Yorkshire Puddings

 

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

 

I’m not a fan of Yorkshire Puddings and I choose not to eat them when we have a Sunday roast. But Steve’s Mum and sister were having problems with theirs not rising very well, so I decided it was time to take up the challenge of making them. Plus Steve loves them so it would be a great thing if I could get them right.

 

As always, the first place I turn to for a decent recipe is BBC Good Food and here I used Barney Desmazery’s recipe. I love the simplicity of the recipe in that it uses equal quantities of flour, eggs and milk by volume. Barney says there is no need to let the batter ‘stand’ or ‘rest’ so I just made the batter and the only resting time I gave it was the 10 minutes I waited for the oil to heat up in the oven.

 

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE:

Now I followed Barney’s recipe pretty faithfully, except that I used my silicone 6-hole muffin tin. Well it used to have 6 usable holes, but one of them split (from me putting it in the freezer to freeze egg whites/yolks) so I only put oil in 5 of the holes. But when it came to pouring the batter into the holes, in my haste I forgot about the one with the split/no oil and poured some batter in it. This one didn’t rise half as much as the others, but it was still extremely edible according to Steve! It just goes to show that you definitely need oil to cook Yorkshires!

 

Anyway, I was so pleased with how the others turned out! I actually really enjoyed eating them, as they were lovely and crispy on top and not stodgy at all.

 

 

OLD HABITS DIE HARD:

When Steve’s Mum saw them she was really impressed, but then she asked me what recipe I used and she balked at the idea of using 4 eggs! She uses a recipe that only uses 1 egg, so she was adamant that the great results I got must be due to the silicone tin I used. She normally uses a metal bun tin, so she said next time she will try her recipe using my silicone tin. She was also surprised I only let the oil heat up for 10 minutes, as she heats it for about 30 minutes and the batter still doesn’t sizzle! (I forgot to mention that before adding the oil I did put my silicone tin on a metal tray and I put it in the oven for about 5 minutes because it was wet and I wanted to dry it, so this extra heating time could have made a difference).

She also cooks her Yorkshires at a lower temperature, so I think she will try it at a higher temperature to get the rise right. I’ll let you know the results of the experiment!

 

Update: Steve’s Mum has made Yorkshires twice using her original recipe and my silicone tins, but she has exactly the same result as when she uses her metal tins. So I think it’s definitely the recipe that she needs to change, but she’s very set in her ways and has decided to just go back to using her metal tins and not change her recipe! I am going to make these Yorkshires again to try and convince her that she needs more eggs in her recipe!

 

• Makes: between 8-10 if using a muffin tin
• Oven temperature: Gas mark 8/450°F/230°C
• Oven shelf: top
• Cooking time: 20-25 minutes

 

Ingredients:

• 140g plain flour (this is about 200ml/7fl oz)
• 4 eggs (200ml/7fl oz)
• 200ml milk
• sunflower oil, for cooking

 

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 230C/fan 210C/gas 8. Drizzle a little oil evenly into 2 x 4-hole Yorkshire pudding tins or a 12-hole non-stick muffin tin and place in the oven to heat through.
2. To make the batter, tip the flour into a bowl and beat in the eggs until smooth. Gradually add the milk and carry on beating until the mix is completely lump-free. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the batter into a jug, then remove the hot tins from the oven. Carefully and evenly pour the batter into the holes. Place the tins back in the oven and leave undisturbed for 20-25 mins until the puddings have puffed up and browned. Serve immediately. You can now cool them and freeze for up to 1 month.

 

COOK’S NOTES:

• I used 4 large eggs, but I think I could have got away with 3 large eggs as the volume was a bit over 200ml (I have used 3 eggs and successfully made Toad in the hole with this batter).
• I used about 1 teaspoon of oil per hole in the tin.
• I let the oil heat up for 10 minutes and the batter did sizzle, but 15-20 minutes would be better.
• I filled each hole about half full with batter.
• The Yorkshires did start to burn on top after 20 minutes but still looked a little bit underdone towards the bottom, so I moved them to the lower part of the oven and cooked for another 5 minutes.
• I made 6 Yorkshires and with the rest of the batter I added some melted butter and made 4 pancakes (as per Barney’s pancake recipe). I stacked them on a plate with non-stick baking paper between each one, then wrapped in cling film and refrigerated overnight. I will fill these with a spicy pork filling.

Chocolate Cupcakes – Hummingbird Bakery

 

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

 

I bought the Hummingbird Bakery book when I visited the BBC Good Food Show in London back in November, as it was a bargain at only £4.99 from The Book People. But I have been reluctant to try any of the recipes because I’d read so many bad reviews about the book. Lots of people said that the recipes had been badly converted from the quantities that the bakery uses and that the recipes hadn’t been properly tested.

 

But then other people had raved about the book and I like to set myself a challenge in the kitchen, so I wanted to see if I could get at least one recipe from the book to work!

I decided to start with one of the cupcake recipes as that is what Hummingbird Bakery are famous for and from my baking experience the quantity of the ingredients in the recipe looked in proportion.

 

However, I was intrigued that so little butter was necessary for these cupcakes and I tried to convince myself that they were therefore a bit healthier than other cupcakes I’ve made in the past! Never mind that they’re full of sugar and slathered with icing!

 

The recipe says you can use a hand-held electric whisk or a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment. I chose to use the latter as I thought it would do a better job at mixing, as it has more speed settings than my ancient electric whisk, so I’d have better control. Plus an online friend told me that to get really fluffy icing it’s best to use an electric mixer, so it was worth digging it out from the back of the cupboard.

 

The method in the recipe was a bit alien to me as it tells you to beat the dry ingredients with the butter and sugar, then add the wet ingredients. I am used to creaming the butter and sugar first, then adding eggs and then adding the dry ingredients. But I followed the recipe exactly and everything went smoothly.

