Butterscotch and White Chocolate Blondies.

This year instead of baking as a form of productive procrastination I am only letting myself bake when I have finished my work. I finished my dissertation proposal this afternoon so thought I would spend the evening baking a new recipe. I have read on a number of blogs about people making blondies which seem to be a white chocolate brownies. So I thought I would give them a go this recipe came of the blog jolts &jollies. This turned out to be a great recipe and one I will definitely make them again, my flatmate has already eaten six.

Ingredients:

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

2 1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

150g unsalted butter

3 eggs

Preheat oven to 180C or in a two door aga the grid shelf in the bottom of the roasting oven with a cold self. Line a 9x13 inch pan roughly the small aga roasting pan. Combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in large mixing bowl. To brown the butter heat it in a small pan stirring constantly until it goes a light brown colour. Then pull it off the heat and leave it cool in the pan where it will continue to get darker until it looks a bit darker than golden syrup. whisk together the eggs and browned butter. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ones. Fold in the chocolate chips and spread in the pan. Bake for 30minutes until a knife comes out clean. They should still be gooey in the middle.

Chocolate Mousse Layer Cake.

It was my flatmates 21st this week and I wanted to make something slightly more interesting than sponge but did not have a huge amount of time on my hands. We also have one friend who is allergic to wheat and another nuts. So I decided to start with a chocolate roulade sponge in between which I would layer up different chocolate mousses. chocolate roulade of swiss role sponges are a great one to remember as they have no flour or fat in them.

Roulade:

175g/6oz plain chocolate.
175g/6oz caster sugar.
6 eggs, separated.
2 level tbsp cocoa, sieved.
33cm x 23cm (13in x 9in) Swiss roll tin I never use a tin instead I fold one out of baking parchment.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl over a pan of hot water. Allow to cool slightly. Place the sugar and egg yolks in a bowl and whisk with an electric whisk on a high speed until light and creamy. Add the cooled chocolate and stir until evenly blended. Whisk the egg whites in a large mixing bowl until stiff but not dry. Stir a large spoonful of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, mix gently and then fold in the remaining egg whites, then the cocoa. Mixing in the spoonful of white may seem like a waste of air but it makes it easier to fold the rest together as the mixtures will now be a more similar constancy. Pour into the prepared tin and gently level the surface. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until firm to the touch.
Chocolate mousse:

1oz dark chocolate
1 egg separated.

For the amount of sponge I had made I used 2oz and 2eggs. If I were to make this recipe again I would probably 1.5 times the sponge mixture and use three eggs. Not because there was not enough it easily fed 8-10, but because I was cutting it up to layer it. When you cut something down to size there is always an amount of wastage meaning the amount of sponge was quite tight. Melt the chocolate and allow to cool slightly. Then mix the egg yolks into the chocolate. In a separate clean bowl whisk the egg whites to a stiff peak. Fold the whites into the chocolate remembering to slacken off the chocolate as you did with the roulade. Normally you would now put the mixture into whatever you are going to serve it in and them into the fridge. If I were making this recipe for a pudding on its own the general rule is one egg and one ounce of chocolate per person.

White chocolate mousse:

90g white chocolate.
45ml milk.
1 egg white.
110ml double cream.

Melt the chocolate , stir in milk and set aside. This stops the chocolate ceasing. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then fold into the chocolate mixture until well combined.Whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks and gently fold into the chocolate mixture. This was a Nigella recipe which I had not used before it worked well for this as it was going with other dark chocolate components but it was far too sweet to be eaten on its own.

I assembled it by cutting the sponge into two squares and layering in up sponge, chocolate mouse, sponge and white chocolate mousse on the top. I had to cut squares as I had not made enough sponge but this would have been much easier to do if I had had enough to assemble it in the ring of a cake tin. I would have got a much neater finish as the mixture would have had straight sides. I also finished of the top with fresh raspberries. I will definitely make this again as a smart birthday cake or even just as a pudding. It is quite rich so is probably best served as a pudding rather than as a tea time cake. You could easily use orange chocolate for the mousse and brush grande marnier into the sponge if you wanted to make it a bit different.

Crab apple jelly.

There is nothing better than making something out of nothing while still avoiding the black banana syndrome. For those of you who have never heard of the phrase black banana it is the idea that when you find something about to go off you are so keen not to let the money you have spent on it go to waste that you buy a host of other ingredients to cook something you really don't need. I spent this last weekend making jellies out of ingredients I collected from around the farm.

Jellies all work from the same basic ratio. When using acidic fruit that has its own pectin in it you use 750g granulated sugar to 1 litre of juice. you can use any combination which you fancy. I made four different batches crab apple, crab apple and rowan berry, crab apple and blackberry and spiced damson.

Start by cooking the fruit in a large pan with water just covering the fruit. If you are using soft fruit such as damsons or apples it will have broken down enough to pass through the muslin on its own if you are using harder fruit such as haws or rose hips you will need to mash them with a potato masher. Next allow the fruit to pass through a jelly bag or a muslin suspended above an upturned stool. Traditional recipes will tell you not to squeeze the fruit as it will make the jelly cloudy. I always ignore this as it is such a waste of juice but I do put the juice back through another muslin to strain out any sediment which you have pushed through.

At this point you can put the juice in the fridge for a couple of days if you do not have time to deal with it now. 2litres of juice will make about 5 lb jars of jelly. Put the juice and sugar in a large pan over a low heat until the sugar has melted. Once the sugar has melted turn the heat right up so it reaches a rolling boil and spoon off any scum. Every recipe I have read says that once it has been brought to a boil it should only take about five minutes to reach  a setting point I have always found that it takes much longer than this. If you have a jam thermometer setting point should be 106c. If you don't have a thermometer boil it until it wrinkles when a small amount is put on a cold plate. 

Once this has been done put it immediately into clean jam jars covering the top with wax discs before putting the lids on. Try to put the lid on when the jam is still hot as as the jar cools the contraction will create a better seal. If you wish to flavour the jelly there are two ways I have made apple and rosemary jelly cooking the fruit before straining it with rosemary and then placing a fresh sprig inn every jar which looked very pretty through the clear jelly. Or you can add the flavour when boiling it up with sugar, this is what I did with the spiced damson jelly. I added star anise, a cinnamon stick and some whole cloves which I then removed before jarring.