Guest: Meredith Shayne Guest Post.
Joining me today is Meredith Shayne, sharing some delicious and mouth-watering recipes!
~*~*~
Thanks for having my on your blog today, LJ!
If you know anything about my newest release, Whitewater, you'll know that it's about Luke Henderson, who is a baker by trade. Luke loves baking, and as it so happens, so do I, maybe not as much as Luke but I am pretty fond of it nonetheless. I love to experiment with recipes, but I do have some tried and true recipes that everyone I know absolutely loves, so I thought I'd use this blog post to give them to you.
First up, the Guinness cake. The blog where I found it originally appears to no longer be online, but I believe this recipe originated with Nigella Lawson, and can be found here. I first made it a few years ago, and it's my most-requested baked good, so I've made a few modifications to it over time, to suit my own tastes. The modified recipe is the one I'll reproduce here.
Guiness Cake
Cake ingredients
1 cup Guinness (or other dark stout)
1 stick plus 1 Tbsp (130g) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups dark brown sugar (as dark as you can get)
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
2.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Icing ingredients
250g (80z) cream cheese
1.25 cups icing sugar
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F, and grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin.
2. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the Guinness in a large saucepan, and heat to melt the butter. Remove from heat, then whisk in the cocoa and the sugar.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the sour cream, eggs and vanilla together, then add to the beer and cocoa mixture. Gradually add the sifted flour and baking soda, folding it into the batter before adding more, until it's all incorporated.
4. Pour into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean.
5. Cool cake completely in the tin. Be careful when you're getting it out, it comes apart easily.
6. Once the cake cools, beat the cream cheese until it softens, then gradually beat the icing sugar into it. Ice the cake, then make yourself sick eating the leftovers. :)
Things to note:
1. If you have a fan-forced oven, reduce the temperature of baking accordingly (for a celcius oven that's 20C - so 180C becomes 160C - but I'm not sure what it is for a Farenheit oven. I'm sure the internet will tell you).
2. The batter is quite runny, and the cake is incredibly moist, so it may actually be fairly difficult to get a clean skewer even when it is cooked. Do what all bakers do and poke it with your finger - if it springs back, then it's done. All ovens vary, but I would not cook it for more than an hour and a half. And after an hour, I would cover it with foil so it doesn't burn.
3. If you would prefer to make cupcakes, divide the batter into a 12-muffin pan and bake for ~25 minutes. If you want a runnier icing, add milk to the cream cheese/sugar mixture a tablespoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency.
4. You could ice this cake using a chocolate icing, but I've found that the cream cheese icing is the best, because it cuts the richness of the cake nicely. With a cake this rich, chocolate on chocolate is a bit of an overload.
~
Now for a cake made for warmer weather, the lemon yoghurt cake. The first time I made this cake it disappeared within half an hour because people couldn't keep away from it. This cake is incredibly easy. It uses oil instead of butter so there's no waiting for the butter to soften or need to cream the butter and sugar, and the yoghurt makes the cake very moist. Like the recipe above, it's almost a one-bowl recipe too, which I also love. This recipe comes from Alison Holst's Best Baking, which is hands down the most useful baking book I own.
Lemon Yoghurt Cake
Cake ingredients
1.75 cups sugar
Zest of two lemons
2 large eggs
1 cup canola or sunflower oil
0.5 tsp salt
1 cup yoghurt (natural or vanilla)
3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 cups self-raising flour
Directions
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F, and grease and line a 20cm cake tin.
2. In a large bowl or the bowl of a food processor, mix the lemon zest and sugar together. Add eggs, oil and salt, and whisk or process until smooth.
3. Add the yoghurt and lemon juice and whisk/process to mix.
4. Add the flour and mix/process until just combined.
5. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 mins or until the sides of the cake start to shrink away from the sides of the tin and the centre springs back when touched. When a skewer comes out clean, it's done.
6. Cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then tip out onto a wire rack. When the cake is cooled, decorate with a dusting of icing sugar.
Things to note:
1. I have found that the cooking time for this cake can vary wildly, so don't get to hung up on the time. Start to watch it after about 40 minutes, but don't stop cooking it until the middle springs back when you poke it and the skewer comes out clean. If it starts to get too brown on top before it's cooked, cover it with foil so it doesn't burn.
2. This cake is probably nicest with lemon, but you could try it with other citrus fruits as well if you wanted. I never have, but I imagine it makes a lovely lime cake too.
~
For my final recipe, the easiest biscuits (read: cookies) in the world. Gluten free as well! These are a slightly modified version of these.
Peanut butter cookies
Ingredients
1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
1 cup sugar (preferably brown sugar, it tastes better)
1 egg
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F.
