Chocolate Bar Cookies
19 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in Cookies, Recipes, Traybakes Tags: afternoon tea, baking, chocolate, recipe
Not really sure what to call these… possibly something akin to a blondie, but really just chewy cookie cuboids. For some reason both my flatmates thought they tasted of nuts, though no nuts were involved. Yummy, anyway 
Salted Fudge Brownies
16 May 2011 4 Comments
in Desserts, Recipes, Traybakes Tags: afternoon tea, baking, brownies, chocolate, recipe
Also known as the best brownies ever, these are just the right stage of fudgy goodness, don’t require too much chocolate, and are easily customisable with a handful of raspberries (delicious), and/or white or milk chocolate chips. Very good. The Quest for the Perfect Brownie has definitely been won. Either eat cold, or heat up and serve with some whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream.
The Quest for the Perfect Brownie
30 Apr 2011 1 Comment
in Recipes, Traybakes Tags: baking, brownies, chocolate, recipe
For months (well, weeks), I have had the urge to try a number of different brownie recipes. Some people quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, but to be honest the perfect brownie is a search for which there is much more likely to be a solution. Now, I’ve tried a fair few brownie recipes in my time as a person who is alive on planet earth, but had managed to collect several which I wished to try. I though the fairest way to test them would be to buy a tonne (well, a kilogram) of cheap choccy from Sainsbury’s Basics, 12 eggs from Iceland, and check the sugar supplies, then go for making a half batch of each of the recipes, baked in a mish-mash of loaf and cake tins.
I made 5 different recipes: banana brownies, brownies with 100% cacao, Nigella Lawson’s recipe, charlieissocoollike’s recipe, and a friend (shout-out to Andy Ritson – the person, not the dog)’s recipe, which involved crumbling some cookies into the mix; he used Oreos, I used maryland ‘cos that’s what I had.
And after all that? Personally, I prefer the recipe I already had (available here). The banana ones had an interesting consistency – they only took half a small banana, so the flavour wasn’t too strong, but they were very gooey. The Nigella ones are very cakey. Charlie’s were incredibly sweet, even using dark chocolate chips. The 100% cacao ones were, by comparison, really quite bitter, though interesting and satisfying with only a tiny bite. Andy’s were quite nice, though I wasn’t convinced by the addition of the cookies… might try them with oreos one of these days if I’ve got any going spare.
Most brownie recipes are variations on a theme: melt some chocolate and butter, whisk lots of eggs and sugar, add a little flour, gently fold together, bake until just set so they’re still a bit gooey, cool in tin and then cut when cold. And yet even so, they’re all so different… odd how they can all be called brownies!
Right, so without further ado, the recipes. Each makes about 20-25 brownies depending on how big you want them, and each should half well enough if you want to make less.
Treacle Round
16 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Cake, Recipes, Traybakes Tags: afternoon tea, baking, recipe
Quite gingerbread-esque. My granny’s recipe… serve warm, and, optionally, buttered.
Banana Bread
17 Mar 2011 3 Comments
in Cake, Recipes, Traybakes Tags: afternoon tea, baking, fruit, recipe
I’ve got a couple of recipes that I want to try which require bananas… but this recipe is just so yummy that I never get around to trying them! Serves about 10 people – cut off a slice and heat up in the microwave or toaster (if it’s firm enough) if you’re not eating it straight out of the oven.
