Red Velvet Cupcakes

Adapted from Nigella Lawson Kitchen

Let’s face it, the reason we love Red Velvet Cake is because it’s red.

I also think we just love the word “velvet”.

When you put them together, we don’t stand a chance.

Red Velvet? Yes please.

It’s even better in cupcake form. Coz cupcakes are easier to eat.

Also, cupcakes are cute. They’re so cute they survived food trend burnout.

And everybody loves Cream Cheese Frosting.

Or any frosting, really.

(“Frosting” is also a great word. If I were a pet person, I’d totally have a pet named Mrs. Frosting.)

Ingredients

For the cupcakes:

1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup (100 gm) all purpose flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temp

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tablespoon red food coloring

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg, room temp

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk, room temp

1/2 teaspoon cider (or white) vinegar

For the Cream Cheese Icing:

8 oz confectioner’s sugar

2 oz cream cheese, soft

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, soft

1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar (or vanilla extract)

Cocoa powder for dusting (optional)

Method

Cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 325. Line a cupcake tin with cupcake liners.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, then beat in the food coloring and vanilla.

Add a spoonful of the flour mixture, beat, then add the egg and beat until incorporated. Gradually add the rest of the flour mixture, being careful not to over mix.

Pour in the buttermilk and vinegar and beat again until you have a cohesive batter.

Divide into a cupcake tin, filling each cup about 1/3 of the way full.

Bake 15-20 minutes are until the tops spring back when you touch them (or when a tester comes out clean). Cool on a wire rack.

Icing:

In a small bowl, whisk the icing sugar, butter and cream cheese together until the mixture is creamy. Add the vinegar or vanilla and incorporate well.

When the cupcakes are completely cool, ice the cupcakes however you please. I used a piping bag though the results are far from professional! Dust with cocoa powder if desired.

Makes 12 really red cupcakes.

Chocolate Orange Loaf Cake

Adapted from Nigella Kitchen

Don’t be fooled by appearances – because while this cake looks like a heavy, dense block of chocolate (never a bad thing, but still) it is surprisingly light and fresh. If you love the chocolate orange combination, this is made for you.

The crumb is not as fine as that of a pound cake, but it is also nowhere near the heavier crumb of a quickbread. It’s somewhere in the middle and pretty near perfect for tea time.

 And if you don’t drink afternoon tea, what are you waiting for? It’s total permission to add one more meal to your day! Brit-style too.

Two interesting notes about the taste – one is that there is no salt in this recipe, which is something I’ve noticed in many of Nigella’s baking recipes. I suppose a bit of testing is in order – I would love to know if salt really does make a difference to baked goods.

My other baking idol, Joanne Chang, insists that it does, so I wouldn’t commit either way. But I do love that Nigella is pretty great at stripping a recipe down to its basics.

 The other thing is that this cake is not overly sweet. In fact, by American standards it’s probably not sweet enough.

I like the subtlety of the sweetness here – it feels like you’re having a treat but not something that screams Dessert with a capital D.

So there you have it – a dense-looking block of cake that’s anything but dense both in terms of texture and flavor.

Ingredients

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temp

2 tablespoons Lyle’s Golden syrup (or dark corn syrup)

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3 tablespoons cocoa powder (the good stuff)

2 eggs, room temperature

zest of 2 oranges

juice of 1 orange

Method

Preheat oven to 325.

Grease a non-stick 2 pound (9 x 5) loaf tin liberally with butter. If you don’t have non-stick, I would line the pan with parchment, and then butter. Liberally.

In a medium bowl, measure out your flour, sift in the cocoa powder and add the baking soda. Mix everything well.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter together with the golden syrup just until incorporated, then add the brown sugar. Beat until light brown and fluffy.

With the mixer on medium-low, add a tablespoon of the flour mixture, wait until it’s mixed in and then crack in the egg. Beat.

Repeating this process, add a couple more spoonfuls of flour, then crack in the second egg.

Continue adding the flour in spoonfuls with the mixer on medium until all the flour is mixed in.

Add the orange zest and juice. Beat again. The mixture may look slightly curdled once the juice is in, but do not worry. All is well.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin.

Bake for 45 – 50 minutes, or until a tester comes out with a few sticky crumbs clinging to it.

Makes 12 non-dense slices.

Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins

Adapted from Nigella Kitchen

I mean, seriously, with all the different blueberry muffin recipes floating around, how are you going to know which one to choose?

Well, the differentiating factor with this recipe is the cornmeal.

 You have the grainy crunch of a lovely sweet corn muffin studded with blueberries that burst in the golden corny interior.

Whew, what a corny description.

But really, that is what sets this blueberry muffin apart and it’s a nice change up from the usual flour based batter.  Nigella’s recipe is really simple, uses the most basic ingredients and takes practically no time to make.

I think these would also be really nice with raspberries, as they are more tart and the tartness against the sweet corn backdrop would be perfection.

Anyway, give these a go. There are only 29,687 more blueberry muffin recipes on the web for you to try. Get crackin’!

Ingredients

1 cup flour

3/4 cup cornmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 egg

3/4 cup blueberries

Method

Preheat oven to 400. Line a muffin pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and sugar.

In a measuring cup, measure out the buttermilk, top off with the oil, crack in the egg and whisk everything together.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk till the batter just comes together. Fold in half of the blueberries.

Dollop the batter into the muffin cups. They should each be about two-thirds full.

Adorn the top of each muffin with the remaining blueberries, about 3-4 each.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the tops are a crunchy golden brown.

Makes 12 easy choices for breakfast.

Rocky Road Bars

Adapted from Nigella Express (well, not adapted, this is pretty much the original recipe)

I have no excuse for this. It’s chocolate and marshmallows and rich tea biscuits (which come in shiny gold packets and cost 39 cents, hello!) all gunked together. It’s no-brainer delicious and also no-brainer “I SO shouldn’t be eating this”.

But it’s exactly the thing to eat when life gets rocky and you’re all “screw this I’m going to eat chocolate till I die”…

Wake up the next morning with a chocolate hangover.

Eat salad for the next 5 days.

Crisis. Averted.

Ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into chunks

10 oz good quality dark chocolate

3 tablespoons Lyle’s Golden syrup (or light corn syrup)

6 oz (2 small packets) Rich Tea biscuits (I used Goya brand Maria biscuits)

2 cups mini marshmallows

Method

Melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water.

Remove half a cup of the melted chocolate mixture and set aside.

Crush the tea biscuits until you have  biscuit rubble and pour this, along with the marshmallows into the bowl of melted chocolate. Mix everything together, getting everything coated with the chocolate as evenly as you can. The mixture is going to seem a bit dry but don’t panic. It’s meant to be rubbly.

Grease a 9 inch square aluminum foil pan, or line a 9 inch pan with foil, and grease the foil with butter.

Plop in the chocolatey rubble and smooth everything out with a spatula. Dribble the reserved half cup of melted chocolate over the top to create a thin chocolate layer. Use your spatula to smooth out the top and spread the chocolate even over the nooks and crannies.

Leave to set in the refrigerator for 2 hours, at the very least. (I know you won’t be able to hold out any longer than that).

Remove from the pan and cut into chunks.

Makes 24 small squares or one humongous square for anyone who’s particularly desperate.

S’mores Cookies

Adapted from Eleanor Klivans’ Big Fat Cookies

These cookies are out of control. They are not very pretty to look at. But they are out of control in the taste department.

 We know marshmallows get soft and gooey in a regular fireside S’more.

And we know marshmallows get caramelly and sticky from making Rice Krispies.

These cookies are the best of both those Utopian worlds.

Gooey, melty, sticky, chewy, chocolately, graham-crackery goodness.

The original recipe calls for using graham cracker crumbs, but I went with buying the sheets then crumbling them up myself. I like the texture of having a few bigger pieces of graham crackers dotted throughout the cookie. Because there is so little flour used here, you really get full on graham cracker flavor.

If you under-bake them a little, you get maximum gooeyness, but they are going to tend to fall apart. I found them to be most delicious this way.

 If you’re more into having them look cohesive (these are not pretty suckers), then make sure to bake them longer so that they hold together. They will be a little crispier, and the marshmallows will have melted into that clear, sticky caramelly thing around the edges.

Either way, they are phenomenally delicious.

Ingredients

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

½ cup sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

18 sheets (2 packets) graham crackers

¼ cup flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 ½ cups miniature marshmallows

Method

Preheat oven to 325.

Place the graham crackers in a food storage bag and bash with a rolling pin until you have mostly crumbs with a few larger pieces. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Crack in the egg and pour in the vanilla extract. Beat until well incorporated.

