Too many eggs = Fritatta or Brownie?

Ah, it's that time again - too many eggs in the fridge.  While I'd love to make a fritatta for the whole family to eat, I'm kidding myself if I think the kids will eat enough to make it worth my while.  So Brownies it is.  I'm going to try the Hummingbird Frosted Brownies again, because they need 5 eggs.  The last time, you may recall, they were absolutely divine to eat but not solid enough in the middle.  So this time, I baked them for a few moments longer, then another 5 minutes longer than that at 10c lower a temperature in the oven.  I didn't want to frost this time, as it's for us and we really don't need the extra calories. And instead of finely chopping 30g of dark chocolate within, this time I sprinkled 50g of dark chocolate chips across the top. You can sort of see them below, as little dimples.   Et voila!

Ok, ok, I admit that I'm not a great food stylist, and I'm happy to accept all constructive criticism you pass my way - but I bake a darn tasty Brownie, yum yum! 

Hummingbird Bakery frosted brownies

We had a surfeit of eggs, so after giving The Team sunny-side-up eggs for dinner, I was looking through the book for recipes requiring many eggs and recalled that in most cases, brownies need eggs.  The Traditional variety only needed 3, so I turned the page and learnt that the Frosted variety required 5 - score!

It was rather easy to make up the mix, and we added white chocolate chunks rather than dark (Mr Becca likes his desserts sweet, and finds dark chocolate too bitter) and crushed hazelnuts because we didn't have walnuts.  A mere 30-odd minutes later and we had a sizzling and wobbly tray of brownies. 

As yet, they are unfrosted but Mr Becca has tried some and declared them not sweet enough (what?!) so I shall frost them soon.

Mini-Becca 2 helped make frosting by helping weigh the icing sugar and cocoa and by sifting it.  Then by 'washing up' while I used our beloved Kenwood Mixer to do the business to the ingredients.  And the result - OMG, it is even more delicious than before!

Hummingbird Lemon Drizzle Loaf

We had a classmate of Mini-Becca 1's due after school to play, Demi, and I had finished my housework early (woop, woop) so I had a flick through the book to see what, if anything, I could whip up in the time I had available.  Lemon Drizzle Loaf cake fit the bill, so to bake.

Similar to the cupcake recipe from another cookbook I'm lucky enough to own, you had to make a dry and wet mix then add them into the mixer one third at a time.  It's a bit of a pfaff, but seems to do the trick, so I just follow instructions and do as I'm told, ha ha.  Then it was into the oven for up to 1hr 15minutes, which was all the time I had left. 

Just before the timer was due to go off (at 1hr 10mins, because my oven usually needs a bit less than any stated time) I started on the drizzle sauce.  This time, it worked a treat, and they gave the very sensible idea of placing the cake on the wire cooling rack over your sink, so the drizzle mix would run straight off the cake into the sink - inspired!  Then it was time to go get the girls from school and nursery, so I ran off and left the cake in the sink. 

As soon as we returned home, the girls asked 'What have you made, Mummy?  Something smells delicious' then went looking for it.  How funny, they never noticed it because it wasn't on the stove...  Suffice it to say that the cake got the thumbs up from the Team (although I feel it could do with a bit longer in the oven next time), and Demi and her mum - yay!!  They even took some home for later, and all that's left of the cake is this...

Hummingbird Peanut Butter Cookies

We had some time to spare today, so took a group decision to bake something for our friends visiting tomorrow.  Mini 1 wanted to do nothing, because she believes we share too much and there's never enough for her to have thirds and fourths.  Mini 2 suggested 'muffins, because we haven't done them in ages' but I pointed out that we hadn't done biscuits in ages either, and so took an Executive Decision.  Biscuits it was.

Off to find the recipe that one of our Facebook fans mentioned, from the first Hummingbird book.  It seemed quick and easy, which is always a bonus with young children (for those of you without some of your own, they have a short attention span).  We weighed out and mixed up the ingredients and put in a bit extra of chocolate chips (our pack had 100g and the recipe only required 75g, but I felt that the kids really didn't need to eat a full 25g of chocolate, hence the addition to the mix).  The recipe stated it would make 24, but I didn't want the cookies to be too large.  As it turned out, they were a good size and we got 60!!!

