His results - Orange Cornmeal Cake

If I was doing this alone I reckon I could have whipped it up in 15 minutes active time max. It was incredibly easy!

I used mainly normal sugar with a hint of rainbow sanding sugar. It looked pretty nice once it was cut up I thought!

It was pretty nice tasting too! I thought it was better on the day we baked it so I'd suggest eating it pretty sharpish.

Recipe 40 - Orange Cornmeal Cake

This is another recipe I've had bookmarked for an age. Sounds delicious to me!

You can find the recipe here on Martha Stewart's site.

The ingredient list goes like this:

• 120ml olive oil, plus more for pan
• 2 large eggs
• 200g sugar, plus 65g for topping
• 120ml dry white wine, (or orange juice)
• 150g all-purpose flour
  
• 80g yellow cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange
• Orange segments, for serving (optional)

His results - Chocolate-Covered Pretzel Toffee

Publish Post

This stuff is, I would say, dangerously easy to make. It's also fairly amazing that you can fit such a shockingly large amount of sugar and fat in such a small finished product.

I made double the recipe and was glad I did. I took a large amount of it to work and used a bit to repay a couple of favours I owed.

For those of you familiar with it the taste was a lot like Thornton's special toffee. In texture it was a bit more brittle and a little less chewy although it stuck in the teeth nicely. If I made it again I'd take it off the heat a degree or two lower.

It was lovely stuff.

His results - Adult Brownies

It was a nice feeling to get back into the routine and bake with Her again. It was a great recipe to do it with too. It was simple as anything to throw these together but they turned out wonderfully.

There are a few little touches in this recipe which make it stand out from the 101 others you may have tried and they're things I'll probably always do when making brownies from now on. The rapping of the pan, small amount of coffee and fleur de sel...

I left them in the oven a little longer than the recipe called for but they were still a little under done. They were just the way I like them though so I took them out. I thought they were thoroughly delicious. It got rave reviews at work too!

Recipe 38 - Adult Brownies

A fair while ago She took a trip to California. While she was there she undertook a very special task for me. A few days later I received a parcel which contained, among other things an Adult Brownie from Andronico's in San Francisco. I had heard mumblings about this legendary treat on the internet and required a sample to satisy my curiosity and cravings for deliciousness.

I was not disappointed. It was insanely tasty. When she reached the front of the line she told the server she was there to retrieve a brownie to post over the Atlantic. He told her the secret to the legendary tastiness in the small packet he handed over was "more butter than you could possibly believe would go in there". We can only hope that this recipe from Serious Eats can stand up to the memory I have.

You can click through for the recipe, I'll just put the ingredients below

• 170 g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 220g Valrhona Lacté (41% cocoa) / milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 220g Valrhona Grand Cru Noir Manjari (64% cocoa) / dark milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 300g granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 tablespoons vanilla
• 60g all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon fleur de sel or sea salt
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
• 110g dark chocolate, cut into large chunks (optional)
• Softened butter, cocoa powder for dusting pan

His results - Challah Bread

It's been such a long time since I made this that I can barely remember it. Since then She has come for christmas (and got to try a slightly stale piece of challah I saved for her) and we've had a great time together. We spent a little time in a real kitchen together and I got some wonderful baking / cooking related christmas presents. I'd expect some of them to show up here very soon!

Back to the baking I'm happy to report this was very yummy. It was rich and slightly sweet. It was good enough for me to eat a fair chunk of it as it just as it was too.

It was pretty on top of everything!

This year I plan on doing a better job of writing up these posts. I got a bit swamped towards the back end of 2010. I'll try and keep me head above water enough to do a decent job with my posts.

Her results - Challah Bread

Bread is pretty time intensive stuff. I feel like I've been making this bread for days. That's a slight over-dramatization, but not by much... Let me walk you through the process.

Saturday evening I made the dough. I mixed everything by hand because I still haven't bought a new mixer. Thankfully, few muscles were required to mix everything up.


After I'd mixed everything, I pulled it out of the bowl and began kneading it. I'm jealous of my grandma's wooden work surface and I'll have to get one of those someday. In the meantime, the counter did alright. My dough was very sticky and I had to use at least 1/4 cup if not 1/2 cup extra flour, plus some extra oil. It was a sticky mess for a while, but things worked out in the end.



I tossed my kneaded dough into a bowl and left it an hour. It rose nicely.


I covered the bowl with cling wrap and put it in the fridge overnight. When I opened the door this morning, it had a hilarious bubble in the middle.


Who knows whether or not starting things on Saturday and finishing them on Sunday had an adverse effect. Regardless, the show went on. I punched down the dough and turned it onto the counter and left it to rise slightly.



For the careless braider, such as myself, the next step was very simple and fun. First the big braid...


Then the little braid on top...


Then I brushed the whole unbaked loaf with the reserved egg yolk and sprinkled it with poppy seeds.


Into the oven it went! And out it came, a pretty loaf if I do say so myself.


I had a piece while the loaf while it was still slightly warm, and later a second slice toasted and buttered with jam. It's a nice, soft white bread with a thin crust. Pretty tasty! I'd categorize this week's baking more as a good experience than as a ridiculously delicious treat, but I'm definitely happy that I tried it out.


I fly to England in two days, and I'm not sure whether or not I'll do any blogging during the weeks that I'm there. If not, Happy Holidays!