2. Mix peanut butter, sugar and egg together.
3. With wet hands, roll tablespoon-sized pieces of dough into balls and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Press down to flatten slightly.
4. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until they are golden, look like biscuits and have lost their shine. If you look at the bottoms and they're still shiny in the centre, they are not done.
Things to note:
1. Go with your preference as to the type of peanut butter you use. If you like crunchy, use crunchy. If you like smooth, use smooth. But always use brown sugar. It really does taste better.
2. If you fancy adding some chocolate to these, throw in half a cup of chocolate chips as well. It'll take them up a notch.
3. They burn easily. Keep an eye on them.
~
All right, I think I've given you all some things with which to ruin any diet plans you might have, so my job here is done. :) Please feel free to share some of your own tried and true recipes in the comments, because I'm always looking for new things to try. If you fancy reading about Luke's baking adventures (as well as his romantic adventures, let's not forget those), Whitewater is available now from Dreamspinner Press at the link above.
~~~
Whitewater:
Blurb: Baker Luke Henderson loves his job, and owning a bakery at Coogee Beach makes it even better. When he opens the shop before dawn, he hears the waves. When he walks along the beach after sunrise, he admires the surfers-one in particular: Cameron Brown. A chef and café owner, Cameron secretly watches Luke right back. When Luke proposes a business deal, Cameron seizes the chance to get close. But Cameron’s ideal man is physically perfect, and Luke’s awkward limp could be the flaw that fractures their romance.
Buy: here or part of the "Under the Southern Cross" paperback, here.
A scientist in a past life, these days Meredith Shayne mainly uses her scientific training to poke holes in television pseudoscience. Originally from Australia, she moved to New Zealand to start a new life a few years ago and hasn’t regretted it for one minute, even if she frequently wishes that the New Zealand weather was a little better; if she’s forced, she’ll admit that the refreshing lack of animals that can kill you in New Zealand makes up for a little rain. Meredith travels a lot, so much so that she has developed a shameful love of airplane food and knows her passport number off by heart. When she is at home she enjoys baking, horrible music from the 1980s, reality television, and gloating any time Australia thrashes the living daylights out of New Zealand on the sporting field.
You can find Meredith on the web at the following places:
Blog/website: http://meredithshayne.com/
Livejournal: http://meredith-shayne.livejournal.com/
Dreamwidth: http://meredith-shayne.dreamwidth.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/meredithshayne
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meredith.shayne
Email: meredith.shayne[at]gmail.com
~*~*~
Thanks for having my on your blog today, LJ!
If you know anything about my newest release, Whitewater, you'll know that it's about Luke Henderson, who is a baker by trade. Luke loves baking, and as it so happens, so do I, maybe not as much as Luke but I am pretty fond of it nonetheless. I love to experiment with recipes, but I do have some tried and true recipes that everyone I know absolutely loves, so I thought I'd use this blog post to give them to you.
First up, the Guinness cake. The blog where I found it originally appears to no longer be online, but I believe this recipe originated with Nigella Lawson, and can be found here. I first made it a few years ago, and it's my most-requested baked good, so I've made a few modifications to it over time, to suit my own tastes. The modified recipe is the one I'll reproduce here.
Guiness Cake
Cake ingredients
1 cup Guinness (or other dark stout)
1 stick plus 1 Tbsp (130g) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups dark brown sugar (as dark as you can get)
3/4 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour
2.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Icing ingredients
250g (80z) cream cheese
1.25 cups icing sugar
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F, and grease and line a 23cm springform cake tin.
2. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the Guinness in a large saucepan, and heat to melt the butter. Remove from heat, then whisk in the cocoa and the sugar.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the sour cream, eggs and vanilla together, then add to the beer and cocoa mixture. Gradually add the sifted flour and baking soda, folding it into the batter before adding more, until it's all incorporated.
4. Pour into the cake tin and bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean.
5. Cool cake completely in the tin. Be careful when you're getting it out, it comes apart easily.
6. Once the cake cools, beat the cream cheese until it softens, then gradually beat the icing sugar into it. Ice the cake, then make yourself sick eating the leftovers. :)
Things to note:
1. If you have a fan-forced oven, reduce the temperature of baking accordingly (for a celcius oven that's 20C - so 180C becomes 160C - but I'm not sure what it is for a Farenheit oven. I'm sure the internet will tell you).
2. The batter is quite runny, and the cake is incredibly moist, so it may actually be fairly difficult to get a clean skewer even when it is cooked. Do what all bakers do and poke it with your finger - if it springs back, then it's done. All ovens vary, but I would not cook it for more than an hour and a half. And after an hour, I would cover it with foil so it doesn't burn.
3. If you would prefer to make cupcakes, divide the batter into a 12-muffin pan and bake for ~25 minutes. If you want a runnier icing, add milk to the cream cheese/sugar mixture a tablespoon at a time until you reach the desired consistency.
