Food | Baking: Flourless Pancakes

March 15, 2015March 8, 2015 / Sam Siddique / 1 Comment

Today is a bit of an easy one, and it’s something that I saw plastered all over Pinterest and I thought I would give it shot! There is no specific “owner” of this recipe (not that I know of) and it is a healthier alternative to normal pancake recipes because it doesn’t use any refined sugar or flour – so if you go gluten free, this is something for you to try! I also recently purchased some (fair trade) extra virgin coconut oil from Holland & Barrett, so was excited to use this to cook with!

Ingredients

1 banana, mashed

2 eggs

pinch of cinnamon (optional)

1 tbsp coconut oil, for frying

To Serve

Whatever you want!

In a bowl, mash the banana as well as you can before adding the eggs and then whisk together until everything is incorporated. (You can use a processor/blender if you want to make the mix as smooth as possible).
As there is no sugar in the recipe, I added a pinch of cinnamon.
In a frying pan, I heated the coconut oil and then added the pancake mix a little at a time to make smallish pancakes so that I could make a stack. (You can make them any size you want!)
After frying each pancake on both sides until golden brown, I stacked them up on a plate and served with some blueberries and a sneaky serving of maple syrup (not totally healthy after all, but shhhhh!)

This is SO easy and quick to do, so it’s great for the morning to give you a boost of much needed energy and protein with the combination of banana and eggs, top with some yummy fruit and you’re good to go! (Goes great with a spread of Nutella too!) This is also a great recipe to try for Mother’s Day today and even the little un’s can help out!

I have pinned a lot of food ideas on Pinterest and I am only slowly starting to give the recipes a try! Have you ever tried out an idea you have seen on Pinterest or Instagram? Let me know in the comments below, and if you enjoyed reading then please like this post (and give me a follow using the links if you already haven’t!).

Until next time! x

Food | Baking: Schichttorte

October 16, 2014October 16, 2014 / Sam Siddique / 2 Comments

So, I was actually deliberating on whether I was going to share my latest bit of baking with you lot because I was actually very disappointed by the results (as I am a bit of a perfectionist) but hey ho, here is my attempt at trying out a schichttorte (yes, that 20-layered German cake from The Great British Bake Off).

This recipe is from Paul Hollywood and can be found on the BBC – Food Website.

Recipe

Cake

10 large eggs, separated

100g/3½oz unsalted butter

150g/5½oz caster sugar

1 large lemon, zest only

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

150g/5½oz plain flour, sifted

65g/2¼oz cornflour, sifted

oil, for greasing

6 tbsp apricot jam

Chocolate Glaze

50g/1¾oz unsalted butter

1 tbsp golden syrup

1 tbsp rum

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

75g/2½oz plain chocolate (36% cocoa solids), finely chopped

Vanilla Glaze

250g/9oz icing sugar

1 tbsp rum

½ tsp vanilla bean paste

1-2 tbsp milk

After I managed to separate all 10 eggs after a little bit of difficulty, I then whisked the egg yolks using a hand-held whisk on high speed until the mixture became pale, thick and creamy.

In another bowl, I creamed together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. I then added the zest of one lemon and 1 tsp of vanilla extract (but you can use vanilla bean paste if you have it) and mixed well.

I added the whisked egg yolks and mixed well. I then added the flour and cornflour (which I sifted together beforehand) in installments to make it a little easier to mix.

In yet another bowl, I whisked the egg whites until soft peaks formed.

I stirred one-third of the egg whites into the batter to loosen it a little and then I gently folded the rest of the egg whites into the batter.

(I do have to apologise for the poor lighting in most of these pictures, it started to get dark outside when I started this and so struggled to get enough natural light in order to take nicer photos!)

I preheated the grill to high and then greased a 20cm/8in round springform tin with a little oil and lined the base with greaseproof paper. I then spooned a little bit of the batter into the tin and spread it across the bottom evenly.

I then placed the tin under the grill and kept a watchful eye over it for a couple of minutes until it was a light brown colour. (As you can see, it went slightly darker than I wanted it to as my high grill setting was just TOO high so I had to turn it down).

I kept this up over the next couple of hours and noting down which layer I was grilling by marking 1L, 2D, 3L, 4D etc. (L = Light; D = Dark of course!)

(At this point, I was knackered and boiling hot from standing in front of the grill 99% of the time and some of my timings started to slip a little – I will say however, that I had enough batter for 20 layers, HURRAH!).