Gradually pour in the graham cracker crumbs, flour and salt. Mix until combined.

Add the chocolate chips and marshmallows and mix well.

Using an ice cream scoop or ¼ cup measure, drop rounded balls of dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet, 4 inches apart. Flatten the tops of the cookies slightly so that they are about ¾ of an inch thick.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. The edges of the cookies will look clear and caramelly, while the centers may still have bits of white marshmallow peeking out.

Cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack using a big spatula.

Makes 15 ooey gooey cookies.

Airy Fairy Raspberry Pavlova

Raspberry Pavlova With Chocolate Cream

(Adapted from Nigella Lawson Fresh, though this is pretty much the standard recipe for pav. And yes I do own ALL of Nigella’s books.)

I have to sheepishly but brazenly confess to pulling out the Cool Whip for this.

I know Cool Whip is made out of all sorts of things it shouldn’t be made out of and that we shouldn’t be eating but it IS my summer weakness.

Berries and Cool Whip. A girl has to have her vices.

 I completely understand the Cool Whip snobbery though.

So you can of course, use real whipped cream with a little cocoa powder mixed in and perhaps a touch of sugar and vanilla to sweeten it up. I won’t make you buy the Cool Whip

And Pavlova – I mean, why are we not eating more of this people? It’s like cake but without the calories! Perfect for a light summer dessert. Just as long as you don’t go insane with the cream (or you can if you want, it’s your Pavlova), it’s…well, it’s magical.

The meringue is airy fairy, light as a feather – almost makes you think it wasn’t even there.

Except for that lingering sweetness on your tongue.

Ingredients

For the Pavlova

4 egg whites

¾ cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon white vinegar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Assembly

1 cup Cool Whip (or whipped cream)

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 pint raspberries

Method

Preheat the oven to 350.

Line a baking sheet with parchment. Draw an 8 inch round in the center of the parchment using a cake tin. Set aside.

Whisk the egg whites until they are satiny white. Gradually add the sugar while the whites are still whisking until you have a smooth, glossy mixture. Sift in the cornstarch, pour in the vinegar and vanilla extract, then gently fold everything until well incorporated.

Carefully mound the egg whites into the 8 inch round on your parchment. It doesn’t have to be perfect but smooth everything out as best as you can. Place the baking sheet into the oven then immediately turn the oven down to 300.

Bake for about 30 minutes. The pavlova is done when the edges are crisp and lightly browned, the top is dry but it still feels spongy beneath.

Turn off the oven, open the door slightly and leave to cool completely.

To assemble, whisk together the cream and cocoa powder. Dollop onto the center of the meringue and smooth to the edges. Place the raspberries on top, however you please.

Makes 8 airy fairy slices.

Rosewater Romance

There is a scene in an old Bollywood film called Pakeezah (which means Pure), where the protagonist, a courtesan, is reading a letter from a man she has never met but has fallen in love with.

She’s lying by a fountain, in the middle of an opulent room, with her long hair soaking in the cool, rose petal laden and presumably fragrant waters of the fountain pool.

Not a bad way to unwind after a hard day’s work.

So much has changed  – or perhaps nothing has – the fountain is now a bathtub and the letter is now an e-mail, no a text – and hopefully the “hard day’s work” doesn’t involve entertaining gentleman callers.

Technology may have progressed but the turmoil of romance remains the same.

It’s not what we do that’s changed – or ever will for human emotions are eternal. It’s how we do them that has undergone such drastic and decidedly un-romantic transformations.

And the how is what makes all the difference, putting the magic and mystery in human existence.

Romance is eternal but romance today is all harrowed frenzy and brisk efficiency – compatibility checklist dating where convenience comes first, love second.

It’s the hard lines of our minds rather than the softer ones of our hearts that run the dating game now.

Really, IS this romance?

Call me a die-hard romantic but Love, my friends is not the place for efficiency, nor convenience. It is not a give and take proposition. It’s not a business deal.

The scent of rosewater makes me imagine a time when there was more time – to dream, to contemplate the fires of our existence, the mysteries of our hearts.

An era when we allowed Love to reveal her mysteries, rather than try to bulldoze her into our schedules or analyze her on Google.

An era of mystics long gone.

So am I the only die-hard romantic out here? Or do I need to get a copy of He’s Just Not That Into You and then proceed to shoot myself?

