Curly Whirly Cream Cheese Brownies and my new Ozeri kitchen scales

One day at work I spotted a sign advertising a Macmillan charity bake sale. The thing was, the bake sale was in two days time, meaning I didn't have very much time to shop for ingredients and bake something, as I'd already decided I needed to bake my dad's birthday cake at the same time so it was ready for the weekend!

I didn't want to miss the Macmillan bake sale since a recipe I devised appeared in the Macmillan Little Book of Treats, which came out in 2013. You can see that recipe, for toffee popcorn cupcakes, here on my blog or on the Baking Mad website.

Since I didn't have much time I went to a failsafe recipe: chocolate brownies. They are so easy to throw together and everyone loves a chocolate brownie. I chose the Curly Whirly Brownies from the Konditor & Cook book Deservedly Legendary Baking as they looked a bit different but still quick and easy to make.

At the same time I decided to make a start on my dad's birthday cake - unfortunately it was a bit of a disaster! The cake tasted great and was really moist, but that was part of the problem -so moist that it broke apart across the top while in the oven, then broke more when I was putting it into a cake tin, then by the time I reached my parents' house the cake was pretty much in three separate pieces!

I used my new Ozeri Pro Digital Kitchen Food Scale, 1g to 12 lbs Capacity, in Stylish Black which I was sent by the company to review. At only £9.99 currently and with free delivery on Amazon they are a real bargain - compact enough to not take up much room in the cupboard but the weighing plate is big enough for almost any bowl or plate, or you can put food directly onto the scales. If you're using a bowl, the 'tare' button allows you to subtract the weight of the bowl. The chrome weighing platform looks good and is easy to keep clean as well.

 

You can weigh in pounds, ounces, grams or kilograms and can change from one to the other by pressing a button - I found the scales very precise and as good as much more expensive ones. What's more the two AAA batteries you need come included.

So disregarding the cake which didn't quite work out, I also used the scales to make the chocolate brownies. Here's the list of ingredients from Konditor and Cook's recipe and then in my own words a bit about what I did:

To make about 16 brownies, you need:
3 eggs
275g caster sugar
175g salted butter
200g 54-60% dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
100g 70% dark chocolate, chopped into chunks
175g plain flour

for the topping:
200g cream cheese
75g icing sugar, sifted
seeds from 1/4 vanilla pod
1 egg yolk

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 20x34 cm tin with baking paper or greaseproof paper.

Beat the eggs and sugar together in a bowl.

In a saucepan, melt the butter over a medium heat until it is melted and just starting to bubble. Remove from the heat and stir in the 54-60% chocolate and a third of the 70% chocolate until melted.

Add the chocolate to the egg mixture and mix well then fold in the flour. Stir in the remaining chunks of chocolate.

Pour into the prepared tin and level the top with a knife.

In another bowl, bbat the cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla until smooth then mix in the egg yolk.

Using a piping bag or a teaspoon drizzle or pipe the cream cheese mixture in swirls over the top of the brownie mixture, using a fork or the tip of the teaspoon to drag across the lines.

Bake for 22-25 minutes in the preheated oven then leave to cool in the tin. When cool cut into squares.

The brownies were lovely and fudgy and the cream cheese topping had a slightly sharp contrasting flavour, a bit like sour cream; it made the brownies look more interesting as well and they disappeared very quickly at the bake sale!

Rocky Road Halloween Graveyard Cake

If you haven't got much time for Halloween baking but want to make something as a treat, then look no further than this recipe. It would make a great centrepiece for a children's party - and goes down pretty well with adults too!

The recipe comes from the Konditor & Cook recipe book 'Deservedly Legendary Baking'. It's basically a rocky road, arranged to look like a grave site, with some bones and skeleton hands coming out of the grave!

 

You can find the recipe online here. I left out the glace cherries as I don't like them, and used large marshmallows cut in half rather than mini marshmallows. I didn't bother making the grass around the edge of the grave either.

