Chocolate Bottomed Orange Cookies

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I’ve talked recently about how the Hong Kong weather has been less than beautiful lately. Well, this morning things took a dramatic turn. This morning, things got biblical. We were woken up by thunder crashing over the house, shaking the windows. Lightening lit up the room, even though the blinds were down. Water came under the front door and through the kitchen ceiling. At 4am we were up stuffing towels under the door to try and stop the rain coming in. The Hong Kong Observatory, our guide and guru to local weather, was going crazy sending out landslide warnings, wind warnings, flood warnings and, most importantly; black rain warnings. Black rain means over 70mm of rainfall in a hour. Black rain and the observatory tells everyone to stay inside. Black rain and all the schools shut. Hurrah!

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For me this meant a few extra hours at home this morning, a few extra hours to make up these little treats before the rain storm ended and I was called into work. Unfortunately I don’t have many of these cookies left to show you. The black rain warning also meant my boyfriend’s work was cancelled, and the lucky thing got the whole day off. I left him at home to keep an eye on my cookies as they cooled. It doesn’t take much to imagine what happened there!

Chocolate Bottomed Orange Cookies

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(Makes about 10)

Ingredients

110g butter (room temperature)

55g caster sugar

140g plain flour

zest of one orange

50g dark chocolate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170c

2. Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale and fluffy.

3. Add the orange zest until evenly combined.

4. Sift in the flour and bring the mixture together until you have a firm dough.Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for about an hour.

5. Roll into small balls and place on a lined baking sheet. Gently press the balls down with the back of a fork.

6. Bake for about 12 minutes, until they are just beginning to turn golden. Cool.

7. Heat the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of gently boiling water. Dip the bottom of each cookie in the chocolate and turn upside down on a baking sheet to set.

8. Dust with icing sugar.

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World Baking Day Red Velvet Cupcakes

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Last Sunday, the 19th, was World Baking Day. This year’s slogan was ‘Bake Brave’ inspiring all levels of bakers to try something they’ve never baked before. The official website offers 100 recipes contributed from bakers all over the world, with the difficulty ranging right from complete beginner (level 1)  to expert baker (level 100).

I’m not sure my choice of bake was particularly brave. Although graded at level 73, it was easy to put together. I choose it because Red Velvet is something I’ve never attempted before. One of my best friends is a dab hand at it, its one of her signature cakes. Maybe that’s why I’ve never tried it before.  Her red velvet had layers and layers of damply delicious cake, piled up high with lashings of cream cheese frosting.  These little cupcakes aren’t a patch on her epic ruby red tower, but they are a delicious little treat. They’re rich and feel decadent, but aren’t too sweet.

IMG_5981You can see all 100 recipes here – http://worldbakingday.com/en-gb/recipes -  so many of them look delicious. I’m not sure I’m quite ready for number 100, the ultimate challenge cream puff cake, but I’m sure I’ll be having a go at the lava cake and pumpkin cake soon.

Happy Baking!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

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(adapted from Lottie Duncan on World Baking Day)

Ingredients

(makes 6)

cupcakes

60g self raising flour

8g cocoa powder

100g margarine

2 eggs

1-2 tsp red food colouring

frosting

60g cream cheese

90g margarine or butter

90g icing sugar

1/2 tsp lemon juice

red food colour

Method

1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and creamy.

2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs. Gradually beat them into the creamed butter and sugar until well combined.

3. Sift in the flour and cocoa powder and mix well.

4. Add the food colouring and beat until the mixture is evenly coloured.

5. Divide between 6 cupcake cases and bake for 15 minutes at 200C. Leave to cool completely.

6. Meanwhile, make the frosting. Cream the butter or margarine until soft. Gradually add in the cream cheese and beat until smooth and well combined.

7. Sift in the icing sugar, then add the lemon juice.

8. Put half in a separate bowl and mix in the red food colouring.

9. Leave to chill for an hour. Put the white frosting in one side of a piping bag, and the red in the other and swirl on top of the cupcakes.

