Nutty Brownies

 

I feel so bad for polishing these brownies off within a day. But they contained my absolute favourite taste combinations of all time: chocolate and nuts. The added spoonful of coffee helps to enrich the chocolate flavour. Don’t worry, it won’t taste of coffee at all. It is perfectly sublime, dense chocolatey-ness with a luxury cashew nut bite. yum

Nutty Brownies

150 g butter, softened

240 g caster sugar

3 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla essence

20 g plain chocolate (minimum 65% cocoa solids), chopped (optional) 

50 g raw cashew nuts, chopped  

90 g plain flour

50 g cocoa (I use Green & Blacks Organic Cocoa)

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 tsp instant coffee (optional)

Preheat oven to 180ºC/ 350ºF. Line a 9x9-inch square baking tin with greaseproof paper.

In a large bowl mix together your butter and sugar.

Add your eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla essence. Sprinkle in the chocolate, if using and fold your cashew nuts into the mixture. (I tend to break my cashews down by putting them in a food bag and bashing with a rolling-pin. That’s the fun part). 

Add flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt and mix until combined. The mixture should be quite viscous and shiny looking.

Slowly spoon it into the tin and spread evenly with the back of a metal spoon. Try to alleviate any bubbles on the surface before putting into your oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. 

Allow to cool in the tin for ten minutes before removing. 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Lets get into this right away.

First and foremost for this recipe - Don't forget to take you butter out of the fridge beforehand, so it's near room temperature, or you can choose one of my quick methods to softening butter. And the best thing about cookies in general is that they only take minutes in the oven!
Behold my Honey Oatmeal Raisin Cookies!

Nigella Lawson inspired Lemon Drizzle cake

I love lemon drizzle cake- it tastes great and it's unbelievably simple to make quickly from store cupboard ingredients!

This cake is a great choice for summer days (like today)! So I couldn't skip it. I polished off three slices yesterday with a cup of tea. Then I did the professional thing and got my two 'Cake Testers' (work colleagues, eh hem, eh hem) to sample a slice and the verdict was "very nice, moist but light and not too sweet or lemon-flavoured"   

I think we can trust their verdict. They have also been fans of my banana cake and White Choc-chip cookies   :-)

For something uncomplicated, give this one a go: If you follow this recipe spot on, it will come out perfect for you too! Not much needed in the way of utensils either, just a loaf tin. 

P.S: It helps to have your butter at room temperature too.

Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake, or Lemon Drizzle cake

125 g unsalted butter, softened
175 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
175 g self raising flour
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons milk
23 x 13 x 7 cm loaf tin buttered and lined

For the syrup
juice of 1 ½ lemons
100 g icing sugar

For the glaze
juice of ½ a lemon
150 g icing sugar

Preheat your oven to 180 C/ gas mark 4.
Butter and line your loaf tin well.

Cream together butter and sugar and add eggs and lemon zest, beating them in well.
Gently fold in the flour and the salt, mixing thoroughly and then add the milk.
Spoon the batter into your prepared tin and bake for 45 mins or until cake tester comes out clean.

For the syrup: Put the lemon juice and icing sugar into a small saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves.

As soon as cake is out of oven, puncture all over with skewer and pour over the syrup.
Leave cake to cool completely before removing from the tin.

For the glaze: Combine lemon juice and icing sugar until smooth and white, add a little more icing sugar if needed. Make sure your cake is completely cool before drizzling with the glaze.

From: Nigella Lawson, How To Be A Domestic Goddess

Easy recipes and Nigella Lawson's Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake

Hello There!

So I haven't blogged in a little while, but I have still been busy baking behind the scenes. I have also been doing other stuff, other projects that have taken fruition, which I'm excited to tell you about later. I'm happy to see I'm still getting lots of visits to this little blog and I can see what everyone's favourite recipe's seem to be (Lemon Drizzle Cake)!

With life's changes, I have become a bit time-poor and I am finding now I am more likely to choose cake recipes that are easy to execute in shorter time-span and that still taste good! From her book, Domestic Goddess, One of those has to be Nigella Lawson's Lemon Drizzle Cake, without a doubt. And a firm favourite during these warm summer months and also known as Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake.

You don't need a state-of the art £300 cake mixer or lavish exotic ingredients for this cake. Just a few lemons, sturdy hands and decent sized mixing bowl will get you the the results you need. Add a few loaf tins to that too. You don't have to be too precise about the loaf tin needed for this lemon cake, just as near to a rectangular 23 x 13 x 7 cm loaf tin as you can get. 

Nigella Lawson's Lemon Drizzle Cake

Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake

125 g unsalted butter, softened

175 g caster sugar

2 large eggs

zest of 1 lemon

175 g self raising flour

pinch of salt

4 tablespoons milk

23 x 13 x 7 cm loaf tin buttered and lined

For the syrup

juice of 1 ½ lemons

100 g icing sugar

For the glaze

juice of ½ a lemon

150 g icing sugar

Preheat your oven to 180 C/ gas mark 4.

Butter and line your loaf tin well.

Cream together butter and sugar and add eggs and lemon zest, beating them in well.

Gently fold in the flour and the salt, mixing thoroughly and then add the milk.

Spoon the batter into your prepared tin and bake for 45 mins or until cake tester comes out clean.

For the syrup: Put the lemon juice and icing sugar into a small saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves.

As soon as cake is out of oven, puncture all over with skewer and pour over the syrup.

Leave cake to cool completely before removing from the tin.

For the glaze: Combine lemon juice and icing sugar until smooth and white, add a little more icing sugar if needed. Make sure your cake is completely cool before drizzling with the glaze.

Basic Shortbread

Merry Christmas. With only five ingredients, your preparation for this shortbread is half done. No long recipes here. I did get distracted by one of the ingredients, though – Rice Flour. I had never baked with this before, but luckily found a bag in Sainsburys (in their gluten-free section). As this recipe only uses 60 grams, God knows what I'm gonna do with the rest of it! Any ideas? Answers on a postcard please. (or in the comments box below  :-)

Christmas Snowball Cookies

I am not ready for Christmas this year. The year has flown by and I’ve been trying to write this post for a few days now, having made these over the weekend, a good couple of times. I’m not too happy with my shots above/below though (the perfectionists in me). So, I think I will repeat this recipe again pretty soon, and update the photography one day, so stay tuned. But for now, they are here and waiting for you with all their festive goodiness!

Pecan Pie Slices

Today, I am not going to say a lot. This recipe will do the talking. In terms of nutty favourites, this recipe knocks socks off the usual Peanut Butter Cookies.

I love pecans. However, on their own, pecans can be a bit on the pricey side, so I get mine from Lidl or Aldi here in the UK. They are much more easy on the pocket there.