Beetroot and Blood Orange Brownies

You might remember a couple of weeks ago I wrote about visiting Bettys in Harrogate, and I spoke about a salad I shared with my parents. The salad had beetroot and blood orange in it and the combination of the two flavours was delicious, absolutely the highlight of the salad. Tangy and light alongside deep and earthy.

Like I said at the time it triggered a bit of a cake thought in my head. Beetroot cake is nothing new, but I've never tried it, so I thought it was high time I did, with some bonus blood orange just as we reached the end of the season.

I had a good Google and read so many chocolate beetroot cake/brownie recipes I thought my head was about to explode. I took something from almost all of them, and came up with my own version, as none of them had quite the combination I was looking for - melted chocolate and cocoa powder for ultimate chocolate-ness, meted butter not oil and fresh beetroot. The end result was am incredibly rich, dense, gooey brownie that was refreshingly different from my normal brownie recipe (which you can find here).

Beetroot and Blood Orange Brownies

85g Dark Chocolate
240g Butter
300g Caster Sugar
3 Eggs
300g Cooked Beetroot
30g Cocoa Powder
150g Plain Flour
50g Ground Almonds
1tsp Baking Powder
1 Large Blood Orange

1. Cook your beetroots. I washed mine, boiled them until quite soft (time depends on size of beetroot) then washed them in cold water and rubbed off the skin before finally grating them.
2. Preheat the oven to 180oC and line your tin. Size doesn't really matter, the thicker the mixture is in the tin the longer it will take to bake!
3. Melt the chocolate together with the butter and then add the caster sugar.
5. Add the eggs one at a time followed by the grated beetroot.
6. Sift all of the dry ingredients together and then add to the wet mixture, folding in gently.
7. Chop the blood orange into rounds and cut the skin off.
8. Pour the mixture into the tin and place the blood orange on top.
9. Bake for around 45 minutes, or until a knife comes out nearly (very very nearly) clean).

Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cupcakes

I made these sugar coma inducing cupcakes a few weeks ago, before lent. It is now lent, and I'm salivating as I type because I haven't nothing half as sweet as these has passed my lips in forever. 

Okay just over two weeks, but it feels like forever. If I'm honest, these bad boys are possibly a step too far - Ben and I actually shared one because there was just so much icing and our teeth were still buzzing afterwards. But sometimes that's exactly what you need. I made these to take round to Broadchurch night (any suggestions to replace the David Tennant shaped gap in my life right now would be much appreciated) so I don't have a picture of the inside, but the cake is just as marbled as the icing. I think you can just see the pattern peeking out under the icing on the picture immediately above.

Marbling the cake is really deceptively easy. Every marble recipe ever has said that, because it's true! Blob of vanilla cake mix, blob of chocolate cake mix, another blob of vanilla and then wiggle a cocktail stick through it. The two tone icing is marginally, and I mean really hardly at all, more difficult. I like to put my piping bag in a tall glass and fold it out on itself a couple of times. Then you just put vanilla icing on one side of the bag and chocolate icing on the other side, a spoonful at a time. It isn't always really neat, you are most likely to get completely covered in the two types of icing and the first one or two you pipe can often be way more of one icing than another, but then you're golden. 

Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cupcakes

150g Butter

150g Caster Sugar

3 Eggs

175g Self Raising Flour

50ml Milk

3tbsp Cocoa Powder

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and get your cupcake cases ready.

2. Whip the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

3. Mix the eggs and the milk together.

4. Alternate adding the flour and the egg and milk mixture.

5. Put half the mix in another bowl and add the cocoa powder to one of the bowls.

6. Alternately dollop the two mixtures into your cupcake cases and then wiggle a cocktail stick through.

7. Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Icing

115g Butter

225g of Full Fat Cream Cheese (I used Philadelphia)

500g Icing Sugar

1 Tbsp Milk

You need twice this much to have the amount of icing there is on the pictures - you make the icing twice for the two flavours. If you don't want quite as much icing you can make up the above, put it in two bowls and put half the vanilla and cocoa powder in.

For Vanilla - add 1 tsp vanilla extract

For Chocolate - add 60g Cocoa Powder

1. Whip the butter until light and fluffy

2. Add the cream cheese and whip until just mixed - don't over mix else it might go runny!

3. Add the icing sugar, milk and appropriate flavouring.

4. Fill your piping bag with the two flavours, one flavour on each side of the bag and pipe away!

Bettys Café Tearooms

Last week I popped home, sadly to see attend the last mass at my parish church before it shut down. It was't the nicest reason to be going home, and although the mass was really a wonderful celebration of what had been it was also helpful in providing positive thoughts the for future and it did mean I was home for the last day of my mum's holiday! So my Dad took the day off too and we went on a rare family trip out.

