TK Maxx Baking Haul

Hello, it's me! (not Adele)

I absolutely love shopping at TK Maxx's home centre! That's my kinda heaven (and food of course, you can't forget food, always food and more food!). They have great products, of good quality and cost a lot lesser than those posh stores, you know which ones I'm talking about. So come off day, I went to TK Maxx, cause why not eh? And they had a sale going on! A SALE! What a lucky day for me!

I know as someone who loves to bake, I go crazy when I see cookie cutters. All so beautiful and  in all sizes, shapes and color too . Mind you, I have a whole lot of Christmas cookie cutters, but when I see this, ohhhhh! This cost me 4£.  

I bought around 5 cupcake liners for 1£ each in pastel colors. I usually buy my cupcake cases off Ebay as they I find them cheaper than most high street stores. Since these very pretty good, I decided on buying these.

As a barista, I love my espresso. I know there are some baristi who don't. But not me. I am who loves coffee. And at home we don't really have espresso cups, just the ones we bought from Portugal, Continente, in fancy azulejo design. So you know, we're saving that just in case the Queen stops by, who'll probably ask for a cuppa tea. So moving on, yeah, I got these cheeky espresso cups by Jamie Oliver for 5£. Also, they are stack-able!

And finally, I bought this for 3£. Its a glass jar with a lid designed for jam and preserves. I though it'd be great for posts like smoothies, milkshakes or even layered desserts.

So this was it!

Let me know what you think about posts like this. Do you think I should continue with my baking hauls?

Feel free to leave your comments below.

Much love.

xx

M

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123 Shortbread

Probably the easiest recipe around. Adapted from @Theboywhobakes. All you have to remember is the 1:2:3 proportion.

50g sugar

100g butter

150g plain flour

vanilla essence for taste

a pinch of salt

Beat the sugar and butter together till light and creamy. Add the flour and salt. Do not mix till dough consistency as we are not looking for chewy biscuits. Mix roughly till it looks like breadcrumbs. Transfer onto a clean surface and start to knead gently with your hands. Do not knead for long as you don't want the butter to melt due to body temperature. (yeah we're hot like that ;) )

Roll out the now form dough to about a cm thick.

Bake at 180C (160C fan) for about 20-25 minutes until light brown.

xx

-M

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Salame de Chocolate

Olá :)

I'm just back from Portugal. And while there I've always loved this sweet chocolate and biscuit treat. Its a no bake recipe and very easy to make. 

I go this recipe off Sabor Intenso, an awesome Portuguese food blog, hosted by the very talented Neuza Costa. 

These are the ingredients you'll be needing:

180g butter

200g sugar

150g cocoa powder

an egg

200g bolacha maria/rich tea biscuits crushed(which is basically the entire pack)

silver foil

In a zip lock bag, with a rolling pin, crush the biscuits until coarse.

On low heat, melt the butter until just melted.

Remove off heat and add the sugar. Mix well.

Add the egg whisking continuously.

Add the crushed biscuits to this mixture and mix everything.

Transfer onto silver foil and using your hands form a log like shape.

Once covered in foil, leave it to set in the fridge for about an hour.

And after waiting impatiently for an hour, slice and eat up!

Bom apetite!

bjs

M

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Penne for your Thoughts

Adapted by Dawn Carter's recipe on allrecipes.com, this creamy pasta recipe calls for:

1/2 a cup of butter

1 pack cream cheese

2 tspns garlic puree

2 cups of milk

200 gms grated Parmesan cheese

a tspn of ground black pepper

Cook pasta of your choice and set aside.

On medium heat, melt the butter.

Add the cream cheese and garlic puree to this, whisking till smooth.

Slowly add milk, while still stirring to avoid lumps.

Finally add the cheese and pepper. 

As the sauce thickens, add your pasta.

Garnish with some more cheese (cause why not eh?) and serve while still hot.

Enjoy!

xx

-M

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Madeira Cake

This is basically a one bowl cake recipe. Madeira cake is sponge cake, can be enjoyed with a cuppa tea or Madeira wine. You decide ;)

What you'll need,

225 gms (8 oz) plain flour

225 gms (8 oz) sugar

225 gms (8 oz) butter

4 eggs

1 tspn baking powder
1 lemon (zest)

Pre heat your oven to 180 C/gas mark 4.

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl until just combined. Don't over mix.

Bake for around 55 minutes or skewer comes out clean when inserted.

Happy baking :)

xx

M

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Oh Crêpe!

