Buttery Cornbread

I’ve wanted to share this recipe for cornbread since August. I’ve already been in talks with my sister about making it as a side for this year’s American inspired Christmas dinner (this cornbread is the sole reason why Christmas will be American this year).  Also, sorry for mentioning Christmas. 

Buuutttt, I am glad we’re finally in the season of comfort food. This thick and buttery cornbread can be served savoury or sweet. My first batch was served with spicy jerk chicken and citrusy avocado salsa. My second batch had less sugar, so I chose to drizzle the bread with acacia honey and dried corn flowers from this little spice shop in London’s Borough Market. Adding corn flowers to a cornbread is possibly the corniest thing I’ve ever done. 

The sweetcorn season may have just ended, but as the kernels are fried in a pool of butter, using the frozen variety is just as good. To be fair, I only used fresh because they were on offer in the supermarket – who would pass up 4 husks for a pound?! 

Buttery Cornbread

Ingredients 

• 200g unsalted butter
• 450g fresh or frozen sweetcorn 
• 80g double cream 
• 100g milk
• 2 eggs 
• 45g brown sugar 
• 200g plain flour 
• 130g fine cornmeal/polenta
• 1 tsp sea salt 
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp baking soda 

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 190°C/ fan 170°/gas 5 and butter and flour a 23cm round cake tin or 1lb loaf tin. Melt the butter in a large shallow saucepan on medium heat, once melted add half the corn. Leave to sizzle in the butter until the corn has browned slightly and the butter has only just scorched the bottom of the pan. Spoon the corn into a food processor, then add the rest of the corn into the saucepan until scorched and slightly browned. Scrape the entire pan into a food processor and blitz until it looks grainy but has a creamy texture. Add the milk and cream and blitz until the batter is loose and the food processor feels cooler. Add the eggs and blitz, then the sugar. Transfer the corn batter to a large bowl, add the flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder and soda and fold through using a wooden spoon. The batter will be thick, give it a good beating just until there are no white streaks of flour left. Plop the batter into the tin and smooth the top with the back of a metal spoon. Bake for 35/40 minutes, the cornbread is cooked when the surface has a slight sheen and is smooth to the touch and a skewer inserted shows a moist (but not wet) crumb. 

Love Em xx

Overnight Chocolate Babka {Marbled Brioche}

In polish, Babka means grandmother. In New York, Babka can be found in all of the Jewish bakeries, but not because that’s where the grandmothers like to hang, oh nooo.  

A Babka is also a buttery rich brioche like cake; it is marbled with chocolate or cinnamon goo much like a pre cut log of cinnamon roll dough, and then baked in a loaf pan. Traditionally it is topped with streusel but I opted for a glace icing (made with double cream) that I flavoured with a few drops of orange blossom water. Because chocolate and orange are two flavours that we should marry together at-all-times. 

I never visited a Jewish bakery during my short-lived time in New York last week. Needless to say, I deeply regretted it after I bit into the Babka and my mouth experienced all that crunch from the crust and chew from the cake/bread hybrid. 

Side note if you’re thinking about visiting New York: Please do, it will make you feel like Deb Perelman, if only for a couple of weeks. Also, there are the most amazing-ly (cheap) juicy burgers at Five Guys and almond croissants at Dominique Ansel’s bakery (not so cheap).

My brother in law bought me the New York Cult Recipes cookbook for Christmas and the Babka was one of the many impressive creations within (New York cheesecake is next on the list, but I’m afraid it’ll be too difficult not to destroy it with my mouth before taking pictures). Nearly all of the ingredients used in the Babka can be found tucked away in kitchen cupboards, which is one of the reasons why I chose it, whose got time to run to the supermarket on Boxing Day slash ever? 