In the meantime, these Rosewater Almond Macaroons just might tap your inner mystic and make you believe in good old-fashioned romance again.

Rosewater Almond Macaroons

Basic Recipe Adapted from Gourmet, Rosewater Cardamom Borrowed from Nigella Lawson Feast

Other than the obvious intensely nutty-chewy benefits of eating macaroons (NOT the more fashionable and trendy macarons, but old-fashioned, outdated macarooooons), the great fun of making this is the little rosewater trick that will make you feel like a princess or at the very least, a memsahib. (We’ll just leave the courtesan out because I’m pretty sure none of us wants to feel like one).

I know it is standard to use blanched almonds, but I didn’t have any on hand – and anyway, I kind of like the color combination that comes from using the regular ones. The peanuts were an experiment, and I quite liked the result. But just use a whole cup of almonds if you want to go forthe more traditional.

Between the scent of the cardamom, the sugary nuttiness of the nuts and the rosewater, these cookies are guaranteed to transport you somewhere far beyond your computer, smartphone, cubicle or food truck and into the lost, haunted corridors of long-forgotten palaces.

Make them. Eat them. Dream.

Ingredients

3 cardamom pods

1/2 cup raw peanuts

1/2 cup raw almonds

2/3 cup sugar

pinch of salt

1 egg white

2 tablespoons rosewater

8-10 whole almonds for decoration

Method

Preheat the oven to 350.

Crack open the cardamom pods and put the black seeds into a plastic bag. Bash with something heavy until you have a powder.

Process the peanuts, almonds, sugar, cardamom powder and salt in a food processor, pulsing until you have a fine sugary rubble, but not a paste.

Add the egg white and pulse until the mixture comes together.

Sprinkle some of the rosewater onto your clean hands. Using your fragrant princess palms, take tablespoon sized balls of dough and roll to form a ball. Flatten then slightly and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment.

Press one whole almond onto each cookie. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool completely.

Makes 8-10 Scheherazade-worthy cookies.

Happy Accidents

The sun is finally here to stay, or so it seems. New Yorkers are still a little bit on edge – we’re convinced we’ll be punished with gray clouds this whole summer.

But I was brave and I finally bought a pint of strawberries.

And I had a plan for the strawberries. It involved pavlova, chocolate mousse and strawberries on top.

But then my plan, as they so often do, totally derailed – but in a really, really good way.

Two things happened:

First, I finally satisfied my curiosity about Eton Mess – that English dessert of crushed meringues, whipped cream and strawberries. It tastes like strawberries in fairyland and I am completely addicted.

Second, I accidentally, lazily stopped halfway through making chocolate mousse to discover that I had just made the chocolate pudding of my dreams.

This pudding tastes - finally tastes – the way I always wish and hope the stuff in the plastic tubs will taste.

But they never do. I mean, pudding cups are alright – they have a certain plasticky appeal to them, but they promise a chocolateyness that they never live up to. Instead, they are gloopy with a ghostly hint of chocolate that comes from same faraway land of stale, abandoned chocolate.

Well, what I like about the idea of pudding is the soft, cold, cloudy creaminess which is not the same as the sort of sharp coldness you get from ice cream. Pudding is what you want when you want something in between chocolate milk and chocolate ice cream.

Whenever I crave that in-between soft, chocolatey comfort, usually in the summertime, I rather sulkily pretend to enjoy a small tub of pudding. Most recipes for the home-made version include corn starch and I think I made such a version once long ago and was not pleased with the result.

Possibly I just didn’t like chocolate pudding as far as standard chocolate puddings go, but there was an idea in my head of what I always thought it should and would taste like.

And now, at long last I have found it.

I suppose it’s really more like a thick custard. Thickened by egg yolks, the richness of cream and not too much chocolate. It tastes rich, and IS rich, – but it is so light on the tongue, like eating cool chocolate clouds. It is cold and creamy, but not as cold and creamy as ice cream. It has not even the slightest hint of the plastickiness from corn starch. It is just pure, decadent chocolate.

I have read about a “purist” chocolate pudding (meaning no additives, only chocolate itself used as a thickener) in Joanne Chang’s Flour. Her recipe is a bit more complex, involving both cream and half and half, along with bittersweet chocolate. The idea here is the same though. No corn starch.