Its been a couple of weeks that I'm back from the Netherlands but really can't get over the food. It was so good, really good. I'd go back just to eat. Today being my day off, I went ahead and made crepês. I have adapted Nigella Lawson's recipe and substituted the butter with oil. 

This recipe makes 15 crepês. 

You'll need:

1 large egg

1 1/3 cup milk

1 cup flour

2 tbspn oil

In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients.

Heat your pan and add a very little oil to prevent the crepês from sticking onto the pan.

Pour about 3 tbsp for each crepê and swirl around making sure it covers the base of the pan forming a thin layer.

Adjust the batter amount according to your pan size.

Once your crepês start releasing from the edges(approx 30 secs), flip over.

Enjoy with whip, strawberries, chocolate sauce or best with all. :D

xxx

M

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Walnut and Carrot Cake

 It's Easter and this calls for carrot cake. So I decided on this naked walnut and carrot cake off BBCfood. This cake is really moist and the cinnamon does give it a unique twist. This is also my first naked cake. Please be nice. The recipe can also be used for cupcakes. Yields 20 cupcakes.

You will need the following:

275 gms sugar

200 ml oil

4 medium eggs

300 gms grated carrots

150 gms walnuts

225 gms plain flour

2 tspn baking powder

1 tspn ground cinnamon

1 tbspn cocoa powder

For the cream cheese frosting:

125 gms butter

125 gms soft cheese

250 gms icing sugar

vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 180°C/300°F and line you sandwich tins or muffin tray.

Beat the sugar and oil.

Add the eggs one at a time until smooth.

To this add the grated carrots and walnuts.

In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients.

Add this to the carrot mixture and fold in until all combined.

Fill your sandwich tin/ muffin cases two-thirds full and bake for 22-25 minutes until skewer comes out clean when poked in.

As the oven does its job, time for the cream cheese frosting.

Beat the soft cheese and butter until well combined.

Add the icing sugar one spoon at a time until all starts to come together.

Once the cake is out of the oven, leave to cool and then pipe away.

I made three layers for the naked cake and with the rest of the batter, I made a few cupcakes.

Alternate the layers with cream cheese frosting leaving about a quarter of an inch around the edges. Garnish with crushed walnuts.

I piped a carrot onto the cupcakes by tempering white chocolate and dyeing it orange(red and yellow) and green. Saw this on Pinterest and I really couldn't wait to try it out.

   

Happy Easter!

xxx

-M

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Potato Frittatas

“When baking, follow directions.  When cooking, go by your own taste.”  goes the twitter account of Laiko Bahrs @SFFoodGalo. Did they read my mind? Straying away from normal, now out comes the measuring spoons #blameitontheblog. Here goes the first one that I did not procrastinate on and put it to paper. It was a sunny morning and the onset of spring does some pretty wonderful things to you. I had seen the prettiest mini bite on YouTube, and decided to try it out for breakfast.

Ingredients

Two medium sized potatoes

Single cream 200 ml

7 eggs

2 tablespoons grated cheese

2 teaspoons Herbs mixture

Oil for greasing muffin pan

Equipment

Muffin pan

Potato peeler

Vegetable grater

Oven

Making the basket

Take two medium sized potatoes, wash well and peel. Grate the potatoes. You will get around a cupful of grated potato. Wash this well with lots of water and dry it completely. I pick up a fistful and squeeze the water completely out of it. Pat it dry with the kitchen towel. The trick lies in getting the grated potato as dry as possible. Next add an egg to the potatoes and mix thoroughly. Add salt to the mixture. This is not necessary as the filling is considerably tasty.

Take a muffin tray and grease. Add half a fistful of the grated potato plus egg mixture to the muffin base. Shape it into a basket that just touches the top of the muffin form. Cover the surface and sides of each pan completely.  Bake in an oven at 180OC for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow cooling for 15 to 20 minutes before pouring the filling

Variation of the basket: For bacon lovers, line the muffin pan with bacon, instead of potato.

Making the filling

Take 6 medium sized eggs and crack into a pan. Add 200 ml single cream, 2 tablespoons grated cheese (any cheese of your choice would do, I used cheddar), and a teaspoon of a mix of herbs of your choice (I used a mixture of thyme and oregano). Mix this well.

Pour this into the cooled baskets on your muffin pan.  Fill the basket to around 2/3. Bake in a fan assisted oven at 180 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

It will rise in the oven and almost overflow out of the muffin pan, but will fall back into place once it is removed out of the oven. The potato shreds will gain a golden brown colour and the filing will be of a bright yellow colour.

Serve with leafy greens.

