Tag: baking

Yelly Eats

Pecan pie!

Yelly

Pecan pie has always been something that I loved but never really learned to make until quite recently (thank you to Hummingbird Bakery for sharing their secrets! If you haven’t got their books yet, you should go because the books have foolproof, easy to follow recipes!).  I love how it looks when you’ve lined your flan pan with the pie crust and arranged the pecan nuts for decoration on top of the filling.  Then you wait for 55 minutes or so and bring out the beautifully toffee-coloured cake.  I’m smiling right now, just thinking about it.

So I’m sharing the love and the joy of baking and sharing my favourite pecan pie recipe.

For the pie crust:
260 g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
110 g unsalted butter

Directions for the pie crust:

  1. Put the flour salt and butter in an electric mixer and beat on slow spead until you get a sandy consistency.
  2. Add 1 tablespoon water and beat until well mixed.  Add a second tablespoon of water and beat until you have a smooth, even dough.  If the dough is still dry, add another tablespoon of water, but be careful not to add too much water.  It is safer to beat the dough at high speed to bring the ingredients together.
  3. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave to rest of 1 hour in the fridge.

For the pecan pie filling:
Pecan Pie - pre-baking200 g caster sugar
250 ml corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
60 g unsalted butter, cubed
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
100 g shelled pecan nuts, chopped, plus extra pecan halves to decorate

Directions for the pecan pie:

  1. Preheat oven to 170ºC (325ºF).
  2. Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and roll out the dough with a rolling pin.  Line the prepared pie dish with dough and trim the edges with a sharp knife.
  3. Put sugar and corn syrup and salt in a large saucepan over medium heat.  Bring to the boil, then remove from heat and leave to cool down slightly.
  4. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs briefly with a balloon whisk until they’re mixed.  Slowly pour the warm–not hot as this will scramble the eggs!–syrup into the eggs, stirring briskly.  Add the butter and vanilla extract to the syrup and eggs mixture and stir until all the butter has completely melted.
  5. Put the chopped pecan nuts into the pie crust and then pour the syrup-egg mixture over the nuts.  Arrange the pecan halves gently on the top of the filling.  Bake in the preheated oven for about 50-60 mins (in a fan oven about 55-57.5 minutes will be perfect) or until the filling is a dark, caramel colour with a slightly crusty surface.

Pecan pie - post-baking

Yelly Reads

My new toy!

Yelly

This arrived yesterday (and I have been waiting for this for ages!  I preordered this in…early February, I think!).  I received an email from Amazon saying they expected the package to be delivered on March 18.  I waited, and waited and then Mr Postie came and it arrived!  Let me tell you, I was doing tiny jigs of happiness inside!

Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook: Cake Days

This is my second Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.  I knew it was going to be worth waiting for the cookbook because the recipes are never-fail ones.  As long as you stick to the recipe and have no major deviances from the recipe and the directions, the recipes always, always come out perfectly!

The first recipe I tried was the Chocolate Guinness Cake (I found it quite cute that it was St Paddy’s Day 2 days before and a pint of Guinness would’ve been a good drink to down on the day.  Instead of drinking Guinness, I baked with it!).  You might think I was being over-eager, but I’d waited for this book for absolutely AGES!  I’d heard about the book late last year.  And having used the recipes in the first book (where I got the pecan pie recipe and where I learned to bake my favourite kind of cake: lemon drizzle!)

Anyway, Saturday dawned lovely and sunny and…I WAS ILL!  But I wasn’t about to let a little thing as an illness stop me from trying out the recipes in the new book (I’d bought all the ingredients the night before!  I was that determined!).  2 hours later, there it was, that beauty of a chocolate cake, iced and dusted with cocoa powder.  IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!  The slice was so pretty that I had to take a picture!

Chocolate Guinness Cake

So for anyone wanting to start baking, I would recommend getting either of the Hummingbird Bakery cookbooks because their recipes are so easy to follow!

Yelly Eats

Guilty pleasures!

Yelly

Sometimes, all it takes is a great pie to life my spirits.  What makes it even better is when I make it! 🙂

This pecan pie recipe is from the Humming Bird Bakery Cookbook.  All the recipes work, and they come out perfect.  Every single time!

pecan pie, before it goes into the oven

after baking, in all it’s yummy, caramelly goodness!

Yelly Eats

Macadamia and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yelly

This is one of my favourite Julie Powell quotes from the movie Julie & Julie (one of my favourite movies EVER!):

“Chocolate cream pie! You know what I love about cooking? I love that after a day when nothing is sure and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. You can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick. That’s such a comfort.”

And Julie Powell was so right!  It is such a comforting certainty that if you have the ingredients, a relatively reliable set of scales, measuring spoons, an oven and elbow grease and a wonderful recipe book, you will, more or less, make something comforting to eat.

I haven’t been feeling well, so I thought maybe if I whipped something up, and it turned out more or less acceptable, I would feel a little better.  And looking at my chocolate chip cookies, I do feel better.  I can’t eat them yet.  But I do feel a sense of accomplishment that has made me feel better than a caplet of paracetamol ever has!

