peanut butter blondies

I try to be a good person.

I try to blog recipes that I've at least adapted from the original source, rather than blindly followed. I try to be original, rather than reproducing pretty much everything ever posted on Smitten Kitchen. I try to eat healthily (um, relatively. Fresh fruit cancels out sugar, right? I mean, that's science, yeah?) (if not, then what is the point of science?).

All my efforts seem to fail in the face of peanut butter/chocolate recipes.

I mean, how do you improve on something like this? Sure, you could just stir a load of chocolate and peanut butter together in a bowl and just hand it to me (oh wait, that's basically what this recipe does), but let's keep some semblance of class going on here.

Only a semblance. I wasn't going to tell you, but I had to edit a dog hair out of one of these pictures in photoshop.

(The friends who helped me eat these on Friday are now going 'hccaaaakk' and clutching their thoats.)

(Only one dog hair! It's kind of like Russian Roulette. Most of you are in the clear!)

For the record? These were worth it. When I first tried them I thought they were a little too much - my sweetness tolerance has taken a dive recently - but after being chilled overnight the flavours had melded together into sweet, fudgy squares... not to mention they cut really neatly and looked full-on adorable. I'm such a sucker.

Peanut Butter Blondies

Adapted from Butterwood Desserts, West Falls, New York via Gourmet, October 2007

Found here on Smitten Kitchen.

Further adaptation & metric conversion by Happy Love Strawberry.

These are described as 'brownies', but apparently I think my bar classification system far outstrips the professionals. Brownies mean a chocolate base, okay? Whew, you people are lucky I'm around.

I can't help feeling that these NEED to be made with soft light brown sugar. I don't know why I didn't. Even at the time, as I was stirring in ingredients, I thought, 'I should really use soft light brown sugar for this', and then I totally did not do so. Feel free to do so! But bear in mind I haven't tested them this way yet. Let me know if you do.

For blondies:
230g (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
300g (1 3/4 c.) sugar - I'm promoting the untested brown sugar version, here.
240ml (1 c.) crunchy peanut butter
2 large eggs + 1 large yolk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
280g (2 c.) plain (all-purpose) flour
250g (9oz) milk chocolate, cut into small chunks (or chips)
1/2 tsp salt

For ganache:
250g (9oz) milk chocolate, cut into chunks (or chips)
120ml (1/2 c.) double cream (a litle milk worked for my -admittedly half quantity- version)
1 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Butter a 13x9" baking pan, then line bottom of pan with parchment paper and butter parchment.

1. Beat together butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until mixture is light and fluffy, then add peanut butter and beat until incorporated. Beat in whole eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla. Reduce mixer sped to low, then mix in flour until just combined. Mix in chocolate chunks/chips then spread batter in baking pan, smoothing top. (It will be thick, almost like cookie batter.)

2. Bake until blondies are deep golden, puffed on top and a wooden pick inserted in center come out with some crumbs adhering, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool completely in pan on a rack, like I ever cool anything completely.

3. Make ganache: Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring cream to a boil in a small saucepan, then pour over chocolate and let mixture stand for one minute. Gently whisk in butter until it is incorporated, chocolate is melted, and a smooth mixture forms. Spread ganache on cooled blondies and let stand until set, about 15 minutes.

Visions Of Sugar Plums

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

-Extract from The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore

- Very lazy blog post by a weary Ms. Blue

Night-Before-Christmas Slice
Makes 12
Recipe from Super Food Ideas: December 2007 via http://www.taste.com.au/

150g (1 c.) mixed dried fruit (I used raisins, currants, sultanas (I know those three are basically the same thing, but whatever), then finely chopped dried apricots & dates)
200g (half a jar) mincemeat
75g butter, chopped
40g (1/4 cup) brown sugar
1 tsp orange zest
1 tbsp orange juice
60ml (1/4 cup) brandy
1 egg, lightly beaten
70g (1/2 cup) plain flour, sifted
35g (1/8 cup) self-raising flour, sifted
60g pecans
1 tsbp apricot jam

1. Combine dried fruit, mincemeat, butter, sugar, orange rind, juice and 40ml (a couple of tbsp) brandy in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 3 to 5 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Remove to a large bowl. Allow to cool to room temperature.

