Macawrongs

I am back from my much-needed trip to Melbourne and I have returned $150 poorer and 2kg heavier. But that is what holidays are about - shopping and eating yourself silly and Melbourne is the place to do just that. Aside from spending on clothes and stopping at every cupcake shop I saw in the city, I made a batch of macarons for the very first time.

Result? They were kinda fail. Despite reading articles about it, my first attempt at macaron-making wasn't very successful.

Regardless, it tasted fantastic. My friend (hi Janne!) from Melbourne and I made two types of filling: salty peanut butter and salted caramel.

French Macarons

(Recipe adapted from Wives with Knives)

Ingredients:

• 225 grams powdered sugar
• 125 grams almond flour 
• 110 grams egg whites (3-4) left at room temperature for 1-2 days before using
• 30 grams superfine granulated sugar
• food colouring (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees C.
2. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. Using a digital scale, measure the powdered sugar and almond flour.  Sift the powdered sugar and almond meal with a medium sieve to remove any large or coarse bits.  
4. Measure the egg whites with the digital scale and place in the bowl of an electric mixer with the whip attachment.  Beat the egg whites and a pinch of salt on medium high speed until they form soft peaks.  Gradually, in small additions, add the granulated sugar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form.  I beat the mixture about 3-4 minutes.  When the egg whites are glossy, add food colouring and combine well.
5. Add about 1/3 of the almond/powdered sugar mixture to the egg whites and gently fold in.  Add another third and fold, and finally add the last third.  Keep folding until the mixture is well combined and falls in a slow ribbon from the spatula. Don't overmix.
6. Using a pastry bag with a large round tip, pipe the mixture onto a lined cookie sheet into approximately 1-1/2 inch disks.  
7. After piping, tap the baking sheet on the counter to release any air bubbles, then allow the macarons to set at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours before baking.  You should be able to touch the top and not have it stick to your finger.
8. Bake at 150 degrees C for 12 - 16 minutes. Slide the macarons with the parchment off of the cookie sheet and allow to cool on the counter.  

Salty Peanut Butter Filling

(Recipe adapted from Cannelle et Vanille)

Ingredients:

• 125 grams creamy peanut butter
• 70 grams powdered sugar
• 25 grams softened butter
• 25 grams heavy cream
• 5 grams vanilla extract
• 3 grams fine sea salt

Method:

1. Cream all ingredients together for a smooth filling.

Salted Caramel Filling

(Recipe adapted from Syrup and Tang)

Ingredients:

• 50 g sugar
• 23 g cream
• 35 g butter, cold, in cubes

Method:

1. Place one third of the sugar in a small saucepan and heat very gently. After some time it will suddenly start to melt and go brown.
2. As soon as the sugar is liquid, add another third of the dry sugar and melt, stirring gently.
3. Repeat with the remaining sugar.
4. When the liquid sugar has reached a rich caramel colour (perhaps very soon after melting), add the cream in a thin stream. The caramel will bubble vigorously, so be careful.
5. Stir and measure the temperature promptly. When the caramel reaches 108-110 C (this can happen very quickly!), remove from the heat and immediately add the butter.
6. Stir well (or use a handmixer) until the caramel is smooth and has cooled somewhat.
7. Refrigerate the caramel. It will firm up after an hour or two.

Macarons

Foodgawker finds

Photo summary of today's listings that caught my eye on Foodgawker. Clicking on the images direct you to the blog with recipes.

Junk inside your trunk

This week's recipes are high in fat, sugar and all things bad for your body but heavenly for your taste buds.

Some days I feel like exercising restraint on my diet by feeding it with healthy foods, other times I feel like abusing it with cookies, cakes and chips.

Today feels like the latter.

Nat and I had a Gossip Girl marathon and proceeded to consume chocolates, popcorn, chocolate caramel biscuits, Tim Tams, carrot cake, chocolate fudge Pop Tarts and chips. In addition to this, I've had white chocolate Kinder Bueno, Lindt dark chili chocolate, Lindt dark roasted almond chocolate and chocolate buttercream cake in the past 2 days. 

I still feel like doing my digestive system some more damage. These recipes would be a good start.

Pretzel Cookies with Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chips

From Sugar Cooking

Oh peanut butter chips, why won't you come to New Zealand?! I long for you so. Nat and I were having a debate over whether sweet and salty was a good combination. She said no, I said yes.

Mini Turtle Brownie Bites

From The Other Side of 50

Another topic Nat and I debated about over episodes of Gossip Girl was caramel. Turns out Nat doesn't like caramel. I've only recently began to form a liking for it. Either way, chocolate brownies with caramel sauce sounds damn good.

Snickers Caramel Cheesecake Cookies

From Picky Palate

The words in this recipe sound good on their own but better when strung together in a sentence. 

Peanut Butter Honey Brownies

From Spoonful of Sugar

You can't have junk food without peanut butter of some kind. In this recipe it's in the form of brownies with a honey filled centre. I like to think the healthiness of the honey offsets the calorific nature of everything else in the brownies.

