Oxford Rocks cake for The Oxford Bake Off

A long, long time ago, March 24th to be precise, there was in Oxford Town, a Bake off. I attended along with this time-eating cake, some mad chocolate brownies, and a loaf of Sun-dried tomato and basil bread.
The cake and brownies took hours and hours of planning, practice runs, frustration, sorting logistics and setting up. The bread took a few minutes, got un-ceremonially placed on a plate at the bake off, and then won it's category! Yay! lol To be fair to it though it did bake really well, looked ok, and tasted good.

So, to start with, the cake. As it was the Oxford Bake Off, I wanted to do something Oxford based, and after a few other ideas, came up with a music from Oxford theme, and the original design is pretty much what the final cake ended up being. It is a Chocolate and Orange sponge made in a rock n roll leopard skin stylee, with a truffly chocolate filling, then I tried to make an Oxford blue buttercream, but didn't quite get there, then I decorated with regalice records featuring bands from Oxford (Radiohead got the 3 centre spots), some icing musical decoration, a base ring of Crunchie rocks, and finished off with a bit of airy height from the 'Oxford Rocks!' Maltesers. The last time I used maltesers on the Valentines cake, they were randomly placed, so when I went to line these up I didn't foresee the frustration of getting the little sods lined up properly lol

Ingredients:

• 225g Self Raising Flour
• 25g Cornflour
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 250g Caster sugar
• 250g Unsalted butter at room temp
• 4 Free range medium eggs
• 5 TBSP milk (Or just enough to make the batter easily spreadable in the tins)
• 1 Heaped TBSP Cocoa powder
• 1 tsp Orange extract
• Yellow, red and black concentrated colour gels.

Filling:

• 100ml Double cream
• 170g Dark Chocolate
• 1/2 tsp Orange Extract

Covering/Decorations:

• 200g Unsalted Butter at room temp
• 400g Icing Sugar
• Blue and Black concentrated colour gels
• Black and White Sugarpaste/Regalice for the records
• Icing Sugar and few tsp of Lemon juice for the icing. 
• Maltesers 

Preparation:

• Make 3 records and allow to dry for a few days.
• Preheat the oven to 180c
• Prep 2 9" round tins as you like. Greased and lined or cakey release spray.
• In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
• Sift the Flour, Cornflour and baking powder into another bowl.
• Add one egg and some flour at a time to the butter mixture and mix well until all 4 eggs and all flour added.
• Add a tablespoon of milk at a time until the batter is of a consistancy that will push out to the tin edges easily.
• Take out 300g of the batter into a seperate bowl.
• To the remaining batter add the tsp of Orange extract and a few drops of yellow colour gel and mix.
• Split the batter evenly between the two tins and smooth level.
• Put the 300g of batter back into the mixing bowl, add the cocoa powder, a drop of red and drop of black colour and mix well. This will be piped, so add a small amount of milk now if necessary.
• Spoon the batter into a piping bag with about a size 5 nozzle or cut a similar sized hole in the end of the bag.
• Poking the nozzle down into the yellow batter, squeeze out lots of little blobs without breaking through to the surface. Then squeeze lots of little blobs out onto the surface of the batter, so it looks something like this on one of my practice run cakes.....

• Give the tins a bit of a wobble then bake for about 30 mins or until a cocktail stick comes out of the centres clean.
• Leave in the tins for 15 mins then tip out gently onto a cooling rack
• When the sponges are cool pour the cream into a saucepan and heat until bubbles appear at the edges.
• Add the chocolate and stir together.
• Allow to cool a bit until not runny but spreadable, and over the surface of one sponge.
• Sandwich the sponges together.
• Mix together the butter and icing sugar and add colour if you want to.
• Cover the cake with the buttercream using a palette knife.
• Use a black food pen and write on the 3 old records and place them in the centre.
• Roll out black and white Regalice and using whatever you can find to make the right sized circle cuts, in my case an old baking powder tub, a bottle cap, and a straw, make 6 records and place on the cake Let them dry a while before writing on them. (Slightly quicker to write that than make them lol)
• Mix together some sifted icing sugar and drops of lemon juice to make enough icing for the musical bits and pieces, and go as mad as you like piping the icing on. Save some for the maltesers.
• Pipe the letters onto the Maltesers, attach to wires, stick in cake.
• Take to Oxford Town Hall and eventually, eat :)

The Oxford Bake off was conceived by Kate and was a charity event for the benefit of:

Oxford International Women's Day

CoppaFeel

Oxford Rape Crisis

Cecily's Fund

As I write this, there is currently a wonderful Oxford Bake Off recipe book available to buy for just £5 from here with contributions from the likes of Holly Bell, Kate Shirazi, Oxford Cupcakes, and Jane Asher!