2. Preheat oven to 150°C. Grease a 8" tin and line with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang at both long ends. Add eggs and flours to dried fruit mixture. Stir to combine.

3. Spread mixture over prepared pan. Top with nuts. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Combine jam and remaining brandy in a heatproof, microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on medium-high (70%) for 30 seconds or until jam melts. Brush cake top with jam, cover, and allow to cool in pan. Cut into pieces to serve.



I know it's not the night before Christmas yet, but I thought I'd give you a bit of time ^__^.

Capital Letter Cheesecake Bars

Sometimes I suspect that I'm subliminally trying to sabotage my own baking efforts so I'll be forced to make something again. Take these for example. Yes, every square is a little mouthful of Purest Heaven... but I screwed up, of all things, the chocolate drizzle over the top. How can anyone screw up a chocolate drizzle? All you have to do is, uh, drizzle chocolate. But no; mine seized up in the microwave until I had to add so much milk and butter to sort it out that it turned into a sauce/glaze. And it bothers me. It really does. I keep looking at the pictures and imagining them with drizzle; it's the tragedy of my heart.

And I just know I won't be satisfied until I make them again. With chocolate drizzle. And then I'll have to eat them, and you know, my life is so traumatic?


There are possibly a couple of things that could persuade me to forgive these bars. Firstly: they're called 'chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake bars', and if you think that's a mouthful, wait til you take a real one.

Secondly: OH MY DAYS THEY'RE THE BEST THINGS EVER.


I mean, hello, CHEESECAKE (I think we all know how I feel about cheesecake, and to avoid scaring off anyone who doesn't know, I won't go into further detail). COOKIE DOUGH. I think everyone feels the same way about cookie dough. CHOCOLATE CHIPS. Self explanatory. CAPITAL LETTERS.

--Okay, fine, I just like to over-emphasize. Otherwise you might've missed all the chocolate chip/cookie dough/cheesecake components in these chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake bars, or something.

To summarise: you absolutely can't go wrong with something like this.



Apart from the chocolate drizzle. Apparently it's easier to go wrong with a chocolate drizzle than you'd expect.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars
Adapted from the version found on Bake Or Break
The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook.

Crust:
200gish (1 & 1/2 c.) choc chip cookie crumbs (I used choc chip Maryland cookies cause my flatmate was, get this, THROWING THEM OUT. They'd apparently 'gone soft'. I DO NOT BELIEVE IN SUCH BLASPHEMY. The original recipe uses plain graham crackers/digestives but also includes about 70g mini chocolate chips, which I omitted)
75g unsalted butter, melted

Sorry measurements are vague, by the way; I did half quantities and improvised a lot. If you have American measuring cups, you might want to dig them out for this one.

Preheat oven to 325°.

1. Butter a 9"-square baking pan. Line pan with parchment paper, leaving enough to extend over the sides. Butter the parchment paper.

2. Combine cookie crumbs and butter until crumbs are moistened. Stir in chocolate chips if using. Press crust mixture into bottom of pan and 1 inch up sides. Bake for 6 minutes. Set pan on wire rack to cool

Cookie Dough:
75g unsalted butter, at room temperature
40g light brown sugar
3 tbsp caster sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g plain flour
100g (1 c.) semisweet chocolate chips

3. Using an electric mixer , mix butter, brown sugar, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract at medium speed until smooth. Decrease mixer speed to low and add flour. Mix just until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips. Set aside.

Fun fact: I stirred this all by hand and broke my wooden spoon in half.

Not deliberately.

Filling:
280g cream cheese, at room temperature
45g (1/4 c.) caster sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4. Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar just until smooth. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating just until blended. Pour batter into baked crust. Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls over the top of the filling.

