Naxxfish

Whenever I went to my Nan’s house, she would always have a large variety of (generally very fatty) home baked goods on offer.  There was one which I could never resist, and this was her bread pudding.  Ever since I got into baking, I’ve been trying to work out what exactly it was and how you’d go about making it.  I didn’t even know what it was called – which made finding a recipe very difficult.  I described it as “a bit like a very moist fruit cake, with sultanas.  More like a jelly than a cake”.

My Nan grew up in a family for whom times were hard, and you really had to make do with what you had.  You couldn’t afford to waste food.  So things like stale bread got turned into something more storable and palatable with what you had on hand.  And, going with that tradition, I have made a slightly different recipe with what I happen to have on hand.  Due to an error of judgement with my milkman, I’ve ended up with a LOT of loaves of bread.  Most of them are frozen, but I don’t get through the thawed ones quick enough, and they go stale before I eat the whole thing.  I also have far too much milk.  Thus, I have been given a perfect opportunity to refine my recipe.

It’s deliciously moist and tasty, hot or cold, and full of flavour, and goes great with tea.

Ingredients

• About 400g of stale (but not mouldy obviously) brown bread, crusts removed
• About 200g of sultanas, or any other dried fruit that you fancy
• 100g of brown sugar (any kind)
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• Dash of cinnamon
• 1 tbsp marmalade
• 1 egg
• 1 pint of milk

Method

1. Remove the crusts from the bread.  Eat the leftovers so you grow up to be big and strong – alternatively share with housemates/friends/partners/pets.
2. Put the bread into a bowl, and break up as much as you can by hand.  Great stress reliever.
3. Empty the milk into the bowl, and mix up the bread good and proper.
4. Add the dried fruit and mix it in.  May as well throw in the mixed spice and cinnamon at this point too.
5. Leave this to soak for about half an hour.  Go do some work or something.  Alternatively, cover and put into the fridge and go to work.
6. Come back.  Add the sugar and marmalade, and mix well.
7. Crack an egg into a cup, beat it with a fork.  Empty it into the mixture, and mix it up some more.
8. Get a pyrex dish, or a nice clean baking dish, and cover it in butter (otherwise it’ll stick to the sides).
9. Empty the mixture into the dish, and put it in an oven pre-heated to about 200C/392F/Gas Mark 4 for about 1.5 hours.
10. After an hour and a half, you should find it’s got a nice dark brown crust over the top, and it’s starting to break away from the sides a bit.  Take it out of the oven, and leave to cool for about 30 minutes.
11. Once it’s cool, you can cut it up and serve it – perhaps with some custard.  Or you can leave it to cool completely and put it in the fridge, for a tasty treat any time of the day (I’ve had it for breakfast, but then, I’m a bit strange).

And there you have it.  Delicious and cheap.  Try it!

This is the cake to end all cakes.

This is the most ridiculous cake ever.

It has a Malteaser cake as the base (!!), three chocolate sponges flavoured with vanilla and honey, and filled and iced with chocolate fudge icing.

Choctastic

I mentioned a desire to make cookies in #cs earlier today, and was greeted with a slightly worrying amount of enthusiasm.

14:39  <crowbar> cookie materials are now here  14:40  <andee> o.O

14:43  <xand> o.o

14:44  * Steve thinks Crowbar likes cooking

14:44  <steve> ...and cookies

14:44  <xand> who doesn't?

14:44  * Stotty|work likes cooking cookies

14:44  <andee> on a lighter note, my debian package for lastest asterisk works  

14:45  <stotty|work> check it out:  http://www.jstott.me.uk/recipes/chocolatechipcookies.php

14:45  <andee> as in this wont make you fat  

14:45  <steve> I'd use chunks of chocolate  

14:46  <stotty|work> that is the w00test recipe ever

14:50  <crowbar> Stotty|work: you're a star - i was about to look for arecipie :p

14:50  <steve> Use chocolate CHUNKS not chips  

14:50  <crowbar> i've got a bit of cooking chocolate

14:51  <crowbar> and some white chocolate

14:51  <stotty|work> needs milk, white and dark chocolate

14:51  <steve> PERFECT

14:51  <steve> Dark is preferable

14:51  <steve> as an addition  

14:51  <crowbar> i'll have to make my own white chocolate chunks

And thus, cookies.  I made a slight alteration in that I put in chocolate chips AND chocolate chunks, as well as adding some cocoa powder and a smidgen of that nice white chocolate stuffs.  I’ll post my perfected alterations as soon as I’ve worked out exactly what’s best.

So, this is that white chocolate cake I’ve been going on about.  I finally made it.  Here’s how I made the sponge.

