Recipe 3: Apple, oat and pecan bars

I must admit, the only time I tend to cook with oats is when making porridge which is a daily occurrence in our house. However, baking with oats? The only time I’ve encountered that is when Dear Mother makes what she calls Sugar Biscuits. You know the ones – porridge oats, sugar and I’m not sure exactly what else. My late grandmother used to make my father Sugar Biscuits on his birthday so my mother carried on the tradition after Granny’s passing which is a lovely thought I think. So, onto this week’s recipe and it involved oats as I made Apple, oat and pecan bars. Here’s how I made them…

I started off my peeling two Pink Lady apples – they’re my favourite brand of apple. I then cut them up into squares and threw them into the food processor for a blitzing. I then added softened butter and light brown sugar and let them cream in the processor for about 30 seconds. Once they had creamed up, I added in the porridge oats, two eggs, self-raising flour and pecan nuts. They all had a whirl together and then I tipped the mixture onto a Swiss roll tin which I had greased and lined with parchment paper. I gently smoothed out the mixture and evenly dotted 12 whole pecan nuts on top. Then, into the oven the tin went for 25 minutes. Once cooled, I let cut them up into 12 bars.

The verdict…

My first thought upon eating one of these was that they are obviously a healthier treat than most others – namely because of the oats and no icing! I gave them 7 marks out of 10. Dear Husband was less impressed – 4 marks out of 10. He said that if he ordered them as a dessert if he was in a restaurant, he’d have been disappointed. To me, that meant that they were not sweet enough and did not warrant being regarded as a dessert. However, that said, he did mention that a scoop of ice-cream or dollop of cream or toffee sauce wouldn’t have gone amiss – seeing as I was asking, of course!

I still liked these bars and I definitely think they could find themselves in my lunch box tomorrow and, with Dear Husband not liking them, all the more for me…

Recipe 2: Crunchy peanut butter banana muffins

So today was the day that actually read through Cake cover to cover – twice. What in heaven’s name have I let myself in for? There is no way that I am going to be able to replicate these recipes the same as the pictures in the book. Therefore, it is no surprise to me that this blog will probably turn into a comedy blog rather than a food blog because of the mishaps I will surely encounter as I attempt each recipe.

This week then, I decided that my best approach is to ease myself in to the recipes and leave the more complicated stuff for a while. I really am going to have to master some serious baking skills which I don’t exactly have at the moment. Ah well, practice makes perfect. Well, so the saying goes…

The recipe I chose for this week’s offering was Crunchy peanut butter banana muffins. I’d had banana muffins before so nothing startling there but I most definitely hadn’t eaten peanut butter banana muffins – that was until today, of course. Here’s how I made them…

Using an electric mixer, I creamed the softened butter before adding caster sugar, crunchy peanut butter and mashed banana. I gave all of that a mix before gradually adding in beaten eggs. Finally, I sifted in self-raising flour and folded it using a metal spoon. Then, it was time to divide the mixture between 12 muffin cases. I had bought large bun cases thinking that they must be the same as muffin cases but they mustn’t be as I had enough mixture for 18 cases. The recipe said to three-quarter fill each case and that’s exactly what I did using an ice-cream scoop – a tip I picked up from watching Ina Garten on her Barefoot Contessa show. However, I only needed to half-fill the scoop for each muffin. Into the oven the muffins then went for 25 minutes.

The verdict…

I was mightily impressed with these as was Dear Husband and as was Dear Son. I tried one about 10 minutes after they came out of the oven and about two hours later – purely for research purposes, of course. It didn’t matter – both times they tasted gorgeous! Dear Husband scored them 8 marks as did I. Dear Son scored them a 4 and then a 10 but again, he doesn’t exactly appreciate the significance of those numbers just yet. Well, he is still only 3!

This recipe was easy and quick. Thankfully, it was simply a case of making the muffins and not having to make some sort of icing too even though I love icing. I was just glad to have them as they were. They didn’t taste too sweet and, with the inclusion of the banana, my brain is programmed to think they’re healthier than a lot of other sweet stuff I could eat. I think I did a good enough job of them and will surely make them again. I definitely think they’d be a nice inclusion in a lunch box. Somehow though, I know these won't last the week in our house!