After I finished grilling all my layers, I absolutely started to hate this cake but I left it for a little while to cool down before turning it out on to a wire rack.

(At this point I was wondering what the heck happened to my 20 layers).

Nevertheless, I continued! I melted the apricot jam in a pan and then pushed it through a sieve (I actually think 6tbsp seemed a bit much so I lessened the amount). Using a pastry brush, I brushed the jam all over the top and sides of the cake.

For the chocolate glaze, I began by melting the butter, golden syrup and vanilla extract in a pan (didn’t use any rum of course!).
After the mixture incorporated together, I finely chopped the chocolate (I couldn’t find chocolate that was 36% cocoa solids and so went with 70%, but in hindsight, maybe I should have used milk chocolate!) and after the syrup mixture cooled a little I added the chocolate and stirred until it had melted. I then left the glaze to cool to a coating consistency.
I made sure to place some parchment underneath the wire rack holding the cake before pouring the glaze over the cake.

For the vanilla glaze, I started by sifting the icing sugar into the bowl to which I added the vanilla extract and milk (no rum) and began stirring until smooth. (For some reason I couldn’t get the glaze to thicken enough and in the end I was so hot, bothered and tired that I gave up and just used it.)
I then went a bit nuts with the drizzle, and because it hadn’t thickened enough, it sort of spread a bit too much…

So, all in all I was quite disappointed by the end result, especially when I finally tasted it. IT WAS SO DRY. Oh, I wanted to cry, all that effort! No need to eat your heart out just yet Paul Hollywood! I think next time, I’ll stick to something a little less ambitious!

Have you ever tried something as ambitious as this cake and how did it turn out? Let me know in the comments below!

Until next time! x

Food | Baking: Triple Chocolate Brownies

September 29, 2014September 29, 2014 / Sam Siddique / 1 Comment

As much as I love trying to bake new things, I still love going back to some old favourites. This particular favourite is something I have made since I was 18, living in a rickety house in the Mumbles in Swansea with my two cousins. The recipe is based on Antony Worrall Thompson’s Triple Chocolate Brownies found on BBC Good Food Website – Triple Chocolate Brownies.

Recipe
275g/10oz plain (dark) chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
275g/10oz unsalted butter
85g/3oz pecans
85g/3oz milk chocolate
85g/3oz white chocolate
175g/6oz plain flour
1tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
1tsp vanilla essence
325g/12oz caster sugar

I start by placing a bowl over a pan of water over the heat (make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water. I break up my dark chocolate into pieces (I used 300g of chocolate – why waste any!?) and add to the bowl to melt along with the butter which I chop up into small cubes.

Once the chocolate and butter melted and I had stirred it through to combine, I removed the bowl from the heat (please be wary doing this, the bowl will be hot!) and added the sugar to the chocolate and stirred to combine.

Next I lightly whisked the eggs in a jug and added the vanilla essence to the eggs.

I then added the eggs to the mixture in installments and made sure to mix well after each addition (the mixture might start to separate whilst you’re doing this but don’t panic – it just involves a little elbow grease and continuous mixing!). After this I then lined a tin with greaseproof paper which I lightly greased with some butter and as I have a fan oven I preheated the oven to 150C (the original method says 170C).

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder and then add this to the mixture in installments. Gently fold the flour into the mixture well after each addition.

Once all the flour has been folded into the mixture, chop up the white chocolate and milk chocolate roughly into different sized chunks (I used 100g of each – waste not want not!) and then add to the mixture and carefully fold them in. You can add nuts such as pecans like the recipe suggests but I tend to leave them out unless it’s requested.

With the help of a spatula, I pour my mixture into the greased tin and then using the spatula I attempt to even out the mixture in the tin.

I the put the tin in the oven and leave it to bake for about 20 – 25 minutes. You want to slightly undercook the brownies so that when you take it out, the top is firm but the inside should feel soft. The residual heat from the tin will help gently cook the rest of the brownie without the use of the oven and give you a nice fudgy/gooey brownie.

Leave the brownies aside while they cool and be sure not to cut into them straight away otherwise it will definitely fall apart.
Serve with a good helping of vanilla ice cream or double cream – YUM.

What brownie recipe do you use? Does it have lots of chocolate in it or do you use healthy ingredients like avocado? Do you put in nuts? Let me know! As you can see, there is no photo of me enjoying a midnight brownie as I made these quite late!

Until next time! x

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