For now – this pudding is my pudding of choice. 4 ingredients, no gloopiness, simple, decadent but not overly rich.

It is just what I want – and have always wanted – from the imaginary taste sensations that the words “chocolate pudding” conjure up.

The Chocolate Pudding (emphasis on The)

This recipe is basically a tweaked version of the first part of a Ghirardelli chocolate mousse I made a while ago. I’m not sure I did it correctly then. This time I was very careful with my custard. That recipe calls for 6 oz of chocolate, but I, for some inexplicable reason refused to add more than 4 oz this time. It was just a gut feeling. Always follow your gut. It knows. Second only to the heart.

So once I mixed the chocolate with the warm custard, let everything melt, it set in the refrigerator and two hours later I had a light, velvety, richly chocolatey thing which I could only say was The Chocolate Pudding Of My Dreams. And so I point-blank refused the rest of Ghirardelli’s instructions and put a full-stop on the recipe then and there. It is the best decision I have ever made.

The thing about custard is this: you have to stir like you’re a crazy person about to be sent to the asylum. It’s not pretty. You have to stir like your life depended on it. Then, and only then, will your madness be rewarded with a beautiful, thick, glorious custard – which is the key factor for the pudding.

I wish I could have taken a picture of the custard for you, but trust me, custard making time is NO time to be taking photos. It really does demand uncompromising attention. Or at least it does from me. You might be on more lenient terms with it.

Use good chocolate. I’m sure this would be get-off-the-planet delicious with milk chocolate. I would just avoid regular semi-sweet, unless it’s a really good brand. That might make it taste a bit pedestrian.

Okay! On to the recipe. Sorry about my garrulousness but I just couldn’t contain my enthusiasm for this one.

Ingredients

4 egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup heavy cream

4 oz good quality chocolate, chopped, or chocolate chips

Method

In a medium bowl, beat the yolks together with the vanilla with an electric whisk until thick and pale. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, heat the heavy cream over medium heat just until it’s hot and you start to see tiny bubbles appear at the edges. Don’t let it boil.

Carefully and slowly, pour half of the cream into the yolk mixture, stirring the yolks all the time. You are tempering the yolks, bringing them up to temperature, so that they won’t cook and curdle when we put them back on the heat.

Now pour the yolk mixture into the saucepan with the rest of the cream. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and madly. Keep a close eye on the custard – you want it to be thick like a thickened white sauce, but it takes a split instant before it goes from that, to curdled. So be vigilant.

As soon as it is thick, remove it from the heat and keep stirring until the mixture cools down a bit (cool enough so that the yolks are finally persuaded to stop cooking).

Place the chocolate in a bowl or storage container. Strain the warm custard through a strainer directly over the chocolate. Stir everything together until the chocolate has melted into the custard.

Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for about 2 hours, or until well-chilled.

Serve with whipped cream and strawberries.

Makes a thousand decadent spoonfuls.

(Less poetic version: about 2 cups.)

Serves however many people are willing to fight you for it.

Crunch

Granola = healthy.

Me = not very healthy.

Compromise = Chocolate Granola.

Okay, in all seriousness though, I am totally in dire need of losing some weight and getting fit. The blog was totally throwing me off kilter what with the crazy consumption of butter but now that I’m over the initial overexcitement that comes with blogging (cookies, and more cookies!), I’ve decided this place needs some focus.

The interesting thing about being a foodie is that it can, perversely, help you lose weight rather than gain it simply because you’re paying more attention to the food. The thing the diet industry doesn’t seem to get is that it’s not that we don’t know which foods are healthy, low-calorie, high in fiber, etc, etc. It’s because we eat for reasons other than hunger. It’s all about the emotions people. Sometimes hormones too. And those can be a real bitch.

So my mission this year (um, yeah, I know it’s May but since it’s STILL not warm my resolutions have been utterly non-committal) is to think about pleasure rather than the opposite, which is restriction – which is usually what a diet is all about.

And I’ve found it works. Especially if you love food – and by that I don’t mean you love to eat it, but you love it as an art, as a craft, you love reading about it, thinking about it, discovering new ingredients, trying new recipes, grocery shopping (LOVE it), and taking lots and lots of pictures of food that makes non-foodies think you’re totally crazy.

The greatest anti-dote to weight loss, it turns out, is not calorie-counting, carb-counting or crunching at the gym, but – Love! Finding something you love.