Baked Doughnuts

From How to Eat a Cupcake

 

Funny how this is the only recipe of the ones listed that I'm actually excited to make. The reason being is that I can finally make doughnuts without using a fryer! I've come to believe that baking is a healthier method than frying, so these baked doughnuts sit on top of my list of things to bake in the near future.  

I feel like I've gained ten pounds just blogging about junk food. I've got to feed the fat kid inside of me!

Baking commences

Exams are finally over for me, so Natalie and I resumed our baking sessions.

Starting with a favourite of ours, peanut butter cookies.

Easy Chocolate Chip and Peanut Butter Biscuits

(Recipe adapted from 'Creative Biscuits and Slices' by Allyson Gofton)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup crunchy or smooth peanut butter (we used smooth)
• 3/4 cup castor sugar (we used half)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Method:

1. Beat the peanut butter and sugar together.
2. Add the beaten egg and stir to combine. The mixture will become stiff.
3. Add the chocolate chips.
4. Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls and place on a well-greased tray. Flatten the balls of mixture firmly with a fork.
5. Bake at 180 degrees C for 15-18 minutes until the biscuits are cooked and lightly browned. Transfer to a cake rack to cool and then store in an airtight container.

Makes approx. 24 biscuits.

Print-friendly recipe here.

I'm glad we decided to halve the sugar quantity. The cookies were sweetened by the peanut butter and the chocolate chips gave them an extra crunch.

We didn't know if the cookies would stretch or not, since there's no flour or baking powder in the recipe. Turns out they did, and we had a large cookie crumble slice, which we broke up with a knife. Hence, the oddly shaped cookies.

He ain't heavy, he's my cupcake

Photo from Bake or Break

How can something that looks so delicious turn into something that looks so... so...

...fail?

To be fair, we took that cupcake out of the tin too early. So it just collapsed. After exercising patience, the cupcakes turned out like this:

It's still nothing like the picture though.

Photo from Bake or Break

The cupcakes were incredibly rich and heavy. Each cupcake was the same weight as a glass bowl. It sickens me to think that I ate 205 grams of half-baked brownie batter and melted peanut butter. But damn, was it worth it.

Brownie Peanut Butter Cups recipe from Bake or Break.

Monkey's diet

We've always known that bananas go well with chocolate, and chocolate goes well with peanut butter, and peanut butter goes well with bananas. But we never thought we'd chuck it all together into one concoction.

After baking a batch of funfetti cupcakes, we had a redundant jar of peanut butter, pack of dark chocolate chips and bananas to violate. And that we did, with the following recipe.

It was very rushed. We quickly checked the ingredients and didn't bother reading the method. Once you have the urge to bake, you can't get rid of the feeling. You can only satisfy it!

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
(Recipe adapted from Sugar Plum)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 medium ripe mashed bananas
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, divided
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C.
2. Line a 9-inch loaf pan with baking paper.
3. In a medium sized mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
4. In a large mixing bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together banana, peanut butter, 2 tablespoons butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until creamy, for about 2 minutes.
5. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract until combined.
6. Reduce mixer speed to low and beat in milk and flour mixture until just combined.
7. Stir in chocolate chips and pour batter into prepared pan.
8. Bake for 50 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Cool for 20 minutes before running a knife around outside edges, removing, and transferring to a wire rack to cool before slicing.

Print-friendly version of recipe here.

Apologies for the poor quality photos. We were in such a rush that we didn't have enough time to take better photos when the bread was fresh out of the oven.

Success comes in the form of brownies

After two failed attempts, I finally managed to bake something by myself that was, a) not burnt and b) edible. Everyone's tastebuds can stop crying now.

What I made one afternoon were a simple batch of brownies for a friend. I was so nervous throughout baking this as my failure rate has been incredibly high and seeing that these were for a friend, I had to be extra cautious. Which meant extra pressure. Perhaps pressure was what made me super pedantic (more so than usual), that I measured out everything exactly and made sure that I followed the recipe word for word (unlike this).

Peanut Butter and Nutella Brownies
(Adapted from The Craving Chronicles)

Ingredients:

• ½ cup butter, melted
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup plain flour
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 4 tbsp (¼ cup) peanut butter (chunky or smooth)
• 4 tbsp (¼ cup) Nutella

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 8×8 inch or 7×11 inch pan with baking paper.
2. Measure the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a small bowl and whisk to combine.
3. Using an electric mixer, cream the sugar with the melted butter. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then add in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
4. Put the Nutella and peanut butter in a small bowl and microwave until runny. Fold into brownie mix (don't completely combine the mixture if you want visible streaks of Nutella and peanut butter to appear on the brownie crust).
5. Pour batter into pan and bake for 25-30 minutes, until top forms a crust.

Print-friendly version of recipe here.

These brownies are not like your usual rich and fudgey brownies as they are fluffier and less dense. This may have been achieved through the use of an electric mixer, which the original recipe didn't call for.

If you live in New Zealand, the taste of these brownies are similar to Farmbake's peanut brownie cookies. Which are not bad if you're a fan of those biscuits. For me, I wish it was a tad more peanut buttery, but that's just being nitpicky. I should accept these little victories for as long as they last!