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Snow-flecked Brownies

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Hong Kong is a very transient place, nothing stays the same. Spirals of incense smoke, speaking of centuries of tradition, rise over a city in constant motion and flux. Restaurants and shops you go into everyday disappear over night. Often there’s no warning, no sign, no word from the owners. You turn up as normal one day to find the place gone, the building gutted and deserted, or something else completely different already set up and moved in.

Last night we went back to the area we lived in only last year. We spent a year there, knew the streets, the restaurants, the local characters so well but, going back, I struggled to find the front door of our old building. The shops and stalls, our landmarks in this hectic city, had nearly all gone.

People leave all too frequently too. Many come out here just for a year stopping off to work for a while as they travel. Ex-pats are moved on by their companies and shipped off elsewhere around the world. Others just want to go home. We say goodbye so often but never really get used to it.

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Sometimes though, something fantastic happen. Sometimes people come back. Last week two of my best Hong Kong friends arrived back in the country after nearly a year away. They’d left on an amazing adventure to travel and volunteer in India and Nepal. Always thinking they’d come back, never sure if it was the right thing to do. Now though, after months of discussions and dilemmas, they’ve finally made the huge decision to have another year here.

To me, nothing says I’m so happy you’re back, than a big box of gooey chocolate brownies. This is my absolute favourite brownie recipe. Of course I’m not fully faithful when it comes to my brownies. Sometimes I branch out, dabble in creme eggs or cookies and cream, but when it comes down to it, if I had to pick just one, this would be it.

This Nigella Lawson recipe creates gooey, rich, indulgent, deep brownies hiding secret little nuggets of white chocolate, the bite contrasting perfectly with the smooth yielding brownie.

Snow-flecked Brownies

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(adapted from Nigella Lawson)

Ingredients

190g butter
190g dark chocolate
3 eggs
175g Caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
115g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
125g white chocolate chips or chunks
icing sugar for dusting

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c and line a brownie tin.

Melt the dark chocolate and butter together in a heavy based pan over a gentle heat. Leave to cool slightly.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Beat into the chocolate mixture until well combined.

Add in the flour and salt, and finally stir in the chocolate chunks. You can use good quality white chocolate chips for this, but my favourite method is to roughly chop up a bar of white chocolate. It gives wonderful, big chunks throughout the brownies.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until the top is cooked and starts to crack and the middle is still soft and gooey. I’ve found the oven time for these can vary dramatically, in my low powered little Hong Kong oven they took nearly an hour until they were cooked enough. Use your judgement, take them out just before you think they’re ready as they’ll keep cooking as they cool.

Once they’re completely cooled, slice into squares, dust with icing sugar and share with friends.

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Banoffee Pie

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Food inspiration can come from all over the place. Secret family recipes passed through the generations, experiments with friends over a bottle of wine, within the pages of an exciting new cook book or blog, your favourite restaurant. This one came from a novel. I love books. I love them in the same way I love chocolate or the smell of bread baking in the oven. I did a degree and a Masters in English Literature, overjoyed by the hours I was suddenly allowed to just spend reading. I buy old copies of books I already own just because I like the cover, or the worn pages, or the smell.

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This recipe comes from Dawn French’s novel, A Tiny Bit Marvellous. In it she writes a witty, pithy description of a dysfunctional family, lurching through life, struggling to find peace within themselves or the family. However in the background there is Nana P. A quiet, constant,sloe-gin swilling source of comfort and frank advice. She seems to be the only person each family member is able to talk to. She gently steers them towards the right decisions, offers a shoulder to cry on and occasionally the blunt words that need to be heard. Perhaps more importantly, however, she gives them cake. Nana P knows every ones favourite cake. The presence of these familiar, comforting cakes, are perhaps as important as the words being shared. I’m sure most people can think of a cake or a recipe made by their grandmother, or mother or father that transports them home, back to somewhere safe. For me it’s my mum’s sausage rolls. The treat that came out at Christmas and birthday parties. As children we would help roll out the pastry and slop on the egg wash, then hover like vultures around the oven until they were puffy and golden. We could never wait until they were cooled, but nibbled them straight away, puffing and gasping as they burnt our tongues, tossing them between burning hot fingers.