Bake about 30 minutes, or until set. Transfer to wire rack.

For chocolate topping, melt 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips in a double boiler or in the microwave. Add about 1/2 tablespoon of butter if necessary to make chocolate smooth. Drizzle over top of bars. Cool bars in pan completely, about an hour.

Using the edges of the parchment paper, remove bars from pan. Cut into bars and serve.

Comfort Eating

I think anyone reading a food blog knows that food is comfort. And when things aren't so good, all I really want to do is mix up a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and eat it, raw, off the spatula. (Probably not such a good idea when I have a little red bikini to fit into for next week).

But to be honest, I don't have the energy to be witty, or sarcastic, or even really remotely interesting today. I probably shouldn't be blogging (sorry anyone who finds themselves feeling inexplicably depressed after reading this) as a result, but I thought I'd explain rather than just let the blog languish; basically I have a lot of family problems going on at the moment that I don't especially fancy going into in great depth.

So instead, I'll offer you these.

These are based on an idea I had after seeing cookie dough brownies somewhere online (can't remember where; bad luck). I saved the recipe, but somewhere between first finding it and coming across it again a while ago, something very odd started happening to me. It started when I had a bite of a mars bar a while ago and found it... repulsive. It was too sweet.

I've never, to my knowledge, found anything 'too sweet' in my life. Am I getting old?

And then I made 'halfway cookies' at some point; chocolate chip cookie dough with a meringuey topping and so on... and it was just too much. I ate about twelve of them, admittedly, but only because I was trying to work out if I liked them or not (yeah, alright).

And so I made these... less excessive. Don't be disappointed in me: these are based on the cookie dough brownie idea, but obviously I used a plain (ie, not white chocolate or whatever) blondie base, and I changed the cookie recipe I used cause it was kind of spreadable, and I ended up with layers rather than blobs of dough.

The final result is gorgeous, especially fresh from the oven where the cookie-like top is thin and crispy and the blondies are slightly warm and still gooey beneath. But I can't help it. I like the blondie batter warm from the melted butter, and uncooked. When I'm maybe not feeling too hot, that, to me, is comfort.

Cookie Dough Blondies
Blondies from How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman, metricised by me.
Cookies adapted from Chocolate from Parragon books

For the blondies:
120g (1 stick) butter, melted
120g (1 cup) brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
pinch salt
140g (1 cup) plain flour

Preheat oven to 180C. Prepare an 8x8" pan.

1. Mix melted butter with brown sugar & beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla. Add salt, stir in flour. Pour into prepared pan.

For the cookie layer:
175g (6oz) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
120g (1 stick) soft butter
90g (3oz) soft light brown sugar
5 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
125g milk (about 1 cup, semisweet) chocolate chips. Add more chips if you want but I wouldn't go above 175g (another 1/2 cup) cause my first test of this recipe used more, and it all sort of combusted.

2. For the cookies, place all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat until well combined.

3. Blob rounded teaspoons of cookie dough over the blondie batter, pressing down lightly. You'll probably have a little too much cookie dough, but I like to overdo things. Also I'm not averse to eating the leftover stuff, especially when I need cheering up.

4. Bake for about 30mins until golden brown. Allow to cool before cutting and removing from pan, but they are best fresh.

Pudding In Your Pocket

There is one thing on this earth (and obviously, I am talking about food, for a change) for which I would sell my soul. Really. Maybe not really. It isn't glamorous (no Daring Baker would look twice at it); it isn't expensive (no truffle oil, for example, or saffron); and it isn't even chocolate (GASP).

It's school apple crumble.

Yeah, I know. Not regular apple crumble; not apple crumble made with love and care by my own dear mother and lavished upon me in the finest china while I recline on my velvet chaise longe, watching Doctor Who repeats in a careless manner (although this does happen all the time). Just regular, mass-produced, margarine-not-butter apple crumble, flung together by underpaid dinner ladies every second Thursday.

But god, that stuff is good.