Someone should smuggle graham crackers into NZ

Why aren't there any graham crackers in New Zealand? Digestive biscuits are the closest substitute, but they're just not the same. I'm sure homemade s'mores and pie biscuit bases taste much better with real graham crackers rather than the NZ-equivalent.

Anyway, one night my usual peanut butter cravings kicked in and I wanted to make something simple. I remembered this recipe for no-bake chocolate peanut butter bars and decided to give it a shot.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
(Recipe adapted from The Crepes of Wrath)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 3/4 cup digestive biscuits
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate buttons

Method:

1. Line and grease a 9 x 13 inch pan with aluminium foil.
2. In a food processor, grind up digestive biscuits.
3. Add the butter, peanut butter and sugar to biscuit crumbs, and process until a ball forms.
4. Press mixture into pan.
5. Melt the chocolate buttons (I microwaved on medium-low heat/30% in 1 minute bursts), stirring often to prevent burning.
6. Spread the melted chocolate over peanut butter mixture.
7. Chill in refrigerator for about an hour for bars to firm.
8. Take out pan from refrigerator and place in room temperature before cutting into squares.

Makes about 12-15 bars.

Store in the refrigerator.

Print-friendly recipe here.

The result? Some "food critics" (aka friends) said it tasted like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. My only complaint was that it was too damn sweet. Thus, the edited recipe above has a lot less sugar than the original recipe.

Strictly for lovers of peanut butter.

Elvis in a cupcake

Nat and I had a sudden craving for bananas. After experiencing "cupcake withdrawal" from last week's baking session, we decided to bake banana cupcakes. I found a recipe that added chocolate. That was a bonus!

The cupcakes were moist and the banana flavour was stronger than the chocolate, but it didn't overpower. I guess for that reason, we decided to add more with peanut butter frosting. And besides, cupcakes just aren't the same without a bit of icing on top.

Eating these cupcakes reminded me of how good chocolate, bananas and peanut butter are together.

PB cookies

If you can't already tell from our previous post, we love our peanut butter. And what's better than peanut butter in COOKIE form?

So here you have it, our (second) attempt at good old-fashioned peanut butter cookies:

Natalie's turquoise-painted nail testing if the cookies are done.

That's organic dark chocolate oozing out of the cookie.

Peanut Butter Cookies
(Recipe adapted from Snooky Doodle Cakes)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup + 2 tbsp crunchy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup chopped chocolate
  

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C.
2. Line baking sheets with baking paper.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the peanut butter and butter.
4. Once combined beat in the white sugar and brown sugar until well blended.
5. Beat in the egg, milk, and vanilla.
6. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Gently add to creamed mixture and mix until almost combined.
7. Fold in chocolate.
8. Chill dough for at least 15 minutes.
9. Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into balls and place on lined baking trays.
10. Carefully press each ball with fork tines to create a criss-cross pattern.
11. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are lightly browned.
12. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheets for 5-10 minutes until sturdy enough to be transfered to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes approx. 30 cookies.

Print-friendly recipe.

Served with a big bowl of fig and honey ice-cream (Nat's favourite).

Filled up the cookie jar!

In case you're wondering, this is our second attempt at baking peanut butter cookies. The first batch we baked was somewhat disastrous. This time around, the cookies didn't burn and they weren't too salty.

Our unconditional love for peanut butter is strong and these mishaps won't deter us from using it as a baking ingredient!

Nuts about our nut butter

Aside from our passion for baking, we also have a tremendous love for peanut butter. In New Zealand, we don't have many choices compared to our American counterparts who have the most insane varieties any peanut butter monster could imagine. So, we are left with 3 kinds in Jade's pantry, and one from Natalie's flatmates to sample and review.

The first one up:

Pam's Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter

It's made in China which means Chinese peanuts and a sort of musty smell and not GM free! (shockhorror). The appearance is dry and the taste confirms this. The fat content is 50.5g per 100g and it doesn't contain sugar.
N's rating: 2/5
J's rating: 1/5

Number two:

Sanitarium Crunchy Peanut Butter

Also made in China (surprise!). It has a nuttier more peanut buttery smell and looks sandy in texture. But the taste owns Pam's. Also the healthiest of the lot (out of Jade's pantry anyway).
N's rating: 3.5/5
J's rating: 3/5

The next:

Kraft's Crunchy Peanut Butter

We may be a little biased in saying this, but it's with reason! Kraft's made in Australia, which sets it apart from its two inferior predecessors. It smells heavenly and the texture is wonderfully oily and moist despite its label claiming 'Never Oily, Never Dry''. However, all of this comes with a heavy price as its the one with the highest fat and sugar content - 52.6g of fat and 7.4g of sugar per 100g.
N's rating: 4/5
J's (biased) rating: 5/5

Finally:

Pic's Really Good Peanut Butter

This one's actually made locally with Aussie nuts! It smells nutty and the texture is sandy and slightly dry. It looks oily and liquefied but it tastes very peanut buttery if you catch my drift. The purest flavour comes through but it's not salty enough (in Natalie's opinion). It's also got some crunch but it's not chunky.
N's rating: 4/5
J's rating: 3.5/5