Piccies from the bake off:

And a few tunes from the Oxford boys and girls:

Another excuse to slip in this baby from Death By Crimpers - Obsessive

Radiohead - Creep (Uncensored, so don't click 'play' kids! Oi, no, stop that, oh now you've done it, that's the end of the world, you're all going to end up foul mouthed criminals, oh wait, that's from playing COD.) Oh, ignore all that, it's the radio friendly 'Very' version lol

Some tunage from Swervedriver - Dual

Some Supergrass - Richard III 






Classic from The Auteurs - Lenny Valentino






The Candyskins - Submarine Song.






Finishing with the awesome Ride - Time of her Time

Classic Scones.

Well, what is there to say really? Just look at them! YUM!!!!

Ok, there's a bit to say. I made these quite a while back and never got round to blogging them (As opposed to eating them straight away!) I did test 2 different recipes, and I'm now not sure which one I preferred lol. They did produce very similar scones though, similar in taste, texture, and rising, and I think the only thing that swayed me one way than the other was that one recipe produced less domed tops, and I preferred them flatter :) and I'm fairly sure it was the following recipe by Jane Hornby.

Ingredients:

• 350g Self Raising Flour
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 85g Unsalted butter
• 3 TBSP Caster sugar
• 175ml Milk
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• Lemon juice
• 1 Free range egg
• Clotted cream and Jam.

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 220c/Gas7
• Sieve the flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl
• Cube the butter and add it.
• Rub the mixture together until it is all crumb-like.
• Heat the milk for 30 secs in the microwave or a pan until slightly warm.
• Add to it the vanilla and a squeeze of lemon juice (I added 2 tsp)
• Put enough baking trays in the oven to heat up
• Add the milk to the dry mixture and mix together with a plain dinner knife until all mixed together well
• Flour a surface and tip out the dough.
• Knead a touch so that the dough is consistent, together, and not split. 
• Gently roll or pat out until 3-4cm deep
• Using a 5cm round cutter, press it into the dough, don't twist it, and repeat these steps until all the dough is used up.
• Beat the egg and brush the tops, being careful not to let it run down the sides or it will hinder their rising.
• Place the scones on the hot baking tray, leaving room for them to rise at an angle if necessary
• Bake for about 10 mins until golden on top.
• Place on a cooling rack.
• Now the tricky bit, cut in half, then on each half add a bucket of cream, then a bucket of jam.
• Eat whilst moaning in ecstasy.

Dome-heads top left!

These are the flat tops from this recipe :)

Guilty pleasure here! Bryan Adams ft Mel C - When you're a Scone

Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine When She's a Scone

The Creeps - She's Scone

Leading onto the wonderful Camille Jones - Creeps

..and finally, maybe, The Pixies - Monkey Scone to Heaven

...um, finally finally.... I remembered this yesterday, Kim Wilde - Never Trust a Stranger with Your Scone. Not quite as good as 'Keep me Hanging on', but almost.

(Beware there's a horrible loud noise at the start of this vid! No, I don't mean Kim singing :p)

Biscuit Selection Pack 1

    Cookie fest!!!! I made these beauties to give to my Dad and tried to use flavour ingredients that I knew he liked. So here we have, from left to right, Dark Fruit n Nut Chocolate biscuits, Toblerone Biscuits (Based on a Dan Lepard Recipe), and Chocolate fudge Biscotti (Based on this AllRecipes recipe). All of these worked quite well, apart from the fudge bit, which to be honest I would have been better off making a plain Biscotti and nibbling on a finger of Fudge inbetween bites lol. I chopped up Fudge fingers for these but sadly they bubbled and baked apart during their time in the oven, and disappeared. No fudgyness :( But in the end, they were very edible, very tasty, and looked nice :) Feel free to leave them naked, or clothe them in a drizzling of white chocolate as shown.


Dark Fruit & Nut chocolate biscuits.

Ingredients:

• 125g Unsalted butter (Room Temp)
• 90g Light brown sugar
• 1 Tsp Vanilla extract
• 1 Large free range egg
• 90g Self raising flour
• 50g Wholemeal flour
• 30g Cocoa powder
• 1/4 Tsp Baking Powder
• Pinch of salt
• 50g Dark Chocolate
• 100g Cadbury's Fruit n Nut 
• 3 TBSP Milk

Preparation:

• Prep 2 baking trays with baking paper or cake release spray
• Add the butter, sugar and vanilla to a large bowl and mix well (I used my Kenwood)
• Beat the egg, then add and continue mixing.
• Sieve the flours, cocoa, baking powder and salt and then slowly add to the bowl whilst mixing.
• Add the milk and mix.
• Chop up the chocolates into fine chunks and add to the mixture. I mixed these in by hand as they get a bit mashed by the paddle in the Kenwood.
• Chill in the fridge of freezer for a while until the dough is slightly hardened
• Preheat the oven to 190c.
• Take large teaspoons full of the mix and shape into rough balls and place on the baking tray leaving room for them to spread when they bake.
• Press the top of each one down slightly with the back of the teaspoon.
• Bake for about 15mins or until the edges are slightly browning.
• After 5 minutes hardening on the tray, transfer to a cooling rack.
• Eat!