So enough for all the children, plus plenty extra for the Mum's to enjoy with a mug of coffee...

or a cup of tea, ha ha

Hummingbird Bakery red velvet cupcakes

We were supposed to play at Felix's house this morning, but his mum got in touch to say she was feeling quite under the weather and could we please take a raincheck.  Of course, we said, then wondered what to do instead.  It was raining outside, and we'd eaten all of the brownies we'd made on Tuesday so thought, what the heck, let's bake!  Immediately the girls said, 'let's choose an apron' (yes, we have 4 child-sized and 2 adult-sized from which to choose) and I reminded them that handwashing was a necessity too.  Jobs done, it was on to the chair to watch the Kenwood Premier Chef at work.  Amidst much shoving and wriggling, we got the 2 mixes done and combined and added in all the other ingredients.  Unfortunately though, the girls got bored with all the fiddly bits necessary and wandered off (after removing their aprons and washing their hands again).  Not surprisingly, they returned as I had just finished doling out the mix into the cupcakes cases.  I have been led to believe that a sous-chef has an area of expertise, whereas a commis chef is more of a general helper.  My two are becoming experts at bowl and utensil licking...

They both get a look-in to start with

 The elder moves aside to let the younger swirl her spatula for more

Then steps up again to swirl her spoon about to catch the last bits

Here's what came out of the oven after 18 minutes (I did them in cupcake rather than muffin cases, because they were just for us so didn't need to be big). 

Then they were iced once cool.  This was the first time I'd tried the Hummingbird's cream cheese icing recipe, and it didn't work for me.  There didn't seem to be enough butter into which all the icing sugar could dissolve.  So instead of waiting until it worked, I added in the cream cheese and kept my fingers crossed.  That did go into the correct texture after a moment or two - phew!  My sous-chefs had fully retired by this stage, but came back in the kitchen at the end, to marvel over the finished product, and when more bowl-licking was required, ha ha



Great photo from aspire2be

Thanks to my friend Jill at aspire2be...creative photography, I have a wonderful and far superior photo of yesterday's Hummingbird Traditional Brownies.  Which is lucky, really, as there are no more left!  Yep, that's right.  The taste testers thought they were so tasty, that every last bite got tasted.  And the result - lovely.  So chuffed, thanks guys.
Now, the only problem is that these were meant to be for our playdate with Liz on Friday.  So I guess we'll just have to make more, this time with the addition of mini Smarties (great idea from our photographer, Jill).  Watch this space, and that biscuit tin!

Hummingbird Bakery traditional brownies

Finally we had a chance to bake something new and delicious just for us - I chose the Hummingbird Bakery's Traditional Brownies from their first book.  Truthfully I was going to do Nigella Lawson's Everyday Brownies, because that's the one that has worked consistently before but then my friend mentioned on Facebook that she couldn't stop making these ones, so here we are.  I do want to try out most recipes in the book, so what better way to dip in than by recommendation. 

I started just after serving the girls their dinner, and they were keen to eat quickly so they could help stir the ingredients (after much bubbles and handwashing, of course).  My oven seems to need a little less time than is usually suggested, so after 32 minutes I took them out.  The tray didn't wobble so I was worried I'd overdone them, and left them to cool in the tray.  As the girls were getting their bedtime stories, the house smelled chocolicious - yum!

At first, I didn't even decorate them with icing sugar, so sure was I that they were overdone.  I cut straight into the middle to test them - and boy, were they good!  Really squidgy, just about perfect.  Needless to say, I dusted them with icing sugar and cut them into bite-size pieces.  I've been quite restrained and managed to eat just one, so far...

Her favourite colour is pink

Our plan today was to try the Blueberry Cake from the first cookbook by the Hummingbird Bakery.  We had all the necessary ingredients, took them out from the fridge so they could get up to room temperature and away we went.  It needed 6 eggs, so we each added two (I did all the cracking, don't quite trust the girls with that job yet) and so on.  Daddy came in partway, to eat some chocolate wafers for a snack, and the girls lost interest in the cake at that point - ha, ha.  But they got interested again once I'd poured the mix in the tin and they got to lick the mixing bowl.  And when they saw this disaster...

Regrettably, things didn't improve much after nearly an hour.   The skewer came out clean, so I naturally assumed it was done.  It wasn't.  And worse still, we had wanted to take it with us on our visit to the great-gran and use it tomorrow for a friend's 5th birthday morning tea.

