks (through gritted teeth) to Simon Rimmer)

For the cakes:
2 free-range eggs (I'm going to throw this out there, I know it sounds like I have an obsession with fresh eggs but I think these should be as fresh as possible given the cooking method)
50g / 2oz caster sugar
50g / 2oz plain flour

For the filling:
1 135g packet of orange jelly, chopped
1 tbs orange marmalade
125ml boiling water

For the chocolate:
200g / 7oz good quality dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids), chopped into pieces (seriously its a chocolate covered cakey biscuit, what did you expect!?!?)

1. Start by making the filling.  In a bowl, mix together the jelly, marmalade and boiling water until the jelly has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Pour the filling mixture into a shallow-sided baking tray or large dish to form a thin layer of jelly (the recipe actually says a 1cm/½in layer but that seems far too thick to me). Set aside until completely cooled, then chill in the fridge until set.  (The recipe also called for this to be made at a later stage but I figured I'd give it more time to set).

2. Next, make the cakes.  Start by preheating the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.  Bring a little water to the boil in a pan, then reduce the heat until the water is simmering. Suspend a heatproof bowl over the water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water). Add the eggs and sugar to the bowl and beat continuously for 4-5 minutes, or until the mixture is pale, fluffy and well combined.

3. Add the flour, beating continuously, until a thick, smooth batter forms.

4. Half-fill each well in a 12-hole muffin tin with the cake batter. Transfer the tin to the oven and bake the cakes for 8-10 minutes, or until pale golden-brown and cooked through (the cakes are cooked through when a skewer inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean.) Remove from the oven and set the cakes aside, still in their tray, until cool.

5. When the jelly has set and the cakes have cooled, cut small discs from the layer of jelly, equal in diameter to the cakes (now my intimate knowledge of Jaffa Cakes means I know that the jelly bit does NOT cover the whole cake (the travesty!) so I cut the discs about 1cm smaller in diameter using a little medicine cup). 

                                          
6. This is where it all went tits up. Once the cakes were cooled they were meant to be removed from the tin.  I borrowed one of my mum's bigger non-stick tins for this as I didn't want to be faffing about with mine.  I went to turn the cakes out of the tin and they wouldn't budge.  I went to prise them out a little with a knife, and was successful.  At first.  Then they refused to come out without tearing. 

YOU WILL COME OUT!

"Fine, be that way" I thought "You're getting covered in chocolate anyway so I can cover the cracks" (yes, I sound like I know what I'm doing).  Then I had a little epiphany and figured that I should probably taste the cakes before making the chocolate.  Best.  Decision.  Ever.  They were vile - overly sweet, eggy, anaemic, rubbery hockey pucks.  They were like the little white sponges you can get to clean walls.  Unimpressed doesn't even begin to cover it.

At this point, it was coming up to 9pm on a Sunday night, The Time Traveller's Wife was on and the bottle of Port on the window sill had somehow found its way into my hand so I thought "sod it" and buggered off to the lounge.

The rest of the recipe, just to finish it off, is meant to go like this:

7. Sit one jelly disc on top of each cake.

8. For the chocolate, bring a little water to the boil in a pan, then reduce the heat until the water is simmering. Suspend a heatproof bowl over the water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water).  Add the chocolate and stir until melted, smooth and glossy, then pour over the cakes. Set aside until the melted chocolate has cooled and set.

I have to say, I was pretty unimpressed by the recipe (yes, that may be influenced by my inability to complete it and yes, it was the recipe's fault not my mad-skillz).  I can't help thinking that the muffin tray should have been greased and I'm not sure what mixing the cake batter over the hot water does that mixing them cool wouldn't.  Perhaps I'll try doing it like that next time and see what those results are like. 

I guess I've been riding high for all of the posts so far that it was only a matter of time that I would have a tumble.  Problem is I now have a fridge full of orange jelly discs and nothing to do with them and I'm not going to attempt this again this week as I have a much bigger project to tackle.

Anyway there's a box in the cupboard so altogether now "full moon, half moon, total eclipse"....

COOKIE MONSTER!