(No, not someone you love. See “emotions” earlier.)

It’s a bit confusing if what you love is food – as a subject – but then you get the hang of it. I’ve gone through entire days where I’ve baked and cooked meals but I haven’t eaten simply because I was so excited from all the baking and cooking.

I think it was Ruhlman who said that we don’t get fat because we eat desserts or butter-laden rich dishes – the simple fact is that we eat too much of it. And we eat too much of it usually because of those interminably nasty and inconvenient emotions. Tired, stressed, depressed or bored.

Those emotions are what the diet industry preys on, trying to convince us that we just don’t know how to eat a balanced diet. Um, yeah, most of us could probably have entire PhD’s on nutrition. That’s not the problem.

So anyway, this is my long-winded way of saying – my new diet plan is this:

1. Pleasure and portion control are the focus.
2. To really think about each meal and be mindful, and slowing down, rather than just making what’s convenient.
3. And to make every meal as special as possible – because special doesn’t necessarily mean complicated or time-consuming.
4. Work out! Always work out. Which I love anyway, so that’s not an issue.

Perfect snack for pre- or post-workout?

Why, I think I can help with that.

Chocolate Almond Granola

Adapted from Nigella Feast

This granola is a prime example of what I’m talking about. It tastes decadent but it’s not because its chocolateyness comes from good cocoa powder. While there is obviously sugar in here, it’s not as sweet as most of the granolas you can buy – which I like. Plus, it is so filling that a little goes a long way. I don’t like this as much with milk, eaten like a bowl of cereal because the sesame seeds float to the top and it’s a bit….weird. But it’s fantastic over yogurt (vanilla yogurt especially) or just plain, as a snack.

I know it’s a real pain, but it really is much easier to weigh out the ingredients for Nigella’s recipes than to use measuring cups. Americans, God bless their non-conformist hearts, are the only ones who use measuring cups, while the rest of the world goes by grams. So….buy the scale. It’s more accurate and it’s less washing up.

But, if you insist, here’s the original recipe on Food Network’s website with cup conversions. Note: I made half the recipe which is the measurements I’m going with here.

The oven temp was a bit tricky – at one place I heard Nigella say 400 (which is why I burned the first batch), Food Network says 310, which I tried but it was a bit too low and slow. I would go with 350 – always the safe option.

Ingredients

225 gm rolled oats

60 gm sunflower seeds

60 gm sesame seeds

125 gm raw almonds

2 tablespoons good quality unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

50 gm light brown sugar

90 gm apple sauce

60 gm Lyle’s golden syrup

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon flavorless oil

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 350. Use a large non-stick baking sheet, or spray one with baking spray.

In a very large bowl, add all the dry ingredients (the first 9 ingredients) and rake everything through with your fingers so it’s all evenly dispersed. Then add the rest of the ingredients and using a big wooden spoon, stir everything together. Make sure all the sticky ingredients are evenly coating the dry ones.

Spread the mixture evenly onto the baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour – making sure to turn the granola every 10 minutes or so. This prevents any one area from browning too much. A bit annoying, but necessary, and so rewarding. (Better than anything you’ll buy).

Makes a big jar-full of granola for the newly resolved.

Made For Each Other

Dudes! Did you know that if you melt chocolate together with peanut butter over a double boiler you will want to bottle it up like face cream and apply it to your face forever and ever till the sun combusts and the world explodes?

Did you?

I mean peanut butter and chocolate are like soul mates or something right? So when you apply heat and let them get all warm and cozy and melty together the result of all that love-making is a fluffy creamy peanut butter chocolate baby that is further proof that love makes the world go round.

Love and this peanut butter chocolate filling. I am convinced.

So here’s how the whole peanut butter chocolate trajectory happened in my head. Further from a couple of posts ago, I was on the buttermilk prowl.

Happily I came across this recipe for Orange Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Cookies (sounds great, right?) at this totally gorgeous website called Raspberri Cupcakes. I thought that was an awesome idea but seeing as how I had just made chocolate chip cookies a few days ago (there’s only so much a girl can take), I wanted to make something different.

So I clicked back to the original recipe over here and found plain buttermilk cookies that I decided I wanted to sandwich with chocolate.

Immediately the synapses or whatever in my brain picked up on a get-off-the-planet delicious memory of making a Peanut Butter Fudge Sauce which is crazy ridiculous on ice cream.