The back of the book has a lovely touch, the recipe for each lovingly crafted cake. This is one of Nana P’s recipes.

Oscar’s Banoffee Pie

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Ingredients

     Base  

200g digestive biscuits

100g chocolate chips (the original recipe calls for pecans, but I couldn’t find those in Hong Kong)

100g butter, melted

 Topping

3 large banana’s

300ml double cream

1 tbsp icing sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

dark chocolate, grated

 Caramel

100g butter

150g dark brown muscavado

250mls double cream

Method

- Melt the butter in a pan. Put the biscuits and nuts in a plastic bag and bash them up using a rolling pin. You could also do this in a food processor,  but there’s something quite therapeutic about the bashing! Put your crushed biscuit into the butter and mix until well combined.

- Press the mixture into the base of a tin and flatten until the surface us even. Pop it into the fridge for about half an hour to set. Meanwhile, make the caramel. Melt the butter and brown sugar in a large pan. Once the butter is melted add the cream and let it gently bubble for about five minutes until it is slightly thickened. Leave the caramel to cool.

- Spread the caramel over your biscuit base. Peel and Slice the banana’s into thin slices and lay over the top of the caramel.

- Whip up the cream, icing sugar and vanilla extract until it forms stiff peaks.Spread the cream mixture over the bananas.

- Decorate with chocolate shavings and put it back in the fridge until you’re ready to serve it. When you’re ready, slide a palette knife around the edge of the tin and gently ease it out.

- Take a swig of home made sloe gin. For cook.

What recipes make you feel at home?

Iced Lemon Smoothie

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It’s rainy season in Hong Kong, we’ve had everything from grey days and drizzle to epic sky shattering thunderstorms with torrential rain that turns the roads to rivers. While the thunderstorms are incredible to see, Hong Kong in the rain is a dismal place to be. The sky scrapers lose their magnificence and the horizon becomes a wall of grey concrete and glass. The sea disappears behind a wall of mist. My bus ride to work, winding up over the hills, loses it’s poetic, hazy sunrise over awakening blue waters, and becomes a dank trip through walls of nothing. In the streets people fight for space for thousands of umbrellas. Raindrops roll down a sea of coloured domes, sheltering dozens upon dozen of hunched over people, hurrying for the dry. Daily I find myself impaled on umbrella spikes which, to the western build, are at perilous eye height.   What we haven’t had much of is sunshine. Until yesterday. Yesterday the sun came out.

Instantly the world is a different place. Families venture out to walk along the seafront, couples hold hands and sneak kisses on the beach. Lines form and snake along the pavement by the ice cream van producing cone after cone of it’s only offering. The sun glints off the glossy, green tiles on temple roofs and the blue gently rippling seas. Moods lift and the working week seems a long way off.

In honour of the sun returning I made these. It’s a drink we drank all over Thailand, and it’s the perfect thing for a hot day. Sweet and tangy lemon juice blended with crushed ice. They’re incredibly easy to make, and require hardly any ingredients. They would be  quick to whip up by the jug load for summer parties and barbecues with a few extra lemons sliced in for colour. In Thailand they also add a little salt, which I’ve omitted here, but when you’re spending long days sweating under a baking sun, adding a little salt back into your body is probably a very good idea.

You could, of course, add in a few slugs of something naughty for those warm summer nights. I won’t tell if you don’t.

Iced Lemon Smoothie

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Ingredients

Per glass

Juice of two lemons

1tsp sugar

a cup of ice

Method

Dissolve the sugar into the lemon juice.

Add into a blender with your ice, and blend until you have a crushed, slushy drink. Add extra sugar to taste.

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