The Baking Medic

These treats are one of my all time favourites. They’re called Nanaimo bars after a town in British Columbia that shares the same name. They’re quite common in that region, although not many have heard of them outside Canada. Although the three layers may seem like a lot of effort, it’s definitely worth it! They’re also no-bake bars, which is handy if it’s one of those days when you don’t feel like turning on the oven. :)

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Last night I was struck by a craving to bake. Do you know the feeling? When you just. need. to. bake. However, at 5.30pm I was reluctant to try and brave the hordes of other students buying dinner at Tescos so I was restricted to what storecupcoard ingredients I had. Luckily with me being me, there is almost always chocolate, butter, flour and sugar in the house. A few eggs generously donated by a flatmate (perhaps with a vested interest in the products of said baking…?). And finally a quick look in the fridge revealed a tub of cream cheese. Et voila! Everything you need to make these absolutely heavenly Chocolate Chip Cookies Bars right at your fingertips.

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Holiday Sweets & Treats Class: The Buche de Noel!

For a while now the Fine Chocolate Society has been running baking classes for its members.  Each time it’s a challenge and a pleasure to think of new creative themes for the class. In the past we’ve done simply a Chocolate Baking Class and a very hands on Cupcake Decorating Class. This time I decided that since Christmas is fast approaching, a Holiday Baking themed class would be perfect.

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This cake is a victory cake. Victory in the sense that I have triumphed over my MSA and I am enjoying a few days of well earned freedom (relatively speaking…). This cake is very special to me. I have wanted to make it for a very long time, ever since I saw it on I Am Baker, a simply breathtaking blog that mostly is dedicated to cakes.  It’s so simple, yet eye catching.  I can see it being perfect for a summer celebration or wedding anniversary, yet the snowy white of the roses also remind me of Christmas. However, it has just never been the right time to bake this magnificent cake – until now.

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Cupcakes appeal to me for a variety of reasons — they are petite individual desserts, don’t require a plate and fork to eat, have a high icing to cake ratio and there is almost an infinite number of ways to decorate the wee things.  From a simple smear of buttercream, to elegantly piped designs, to cupcakes that look like Cookie Monster to these darling Hamburger cupcakes.  With such scope for innovation and creativity, it’s no wonder that cupcakes are so popular.

I wish I could say I thought up the idea to make these ingenious cupcakes — but alas, I did not.  I saw them on Bakerella and I knew immediately that I had to try them myself.  They’re the perfect edible trompe l’oeil — the round of brownie sandwiched between the two halves of cupcake and covered with the brightly coloured icing makes for a very convincing burger! If you want, you can also serve these “burgers” with sugar cookie “fries” (seriously… check out the Bakerella link.  She is incredible).

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My favourite way to eat oatmeal cookies is studded with chocolate covered raisins. I love the sweet fruitiness of the raisins, but I’m also a hardened chocoholic. Basically, if you want the best of both worlds then you’ll certainly find them in this Oatmeal Chocolate Covered Raisin Cookies recipe.

They have a deliciously chewy texture and buttery taste.  They’re also packed full of oats and chocolate covered raisins. The recipe originally called for 1 cup/2oog of raisins, but me being me, I decided to double the amount. :)  The result is some cookies that are more chocolate covered raisins than cookie! To me, that is perfect, but you may want to reduce the amount a wee bit if that’s not to your liking.

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Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins with Crumb Topping

Let me start out by saying these muffins are amazing! Sorry — no modesty on this one.  These are without a doubt the best banana muffins/cake/bread/whatever I have ever made.   I always have problems with banana bread – it’s too gooey in the centre but burnt on the outside.  Baking these as little wee muffins solves that issue and they’re done in 20 minutes! And the texture is perfect — not too cakey but not dry or gooey.

Now, what else sets these muffins apart? For a start, they are crammed full of big chocolate chunks — delicious cold but even better slightly warm and melted.  Secondly, they have a strong sweet banana flavour.  I added a dash of banana extract and it really strengthened the intensity of the banana.  Nom.  Lastly, just before baking a crumb topping of brown sugar, flour and butter is sprinkled on top.  It is a sheer delight to bite through the crispy sweet topping before sinking your teeth into the soft banana and chocolate muffin that waits beneath.  I could go on and on about these muffins.

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Enter the White Chocolate Coconut Muffin

So I think this is my 3rd variation of that brilliant original buttermilk muffin recipe — and it has yet to fail me! That being said, these muffins turned out slightly differently from how I expected them too.  At first I wanted them to be lemon white chocolate coconut muffins, but alas, Aldi was shut for Easter! So they became White Chocolate Coconut muffins.

As ever, I am a big fan of using up ingredients (waste not, want not) so the coconut and white chocolate were both left over from my Cookie Monster cupcakes.  When I was buying ingredients for them, I waaay overestimated the amount of googly eyes I would need! So I had 2 packs of white chocolate buttons left, just waiting to be thrown into some tasty muffins.

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I’ve had a craving for my favourite brownie recipe recently — an almost overpowering desire to sink my teeth into a fudgy moist square of chocolate heaven.  But this blog is all about discovering new recipes so I didn’t want to just make the same old brownies, as delicious as they are.  So I decided to turn them into Rocky Road brownies, by adding a gooey topping of toasted marshmallows, peanuts and mini milk chocolate chips.

I must say that these brownies are very fudgey.  Since it was an experiment, I was unsure about how long I should bake the brownies before adding the topping.  The problem is that once the topping is on they have to go back into the oven.  Put the marshmallows on too soon and you’ll either burn the topping or have a gooey centre.  Put them on too late you could be left with dry, burnt edges.  So, knowing that brownies taste good even if really gooey I erred on the side of caution and perhaps underbaked these brownies a little bit.

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me want cookies!

These cupcakes were so much fun to make! I first saw them a few weeks ago on Facebook.  I thought they looked spectacular and immediately wanted to make some of my own.  So I set about looking for the perfect way to recreate these Cookie Monsters. :)

Firstly, I needed to make them look “fuzzy”.  I opted to use dyed coconut instead of dyed coarse sugar for two reasons.  Firstly, coconut is a lot easier to obtain in St Andrews and secondly, these cupcakes have a generous amount of icing and are topped off with chocolate buttons and a chocolate chip cookie.  I don’t really think they needed the extra sugar. :P

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