recipe

Granary bread recipe

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A small loaf of granary, a very easy recipe and perfect for someone like me who doesn’t eat bread all time. I can whip up a loaf on the day and it lasts a week or so.

250g strong bread flour (200g country grain/50g white flour)

3.5g dried yeast

1/2 tsp salt

150 ml warm water

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tbsp honey

Put flour in bowl, yeast on one side and salt on the other. Mix the oil and honey with the water, and then add to the flour. Mix together until you have a sticky dough. Knead on a floured surface for around 10 minutes (or 5 mins in a mixer). Oil a loaf tin, and place the dough in, cover and leave to rise for around an hour. Needs to be slight warm place to help the yeast.

Once risen, put in oven at 180° for 30-35 mins until risen and brown. Job done.

(c) K Wicks

Orange Cookies Recipe

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This is a variation on the oat, coconut and choc chip cookie, taking out the coconut and choc and using orange instead. I guess if you wanted orange and chocolate chip cookies, then leave the chips in 🙂

85g Granulated sugar

85g Demerera sugar

100g butter (at room temp)

300g Plain Flour / All purpose flour

1/2 tps salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg

125g oats (you may need to add more if the mixture is a bit wet)

1 Orange – grate a bit of rind when needed, then use the juice of the whole orange

2 tsp of orange extract

60g choc chips optional

Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth (ish), add the egg, orange rind, juice and extract and mix. Then add the flour, salt and baking soda & powder. It needs to start binding like a dough, so if it’s a bit sloppy, then add a bit more flour (I didn’t weigh mine before adding, so went from 250g to 300g in the ingredients, but a bit more may be needed).

Once it’s binding well, add the oats by hand. Then put on a baking sheet and flatten out with your hand to about 1 – 2cm depth. Then use a cookie/biscuit cutter to get your desired shape and size.

Put on a baking tray either greased or on baking paper, and cook for around 10 – 15 mins or until going brown at 180 degrees.

(c) K Wicks

Coconut and chocolate cookies recipe

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Definitely the new go to recipe for homemade cookies 🍪.

250g All purpose flour (plain flour in the UK)

1 tps baking soda

1tps baking powder

1/2 tps salt

100g granulated sugar

100g brown sugar

100g butter (at room temp)

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

100g oats

100g desiccated coconut

100g chocolate chips

Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the extract and egg, mix well.

Add the flour, salt and baking powder/soda.

Mix in the coconut, oats and chocolate chips by hand. Shape either into small balls and flatten slightly, or flatten out the mix and use a cookie cutter. I did some more today using that method, and without coconut and chocolate for some, as coconut is not to the entire households taste 😉

Bake at 180c for around 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool, then eat them!

(c) K Wicks

Orange biscuits

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A small batch of biscuits – makes about 8.

90g all purpose flour / plain flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

60g butter

100g sugar

2oz fresh orange juice / zest

half an egg

Oven at 180°c – baking time 15 minutes (ish)

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Seperately cream the butter and sugar together, add the egg, orange zest and juice and mix until you have what looks like a horrible scrambled egg type mixture. Then add half the flour and mix through, then add the rest of the flour and mix well until you have a creamy looking dough and pop in the fridge for a bit.

I never usually let anything rest in between, but this time I did, having ruined the first batch with lemon a couple of weeks ago, and addressed an long standing issue I have with baking biscuits and them going wrong. Turns out impatience and ignorance were the culprit! No real surprise there for me. But I gave thought to what it is I get wrong, and there appeared to be a theme with these, they spread and don’t hold their shape. So, finally thought to ask the internet, and turns out it’s the butter being too warm obviously having been a room temp the whole time (or even melted first for choch chip cookies) and then being worked on and getting warmer. The trick is apparently to put in in the fridge or freezer for a time once you have made the dough, so it can solid up again. Makes sense know I now, and it worked, obviously. It’s my own fault as the video which I got this recipe from (linked at the bottom) clearly tells you to put it in the fridge, but you know how it is, sometimes we think we know best.

After creating small balls of dough, they are then rolled in icing sugar and placed on baking paper on a tray and into the oven. I’m going to see if tangerine’s work just as well for this later, and in ice-cream, so fingers crossed for more orangey snack and treats 🙂

(c) K Wicks

Here is the link to the YouTube vid where got the recipe and method, just swapped the lemon for orange.