'It's not that good,' my best friend tends to say when I lapse into incoherent lusty noises over lunch. 'It's only apple crumble.'

HA! Shows what she knows.

I know, I know. You're peering at these photos now, aren't you? Muttering to bewildered family members, 'apple crumble? That doesn't look like apple crumble' and possibly, 'is that not a plate?'. Some of you may even be poking your monitors mutinously; possibly the words, 'bar cookie' have passed your lips while you try to comprehend where I'm going with this ode to school apple crumble.

The thing is... I'm not here to give you the recipe for that apple crumble. I know. I'm sorry. I thought about it, and then I thought, 'but - how will food bloggers the world over POSSIBLY APPRECIATE the sheer genius of this pudding without a big enough build up?'. For all I know, you could go the same way as my treacherous best friend ('only apple crumble'? ONLY APPLE CRUMBLE; I ASK YOU).

No, the only solution was to raise the tension a bit. An advertising campaign, if you will. After a few weeks of me subliminally dropping apple crumble references into every post, you will be desperate to own this recipe for yourselves.

Alternatively, you will have stopped reading my blog. One of the two.

Which brings me to the recipe at hand. Now, this may be a build-up recipe, but don't go thinking that it's only a build-up recipe. This has its own kind of genius, namely: it is apple crumble THAT YOU CAN CARRY AROUND WITH YOU. Should you be strolling the streets one summer evening, and the urge for apple crumble seizes you, there is no longer any need to vault a nearby wall and break into the school kitchens! You can carry apple crumble IN YOUR POCKET.

The sheer genius of this idea makes me slightly weak at the knees.

Apple crumble bars
Original recipe (and American measurements) here

560g flour
1/2 tsp salt
270g sugar
60g brown sugar
330g butter, softened
About 5 granny smith apples, skinned and diced (I halved this and used 2, cause we only had 2, but use 3 if you halve the recipe)
1 tsp cinnamon

1. Take the butter out of the fridge to soften (do not melt) on the counter as you peel and dice up the apples into small cubes. Squirt with some lemon juice and set aside.

2. Combine the flour, salt, white sugar and brown sugar in a bowl.

3. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients. The butter should not be melted; what we’re going for here are crumbs. You can either do this with a wooden spoon, or you can use your hands to crush it all together.

4. Take 1 cup of the crumb mixture and mix it with the apples. Add the cinnamon as well and set aside.

5. Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and flour a 9×13 baking pan. Take 1/2 of your remaining crumb mixture and press it into the bottom of the pan. Bake for 10 minutes.

6. Remove the crust from the oven, pour in the apple mixture and top with last of the crumbs. Put it back in the oven for another 45 minutes. When it’s done, the top should be a beautiful golden brown. Cool by putting the pan on a wire rack so air can circulate around it. Cut into bars after they’ve completely cooled, if you can resist it. It’s a great idea to refrigerate the bars so they set a bit more.

The Right Road

Yep. It's one of my infamous health foods again.

I have really good excuses justification for this one, though! This one has actual fruit in! In a dried, sweetened sort of way. Hear me out.

So, the original recipe looked more like this. Yes, these were originally Rocky Road Bars - I'm not exactly sure what they are now. A road somewhere else, presumeably. I cut out the cocoa powder (upping the flour to make up), added white chocolate instead coughcough, changed and reduced the sugar, added dessicated coconut (which I'm certain is healthy, but can't back up with any factual knowledge or anything. Now I've left school, everyone knows I don't have knowledge anymore), and swapped all the sugar-high toppings for... sugar-high fruit toppings.

So, those are my excuses for eating these. My excuses for making them?

...I don't actually have any. Yeah, it's true; I've run out of excuses to bake. My friends are all busy revising and working and so on, and I mostly sit at home procrastinating, singing the soundtrack to Wicked: The Musical and occasionally recreating a Native American sun dance (something I came across in my US History notes. Wait til I get to Russian History; who knows what that has in store?). When your days are filled with this sort of thing, it's hard to find someone who wants to hang out with you. Can I get an 'aww'?

