Mini Lemon Meringue Pies

Hello there!  -shouts into the abyss of the Internet-

I know it's been a while since I was last here - in the meantime, I've been travelling, completing high school and, of course, baking!  So, I've mustered enough oomph to sort through all the food photos I have lying around and start posting again.

To make these mini lemon meringue pies (or, as I like to call them, Lemon Meringue Pielets), I used this recipe.  The detailed recipe and ingredients can be seen there.

First, I made the pastry and cut it into circles with a cookie cutter, then pressed the circles into cupcake trays and individual fluted moulds.  I then cut squares of baking paper and filled them with ceramic baking beans (you can also use rice or other uncooked beans as loading).

I whipped the lemon filling up while they baked, then poured the filling up to the edges of the pastry after they came out of the oven.

After the pies were baked, I piped the meringue icing onto the top.

After the meringue icing was piped on, I used my little handheld torch (I like to call it my flamethrower) to brown the meringue.  It gives it a lovely caramelised flavour.

One thing I particularly love about lemon meringue pie is the contrast.  The shortcrust pastry has a bit of a crunch and is only a little sweet, the lemon is smooth in texture and slightly tart, while the meringue topping is sweet and fluffy.

Having pielets is a good option for parties and office birthdays when you don't want to be cutting up and serving up a cake.  Plus, they look so cute!

Chocolate Crackle Cookies

Everyone knows these delicious cookies by a different name - chocolate crackle cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies, chocolate snowcap cookies, and my grandmother calls them snow-covered turtles.

Whatever you call them, they are sweet and soft, chocolatey and scrumptious.

Source: cuisine.com
Ingredients
100g softened butter/margarine
150g white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
160g plain flour
30g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
60g icing sugar (for dusting)

Method
1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add eggs one at a time, beating in between, then beat in the vanilla extract.

3. Sift in the flour and cocoa powder, then add the baking powder and salt.  Fold into the batter.  Yes, it will look sticky and not at all cookie dough-like, but that's OK.  It's why the biscuits turn out so soft in the end.

4. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 2-ish hours.

5. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C (338 F)

6. Place the icing sugar in a zip-lock bag/plastic bag - you could use a bowl and roll the dough balls around in there, but I've found that using a bag is easier.

7. Take tablespoons of the cooled batter and roll in icing sugar.  Try not to touch the batter too much because it's sticky and it will cling to you like nobody's business.

Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.  Make sure to leave room as they spread when baked.

8. Bake for 14 - 15 minutes.  The icing sugar coating should have cracks in it, the outside should be firm-ish and the inside should still be squidgy.

9. Leave to cool on a tray for 5 minutes, then consume with joy.

Chewy, Chunky Blondies

Blondies.  Chewy, sweet, chock full of chunks-blondies.  Delicious!

Recipe Adapted From: The Brown Eyed Baker
Ingredients (21 x 31 cm (8 x 12 inch) brownie tin)
310g flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter/margarine)
225g butter/margarine
275g brown sugar
125g white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup dark chocolate chips, or 6 oz chopped chocolate
1 cup butterscotch chips (I didn't have these, so I used chopped white chocolate instead)
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut (not desiccated)

Method
1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C (325 F)

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt.  This is optional.  I'm usually too lazy to do this.

3. Beat the butter and sugars until smooth and creamy.

4. Add the eggs one by one, beating after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla.

5. Add the flour mixture and mix until combined.

6. Chop up the walnuts and chocolate if you're not using choc chips.

7. Add the chocolate, butterscotch chips, nuts and coconut.  Mix until combined.

8. Pour the mixture into a brownie tin lined with baking paper.

9. Bake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.  The top should be a nice golden colour.

10. Let cool and cut into squares or bars.

Hedgehogs

Hello, all!  I hope you had an amazing Christmas and New Year!  I spent most of January in South America, particularly in Peru, seeing Machu Picchu and the incredible culture and history there.  I'll put some pictures up here for you shortly.