 

Recipe 1: Carrot Cake

As someone who absolutely loves carrot cake, I found it really hard to believe that I had never actually made one myself. That was, of course, until today. I’m telling you, it was a tough choice as to which recipe would receive the honour of being the first one I’d make for this blog but Carrot Cake got it. Here’s how it went…

In a bowl, I whisked two eggs briefly using an electric whisk. I then added grated carrot, rapeseed oil and soft, light brown sugar and a mixture of chopped walnuts and pecan nuts. I gave all that another whisk before sifting in self-raising flour along with baking soda, ground cinnamon, mixed spice and a pinch of salt. I then used a wooden spoon to mix everything together before tipping it into a loaf tin which was lined with parchment paper. Before I put it into the oven, I smoothed out the mixture with the back of a spoon and then baked it for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Once the cake was ready (which I knew by using a skewer), I took it out of the oven and let it sit for 5 minutes before carefully peeling off the parchment paper and then let it sit on a wire rack until it cooled properly. To make the icing, I whisked Philadelphia cream cheese, icing sugar and the zest of a grapefruit. The recipe said to use the zest of an orange but, for whatever reason, I didn’t have any in stock and I love grapefruit and always have some in the fridge. To ice the cake, I simply smoothed the mixture over the top of the cake. Not content with my efforts, I went a step further and sprinkled some more chopped walnuts over the top. To serve, I sliced it up and served with freshly whipped cream.

 

Here's the cake cooling...

Here's my rather runny icing. It looks like a Christmas cake though!

 

Doesn't it look so much better with chopped nuts on top?!

 

 

The verdict…

I loved this recipe and think I made a fair attempt at it so I gave the cake 8 marks out of 10. However, Dear Husband wasn’t as enthused about this one and only gave it 4. He said that he’s not fond of carrot cake and it reminded him of an episode of All Creatures Great and Small whereby Siegfried is given scone bread that’s too moist but it was actually under-cooked. On that point, although that series was made many decades ago, it is such a fantastic show about a veterinary practice in Yorkshire and centres around three vets – Siegfried, James and Tristan. It’s also being shown again on the Sky channel Yesterday so well worth watching or save the series for Christmas viewing. Anyway, getting back to the recipe, I can vouch that I really did do well with this one as Dear Sister No.1 said it was beautiful and gave it full marks. However, the Brother-in-Law didn’t finish his as he too isn’t in to carrot cake, ginger cake and some other cake. I suppose the bottom line is that if you like Carrot Cake, you’ll like this recipe and if you don’t, you won’t.

Overall, the recipe was easy and straightforward. It took me about 25 minutes to prepare and, if you decide to make this recipe, I highly recommend getting yourself loaf tin liners which will save you time measuring, cutting and buttering. There’s a great shop in Buncrana which I still call VFM even though it’s now called Supersavers and it has loads of baking equipment (amongst other things) and that’s where I got my loaf tin and liners. When I did peel the liner off the cake, I had to be super careful as the cake would give way easily – I suppose because of how moist it was. In relation to the icing, I think I may have added a little too much Philadelphia as my icing wasn’t as thick as it should have been – just look at my photos again. Therefore, make sure you still exactly to the correct quantities so that your icing is thick enough to hold its own.

Even though this cake wasn’t a hit with the boys, it was with the girls so I will most certainly make this recipe again. Not a bad start. Not a bad start indeed.  

Hello and, yes, it's me again... :)

In the run-up to completing the Rachel Allen Easy Meals Challenge, a lot of readers asked me if I going to do another one and, with Rachel’s new book Cake out, it seemed an obvious choice. However, when contemplating a new blog, I know three things (1) I couldn’t keep making a new recipe and blog about it every day having spent the past 6 months doing exactly that; (2) one recipe a week was more manageable; and (3) probably just as well as I seriously couldn’t eat a cake recipe every day. Although Dear Husband would try his best but, no, I’m the gatekeeper to his health and healthy eating and so I wouldn’t be doing a good job of that if I encouraged him to polish off baked delights every day.

Then when I thought about cooking every recipe out of Cake, I thought that it would be a foregone conclusion as every recipe would probably score a 10. However, I had to remind myself that it was me who was cooking the cakes and not Rachel. If you look at the cook book, you will absolutely fall in love with the gorgeous pictures but, be forewarned, I can safely say that many of my attempts will probably not resemble anything like them. Therefore, this blog should be regarded as the enthusiastic attempts of an ordinary person (with no formal cooking experience) attempting to recreate each entry of the Cake cook book. Furthermore, I think that my posts will probably highlight all the things to avoid when you attempt the cakes yourself. So here goes…

New blog!

My new blog is based on Rachel Allen’s new book Cake! and starts on Sunday, 11 November 2012