We're not always the most organised family, so it was nearly lunchtime before we decided to drive over to Harrogate to have some lunch at the famous Bettys Tearooms (they spell it without an apostrophe. It makes me nervous) and a wander around the Botanical Gardens (handily, there is a Bettys at the gardens, and we are all garden and cake lovers).

When we arrived we were greeted by this wonderful window display of some of the most beautifully decorated chocolate eggs I have ever seen. It's just a shame it was a very bright day, so the reflection is pretty terrible. I think you can see the big egg in the middle well enough though.

We tucked into a delicious lunch, and if I'm honest I think we were surprised at how good it was, for a place renowned for it's afternoon tea and sweet treats rather than it's food. My Mum went for a prawn omelette, which when cut open was the thickest, fluffiest omelette I've ever seen, and she was very impressed.  I had the open steak sandwich, and my Dad had the eggs florentine. We also had a salad between us, which had beetroot and blood orange in, which was an absolutely delicious combination, and has triggered a bit of a cake thought in my head. More on that in a few weeks hopefully. 

Regardless of how good the mains were, the sweets rightly took centre stage. We had a choux pastry heart filled with fresh cream and berries, a bakewell slice and a treacle tart. The pastry on all three was absolutely perfect, and I love how pretty the heart is - I wish I could be that precise with a tiny piping tip! 

Unable to resist, we also took a box of treats away with us, and guys. The fondant fancies were just something else. Sponge with a layer of jam and icing, and then, unusually, a thin layer of marzipan on top before the fondant icing. Truly spectacular.

Finally, a little disclaimer. We spent so long in Bettys we didn't actually make it into the gardens before last entrance. We had a lovely, lovely day but we effectively drove for two hours in each directin for cake. Don't tell me that isn't dedication. 

Red Velvet Valentine's Cookies

Yeah Valentine's Day is over commercialised, slightly sickening and eye wateringly expensive if you really buy into it. But it's also an excellent excuse to bake some treats for you, your significant other, your friends - anyone really. Last year I shared some baking inspiration but this year I've got my very own recipe to share with you - Red Velvet Cookies!

 
The traditional red velvet cake is rich and dense, so to me that translates perfectly into a cookie. Of course, red velvet wouldn't be red velvet without tangy cream cheese frosting, and is there anything more decadent than an iced cookie? I think not. So the cookies are topped with beautiful layer of icing, and there's also some white chocolate chips hidden within the cookie. Because a cookie isn't a cookie without some chocolate chips.

Red Velvet Cookies

Cookies

290g Plain Flour

45g Icing Sugar

2tsp Corn Flour

170g Butter

200g Caster Sugar

1 Egg + 1 Egg White

1tsp Lemon Juice

Red Food Colouring

100g White Chocolate (chopped)

Cream Cheese Icing

60g Butter

115g Cream Cheese

320g Icing Sugar

1tsp Vanilla Extract

1. Beat the butter and the sugar together (on high if you're using a mixer) until light and fluffy

2. Whilst beating (on medium), add the egg, egg white, lemon juice and food colouring

3. Turn the mixer down to slow and add the flour and corn flour

4. Finally mix in the chopped white chocolate

5. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least two hours (this really matters!!)

6. Preheat the oven to 180oC and grease and line a tray

7. Place your heart shaped cookie cutter on the tray and press a ball of cookie dough into the shape

8. When it's flattened, press it out and flip it over, so the flat side is on top

9.  Alternatively, you can just put little mounds of the cookie dough on the tray

10. Bake for 9 minutes, leave to cool on the tray for a minute and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely

11. For the icing, whip the butter and cream cheese together until light and fluffy

12. Add the icing sugar and the vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

13. Pipe the icing onto the cookies once they are completely cool

Cake Trails #3: Ginger and Rose Cake

Last week Eve and I visited Lovecrumbs, which markets itself as Edinburgh's only cake-only cake shop. You can read all about our visit here and if you look carefully in one of the pictures you can see on the menu the inspiration for this cake, "Rose and Ginger Cake, £3.20" (you can also see me standing awkwardly in the mirror). I think you can see their version in one of the snaps too, with pink icing and crystallised ginger on top.

Inspired by their menu, I decided to make use of the jar of edible rose petals that have been loitering in the kitchen cupboard for a while and whip up my own Ginger and Rose Cake. This bake coincided nicely with my Mum's birthday, and she was delighted to be presented with such a pretty cake.