Flapjacks recipe

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For some unknown reason over the years I completely forgot I liked flapjacks and had two jobs in bakeries, one of them being a trainee confectionist. The next batch I make might just have to half dipped in chocolate, so watch this space. From nowhere though recently, I decided to make them. I like to be organised when baking sweets things and always weigh everything out out first, I didn’t have a recipe for this so looked through the internet until I found one and scaled down the measurements for a small batch.

125g Butter

125g Demerara sugar

35g Golden syrup

170g Oats

Oven at 180 degrees – bake for 20-25 minutes and cool for 20 minutes. (with fan assisted I suggest either higher temperature or bake for longer, I should have done it for about 35-40 minutes I suspect). This is super simple and quick and a great homemade snack/treat.

Ingredients

Melt the butter and add the sugar and golden syrup. When the sugar has melted stir through the oats. Then press into your prepared tin and smooth out (you can use the back of a spoon to press it flat).

Stage 1

Once it’s baked (turned pale or golden brown), take out and cut into squares and eat 🙂

Stage 2 – done!

(c) K Wicks

Blueberry and Raspberry Cakes Recipe

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I like baking, sweets more than savoury so far and this recipe is a favourite of mine for some tasty cakey fruity treats. I have amended the recipe to scale down the ingredients. I’m not a big eater and my husband does not eat hardly anything I bake, so smaller the recipes get. But this still makes 12 little cakes. The original receipt is just for blueberry muffins, but they seem more like fairy cakes than muffins, and I decided to add raspberries to give it an extra zing and gooeyness. Full recipe at bottom of post.

Ingredients

To start my baking I always weigh up all the ingredients first, and always have to have a recipe – funnily enough it’s the opposite with savoury food, no recipe, don’t weigh up anything or even check I have all the ingredients first. On that note, I shall share with you that the other night I had ‘Joke Chicken’. What is this is dish you may ask, well, it is when you don’t read the shopping delivery receipt properly, presume you have chicken and start cooking roast potatoes without checking. Then upon realising, have no back up so just end up eating roast potatoes for dinner! (which really wasn’t that bad). And even for this recipe – I nearly couldn’t do it as I had run out of baking powder and hadn’t added that to the shopping, despite it being on my list. Luckily the corner shop was open and in stock.

Creamed butter and sugar

Although I love my mixer and use it for pastry, I always cream the butter and sugar by hand. Taking a bit more time and care than previously and it may sound cheesy, but I can taste the difference.

Cake mix with fruit added

I don’t tend to stir in the fruit too much otherwise you lose the raspberry a bit and from experience cut a few of the blueberries in half. Otherwise they all have a tendency to sink to the bottom of the cake, which is nice, but better to have them do that and still be throughout as well.

Pre bake in cases

Again with this one, I didn’t check the oven temperature adjustment until they had been cooking for 10 minutes, then realised that I had typed the recipe out when I had a normal gas oven. Now I have a fan assisted electric one and it seems to keep throwing me when using it. So while doing this write up I shall amend it so no-one has the issue and will print myself a new one.

Post bake cooling

These only took 20 minutes because I have learnt my lesson when it come to taking things out when you think they are done, not when the time says so. But if you start with the correct temperature, then 25-30 minutes is probably accurate.

They were then enjoyed with a cup on tea (on my rather colourful MKW coaster).

Cake with Tea

Blueberry & Raspberry Cakes

Ingredients 

Makes: 24 muffins                   Makes: 12 muffins

  • 110g butter                              * 55g
  • 250g plain flour                         * 125g
  • 250g caster sugar                      * 125g
  • 2 eggs                                      * 1 egg
  • 125ml milk                                * 62.5 ml
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder      * 1 tsp
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt                     * ¼ tsp
  • 225g fresh blueberries             * 112.5 g

Method


Prep:15 min  ›  Cook: 25min  ›  Ready in:40min 

  1. Preheat oven to 180 C / Gas 4 (160 c for fan assisted). Grease and flour a muffin tin or line with paper cases. Sieve flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.
  2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat well. Add milk and flour mixture. Beat until combined. Stir in blueberries.
  3. Fill muffin tin 2/3 full. Bake at 180 C / Gas 4 / 160 c for 25 to 30 minutes.

