Peanut and Pretzel Blondies!

Hello everyone! What a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon to be sitting here writing this post, which funnily enough ties in with the theme of sunshine. Tonight’s recipe is one in which I had only discovered two nights ago whilst scrolling through copies amounts of recipes online. This one in particular comes from an issue of bon appetite magazine, and is truly scrumptious. I tell you now the result you get from the Blondie part is just unbelievable, the chew is just perfect. I wouldn’t mind chucking in a handful of chocolate chips and dusting of cocoa to turn them into brownies, the British counterpart.

The peanut and pretzel combination take there form in a soft almost soft set caramel, enriched with butter, cream and honey. The honey sort of adds a soft grainy texture to the caramel, which I just love. These are also best served at room temperature. As with the pretzel part, I could only find the stick like pretzels, not the wound up German kind that the recipe specifies, but we don’t all have time in this life to find exactly what we need, so just settle for whatever you can find, as long as they are salted. The peanuts required here must be unsalted.

INGREDIENTS:

Sorry folks I will have to give you the ingredients in cups and spoons measure.

For the Blondie:

1 1/2 cups plain flour.

2 tsp baking powder.

1 tsp table/kosher salt.

3/4 cup unsalted butter.

2 cups light brown sugar.

2 eggs.

1 tsp vanilla extract (optional).

For the peanut-pretzel caramel:

4 cups unsalted peanuts.

2 cups caster sugar.

1/4 cup runny honey.

1/4 cup unsalted butter.

1/2 cup double/heavy cream.

1 1/2 cups salted twisted or crumbled pretzels.

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 180C / Gas Mark 4. Line a rectangular brownie pan with baking paper and leave a 1 inch overhang for easy removal later.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt In a medium bowl; set aside.

Stir the butter in a medium saucepan for 7-8 minutes until it turns a light golden nutty colour and the milk solids float on the surface. Transfer to a medium bowl.

Stir in the brown sugar, until you form a mixture that resembles wet sand. Add the eggs and optional vanilla; beat until fluffy and well combined. Beat in the dry ingredients and using a spatula spread the mix evenly in the tin. The mix will be very stiff.

Bake the Blondie for 20-25 minutes or until it is golden brown, edges are pulling away from the sides of the pan a few crumbs stick to the cake tester. You want these to be fudgy and gooey not as dry as a biscuit.

Transfer to a wire rack and leave the pan to cool completely. They will sink and will quite a bit, do not panic.

Preheat the oven to the above temperature again and line a baking sheet with baking paper and spread over the peanuts. Bake evenly by tossing every few minutes for about 5-7. When fragrant, set aside.

Stir the sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a large saucepan, over a medium-low heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and boil without stirring, swirling is permitted. Boil until it is a deep amber colour, about 12-15 minutes. Add the honey and stir quickly to incorporate. Add the butter and stir for a minute until blended. Then add the cream and stir standing back as you don’t want a 100+ Celsius facial.

Stir in the peanuts and pretzels. Pour over the cooled Blondie and leave for 5 minutes to cool, before placing in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Run a knife round the sides of the pan to release. Cut in to bars and eat!

Enjoy,

Ryan! Comments are welcome 🙂

 

 

Starbucks Pumkin Spice Latte Are Back!!!

You need to make this your mission today to get one of these they are just fantastic!!

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Zebra Cake

Hello folks, I’m back, yes I know its been a while and it’ll probably be like this for a while, but my plan to keep this up is to do a post as soon as the daily homework ordeal is over and I can just get the kettle on and settle down to some writing. I must admit I do miss sitting in front of the laptop, with tea in the left hand and cake in the other. Oh and I can’t forget the music flowing through my ears, that’s really what depicts what I write.

So these past few days have been spent on Amazon, trying to source the little bits and bobs required for when Christmas arrives. I know you must all be sitting there going ‘why on earth is he sitting there typing about Christmas, when I haven’t even bought birthday presents yet’, there is logic in my response. I am not one of those people who leave everything to the very last minute, infact it’s like a have an inner compulsion to complete tasks well before they are needed. Basically I like to stock up my cupboards with all the little things, such as preserving jars, ribbons, cards, wrapping paper, cellophane bags (we will come onto these In a later post) and spices. The truth is, all year long these items stay at next to nothing prices, and so when Christmas comes around Amazon shoot the prices up to gain more profit. If you buy it all now or in the next few coming weeks then you are likely to save yourself a fortune in the long run. After all, by the end of the festive period, wallets are bone dry, in need of fresh money to repay for all the over expenses spent at that time of year, but hey its Christmas and its all about having fun and letting down your frontal guard, giving into temptation.