I added a twist to the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook recipe—macadamia nuts!  Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

Makes 24 – 40 cookies

  • 225 g unsalted butter, at room temp
  • 350 g soft light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 400 g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 1/2 bicarbonate of soda
  • 225 g dark chocolate chips (or dark choccie chopped)
  • 150 g macadamia nuts roughly chopped (optional)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 170°C (325°F).
  2. Sift together flour, salt and bicarb of soda into a bowl and set aside.
  3. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, making sure everything is well combined before adding the next egg.  Add vanilla extract and mix until well incorporated.  Scrape the sides of the bowl to make sure all ingredients are well-combined.
  4. Add the flour mixture in quarters and mix until a smooth dough is formed.  Add macadamia nuts and chocolate chips and mix until evenly distributed.
  5. Depending on your cookie sheet, arrange 6-8 amounts of cookie dough on baking tray covered with parchment.  Bake for 10 minutes.
Yelly Eats

Easy-peasy sweet cornbread

Yelly

I love sweet sticky spare ribs and slow-cooked brisket.  And cornbread seems to be one of he best side dishes to this.  After much searching and tweaking, I’m finally able to swear by a recipe.  I love my cornbread sweet as I have a sweet tooth (a very bad thing for a diabetic to have!).  So I eat this in reasonable quantities.  But it is oh-so-yummy!  It’s a recipe I’m proud to share with you.

Sweet cornbreadIngredients:

  • 160g polenta (fine ground)
  • 125g all-purpose flour
  • 100g sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 240ml milk
  • 80ml vegetable oil
  • 1 large egg

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 200C.
  2. Prepare 12 x 7.5 pan by lining with baking paper and greasing with butter and set aside.
  3. Mix polenta, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl with a balloon whisk until well-combined.  Set aside.
  4. Beat egg, milk and vegetable oil together until well-combined.  Add to polenta mixture in 3 parts.  Once liquid mixture and dry mixture has been mixed together completely, allow to sit for 30 minutes so that polenta can absorb the liquid.
  5. Place in oven and cook for 20-22 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
  6. This recipe makes 20-24 squares.
Yelly Eats

Food for the gods

Yelly

I’ve always loved these chewy bars.  When I was younger, you could only get food for the gods at Christmas time.  It was a favourite Christmas giveaway.  Or at least that’s how I remembered it.  I think they’re now more available in shopes and one doesn’t have to wait for Christmas to enjoy these date and walnut filled bars (although in hindsight, I think in the Philippines they used raisins or prunes and instead of walnuts they used pili)!

I thought I’d try my hand at making them myself (like I always say, necessity is the mother of invention!).  I looked for the simplest recipe and hit the jackpot with the one I’m sharing.  It’s not as moist as I thought it would be (but that might be because I forgot to add the 1 tablespoon of honey that’s required or it might be that the oven was a tiny bit too hot!  Practice makes perfect and I have enough dates for a few more attempts.  I will revise the recipe when I’ve found MY perfect medium) but it certainly tasted the way I remembered it.

If you try the recipe, let me know how you get on, please!  I definitely welcome sharing trade secrets! 🙂

Adapted from: http://gourmeted.com/2007/12/12/food-for-the-gods/

Ingredients:

Makes 16 – 20 bars

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 cup pitted dates, chopped
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, melted
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup caster sugar
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F or 180C.  Line a brownie pan with parchment paper (wax paper will do just fine).  You can use a 13.5″ x 8″ pan.
  2. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together.  Add chopped dates and chopped walnuts and mix until dates and walnuts are coated with flour and evenly distributed in the flour mixture.  Set aside.
  3. Beat eggs and sugars until well-incorporated.  Add vanilla extract (Ina Garten aka the Barefoot Contessa, says to use the best that you can because the better ingredients you have because the product turns out better) and the honey.  Add the melted butter until well-incorporated.
  4. Fold in the flour-date-walnut mixture until batter is uniform and everything is mixed well.
  5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly.  Bake for 30-40 minutes (depending on the oven).  Test with a toothpick.  It should be done if the toothpick comes out clean.
  6. Cool completely before slicing into bars or squares.
Yelly Eats

Blueberry Crumble Pie from Edd Kimber

Yelly


I think I chose the perfect recipe from Edd Kimber’s book.  The book was a gift from Alan (who enables my cookbook addiction!).  I am diabetic which means that I can’t have as much sugar as the next person, so I figured trying a fruit recipe would be the safest bet.  I reduced the amount of sugar by about 50 grams and I was quite fortunate that the blueberries that I bought had a good sweetness and tart ratio!  Also, the crumble topping allowed me to use my pastry mixer (which I called a pastry cutter for ages, but I was told it was called a pastry mixer in bonny old England! yes, me and my Americanisms, eh?)!

Edd Kimber was the first ever winner of the Great British Bake Off.  Mind you I was rooting for Ruth Clemens but it was a completely undeniable truth that Edd had the gift!

The book is lovely and the pictures are gorgeous!  They seem scream out to you, “Bake me!  Bake me!”  Plus Edd’s hands looked really gentle and elegant…soooo different from my chipolata sausage fingers!  But I digress.  This is really about this lovely book!  The instructions are clear and concise and very easy to follow.  I love the way everything was described systematically: what you had to do, when you had to do it, how long you had to do it for.  I also love the layout of the book and how everything looks pristine and clean.

What I love the most is how my pie, seeing that it was the first time I’d made the pie and seeing how I’d tweaked the recipe, looked almost identical to the photo in the book.  I was beaming with pride!  Edd Kimber was happy enough to retweet the photo of the pie I posted on Twitter (yes, it was a fan girl moment, bless my giddy heart!).

You MUST try Edd’s recipes.  I’ve got a challenge set up for myself to try the macaron recipes next.  But if  you want a wonderful fruit pie recipe that’s easy to make and comes out beautifully, this book should become one of your regulars in your recipe arsenal!  It is absolutely YUM!