Overnight Chocolate Babka

Adapted from New York Cult Recipes By Marc Grossman 

90 ml lukewarm buttermilk (or add 1 tbsp lemon juice to milk and leave to set for 1 minute)
1 egg + 1 egg yolk + 1 egg white
125g butter, melted + 100g, softened
300g plain flour
3/4 tsp dried active yeast
2 pinches salt
50g + 125g caster sugar
40g cocoa powder
2 tbsp demerara sugar

Note: I’ve discovered this thing recently. Its called refrigerating yeasted dough’s overnight so that they taste ten trillion billion times yeastier. Its amazing. But by all means, don’t feel like you have go with me on this. The Babka will taste just as good if proofed for just 1 hour before baking. I just like to proof dough for a little longer, almost like testing the waters before the dough ends up tasting like stale beer.

The Recipe

Make the dough. Add the buttermilk, egg plus egg yolk and melted butter to a freestanding mixer fitted with the dough hook. Add the yeast, salt, 50g sugar and plain flour and knead on medium speed for 6 - 10 minutes. The dough should come away from the bowl and feel elastic. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover and let rise in a warm spot for 1 and a 1/2 hours.

Make the filling. Stir together 125g sugar and cocoa powder. Set aside.

Shape and bake dough. Roll the dough out into a 40cm rectangle. Spread the softened butter over the dough and sprinkle its entirety with the filling. Roll the dough up along its length so that you have a short log instead of a long one. Twist the ends to seal in the mixture. Grease a 8/9 inch loaf tin and place inside. Cover and place in the fridge overnight.

Uncover the babka, brush with egg white and sprinkle with demarara sugar. Put a bowl of boiling water on the bottom shelf of the oven and place the babka on the top shelf. Leave to proof for half an hour. Remove the babka, preheat the oven to 180 C and bake for 50 minutes.

Make a simple glaze of icing sugar and cream and add a drop of orange blossom water. Drizzle over the top when still warm, as the babka is best enjoyed when fresh out of the oven, but lasts for 2 days!

I hope everyone had the best Christmas ever. What plans do you have for New Year's Eve?

Love Em xx

Overnight Cinnamon Buns

I’ve posted a cinnamon bun recipe before, it was two summers ago and at that point I was a novice to yeast (still am a novice to yeast). 

I remember, as I was slicing through the longest piece of cinnamon encrusted ‘rolly polly’ I had ever seen, being so bloody proud of myself at having managed to transform dried balls of active yeast into a pillowy soft sheet of raw dough, which was just moments away from being the best thing I’d ever made. 

These buns are much, much richer than those bite sized ones. These are the sort of buns you might sink your teeth into at a certain chain bakery. Yes, these are definitely the kind of bun you would find at Cinnabon. And yes, that is definitely a good thing. Happy Thanksgiving! 

Graham Cracker Sandwiches with Dulce De Leche Truffle Filling

Deep Dish Doughnut Peach Pie

I baked a "farewell summer" pie – I am that sad. I used really sweet, short & fat peaches because their harvest stops at summer’s end. I thought this would make the pie sentimental, especially for summer, because thats completely normal. I bagged 6 of these for £1.86 in the Turkish Food Centre! I went to WholeFoods where they were charging 2 for £1. The choice was simple. Summer, it was nice while it sort of lasted.

Sweet 'n' Salty Popcorn Chocolate Chip Cookies

Jealousy  is never a wonderful thing. Im lookin’ at you foodie, I know you’re also jealous of that ever talented food blogger with the enticing food photos constructed by someone with an incredibly skilled eye for colour schemes.

So you just gotta make do with what you’ve got and visit the timber yard every once in a while for cheap bits of scrap wood. Or go to your boyfriend’s house and rape every inch of their marble worktops with your semi-professional camera that you hardly know how to use. Thank you boyfriend’s family.

Now think about how jealous the person sitting next to you in a real slash fantasised setting will be when they catch you crunching (and then chewing) on this abnormally good cookie. You will bite into this and it will taste odd, thankfully you won’t be able to stop. 

If you ever wanted to sneak your own popcorn into a cinema, this is the perfect way to do it – crush and cram them into a concealable cookie; one that slides perfectly into that tiny zip pocket in your hand/man bag and viola, George Clooney has never appeared so sensational.  