Tonight’s post is all about letting your hair down and having a little fun in the kitchen. This recipe is courtesy of Lorraine Pascale and her wonderful book, fast, fresh and easy. I love the fun in making this cake and it’s simply beautiful to look at when sliced. It never fails to please me when people always comment saying ‘wow, you made that? No surely not’. Its a real comfort to know that baking is not a complicated science at all. You just need to ensure you have a cup of tea at the ready, a good set of digital scales and some simple logic. I love the amber concentric circles interlaced with dark brown circles in this cake. It bakes a real treat and requires no faff.

The great thing is that it doesn’t require you to be able to handle using a piping bag, after all when the daily stresses are kicking in, the last thing you want to be handling is a piping bag. You simply divide the mixture in half, make one lemon and one chocolate orange, take spoonful’s and blob on top of each other, simples.

INGREDIENTS:

250ml vegetable/sunflower oil.

250g caster sugar.

100ml semi-skimmed milk.

4 medium eggs.

a few drops lemon oil.

300g self-raising flour.

1 tsp baking powder.

25g cocoa powder.

1 orange.

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 180c/gas 4. Grease the bottom of a sandwich tin with a little oil. Line with paper and oil the paper lightly. Set aside.

Put the oil, sugar, milk, eggs, and lemon in to a large bowl and combine. No need to whisk vigorous amounts of air in here.

Pour of 400ml of this mixture into a medium bowl. Sift in 175g of the flour into this bowl along with 1/2 tsp of the baking powder. Mix well and leave aside. This is your lemon mix.

Sift the reaming 125g and the other 1/2 tsp baking powder into the remaining oil mixture along with the 25g of cocoa powder, and the zest of the orange. Combine well and set aside, this is your chocolate mix.

Now, put a tablespoon of the lemon mix in the middle of the sandwich tin. Then using a clean tablespoon add a blob of chocolate to the mix, on top of the vanilla. Keep alternating the to mixes until the spread out to the edges of the pan and you can clearly see the bulls eye target look.

Bake in the oven for 35 minutes.

Check the cakes are ready by piercing the centre with a skewer, if it comes out clean cakes are ready. If not then pop back in for another 5 minutes.

Take the cake out of the oven and place the tin onto a wire rack. Leave to coo for 5 minutes then turn out on the wire rack and leave to cool completely.

Cut into wedges and serve with a cup of tea, i.e when blogging hehe!

Enjoy, thanks for reading,

Ryan! 🙂

 

Sea Salted Caramels

Hello everyone I’m so truly sorry for not posting in over a week and a half. Its those gold standard of Scottish education Highers that are killing me within. I have this post for you this evening, and apologies for the rather terrible layout of the posts I just bought my new laptop yesterday. The Microsoft surface pro 3, so far its excellent and superbly fast. This post features a recipe I received from a friend of mine who blogs in France. These salted caramels are among the best I have ever tried, extremely chewy and smooth on the palette. I have a real true love for the salty/sweet combo, whether it be sweet and salty peanuts dusted with chilli or salted caramel in general.

I like to imagine at some point in my life I will be sitting in a Brittany café sipping elderflower presse and eating Brittany sea salted caramels. Of course this is all just an ideology but bring a tray of these out on a cool September evening after dinner and absorb the last of the rays of amber sunlight chewing on smooth buttery, creamy candies.

INGREDIENTS:

175g golden syrup

100ml water

600g caster sugar

225g unsalted butter

450ml whipping cream

Fleur de Sel For sprinkling

METHOD:

Put the water, sugar and golden syrup into a saucepan (large) and I mean large. It will bubble over if the pan is to small.

Bring to a boil over a high heat. When the boil is achieved add the butter and cream and stand back. (avoid a facial at 121°C at all costs).

Let it come to the boil again and then reduce the heat to a medium low and stick in a sugar thermometer and let the caramel reach 121°c. Do not be under this or over you want it exact.

Whilst the caramel is reaching this temperature, oil and line a brownie pan.

When the caramel reaches the required temperature pour straight into the tin.

Leave to set for 1 minute, then sprinkle on some Maldon sea salt or fleur de sel.

Now leave to set fully out of the fridge overnight or you may be able to eat then 4-5 hours later.

Thanks for reading,

Ryan!