Scones and strawberries

warm buttermilk scones in the morning. what a great way to start the day. so, everyone knows how to make scones right? WRONG! i dont know how to make them. yes, admittedly i have never made these most common and delicious tea time treats mainly because ive heard so many people say; i can never get scones right or mine always flop and turn out as hard little bricks! so it is fear that has kept us apart my scone. 

but never again! i have conquered the mighty scone! eh hem pardon me but..

...That?! are those the scones you made?
yes of course! those are my gorgeous scones! can you not see this?!
well.. they dont really look like scones, they look like biscuits..
well alright, they arent really picture perfect but they do taste like scones.
okay then, hand one over

yesterday when i was buying lunch, the strawberries called to me. they actually said, "buy me and eat me im so freaking delicious" that is literally what they said. to me. so i bought 2 small punnets because at the till the guy enlightened me to the fact that buying 2 miniature punnets was on a not very special special. and i so i bought 2. i ate one punnet immediately and the other punnet journeyed around with me the entire friday in my handbag. do you know what strawberries smell like in your handbag?? not good i tell you! not good! and saturday morning though, they turned into these.

having a bit of a british craze since i went to visit my family in Birmingham
i brought back some british mugs and tea towels and now having scones i feel like a real old pom. actually its just because they have such great sweets there and my subconscious loves sweets. i ate my weight in chocolate at Cadbury chocolate factory while i was in birmingham. now im on weighless.

i was so proud and served these little numbers as breakfast in bed.
"oh, thought they were mini hamburgers"
grr..

also, going through a bit of a strawberry print craze at the moment and would be going crazy eating strawberries if the were in season and a little cheaper!

Buttermilk Scones Recipe:

Ingredients:

450gr self raising flour

1/4 tsp salt

60 gr butter

430 ml buttermilk

1. sift dry ingredients together and rub in chopped butter. stir in enough buttermilk to make a soft sticky dough

2. turn onto a floured surface and knead very lightly, just until its smooth. press it out to 2.5 cm thickness and use cutters to cut 5cm rounds.

3. brush tops with egg, place on baking paper and bake in very hot oven (200-220'C) for 15 min.

eat with cream and strawberries or strawberry jam ;)

Fresh Bread rolls for breakfast

Take one of these rolls, add eggs, bacon and sausage and you have yourself a mighty fine breakfast!

so, a few weeks ago we had no bread and we wanted bacon and eggs for breakfast. all the shops in Rome were snowed in and shut, so there is no hope of buying bread, at least we had yeast in the fridge.

baked and bready, one was already gone before they were even cool. note that the longer time you leave the dough to rise, the more airy your dough will be.

knock on them like a door and if they sound hollow they're ready.

the recipe is quoted from yourhomebasedmon's website here

but i adapted it a bit, added less sugar, brushed them with oil and sprinkled salt and mixed herbs on top

1 C plus 2 Tbsp warm water

1/4 C oil

2 Tbsp yeast

1/8 C sugar

1 tsp salt

1 egg

3 1/2 C flour

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

In a bowl combine the water, oil, yeast and sugar and allow it to rest for 15 minutes.  Using your dough hook, mix in the salt, egg and flour.  Knead with hook until will incorporated and dough is soft and smooth. (Just a few minutes)

Form dough into 12 balls and then place in a greased 9 x 13 pan and allow to rest for 10 minutes.  Bake for 10 minutes at 200'C or until golden brown.

Shortbread love

Happy Valentines day everybody! hope you have been spoilt and loved. 

if you havent been feeling much  love and feel that this is a commercialized  hoax of a holiday then..
make shortbread. comforting comfort food complete with almonds and chocolate. snuggle down with a good movie and mug of hot chocolate and enjoy. (scroll down for recipe)

having just been to cadbury world in birmingham, i have really had chocolate on the brain. i was practically living on it last week so naturally when i got home, the first thing to do was bake with it. i remember my friend Cally having a rather good shortbread recipe and i thought, shortbread goes well with chocolate,  it being valentines day and all, one thing led to another and these bites were born.

my gran makes very yummy shortbread cookies topped with a blob of chocolate and an almond, so i think i was also longing after those a bit when i made these

fill a piping bag with melted chocolate of your choice and drip it over your biscuits, its a lot of fun!

you can use more than one type of chocolate in more than one way to decorate these babies.

in this case i piped the dark chocolate hearts, let them harden and then piped the white chocolate on top

all packaged and ready to spread the love at work :)

Cally's famous Scottish shortbread:
Now, she does claim that you have to have Scottish blood in you to be able to make these properly. So the poor suckers who arent of scottish descent (myself included), i suppose shall just have to be content never being able to create scottish shortbread. i can live with that.