 

The recipe says it makes 12 cupcakes and it specifically says to use muffin paper cases. But I only managed to get 7 cupcakes from the mixture and I have read other people had the same experience. If you used normal fairy cake paper cases then you could easily make 12, but there’s no way you could make 12 muffin sized ones!

 

I checked my cupcakes after 20 minutes, but I had to bake them for about 30 minutes (but our gas oven isn’t that great) and I was a bit worried when they came out of the oven. They had sunk a little and didn’t look too pretty! But I guess that is what icing was invented for! I only made half a batch of icing because I didn’t have as many cupcakes and this was plenty.

 

 

TASTE TEST:

Well the cupcakes went down a storm with Steve’s family! They were really light and moist and Steve’s Mum said they were the best cupcakes I’ve made so far! So she now has a new favourite! Steve really liked the slightly chewy top of the cupcake, which he said reminded him of brownies.

 

I was really surprised they were so well received, but it has given me more confidence to try out more recipes from the book. I am also very curious as to what the real cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery are like and if mine were the same.

 

• Makes: 12 (if using small paper cases) or 7 muffin sized cupcakes
• Oven temperature: Gas mark 3/325°F/170°C
• You will need: a cupcake tray lined with paper cases

 

Ingredients:

• 100g plain flour, sifted
• 20g cocoa powder, sifted
• 140g caster sugar
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• a pinch of salt (I omitted this as I used salted butter)
• 40g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 120ml whole milk (I used semi-skimmed)
• 1 egg (I used a large one)
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 3/325°F/170°C.
2. Put the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk) and beat on slow speed until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined.
3. Whisk the milk, egg and vanilla extract together in a jug, then slowly pour about half into the flour mixture, beat to combine and turn the mixer up to high speed to get rid of any lumps.
4. Turn the mixer down to a slower speed and slowly pour in the remaining milk mixture (scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula). Continue mixing for a couple more minutes until the mixture is smooth. Do not overmix.
5. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two-thirds full and bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the sponge bounces back when touched. A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean. Leave the cupcakes to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
6. When the cupcakes are cool, spoon the icing on top and decorate if you like.

 

Half a batch of Chocolate Icing:

Beat 150g sifted icing sugar, 50g soft butter and 20g sifted cocoa in an electric mixer on medium-slow until the mixture comes together and is well mixed (for this small quantity of icing you may need to add a dribble of the milk to help it come together). Then turn the mixer down to slow and add 20ml milk gradually and keep mixing until it has been fully incorporated. Then turn the mixer up to a high speed and beat for about 5 minutes until the icing is light and fluffy.

Danish Pastries

 

MUNCH RATING: 4/5

 

I really wanted to challenge myself, so I decided to make the Danish Pastries recipe from the October 2009 issue of BBC Good Food magazine. I’ve made Flaky pastry before, which is quite similar in its method of laying the butter over the dough and creating layers by folding and rolling three times.

 

I have to say that this Danish Pastry dough was a lot more difficult to work with and my arms were killing me after all the rolling (but it’s good when you can make cooking your exercise workout). I found the dough to be very uncooperative in that it kept contracting and shrinking back when I tried to roll it. It also wouldn’t adhere to itself when I folded it, so this lack of cohesion gave me some problems with shaping the dough.

 

Here are the unbaked pastries: a raisin wheel, an apple pinwheel, an apple turnover triangle and an apple turnover square.

 

The apple turnover squares unfolded as they baked, which is a shame but they still turned out much better than I expected. I wasn’t that confident that the dough would produce all those lovely layers, so I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the oven door and saw that they had worked!

 

TASTE TEST:

The pastries were nice and crispy on the top and a little stodgy underneath, but I think that’s because I started cooking them at the top of the oven and then I moved them to a lower shelf because they were browning too much. I will cook them in the middle of the oven next time (I have frozen the rest - they were still just as good when defrosted and then baked).

 

Steve and I thought the pastries were a little bit salty, but his parents didn’t think so. I used Anchor salted butter, so next time I will leave out some of the salt in the dough (salt regulates the yeast's activity) or use unsalted butter.

 

So would I make these again? I will try making Danish Pastries again, but I won’t use this dough recipe again as it was too laborious with putting it in the fridge after every roll – I think this was unnecessary as the Flaky pastry recipe I’ve used before doesn’t require this. I think I will try this Rough Puff recipe next time as it is more simplified.

 

I decided to not copy out the recipe for the dough and fillings as you can find the recipe here and it would make this post extremely long!

 

MY OWN ADDITIONS:

I wasn’t keen on all the fillings that the Good Food recipe suggested, so I decided to make my own apple filling which worked really well.

 

Ingredients for the apple filling:

• 3 eating apples (I used Gala) peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces
• 25g butter
• 50g white sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon

 

Directions for the apple filling:

1. Place half the apples into a saucepan with the butter and sugar and cook on a medium heat for 5 minutes. Then add the rest of the apple and cook for another 10-15 minutes until soft (adding the apples in 2 stage will allow some of the apple to be more pulpy and the rest will have more bite). Allow to cool before using.

 

COOK’S NOTES:

• I made the dough by hand instead of in the food processor.
• I used Egg Glaze Spray from Lakeland to glaze before baking. They are still just as good without an egg glaze.
• It was a cold day so they didn’t double in size after shaping them and leaving for 30 minutes. I did try putting them in the oven after it had been heating for 10 minutes and then turning it off, but this just made the butter start to melt, so NOT a good idea! So I just baked them straight after my little experiment and they turned out OK.
• I iced them after letting them cool for about 5 minutes.