But for now, I have a lovely little recipe which is simple, tasty and always a crowd pleaser.  Hedgehogs!

Ingredients - base

175g butter or margarine

135g caster sugar

4 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp desiccated coconut

1 egg

1/2 cup nuts (optional - I usually use walnuts)

250g packet of Marie biscuits (if you can't find Marie biscuits, use any kind of sweet dip-in-tea kind of things - Milk Arrowroots are OK)

Ingredients - topping

250g dark chocolate

50g butter or margarine

Method

1. Put biscuits in a plastic ziploc bag and bash the crap outta them with a rolling pin.  Ahem.  However, make sure it's not dust when you're done, leave some nice chunks that are about 1/4 the size of the whole biscuit.

2. Melt butter, sugar and cocoa and stir until the sugar dissolves.  The microwave is your friend.

3. Make sure the mixture is not too hot then add the egg, coconut, biscuits, and nuts if you're using them.  Mix.  Ensure the biscuits are all covered in the chocolatey mixture.

4. Line a 28 x 18cm pan or equivalent with baking paper, then pour in the mixture and press it down.

5. Put it in the fridge and let it chill for 1 hour, or until firm.

6. When the base it adequately hardened, melt the chocolate and butter for the topping together and mix until combined and smooth.

7. Spread over the base then let it all chill in the fridge again for about 20 minutes.

8. Cut into squares (or any shape you want, really) with a hot knife.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Gingerbread, nicely packaged in cellophane bags with little ribbons, make lovely gifts!

Click here for the gingerbread recipe

Mum did most of the gingerbread baking this year, while I stuck to decorating.

We managed to churn out a couple of gingerbread houses, too.

I got a bit more artsy with the wall designs.  I piped them on and let them dry before I constructed the houses.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas!

Molten Chocolate Babycakes, and the joy that is Gianduja

Gianduja is a truly delicious substance made of hazelnut (or another nut) paste and chocolate - you may know it as hazelnut praline.  It melts like chocolate and acts rather like chocolate in baking, too, as I discovered in my little forays in substituting it into recipes.  Its taste is reminiscent of Nutella and expensive chocolates, i.e. mouthwatering.

It can also be used for decoration, in different forms depending on how you cut it.  It can go into chunks or shavings, but if you're careful you can coax it into curls.

One of the things I used the gianduja for was Molten Chocolate Babycakes, a delightful and completely chocolatey recipe from James McNair via a Nigella Lawson cookbook.  The recipe uses chocolate but I substituted about half the chocolate for gianduja and it gave the babycakes a lovely hazelnut-chocolatey (Nutella-y, gianduja-y) taste.  The babycakes are equally as good with just chocolate, mind you.

Recipe Adapted From: How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Molten Chocolate Babycakes

Ingredients

50g unsalted butter/margarine, plus extra for greasing

350g good quality dark chocolate

150g caster sugar

4 large eggs

1 pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

50g plain flour

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C/392 F.  If you're making the babycakes in advance (they can be refrigerated as batter, because it's best to eat them right after they've been baked) then don't heat the oven until closer to the serving time.

2. Grease six large cupcake/muffin moulds or about 12 smaller ones with butter.  Make sure there's adequate greasing because, if not, the babycakes will stick.

3. Melt the chocolate and set it aside to cool.

4. Cream the butter and sugar.

5. Beat in the eggs one at a time, and add a pinch of salt, then the vanilla.

6. Stir in the flour, then the cooled chocolate, blending it into a smooth batter.

7. Divide the batter between the moulds.  If you take too long to do this, the batter will begin to harden and then it just gets annoying, so keep that in mind!

8. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes (make sure you bake them for the whole 12 minutes if the babycakes have been in the fridge)

9. Once removed from the oven, upturn the moulds onto plates and serve with ice cream or cream (the babycakes are very rich!)

When cut open, the babycakes should be molten and gooey and warm on the inside.

Perfect!