Lastly, I would recommend doubling the recipe in case you felt like saving at least 2 for yourself. 

Heap your quarter cup

Chocolate and Vanilla will never make you thinner.

The Recipe

Adapted from Joy The Bakers Buttered Popcorn Chocolate Chip Cookies 

1/2 cup sweet 'n' salty popcorn
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temp
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 + 1/4 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped dark chocolate

Makes 20 large cookies

The Method

Preheat the oven to 180 C and line two baking trays with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and both sugars either with a freestanding mixer or electric whisk, until pale and fluffy - 4 minutes.

Add egg and vanilla.

Add the flour, salt and baking soda and mix on low until just incorporated.

Using a metal spoon or spatula, fold the popcorn into the mixture. Dont worry if the popcorn breaks apart in the mixture, let this happen!

Lastly, fold in the chocolate.

Using an ice cream scoop take a level amount of dough and plop onto the baking sheet, making sure the dough is spaced 5cm apart. Or take a tablespoon and scoop out a heaped amount of dough onto the sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes, leave for a couple minutes longer if the cookies are not yet golden.

Leave to rest for 5 minutes, eat warm or leave to cool. Cookies will last up to 3 days.

Love Emxx

Bouchon Style Chocolate Chunk and Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chunk and Chip Cookies 

This is THE chocolate chip cookie, by the way. Forget the ultimate soft, chewy, crunchy, snappy, chocolate infused ‘cookie’ and just think about THIS cookie.

This cookie doesn’t have an ultimate quality within it; it is simply THE ‘one’. Much like but *slightly* differing to the love of your life, your favourite pair of jeans that never seem to ever ever get tight (but never say never, right?), the Lost series, the Homeland series,  Modern Family, that mug in the kitchen that no one daren’t sip their tea from, your first pet (yes, even cats). You get where I’m going with this I hope?

I stumbled across this precise, accurate, bordering on scientific jargon slash recipe back in January when I received this HUGE box from Amazon in the post. A couple of knives and mounds of cellotape later revealed the most beautiful red ribbon, a hardback copy of Bouchon Bakery Cookbook, and a festive little card from my manager at Fair Cake containing the most encouraging and thoughtful words I have ever read.

Bouchon – a small chain French bakery in America published this book to give its customers a taste of what happens beyond the counters. The methods are strenuous and are mostly written for those who own a convection oven but they still work beautifully. But If I didn’t have a crappy fan oven, then my cookies wouldn’t have spread out so large! I chilled them and everything!

The cookies weigh in at 150 grams each… that’s 2 in at a time, 20 minutes each totaling to 1 hour 10 minutes of baking time. What’s that you say? That cant’ be that many cookies then?

Nope. 6. 

The Recipe

Adapted from Bouchon Bakery's 'Chocolate Chunk and Chip Cookies'

238g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
134g dark brown sugar
104g granulated sugar
12g black treacle
167g unsalted butter, soft
60g egg - 1 and a bit
107g milk chocolate chips
107g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Sieving chocolate chunks will remove shavings that tend to 'darken' the cookie once baked. 

The Method

In a large bowl whisk together baking soda, salt and flour and set aside.

In a small bowl add the dark and granulated sugars, pour in the treacle and stir away all the lumps - I prefer to use my hands, they do a far better job at dissolving the lumps.

Over a chopping board, sieve the chopped chocolate to remove the little shaves and then stir chocolate chips into the sieve. Set aside.

With a mixer, beat the butter for 4 minutes until very pale and soft.

Add the treacle mixture to the butter and mix for a further 4 minutes until fluffy.

Slowly pour in the egg and mix for a maximum of 30 seconds - any longer than this and the cookies will spread when baked!

Add the flour mixture in two parts, mixing for a maximum of 15 seconds each time. The flour should be just combined.

Fold in the chocolate with a spatula until well incorporated. If you're using a freestanding mixer, pulse the mixture 10 times.

Wrap the dough in clingfilm and refrigerate for half an hour.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 162 degrees C / 325 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Divide the dough into 150g portions and roll each into a ball.