I don't know why or when it became such a phenomenon, but over the pond EVERYONE seems to make cookie trays to give as gifts at Christmas.  This past Christmas it seemed like every Americano I know was posting a status update on Facebook about making cookies and the related dramas (ok, drama is probably too strong a word).  Not that I'm knocking it, I'm pro-cookie after all (you might say I'm part of the Urban Cookie Collective - HAHAHA), I just don't understand where it came from.

I once made chocolate truffles to give to work colleagues at Christmas (they were sinful - the truffles not the colleagues - well, not that I'm aware of, you never know what people are like behind closed doors).  Proper presentation boxes and everything!  I would certainly do it again if I had the time BUT...conversely, although the idea is that you're making the truffles to show the person you're giving them to that you care (but not quite enough to part with your cash and buy them something), you spend a huge amount of time labouring over the things and then give those you love some tat you picked up at Macy's that you really have no idea if they actually need let alone want.  Oddly, if I gave my husband a box of handmade truffles, lovingly made by my fair hands, I'd almost feel like I was copping out if I know that he wants the latest Madden.  Surely the truffles would be the better gift?
I should say right now that I could probably give the hubby truffles and he'd be perfectly happy with them.  But then he loves chocolate.

Anyway, back to the cookies. 

My mother-in-law is a great baker and every year she also makes Christmas cookies.  Trays and trays and trays of great mountains of cookies that she sells (at far too low a price for the amount of blood, sweat and tears that go into them - obviously not literally though, ew).  These aren't just Christmas themed cookies though (i.e. sugar cookies in various Christmassy shapes), her cookies range from Hungarian cookies to coconut cookies, caramel dipped cookies to the contentious pinoli cookies (don't ask), biscotti to the all-time American favourite: the soft-batch chocolate chip cookie. 

Grandma's little elf

Now the chocolate chip cookie makes me think of the all American "mom" that you used to see on TV, think "The Wonder Years".  Kevin would come trotting in after school or some quaint incident with Winnie (FYI according to IMDB they are both still acting?!?) and the mum would sit him down and give him milk and cookies.  My mum is also great baker and when I was little I used to love baking with her and making these little treats (although I would typically devour mine before I had a chance to taste it and then sit eye-balling my older sister who seemed to be nibbling hers like a hamster as if to torture me).  She would even let us lick the bowl (shock of all shocks, health and safety would have a field day).  Point is, homemade cookies make me get all nostalgic.

I always wanted to be this type of a mum, so on our recent visit to the US my mother-in-law said I could have her soft-batch chocolate chip recipe.  True to her word she emailed me the recipe to make in time for the hubby's birthday so I whipped up a batch on Sunday.  These cookies are just perfect little things, chewy and chocolatey and remind you just a little bit of being a kid.  Now because she sells the cookies it wouldn't be fair for me to publish the recipe (I'm sorry!), but if I've learnt anything the secret to a good soft-batch cookie is brown sugar.  That's what gives it the chewy texture and makes it crazy good.  I played around with the recipe a little as it called for a HUGE amount of chocolate (when I say "played" I mean I forgot to pick up extra chocolate so had to make do with the amount I had).  I also learnt that when you ask for a cookie recipe from a lady who makes cookies in quantities to sell, you should probably check how much the recipe makes.  The cookies just kept coming.  It was like they were replicating.  I reckon I ended up with around 60 in total from just 1 batch.  "Great!" you may think, except that I don't keep sweet things in the house for a reason and I now can't stop eating the cookies.  No really, I can't stop.  I somehow convinced myself yesterday that cookies could most definitely fall within the "breakfast" category so ate about 10 before 10.30am.  Not conducive to losing the Christmas podge.

As for other people's views, hubster loved them, the new work colleagues loved them, the parents loved them (although my father seemed quintessentially English and confused about them when he tried the first cookie - Me: "Dad, try a soft-batch cookie.  What do you think?" Dad: "They taste good but they're a bit soft"?!) and as for Pose, well....

Damn it, I meant to exercise tonight but instead I spent 2 hours writing about cookies.  How ironic is that?