This recipe calls for making 18 to 20 baskets

It’s an easy to make mini bite and super tasty.

Give it a try. Tell me how it turns out.

L.

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Cinnamon Is How I Roll

I've been stacking up boxes of cinnamon powder for a few months now. Why cinnamon you ask? Well, crazy thing is that my store shut down and all this was going straight to the bin. So I bought it all home. All of them. About five! And these aren't the teeny tiny 100 gms bottles but more like a 500 gms box each. So I figured I'd make something cinnamony, but just never got to it. This recipe calls for yeast and so far my relationship with yeast is not really working out that well. We never seem to be on the same page really. But trust me, this is my tried and tested recipe, and, if I can make these, so can you.

Lets get started, shall we?

For the dough

3 1/2 tspn dry yeast

1/2 cup lukewarm water

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

1 egg

4 cups flour

1 tspn salt

For the filling

oil for brushing onto the dough surface

1/2 cup sugar

3 tspn ground cinnamon

For the icing

hot water

icing sugar to form a smooth paste

vanilla essence

Activate the yeast by dissolving in the water. Leave to rise for 10 mins.

Beat the sugar, oil and egg till well combined. 

Add the buttermilk and yeast.

To this add the flour and salt beating at a low speed. 

Once the dough begins to form shape, transfer it into a well greased bowl for rising. Cover with a damp towel.

Leave it in a warm place for at least 2-3 hours to rise. It must double in size.

For the filling, mix the icing sugar and ground cinnamon. Leave aside

For th icing, mix the icing sugar and water to make a thin paste. Add a few drops of vanilla essence for flavor.

After the dough has risen, flatten it out to a square, well roughly, 1/4 of an inch thick.

Brush a little oil onto the dough.

Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar onto the entire surface.

Roll the dough and cut circles about an inch thick making 16 cinnamon rolls.

Take a well greased pan and place them about half an inch apart.
Cover with a damp cloth and leave for about an hour to rise again.

 

Bake in oven for 15 mins at 170°C for a fan assisted oven till skewer, when inserted, comes out clean.

Once done, glaze the cinnamon rolls with the icing when still hot.

Tadaaaa all done!

You've made yourself some pretty darn good cinnamon rolls. This is best enjoyed anytime of the day with your favorite cuppa tea(or coffee ;) ) or just by itself really.

Happy baking!

xxx

-M

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How To Make Buttermilk

A recipe recently called for buttermilk, and lets face it, we don't keep buttermilk in our fridge. So, I realised I had milk and lemon juice. So why not make buttermilk at home. 

All you need is a glass of full fat milk and a tspn of lemon juice.

Mix the two and can be used after 5 minutes.

xx

-M

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Baby, You're So Classic

Taddaaaa!

Been off a last couple of days so went on a hunt for that classic fluffy vanilla cupcake recipe. I found many that required sour cream. Let's face it, not everyone has sour cream in the fridge, and being that lazy to go downstairs and buy some, I kept browsing for a recipe that had ingredients that I have at home, like you know, sugar, butter, eggs, flour, the things we know when creamed, beaten, combined and baked make CAKE. Yeah cake. Wouldn't hurt for some now right? So yeah being the weekend, the weather was acting up, not a surprise there, and I really didn't want to leave the comfort of my bed.

Classic vanilla cupcake recipe everyone!

What you'll need

3 cups all purpose flour

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 1/2 tspn baking powder

a tspn of salt

1 cup buter (cold, cut into cubes)

4 eggs (since the ones I had were pretty small, I used 5 eggs)

1 cup milk

2 tspns vanilla extract

Funny thing about this recipe is that it asks for the butter to be added to the dry ingredients, making it a coarse mixture, instead of the usual butter and sugar being creamed together.

Preheat your oven to 350 F/180 C.

In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Mix it all together.

Add in the cold butter making a coarse mixture.

 Beat in the eggs one at a time.

Add the vanilla extract to the milk and pour in half into the batter. Beat for about 1 1/2 minute and then add the rest of the milk mixture.

Line your muffin tray and bake for 20 minutes.

Makes 16 cupcakes.

Your end result must be a soft, fluffy, buttery, intense vanilla cupcake.

Do try it out and let me know in the comments.

Happy Baking!

xxx

M

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I Feel Lucky Like A Four Leaf Clover

"When I look into your eyes, its over

You got me hooked with your love controller

I'm tripping and I could not get over

I feel lucky like a four leaf clover."