The recipe states to use white marzipan to make the bones and gravestone but I don't even know where to get white marzipan and didn't have time to try making it myself. Instead I used white fondant.

 

It was very easy to make the bones - I just rolled some sausage shapes and used my thumb to press in the ends. I used black food colouring and a cocktail stick to write R.I.P. on the gravestone.

 

I hadn't really thought about the recipe in advance as I'd had an incredibly busy week at work but did manage to make the rocky road on Friday night so it could set overnight in the fridge. When I came to arrange and decorate it on Saturday I realised I should have made the tombstone from rice krispies. You can make a giant rice krispie cake by mixing the cereal with melted butter and melted marshmallows, and pressing it down tightly into a pan. Once it has set you can carve it into different shapes and cover it with fondant; this would be a great way of making an edible tombstone to go at the top of the grave. Of course the fondant I used is edible but I'm not sure I want to eat a giant block of icing!

 

I'm sharing this with the Food Calendar challenge, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen.

I'm also sending it to this month's Food 'n' Flix; Deb at Kahakai Kitchen has chosen Beetlejuice - the story of a couple who (spoiler alert!) wake up after an accident and find they didn't survive.

 

 

Konditor and Cook Curly Whirly Cake

 No Curly Wurlys were involved in this cake but the name comes from the chocolate swirls that are piped on the top.

 

This cake is the one on the front cover of Konditor & Cook's book 'Deservedly Legendary Baking', which I got for Christmas, but I actually made this cake for my birthday last year. The recipe was on the Telegraph's website so you can see it for yourself even if you don't have the book. The cake was fairly easy to make and even the decoration wasn't difficult. And this was one of the nicest chocolate cakes I've ever made - I highly recommend you check out the link above and try out the recipe for yourself!

 

Heat half the milk and the sugar in a pan, add the chocolate and stir until melted and leave to cool.

 

Beating the butter and sugar with the eggs

After adding the chocolate

Spoon into two tins and bake in the oven

And here are the cakes after they came out of the oven

Cooling on my three-tier cooling rack

Making the frosting

Cover the cake with the frosting

Melt chocolate and pipe in curly whirly swirls over the top.

 

The chocolate sets hard and gives a different texture when you bite into it and the soft cake, which is unusual. And I'll say it again, as well as looking pretty this cake tasted amazing!

Konditor and Cook Lemon Chiffon Cake

This is the cake I made for Mothers' Day this year. I wanted something light and suitable for spring, and I remembered an amazing lemon cake I made a few years ago, when I first started baking. The Times published a recipe from Konditor and Cook for a lemon chiffon cake, and I made it for a bake sale at work. It was a resounding success as the managing director of the London office had his assistant track down who had made the cake so he could personally say it was one of the best he had ever tasted!

That was long before I started this blog so I thought it would be nice to be able to blog that particular recipe and make it again. It didn't turn out quite so light this time for some reason - perhaps I left it in the oven a little too long. Still, it was very good. I iced it with a lemon cream cheese frosting which was a bit runny - I've since learned that it's really important to use full fat soft cheese, not the low fat kind! I decorated the cake with some sugar flowers I was given as a gift from America - they are from the Wilton cake decorating brand.

Here is the recipe for Konditor and Cook's lemon chiffon cake. The recipe was posted online on Nigella's website here but it does state that it is the Konditor and Cook recipe. It gives the full ingredient list and step-by-step instructions.

 Here's one half of the cake waiting to go in the oven

Both parts of the cake once they had cooled

 Layered with the lemon cream cheese filling and icing on top

The sugar flowers that I used to decorate the cake

 A very pretty spring-fresh lemon chiffon cake for Mother's Day

I'm sending this to Four Seasons Food as this month's theme is celebrating spring; I think the light lemon flavour and also the floral decorations are just right for spring. The challenge is hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg and Anneli at Delicieux.

I'm also sharing this with Love Cake, hosted by Ness at Jibber Jabber UK as the theme is flowers - either the flavour or the decoration.