I mean you will die and end up in instant nirvana when you taste that. All your karma will be cancelled, the angels will sing and you’ll be back in the Garden of Eden. It’s that good.

I said to myself, “If I could turn that sauce into a filling I’m sure it would totally save the world.”

I immediately got busy with my Kitchenaid.

Cookies? Check. Peanut butter chocolate filling? Super-check. World peace? Un-check.

As seen in my last post, the sandwich idea didn’t work out. The sweet cookie was totally overpowering and downright abusing my lovely peanut butter chocolate.

Enter the Pop Tart solution. When in doubt, wrap it in pastry dough.

Especially the easiest, flakiest dough ever. I mean, I know they always tell you not to overwork pastry dough but I was pretty abusive with mine and it still came out super flaky.

Dough scraps. Gotta have them. Bake them. Eat them. Sometimes I even pretend I don’t have enough filling left just so I can bake up the plain pastry.

Did I tell you I’m a carbo-freak? A carbo-freak forever on a low-carb diet?

It’s all about the extremes people. Balance is so last year.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pop Tarts

Pastry Dough adapted from Joanne Chang

Filling inspired by Nigella Lawson

Boxed pop tarts, much like Oreos and Twizzlers were a hugely anti-climactic let-down for me as far as products from the conveyor belts of industrialized food go. So I was totally stoked (favorite word for pretending I’m a white kid from California) when the blogosphere, which should really be its own nation as far as I’m concerned, came up with home-made versions of all these goodies and got them to taste the way they should taste.

(Well, the case is still out on Twizzlers but if anyone wants to give a homemade version of those a go, I’m all for it. Just please let them taste as red and juicy as they look. No one likes eating plastic. At least I don’t.)

Anyway, these are good, if not particularly innovative. If you have leftover chocolate peanut butter filling, don’t pretend like it’s a problem. You know what to do with it.

Ingredients

Dough:

245 gm all-purpose flour (1 3/4 cups)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

228 gm butter (2 sticks, stay calm)

2 egg yolks

3 tablespoons cold milk (I used buttermilk)

Filling:

1/3 cup smooth peanut butter

1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 tablespoon Lyle’s golden syrup (or light corn syrup, but it won’t taste as great)

Assembly:

1 egg white, reserved from eggs used in dough

Method

Dough:

Using the paddle attachment of a stand mixer, mix together the flour, salt and sugar on low speed. Add the butter and egg yolks and mix again on low until the flour starts to absorb the yolks and the butter is broken up.

Add the milk. The dough should start to come together in about 45 seconds. If needed, add a little more milk to moisten the dough.

When the machine just starts to resist and the whirring sound starts straining a bit, turn off the mixer. You should have a cohesive dough (i.e., not shaggy bits as is usually advised. I find this is much easier to deal with and you lose none of the flaky factor).

Dump out the dough onto a floured board. Make a mound and then push the mound out with the palm of your hand. Do this a couple of times to create long streaks of butter throughout the dough. Form the dough into 2 rectangles, wrap in cling and refrigerate for at least an hour before using.

Filling:

Place a heat-proof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Place peanut butter, chocolate chips and golden syrup in the bowl and allow everything to melt gently until you have a rich, luxurious face cream-like consistency. Allow the filling to cool before using.

Assembly:

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each half of dough to roughly the size of a gallon-sized Ziploc bag (approximately 11 x 11 inches). In fact, you can even roll the dough inside the bag, but as this dough gets pretty sticky as it warms up, you’ll have to be careful. I find that if the dough starts sticking too much, throwing it back in the fridge for a few minutes makes it easier to work with. At any rate, once you have the dough rolled out, I would recommend putting them in the fridge for a few minutes until they are firm. It will make the assembly much easier.

Cut each sheet of dough into 8 even-sized rectangles, or as even-sized as you can manage. Brush both rectangles with the reserved egg white. (Why waste another egg when the egg white works just as well?)

Place a tablespoon of filling onto half of the dough squares. Place the unfilled squares on top (egg-washed side down) and seal the edges. Prick the top of the pop tarts with a fork, and brush the tops with more egg white.

Once you have them filled and ready, again I would recommend putting them in the fridge before you bake. The colder the butter, the more flakes you’ll get.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the tops are golden brown and puffy.

Makes 8 meant-to-be pop tarts.