Anyone? Fine then.

I've been reduced to actually baking for my family, who (sorry) usually don't deserve it. Firstly there was the Daring Baker challe-- only kidding, DBers! Put your hitmen back in their drawer! I'm not going to give that away yet. But needless to say my family are pretty shocked. It's maybe because of this that these bars have been such a hit - they keep eating more to check they're really there.

Me? Er, same.

Tropical Road Bars
Makes 16

115g butter
100g caster sugar
1 large egg
70g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
120ml milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp dessicated coconut
100g white chocolate, melted

For topping:
40g dessicated coconut
80g milk chocolate chips (Okay, I didn't have a full bag for some reason)
200g dried apricots
100g dried sweetened pineapple

Preheat oven to 180C. Line an 8-inch square pan.

1. In a medium saucepan, melt butter and white chocolate, then remove from heat and stir in sugar, egg, flour, salt, milk, coconut and vanilla extract until well-blended.Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes.

2. Remove pan from oven and top with coconut, chocolate chips, apricots and pineapple, pressing them down with a spatula. Return to oven and bake for 5-7 additional minutes (I upped the temperature a bit, to toast the coconut on the top). Cool on a wire rack before slicing with a damp or lightly greased knife into 16 bars. Bars can be stored at room temperature or in the fridge.

3. My toppings kept falling everywhere as I hadn't pressed them down hard enough, so just in case I hadn't hit my sugar quota for the day I made a thin caramel syrup (10g butter, 4 tbsp sugar, a slosh of milk) to pour over the top of the bars while they were still in the pan, to hopefully glue the toppings on. This probably isn't necessary, but I just really like sugar.

Ah, sugar. My true friend. You would never forsake me for Classics revision.

Why Choosing Between Desserts Is A Thing Of The Past

On Happy Love Strawberry, 'excess' is not a word that I know the meaning of.

Well, I mean, I know the meaning of it. I'm not stupid.


What I'm trying to say is: I love brownies. I love ice cream. I had six egg yolks rocking out in the fridge (you know, I swear they started reproducing at one point? I'm not pointing any fingers, I'm just saying; one day I had three sharing a mug, the next day, there were four in there. No one else uses egg whites in my house, so the logical conclusion is that they had a baby. Anyone know anything about the reproductive cycle of an egg yolk?). It made sense to me - and I don't mean in the weird, egg-yolk-multiplication way - to make both.

At the same time. Together. In one glorious, hybrid, taste-explosion. Heeee.


My photos say this worked.

My stomach says something very similar, but in a more 'oh GOD, this is GLORIOUS, but STOP EATING, I'm GOING TO DIE' sort of way.

In reflection, I should have made this when I had someone to share it with.


I used The Only Brownie Recipe In The World That I Can Actually Make, which is a Nigel Slater recipe, and for the icecream, I used Donna Hay's recipe which I found on Spicy Icecream (deceptively, the icecream is not spicy). However, I've copied and pasted a bit to convert the measurements to metric, so I'll stick it all up here ^__^.

For the icecream:
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
From Modern Classics 2 by Donna Hay
Makes about 1 litre

240ml milk
480ml single cream
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
6 egg yolks
115g caster sugar

1. Place the milk, cream and vanilla (including the bean) in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally until the mixture is hot but not boiling. Remove from the heat and set aside to infuse for 15 minutes

2. Place the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk until thick and pale. Remove the vanilla bean from the milk mixture, and slowly pour over the egg yolk mixture. Whisk well to combine.

3. Return the mixture to the pan and stir over low heat until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Set aside to cool. A good way to do this is to fill your sink with a little cold water and a few ice cubes and place the saucepan in there.

4. Either place the custard in an ice-cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions OR place the mixture in tub, cover and freeze for 1 hour. Beat with an electric hand mixer, or, you know, a spoon, and return to the freezer. Repeat three times at hourly intervals until the ice cream is thick and smooth. In the meantime, make the brownies; they need to be cool and set by the time your ice cream has been freezing for about 3 1/2 hours or is just almost ready to be left to itself.