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar (probably better if you use castor sugar but anyways)
3 cups flour
whole blanched almonds (if using)

1) cream butter and sugar until fluffy
2) add 2 1/2 cups of flour and mix well. collect into a dough
3) use last 1/2 cup of flour to cover surface of counter.
4) roll out dough until about 1cm thick, cut out with cookie cutters.
5) press whole, blanched almonds into the centre of each cookies if using almonds
6) bake for 30min or until slightly brown but they should be as pale as possible.

to decorate:
melt chocolate of choice in the microwave or however you like to melt it. be careful not to burn it or get water in it.
pour it into piping bags that you have made or bought (or a plastic ziplock bag/sandwich bag works well for this). snip off the end or a corner of the bag to the thickness you want the chocolate stream to be. and drip all over your shortbread!
note: if you are using two kinds of chocolate like dark chocolate hearts with whits squiggles ontop then wait for your dark chocolate to harden before drizzling the white ontop.

Valentines day cookies

Sweets for your Sweet

theres a white blanket over everything in rome at the moment, so spread a little cookie love and snuggle down on the couch with a good movie

  

chocolate sugar cookies decorated with royal icing

how do you buy your icing sugar? how about in 125gr packets with a whole lot of wasted packaging materials!

even little piggies can be cute!

you could put the in a box with tissue paper, eat them straight away, give them away to your darling, your mother or  the bergie on the corner, they will still taste good and be welcomed with open mouths :)

and then these, a few squirrels thrown in the mix. the one in the orange jumpsuit is called  Dr Evil

and i got a new power tool! who new black and decker made mixers!

this is what they look like when baked

Recipe for chocolate sugar cookies:
quoted from joy of baking

Chocolate Sugar Cookies:

2 3/4 cups (355 grams) all purposeflour

3/4 cup (75 grams) unsweetened Dutch processed cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon (4 grams)baking powder

1 cup (227 grams) unsaltedbutter, room temperature

1 3/4 cups (350 grams) granulated whitesugar

2 largeeggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 to 4 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat until you have a smooth dough.

Divide the dough in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for about one hour or until firm enough to roll.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in the center of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Remove one half of the chilled dough from the refrigerator and, on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch (1 cm). (Keep turning the dough as you roll, making sure the dough does not stick to the counter.) Cut out desired shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter and transfer cookies to the prepared baking sheet. Place the baking sheets with the unbaked cookies in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes to chill the dough which prevents the cookies from spreading and losing their shape while baking.


Note: If you are not going to frost the baked cookies, you may want to sprinkle the unbaked cookies with crystal or sparkling sugar.


Bake cookies for about 10 -12 minutes(depending on size) or until they are firm around the edges. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling. Frost with royal icing, if desired. Be sure that the frosting on the cookies dries completely before storing. (This may take several hours.) Frosted cookies will keep several days in an airtight container. Store between layers of parchment paper or wax paper.

Makes about 36 - 4 inch (10 cm) cookies.

Hershey's Black Magic cake recipe

Here is my adapted version of the Black magic cake
To view the original recipe click here

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
1 cup strong black coffee (filter coffee please, and wait for it to cool slightly before adding because you dont                             want scrambled eggs)
1/2 cup oil (i find sunflower to be the least offensive in taste)
1 cup buttermilk (or fresh milk with a tsp of lemon juice added and allowed to sit for a while)



1) put all ingredients in one big bowl and whisk or beat to combine. do not over mix. batter should be thin.

2) pour into cake tin or cupcake cases.

3) bake for 30-40min on 180'C and halve the baking time for cupcakes

note: mixture rises a lot so if making cupcakes, only fill cases half full