Still, I soldiered on and tried the Hummingbird's vanilla cupcake recipe but coloured the sponge pink.  Then topped it with some blue icing done not using a nozzle and made their own vanilla icing but in half quantity and coloured it apricot, and did use a nozzle.  Et voila, bonne anniversaire Monica (and no, she's not French, rather half Spanish).  So that should really say, feliz compleanos Monica!

Hummingbird Black bottom cupcakes

I wanted to try another recipe from the first Hummingbird book and chose the Black bottomed cupcakes, coz I'd been so impressed by the one I'd had from the Bakery on my super-brief visit to London back in May. 

Mini-Becca #2 and I had some spare time this morning after chores and before lunch, so got our aprons on and started weighing out the flour and mixing it with cocoa etc.  She helped me whisk together the wet ingredients and add them to the dry - that made a very solid sticky mixture, most unlike any other recent recipe we've done.  Nonetheless, having double-checked the recipe in case I'd made a mistake (I hadn't) we soldiered on.  She licked the beater arms and I spooned the mix into 15 midi cupcake cases.  We then quickly washed some items and made the cheesecake section of the cupcake mix.  It, on the other hand, was very very runny.  Again, following the recipe I added about a tablespoon to each cupcake and put them in the oven.  Upon removal 20 minutes later, they looked like this...

Which isn't a bad way to look, but not much like the picture in the cookbook.  The consistencies of my component mixes caused this look, but I'm not sure what caused the consistency issues.  No big deal, they tasted good anyway.  Not as chocolatey as I remembered, and when I queried this on the Bakery's Facebook page they suggested that I didn't use the same ingredients, so it wouldn't taste the same.  Fair comment, really.  Me and Mini-B declared them yummy anyway!

Hummingbird Lemon Poppyseed cake

For my birthday I got a voucher for Amazon, and chose for myself (ostensibly from the Team) 2 cookbooks - the first book produced by the Hummingbird Bakery and the other from one of the ladies who featured on the Channel 4 tv series Cook Yourself Thin Harry Eastwood's Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache. 

Having flicked through the former, I was really keen to try out the Black Bottomed cupcake recipe, coz it'd been so good when I'd tried it on my mini-break to London in May.  Also, the Lemon Poppyseed cake looked good.  And I just happen to have found a lovely metal ring cake tin at TK Maxx, which is supremely helpful for this cake, as it's made in - you guessed it - a ring tin.

It was easy enough, and rose beautifully in the greased and floured tin. I was worried that a) it wouldn't rise much as the only other cake I've tried in a ring tin didn't and b) I'd struggle to remove it from the tin.  Luckily, both fears were unfounded.  However, the recipe did state you were to make a drizzle syrup and pour it on to the sponge fresh-out-of-the-oven then tip it onto a wire rack to cool completely before icing.  Logically, I didn't see how that could work, as evidenced by the following photo...

Nevermind, it cooled soon enough anyway.  But because it was on a small plate, the icing overflowed.  And I was slightly heavy-handed with the decorative poppyseed at first...

But it sliced up beautifully and tasted great - soft, light sponge, sticky lemon glaze and sweet lemon icing.  Mmmm, but you do need a tooth pick handy afterwards, ha ha

We live in London baby!

Well, technically we haven't lived in London for about 15 years now, but I do so love a bit of Roy Ayers.  I went down alone (I tell you, I felt naked without the rest of Team Becca by my side) very early on Saturday  morning, to visit an old friend from NYC who was in London for a few days, for about 24 hours (returning to central Scotland by the afternoon on Sunday).  While there, we stopped by the Primrose Bakery .  I bought a Peanut Butter cupcake, which was really tasty.  Plenty of peanut taste and actual Reese's peanut butter drops as the decoration, so cute!  Here's a cheesy photo of me outside said bakery, though not actually eating the cupcake.

After visiting Tavistock St, Covent Garden and the afore-mentioned bakery, it was a short walk to Wardour St in Soho and the Hummingbird Bakery .  Again, here's a cheesy pic of me outside this bakery and from these guys I chose a Black Bottomed and a Saturday-special Mango cupcake.  Both were really really good, moist flavoursome sponge and smooth tasty icing.  I don't actually have the Hummingbird cook book (either of them), but have downloaded some recipes off t'internet.  And have now downloaded this Black Bottomed one, as it was sooooo chocolately.  Shall attempt it soon myself, and will, of course, let you know how I got on.