Victoria Sponge Cake Recipe

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I’ve had this recipe knocking around for over a decade having pulled it from the internet for my own simple recipe folder. Thanks Patricia, whoever you are.

Finally, I got round to trying it and have to say was rather impressed. I am quite a simple cook and cannot do complicated or fancy, so often don’t always get things right. (Full receipt at the bottom of the post).

This was super easy to follow. I didn’t rush it, as is sometimes my way (not hard to see why I don’t always get it right!) and took extra time to properly cream the butter and sugar. It took longer than the recipe said to cook for, but I have a fan assisted oven these days and didn’t think to check the difference. Although, I didn’t use a flat cake tin, instead using a loaf tin, so that is probably why. However, I know to test the cake center with a knife to make sure cooked and gave it another 15 minutes.

It was so light I was surprised, I also make banana bread now and again and that is extremely dense and heavy. The flavour was also perfect. I had been concerned about the vanilla extract as the recipe doesn’t state a quantity, so I went with 1 teaspoon and it worked well.

It was enjoyed with fresh whipped cream and strawberry jam. As many would agree it should be. My winter sweet tooth has returned so there might be more…

(c) K Wicks

Victoria Sponge Cake Recipe

Sponge cake preparation time: about 15 Minutes
Sponge cake cooking time: 25 Minutes

By Patricia

Sponge cake should be very light and airy and with a melt in the mouth texture. Everyone has their own favorite version of sponge cake but the basic rule is to beat the mixture well to get air into it, this is as much an art as a science so practice will improve your cake making ability. There are many things you can do with a sponge but a jam and cream filling seem to be the favorite perhaps with fresh strawberries in the summer.

Sponge cake recipe ingredients: Serves 4

100g butter
100g caster sugar
100g self raising flour 
Vanilla essence 
Pinch of salt
2 medium eggs

Sponge cake recipe cooking instructions:

1. Preheat oven to Gas mark 190°C.

2. Place the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy. 

3. Beat the eggs in basin or cup and add to the mixture a little at the time, with the flour keeping the same smooth and creamy consistency.

4. Making sure the mixtures does not get too wet or dry as you go when you have used all the flour and the eggs. 

5. Add the vanilla essence and a pinch of salt, mix for a few minutes.

6. Divide into two lined, or non-stick sponge tins, put into a moderately hot oven, middle shelf. 

7. Put into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes (it is important that the oven is well heated).

8. Put to cool on a rack to cool.

9.When cool put one upside down on a plate spread with jam, you can also put fresh cream in at this stage, put the other piece on the top and dust with icing sugar.

Raspberry Cheesecake Recipe…

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RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE

I’ve used raspberries for this cheesecake, but you could also substitute blueberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries or strawberries. (this is adapted from an internet recipe for a whole cheesecake of which I cannot find the source).

My adaption is for 4 ramekin servings

SYRUP

110 g raspberries
50 g caster sugar
50 ml water
5 g cornflour

BASE                                    

65 g digestive biscuits or Hobnobs
25 g butter, melted

FILLING                                            

75 ml double cream
25 g caster sugar
130 g cream cheese, such as Philadelphia/mascarpone (or mixed)
½ tsp vanilla extract

Syrup = 90 g of the raspberries into a pan with the sugar and 40 ml of the water. Slowly bring to the boil to dissolve the sugar, then simmer for 7 minutes or so. Mix the cornflour with the remaining 10 ml water and add to the pan, stirring. Simmer and stir, for 2-3 minutes until thick. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Base = Crush the biscuits in a food processor until they are the texture of coarse breadcrumbs. (Or smash them in a plastic bag with a rolling pin which is my preferred method.) Melt the butter and add the blended/crushed biscuit crumbs, evenly divide the mixture between the 4 ramekins and leave to cool.

Filling = Whip the cream and sugar together until fairly stiff. In another bowl, beat the cream cheese to soften, then fold in the whipped cream and vanilla extract. Lightly fold through half of the raspberry syrup (not too thoroughly though if you want a rippled effect).

Spoon the mix on to the biscuit bases, mix the rest of the raspberries with the remaining raspberry syrup and divide between the 4 dishes on top of the cream cheese mixture.

Place in the fridge for 2-3 hours until firm. Eat and enjoy.

Raspberry Cheesecake - 18.12.19