4. You could ice this cake using a chocolate icing, but I've found that the cream cheese icing is the best, because it cuts the richness of the cake nicely. With a cake this rich, chocolate on chocolate is a bit of an overload.
~
Now for a cake made for warmer weather, the lemon yoghurt cake. The first time I made this cake it disappeared within half an hour because people couldn't keep away from it. This cake is incredibly easy. It uses oil instead of butter so there's no waiting for the butter to soften or need to cream the butter and sugar, and the yoghurt makes the cake very moist. Like the recipe above, it's almost a one-bowl recipe too, which I also love. This recipe comes from Alison Holst's Best Baking, which is hands down the most useful baking book I own.
Lemon Yoghurt Cake
Cake ingredients
1.75 cups sugar
Zest of two lemons
2 large eggs
1 cup canola or sunflower oil
0.5 tsp salt
1 cup yoghurt (natural or vanilla)
3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 cups self-raising flour
Directions
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F, and grease and line a 20cm cake tin.
2. In a large bowl or the bowl of a food processor, mix the lemon zest and sugar together. Add eggs, oil and salt, and whisk or process until smooth.
3. Add the yoghurt and lemon juice and whisk/process to mix.
4. Add the flour and mix/process until just combined.
5. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 mins or until the sides of the cake start to shrink away from the sides of the tin and the centre springs back when touched. When a skewer comes out clean, it's done.
6. Cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then tip out onto a wire rack. When the cake is cooled, decorate with a dusting of icing sugar.
Things to note:
1. I have found that the cooking time for this cake can vary wildly, so don't get to hung up on the time. Start to watch it after about 40 minutes, but don't stop cooking it until the middle springs back when you poke it and the skewer comes out clean. If it starts to get too brown on top before it's cooked, cover it with foil so it doesn't burn.
2. This cake is probably nicest with lemon, but you could try it with other citrus fruits as well if you wanted. I never have, but I imagine it makes a lovely lime cake too.
~
For my final recipe, the easiest biscuits (read: cookies) in the world. Gluten free as well! These are a slightly modified version of these.
Peanut butter cookies
Ingredients
1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
1 cup sugar (preferably brown sugar, it tastes better)
1 egg
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F.
2. Mix peanut butter, sugar and egg together.
3. With wet hands, roll tablespoon-sized pieces of dough into balls and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Press down to flatten slightly.
4. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until they are golden, look like biscuits and have lost their shine. If you look at the bottoms and they're still shiny in the centre, they are not done.
Things to note:
1. Go with your preference as to the type of peanut butter you use. If you like crunchy, use crunchy. If you like smooth, use smooth. But always use brown sugar. It really does taste better.
2. If you fancy adding some chocolate to these, throw in half a cup of chocolate chips as well. It'll take them up a notch.
3. They burn easily. Keep an eye on them.
~
All right, I think I've given you all some things with which to ruin any diet plans you might have, so my job here is done. :) Please feel free to share some of your own tried and true recipes in the comments, because I'm always looking for new things to try. If you fancy reading about Luke's baking adventures (as well as his romantic adventures, let's not forget those), Whitewater is available now from Dreamspinner Press at the link above.
~~~
Whitewater:
Blurb: Baker Luke Henderson loves his job, and owning a bakery at Coogee Beach makes it even better. When he opens the shop before dawn, he hears the waves. When he walks along the beach after sunrise, he admires the surfers-one in particular: Cameron Brown. A chef and café owner, Cameron secretly watches Luke right back. When Luke proposes a business deal, Cameron seizes the chance to get close. But Cameron’s ideal man is physically perfect, and Luke’s awkward limp could be the flaw that fractures their romance.
Buy: here or part of the "Under the Southern Cross" paperback, here.
A scientist in a past life, these days Meredith Shayne mainly uses her scientific training to poke holes in television pseudoscience. Originally from Australia, she moved to New Zealand to start a new life a few years ago and hasn’t regretted it for one minute, even if she frequently wishes that the New Zealand weather was a little better; if she’s forced, she’ll admit that the refreshing lack of animals that can kill you in New Zealand makes up for a little rain. Meredith travels a lot, so much so that she has developed a shameful love of airplane food and knows her passport number off by heart. When she is at home she enjoys baking, horrible music from the 1980s, reality television, and gloating any time Australia thrashes the living daylights out of New Zealand on the sporting field.
You can find Meredith on the web at the following places:
Blog/website: http://meredithshayne.com/
Livejournal: http://meredith-shayne.livejournal.com/
Dreamwidth: http://meredith-shayne.dreamwidth.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/meredithshayne
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meredith.shayne
Email: meredith.shayne[at]gmail.com