- I'm into you , JLo

You know that time when you get a song stuck in your head and keep humming to it all day long. Yeah? Well this was it! I to be honest I didnt even know the lyrics to it until my sister pointed it out the other day about having the "I feel lucky like a four leaf clover" line. I was looking up shamrock cookie cutters on ebay and was surprised, not only about the lyrics (since lyrics to these songs make little or no sense), but also about the fact my sister actually knew the lyrics to this particular song. LOL She's a huge Abba fan.

Anyway, my cookie cutter arrived a few days back and I couldn't wait to get cook(ie)ing. See what I did there. *pats self*

A link to the recipe here:

Sugar Cookies

xxx

-M

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If I Call you Darling, Will you Make me Pancakes?

So today is Shrove Tuesday, also known as pancake day, which means we eat only pancakes all day. Now wouldn't that be just nice?

For this recipe we'll need:

100 gm plain flour

1 large egg

200 ml milk

100 ml water

50 gm butter

a pinch of salt

powdered sugar to garnish

In a large bowl, sieve the flour and salt. Add the egg, previously beaten, to the mixture. The result is a crumbly mix. Next add the milk and water combined to the mixture smoothing it out by stirring continuously. This should give you a smooth pancake batter.

Onto your pan, melt the butter tipping out any excess into a small bowl. Using a ladle pour your mixture onto the heated pan. Swirl your pan to get a nice even coverage.

Once your pancake starts releasing from the edges, flip it over. Once golden brown, remove from pan.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and then go ahead and add your favorite toppings. I went with nutella. You really can't go wrong with chocolate.

Bon appétit :)

Happy Pancake Day!

xxx

M

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Meringue Kisses

I've always thought meringues were really difficult to make. You too? Its not! Trust me, coming from someone who still can't boil an egg properly.

4 medium egg whites

275 gms caster sugar (1 & 1/4 cup)

a pinch of salt

a tsp of vanilla extract

A grease free mixing bowl is essential to make meringues. To make sure it is grease free, simply take lemon juice or a dab of vinegar on a paper towel and clean the bowl and whisk attachment.

Whip up the egg whites until small smooth bubbles. It is important not to get any egg yolks in that. Once it reaches stiff peak consistency, add in your caster sugar and salt. Make sure you do this is halves cause you don't want to deflate the egg whites. Add in the vanilla extract. Whip till you get a shiny glossy textured mixture. You'll know it is ready to bake if you rub the mixture between your fingers. If still grainy, mix it for a minute or two more. Now that that's done, pipe away.

Preheat your oven to 100°C. I know I know you'll be like 100°C? Yes! We are looking for that chewy marshmallowy center.

As it is Carnival, I decided to give some color to the meringues. I lined my piping bag with color gel paste. Gel paste is important. Liquid food coloring thins out the meringue mixture.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until it pulls away from the paper really easy. It should look something like this. ↓

And the inside like this. ↓

As for the egg yolks, let's whip up some zingy zesty lemon curd. Recipe to follow soon.

Happy baking & Viva Carnival!

xx

M

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Cupcakes For Two

Craving cupcakes but don't wanna bake a whole batch? How about just two then? One for you and the other for you too? :-D

What you'll need:

1 cup plain flour

2 tbspn sugar

1/4 tspn baking powder
1 egg white

2 tbspn oil/melted butter

2 tbspn milk

1 tspn vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients.

 Bake at 180° for 10 mins. 

Voilà! 

All done.

 Leave to cool and then decorate as you wish.

xxx

-M

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Custard Cookies

So I've been looking up cookie recipes and came across this YouTube channel VahChef. The recipes looked pretty easy so decided to give it a go. I'm off two days, might as well make me something nice to munch on.

These are called custard cookies. You'll need:

250 butter(at room temperature)

155 g powdered sugar

250 g flour

155 g custard powder

1 egg

In a bowl cream together the sugar and butter. Add in the egg and mix well. To this add in the dry ingredients to form a soft dough. Roll into small balls, coat in powdered sugar and transfer onto the baking tray. Lightly press a fork onto the cookie for the design. Bake at 180° for 15 mins.

      

Turns out pretty amazing I must say(or should I say 'vah re vah' :D )

Have a lovely day.

xxx

-M

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Brownies

I believe everyone should wake up to warm chewy fudgy brownies this festive season(or maybe just everyday?)

Here goes; the perfect brownie recipe:

415 gms cocoa powder

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs (at room temperature)

1 tspn vanilla extract

3/4 cup flour

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add in the eggs and vanilla extract. Fold in the dry mixture of cocoa powder and flour.

Bake for 25 mins at 180°.

Do try it out! 

x

-M

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