Depending on the size of your baking sheet, bake 2 cookies at a time making sure they are spaced well apart (see top picture for an idea of how to position the cookies in the oven).

Bake for 20 minutes each time - 40 minutes overall for 6 cookies.

Transfer to a cooling rack for 10 minutes and then dig in!

Do you have an ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe?

Love Em xx

Brown Butter Buckeyes

Brown Butter Buckeyes 

I am a lazy girl. 

If you’re lazy too, peanut butter balls might just be the key confection you’ve been looking to make all your life, to fill in the gaps between waking up at 1pm and dinner – on your day off, and not the one you called in sick, of course.

I first lay my eyes on these big balls of beauty a year ago here, I luuuurvved the idea of digestives adding an extra crunch to a sweet peanut butter candy, it works especially well for anyone who is not a fan of crunchy peanut butter.

After a scant bit of research I was fully ready to create my own delicious peanut butter balls (not to be mistaken for the overly sweet cake pop). The name ‘Buckeye’ comes from the Ohio buckeye tree in America and the balls are made to look like an actual buckeye which falls off the tree in the autumn/fall. If you’re having trouble placing an Ohio buckeye tree into your imagination, just think of a conker. So famous buckeyes are to this state, that they have even named a football team after it!

The traditional recipe for a buckeye calls for 6 cups of icing sugar. My recipe has a quarter of that, more cream cheese and a whole lot more of digestives.

Lastly, if you want an even richer nutty flava then it is absolutely necessary to brown that butter! It will add just 20 minutes to your assembly job (because it would be a crime to call this sort of think baking) but you won’t regret it I promise, lazy being. 

Buckeyes with brown butter

The Recipe
Makes 26 Buckeyes 

100g cream cheese
390g smooth peanut butter
145g brown butter* or plain unsalted, melted
300g icing sugar
14 digestive biscuits/350g
For the coating:
350g good quality melted chocolate of your choice

Special Equipment
Toothpicks
Vegetable oil (to thin the melted chocolate out)
Electric scales

Note* if you're gonna go ahead and brown the butter, all you need to do is put it in a saucepan on medium heat and whisk away until the frothy goodness turns a light shade of golden brown.

The method

Start with the digestives; there are two ways to get a shardy yet fine-ish crumble with these - which is exactly what you want. You can either give them a 30 second whizz in the food processer (my preferred method, do this if you're lazy and own a dishwasher), or put them all in a sturdy plastic food bag and beat them up with a rolling pin.

In the bowl freestanding mixer or a large bowl and an electric whisk, beat the peanut butter and cream cheese until the mix has lightened in colour - about half a minute.

Add all of the digestive crumbs to the peanut butter, remembering to scrape down the sides of the bowl for even distribution.

Alternately add the brown butter (it doesn't have to be cold when you add it in!) and icing sugar until you get a huge bowl of thick golden crumbly looking stuff. Set aside. The buckeye filling will last in the fridge for 3 days so you can always wrap it in cling film and come back to it when you're ready.

Next, line a fairly large baking sheet with parchment. Depending on how anal you are, grab a pair of scales and weigh out pieces of peanut butter dough at 43-45 grams each. This weight gives a big buckeye.

With each piece of buckeye, stretch out both your palms with the dough in the middle and gently roll it around until eventually, you have a round ball. Do this until you have no dough left and put in the fridge to set for at least 20 minutes.

Melt the chocolate over a ban merie. Add no more than a tablespoon vegetable oil to the melted chocolate and stir in to give a smoother consistency.

Pick up a buckeye with a toothpick and gently immerse the ball 3 quarters the way into the chocolate and roll around until you have what looks like a 'buckeye' (a bit of peanut butter showing at the top).

Put back on the baking tray and take the toothpick out.

Leave to set until the chocolate coating hardens and enjoy for 3 days!

BEFORE I FORGET! Keep your buckeyes in the fridge for ultimate freshness. Although...I highly doubt they will last long enough for that!

Love Em xx