Ginger and Rose Cake

Cake
225g Unsalted Butter
50g Soft Light Brown Sugar175g Caster Sugar4 Eggs285g Self-raising Flour3tbsp Stem Ginger Syrup3tsp Ground Ginger

Icing
300g Icing Sugar
90g Butter
3tbsp Rose Syrup
Edible Rose Petals (to decorate, optional)

1. Grease and line two 10" cake tins and preheat the oven to Gas Mark 5
2. Mix the butter until light and fluffy (as an aside, this is hard without a mixer and a crushed right hand - so the mixer I used for this cake is more commonly known as Dad!)
3. Mix in the sugar and then add the eggs one at a time, alternating with the flour and the ginger.
4. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden on top and a knife comes out clean.
5. Leave it out to cool, and then mix all the icing ingredients together. Pipe half the icing on top of one of the cakes and then put the other cake on top, then top with the rest of the icing. When I'm piping in the middle, I like to do a circle around the outer edge of the cake and then fill the middle in. It makes it nice and neat to look at from the outside.
6. Position the rose petals however you fancy.

Nobody Likes You When You're 23

Yesterday I turned 23. I baked myself a pink ombre layer cake and covered it in sprinkles - because who doesn't want pink and sprinkles on their birthday? Nobody, that's who. I sat in bed and sleepily opened presents and then wandered down to the West End to tuck into some sushi from Sushiya - somewhere I highly recommend if you get that sort of craving whilst in Edinburgh. 

I decorated my flat with paper pompoms and filled it with tasty treats for all of my friends. In return, they topped my cake with candles and sang to me. Some of them went to the enormous effort of making me a cake too, and I will be forever grateful for the effort - they are not kitchen types usually! They also put up with my project for the evening, which was snapping a photo of everyone with the Polaroid camera Ben got me for Christmas that I hadn't had chance to use yet. I now have a pleasing pile of polaroids waiting to find a home. It's such a change to have physical photographs.

 

It was a wonderful evening after a really lovely day, and I really wanted to write a quick post about it to give me a chance to reflect on how lucky I am. (I'm fairly sure despite the warning from Blink-182 my friends do still like me now I'm 23.) Do you sometimes find that when you sit down to blog about something it gives you reflection time that you wouldn't otherwise take? 

Cake Trails #2 Caramel Banana Bundt Cake

Week Two of our Cake Trail took us to Cuckoo's Bakery, who bake possibly the best cupcakes in Edinburgh. One of their cupcakes even won them an award! I encourage you to read all about our visit here on Eve's blog, but the short version is, these are really really good cupcakes. As in, I took a box home.

In there though, I chose a banana and caramel cupcake, and I gave it a strong 2/3 (cake, filling and icing making up the three). The cake was a delicious banana bread type cupcake, and you could really taste the banana coming through. The middle of the cupcake was filled with salted caramel, another absolute winner. But for me, the icing was a bit of a let down - it was really really sweet and it tasted like what banana *should* taste like, rather than what it actually tastes like - do you know what I mean?

So for this weeks inspired by bake, I stuck with the banana cake and and the caramel sauce, but I changed the icing to a tangy cream cheese icing. I also opted for one big bundt cake, rather than cupcakes. There are two reasons for this. 1) I did cupcakes last post, and 2) I got a bundt tin for Christmas off Ben's parents and hadn't played with it yet. Good, strong reasoning I think. 

This cake was an absolute hit with my friends, and I'm really pleased because although in my head the cream cheese icing was going to work with the banana bread and caramel, I wasn't 100% convinced it was going to come off in reality. 

Caramel Banana Bundt Cake

Cake

270g Light Brown Sugar

2 Eggs
200g Ripe Bananas, Mashed
280g Plain Flour
1tsp Baking Powder
1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
140g Melted Unsalted Butter

Caramel Sauce

200g Sugar
90g Salted Butter
120ml of Double Cream

Cream Cheese Icing

225g FULL FAT (this matters) Cream Cheese

85g Unsalted Butter

300g Icing Sugar

1tsp Vanilla Extract (optional, but coming from a not big vanilla fan, it's nice in this)

1. Preheat the oven to 180oC and grease your bundt tin
2. Beat the sugars and the eggs together until light and airy
3. Mix in the mashed bananas
4. Sieve the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda together, then gently fold in to the wet ingredients
5. Finally add the melted butter and pour into your prepared tin
7. Bake for around 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean

8. Whilst the cake is baking, make your caramel.

9. Heat the sugar in a pan, stirring all the time until it forms clumps, then melts down into an amber liquid.
10. As soon as you have the liquid, add the butter - it'll splash everywhere, so watch out!
11. Once the butter melts, add the double cream, stirring alllll the time. Once again, watch out, because there will be lots of bubbling.
12. Let it bubble for about a minute, then remove from the heat and allow to cool.

13. Once the caramel and the cake are both completely cool, make the cream cheese icing by mixing the butter with the cream cheese and vanilla then gradually adding the icing sugar. 

14. Pipe the cream cheese icing onto the cake and then follow by piping the caramel.