• 4 medium eggs
• 250g Butter
• 250g Sugar minus 4 tablespoons
• 250g self raising flour
• Tablespoon of Baking Powder
• 4 tablespoons of White Hot Chocolate Powder from Whittards
• Vanilla Essence

1. Grease up two cake tins with baking parchment on the bottom.
   
2. Combine butter and sugar in a bowl.
   
   
3. Add the flour.
   
4. Add the eggs and vanilla essence.
   
5. Mix well.
6. Add 4 tablespoons of white hot chocolate powder and mix thoroughly.
   
7. Divide into the two tins, and put into a preheated oven at Gas Mark 4 for about 30-45 minutes.
   
   
   
8. Allow to cool
   
9. When cool, ice it inside and out
   

Now, the icing (frosting for you yanks) was a bit of a disaster and is more in alpha stages.  When I’ve worked out exactly how to do it properly, I’ll write it up

I tested it on my neighbors – they liked it lots, particularly with ice cream.  In fact, they liked it so much that they still have it.   If they all keel over and die, you’ll be the first to know.

It was fairly light, quite rich, and the sponge had a definite chocolaty taste.  Definitely good for people who want something a bit more interesting than the average chocolate cake!

I’d like to dedicate this cake to xugglybug and mattp for giving me good ideas and to Twigathy and Eek for being around when the idea popped up.

I’ve just finished baking the sponges and making the icing for my white chocolate cake.  After a suggestion from xugglybug I went to Whittards and got myself some white hot chocolate powder.  It turns out that it’s mostly sugar, with some dried cocoa butter, so I mixed a couple of tablespoons with the sugar and butter at the beginning.

It smells nice.

The icing was, however, more problematic.  After a slight disaster which resulted in InstaToffee, I’ve had to go for a slightly different approach.  I was using condensed milk with the butter and icing sugar, which I’ve warmed and mixed in some Green and Black’s White Chocolate (yummy).  However it needs constant stirring or the chocolate seperates and cracks.  So I think I’m going to have to apply it whilst it’s still warm. Thankfully, the consistency is pretty good without needing to cool it too much, so I don’t think this should be a problem.

Pictures will be coming soon!

I came up with this idea whilst at a friends house a while ago.

Chocolate sponges are all well and good, but what about white chocolate sponges?  After pondering if this was even remotely possible, I have a few ideas.

To start off with, make a normal sponge (Victoria Sponge sort of thing), but swap the butter with cocoa butter.  This stuff is kinda hard to find (well, for cooking purposes anyway, I’m not putting body lotion in a cake), but I’ve found an online shop that sells it. EDIT: Ah, coconut butter.  Oh well, I best keep looking! EDIT2: Ah, found another one.  But £16.99 for 500g? Blimey.

To back up the chocolate flavouring, I’d put in extra vanilla, possibly even some vanilla pods too.  To make sure the cake is quite dense, I’d further grind the sugar to make it extra fine.   The sugar would need to be white, of course.  Perhaps add a little cream to the eggs before beating them into the mixture.

I suppose there’s only one real way to find out if it’ll work!

This is my first unaided attempt at a chocolate cake – it’s not perfect, but it’s getting there.  Here’s the recipie I used:

The Cake

• Caster Sugar (250g)
• Butter (250g)
• 3 large eggs
• Self raising flour (250g)
• Baking powder (teaspoon)
• Cocoa powder (tablespoon or two)

1. Take 2 cake tins about 8″ across, and put greaseproof paper in the bottom.  Rub butter around them to stop the cake from sticking.
2. Soften the butter and add the sugar.  Mix until they’re well combined.  Add the cocoa powder and mix in well.
3. Add the flour in small amounts.
4. Beat the eggs – add a spot of milk if you like to make them mix better.  Slowly add eggs to the mixture and try and get air into the mixture, too.
5. Add the baking powder, and vanilla essence if you desire.  Fold the mixture to ensure it’s well combined, but don’t beat it or you’ll lose the fluffy texture when it’s cooked.
6. Divide the mixture equally between the two tins.  Flatten off with a spatula.  If you can, make a dimple in the middle of the mixture – this will stop the cakes from making peaks when they rise.
7. Put into the oven for 25-30 minutes.  Don’t open the oven before they’re finished.  If you do, they’ll collapse and have a huge dent in the middle – not very attractive.
8. After the 25 minutes, turn the oven off but leave the cakes in to cool down slowly.  After 5 minutes or so, remove the cakes and turn them out onto a cooling rack or something roughly equivalent.  Leave to cool for about 20 minutes.  Don’t try to rush this or it’ll probably fall apart in your hands.

Icing and filling

• Icing sugar (sieved)
• Butter
• Cocoa powder
• A bit of flour

1.  Take the butter and melt it in a pan.
2. Add the icing sugar and cocoa powder and stir well for 10 minutes, whilst keeping the mixture on a low heat.
3. Thicken the icing by adding more icing sugar.  Make sure it is sieved or you’ll get lumps in it (like mine did)
4. When it’s done, leave to cool off a little before icing the cake.

For the filling, simply reduce the amount of butter and increase the amount of icing sugar, and don’t heat it.

All that’s left is to fill the cake, ice it and dust it with icing sugar.  Yum!