For the brownies:
Very Good Chocolate Brownies
Recipe by Nigel Slater. Makes 12 or 16 normal sized brownies, but we're not making normal sized brownies...

300g caster sugar
250g butter
250g chocolate
3 large eggs plus 1 extra egg yolk
60g flour
60g good quality cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

1. You will need a baking tin, about 23cm x 23cm. Set the oven at 180°C/Gas 4. Line the bottom of the baking tin with baking parchment. Put the sugar and butter into the bowl of a food mixer and beat for several minutes till white and fluffy.

2. Meanwhile, break the chocolate into pieces, set 50g of it aside and melt the rest in a bowl suspended over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water. As soon as the chocolate has melted remove it from the heat. Chop the remaining 50g into gravel-sized pieces.

3. Break the eggs into a small bowl and beat them lightly with a fork. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix in a pinch of salt. With the food mixer running slowly, introduce the beaten egg a little at a time, speeding up in between additions. Remove the bowl from the mixer to the work surface, then mix in the melted and the chopped chocolate with a large metal spoon. Lastly, fold in the flour and cocoa, gently and firmly, without knocking any of the air out.

4. Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin, smooth the top and bake for 30 minutes. The top will have risen slightly and the cake will appear slightly softer in the middle than around the edges.Pierce the centre of the cake with a fork - it should come out sticky, but not with raw mixture attached to it. It will solidify a little on cooling, too.

5. After the icecream has been in the freezer for about 3 and a half hours, and is smooth and starting to freeze, divide the tin of brownies in half (you won't need it all. Go crazy with the rest of the brownies. You can make a lot of friends that way. Alternatively, you could double the icecream quanitites and make two litres, but whatever). Rather than cut your brownies into twelve or sixteen or whatever, cut them into small, bite-sized pieces, and drop them on top of the icecream. Don't stir them in just yet, because if they're gooey they'll just marble in too much and you'll end up with muddy icecream. Cover the tub again and put in the freezer for ten minutes or so, THEN stir it in. You might need to add the brownie bites in two batches, but if you're doing it you may as well do it properly and use loads.

Then you just have to leave it to freeze up properly (I went to a party, and returned late this morning feeling rather ill. I then ate lots of brownie icecream, and felt more ill, but rather smug and cheerful at the same time).

'This icecream makes you feel smug and cheerful' is not really the height of good food writing, but I'm sure you get the idea. Over-indulgence for the win XD.

An Expression Of Affection, And A Meme

So rather than aimless rambling today, I've been tagged to do a meme by Pixie at You Say Tomahto, I Say Tomayto! Thanks Pixie, and if you've not been on her blog, do!

These are the rules: 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules. 2. Share 5 facts about yourself 3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them). 4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their Blogs.

So here are a few things about me!

1. One of my more bizarre habits is looking at my friends, or other people I love, and thinking about all the things I want to cook for them. (I.e. 'Oh, she loves cheesecake, I'll have to make this one for her...'). I admitted this over lunch at school once, and after my friends stopped laughing (so, about twenty minutes) they told me it was adorable X__X . I think I just show affection through food - there are a few recipes that I'll only make for people if I really love them, heh. See below.

2. I got an interview to do English Literature at Oxford University at the end of last year. It went okay, but I didn't get a place (there were eight places at the college I applied for, and about fifty people had interviews. God knows how many people applied). So I'm probably going to uni at Southampton in October =]

3. I adore everything about Japan (I went there with a friend last summer) and want to live there some day. Occasionally I feel achingly homesick for it, which is pretty ironic seeing as I was only in the country ten days, haha.

4. I've been planning a novel since I was about twelve and want to get it published one day. Obviously it doesn't bear much resemblance to the twelve-year-old version, but it's grown into something I'm pretty proud of. I'm still not done planning though - it's turned into a bit of an epic, heh.

5. I hate the winter (I have SAD) and was obviously not at all pleased to get up yesterday thinking, 'ah, the first of February! The worst is over!' and open the blind on my skylight to find snow outside. Hopefully it'll get lighter soon and I won't have to wait til the weekends to have natural light for photographs!

I'd like to tag Ellie at Kitchen Wench, Ovenhaven at Epicurian Escapism, R Khooks at R Khooks, Jessica at Su Good Sweets, and Jennifer at Bake Or Break. Obviously you don't have to do it unless you want to!


This recipe happens to be one of the things I often think of when pondering what I'd like to make for someone. My gran used to make these (I'm going in for my gran's recipes a lot recently, aren't I?) so I like to make these for my mum, along with a cup of tea, or when I'm feeling nostalgic. Tea is pretty much the answer to everything, in my view.


Despite the name and appearance, these are NOT Bakewell Tarts, and don't taste anything like them - SO many people, when I offer them one, say, 'no, I don't like Bakewell Tarts'. This enrages me, haha, because they really really don't know what they're missing. TRY them. Give them away if you don't like them, but you will =P. These slices are pretty much the greatest expression of love I can give.


Almond Slices
Family recipe from my Gran

Base:
225g (8oz) plain flour
170g (6oz) butter
60g (2oz) ground almonds
60g (2oz) caster sugar
2 egg yolks
Raspberry jam

Top:
115g (4oz) ground almonds
170g (6oz) caster sugar
2 egg whites

1. Mix dry ingredients for the base in a bowl, rub in butter and mix with egg yolks. Knead together into a soft dough, then place in a flat tin, pressing flat and into the corners with your fingertips (she doesn't say what size, typically, but we use a rectangular slice tin).

2. Spread the base with raspberry jam (a couple of heaped tablespoons should be enough, but depends how much jam you want). Mix the ground almonds, sugar and egg whites for the base together and spread this over the jam, being careful not to get them mixed together.

3. Bake for about 20mins at 200C until the meringue-like topping turns golden. Leave to cool a little while before cutting into slices, but they taste best eaten still slightly warm ^__^

Now you see it...

...Now you don't!

Blondies - 1. Indy - 0

I don't have a good track record with brownies, that's important to know. If they cook round the edges they don't cook in the middle, and I end up leaving them in the oven an hour longer than they say. Or else I leave them in the fridge, hoping they'll set, and end up with a pan full of goo. I've stuck them in the freezer overnight before now, and still ended up with a pan full of goo. I've tried recipe after recipe, I've changed recipe after recipe, I've blamed every cooking utensil I own, I've shut my own head in the oven in despair... but no kebab. Or even brownie.

The last time this happened, I was reduced to eating the semi-cooked brownie chocolate mixture straight out of the pan to make myself feel better.



Yes, I did eat an entire tray of brownie goo.
Yes, I was then copiously sick in the toilet and had to lie in a dark room for the rest of the afternoon.
Don't follow my example.




The point is, when I came across this recipe on Feed Me! I'm Hungry, the thought struck me that blondies could succeed where brownies failed.

Look at the blondie on that post. Then look at my blondie.

It turns out I have no more talent with white chocolate than I do with regular chocolate X__X.

I'm recommending the recipe anyway, because the ones on Feed Me! I'm Hungry look SO GOOD, and my 'blondies' did at least taste fantastic. The problem was, as always, the outside overcooking, and the inside NOT COOKING AT ALL. EVER. PERIOD. I might try it again though, perhaps splitting the mixture between two smaller pans in the hope it'll cook more evenly, or maybe covering it with foil at about the forty minute mark to prevent the outsides burning.

Anyone got any ideas why my brownies/ blondies ALWAYS ALWAYS fail? I've hit a wall. It's a gorgeous, chocolatey, fruity, nutty, gooey wall, but all the same. I've been outwitted by a tray of chocolate gunk.

This does nothing for my self-esteem. I'm consoling myself with the fact that if this all becomes too much, at least I can eat my challenger. Bite me.