Toblerone Biscuits:

Ingredients:

• 50g unsalted butter (Room Temp)
• 175g Golden caster sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1 Free range egg
• 100ml Sunflower oil
• 150g plain flour
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• 100g rolled oats
• 30g chopped almonds
• 200g Toblerone (Variety of your choosing)

Preparation:

• Add the butter, sugar, vanilla to a mixing bowl and mix well until light and smooth.
• Add the egg and continue mixing.
• Add the oil and continue mixing.
• Add the oats and almonds and continue mixing.
• Sieve the flour and baking powder and add the the mixture. Mix in well
• Chop up the the toblerone into small chunks (I blitzed mine in the processor and it was a bit too fine)
• Add the Toblerone bits and mix in.
• Cool the dough in the fridge of freezer so it hardens slightly
• Preheat the oven to 170c
• Teaspoon out lumps of the and make them roughly ball shaped.
• Place on a prep'd baking tray, leaving room to spread, and press down slightly with the back of the teaspoon.
• Bake for about 15 mins, or until the edges start to brown slightly.
• Cool on the tray for a while until they harden slightly then transfer to a cooling rack.
• Eat!

Chocolate Fudgey Biscotti.

Ingredients:

• 75g Unsalted Butter (Room temp)
• 135g Golden caster sugar
• 2 Free range eggs
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 100g Dark chocolate
• 1 pack (85g) Dr Oetker Fudge chunks, or similar. (Cadbury's fudge didn't work!)
• 220g Plain flour
• 30g Cocoa powder
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• 1 TBSP Water
• 1 Free range egg (For an egg wash)

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 190c
• Add the butter, sugar and vanilla to a mixing bowl and mix together until light and smooth.
• Add the 2 eggs one at a time and mix well.
• Sieve the flour, baking powder and cocoa and add slowly whilst mixing. Mix together well.
• Chop up the chocolate into fine chunks.
• Add the chocolate and fudge chunks to the mixture and stir in well.

Chopped up Fudge Fingers look nice, but don't work!

• Prep a large baking tray or 2 smaller trays with baking paper. (I just used cake release spray, and afterwards remembered that I wanted to lift them from the tray to cut. Ooops)
• Divide the dough equally into 2 and form 2 'loaves' on the baking tray about 9" x 3" x 1"

Mmmmmmmm!

• Beat the egg and brush all over the tops of the loaves (Look lovely don't they! lol)
• Bake for about 20 mins.
• Remove from the trays onto a cooling rack and allow to cool for no more than 10 mins or they get a bit crumbly. I left mine about 7 mins and a few of them were getting crumbly.

You can see where the fudge has just melted and bubbled out to nothing. 

• Using a sharp knife, cut into slices about 2 - 2.5cm thick.

• Return them to the baking tray and cook for 7-10mins (Don't burn them)
• Turn each one over and cook for another 7-10mins.
• Take them out and transfer to a cooling rack to cool.
• Eat! 

WobbleWobbleWobble!!!! Masterchef Synaesthesia by @swedemason

Of course, if I ate too many of these I would become........tada! Half Man Half Biscuit - Trumpton Riots.

Mr Cookie Monster shows how to eat cookies properly. 

And for no link whatsoever to biscuits - A triple play of the Manics! Manic Street Preachers - Stay Beautiful. (From 21yrs ago!!! aaaaargh!)

Suicide is Painless (Theme from M.A.S.H.)

Motorcycle Emptyness.

Did I say triple-play? lol Design For Life

If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next

Awh, they won't let me have Little Baby Nothing :(

So, I'll finish with, um...... Some Kind Of Bliss  with little Kylie :)

Happy Biscuiting!

Chocolate Brownies.

Ah, biting through that light crust into the moist, chocolaty heaven inside, maybe stumbling across a little chocolate nugget angel along the way....Mmmmmmm

Anyway, My new brownie tin arrived this morning, so BAM! On with the brownies. Now I did have a recipe that a friend gave me ages ago, but can I find it? No. So trawling through a few recipes I found this relatively low-fat interesting one by Angela Nilsen on the BBC Good Food site and basically replicated but added some chopped up dark chocolate chunks. I bought some mayo the other day, then forgot what I was going to use it in, so now it ended up in some Chocolate Brownies! Yay!

I'm going to try out a few more recipes over the next few weeks and will add them here. Please feel free to add any ones that you love in the comments, and also any extras you throw in/or on. Any of you lovely bloggers please feel free to link to your own brownie posts in comments. Lets have a brownie orgy!

I'm entering some in the Oxford Bake Off in a few weeks. I'm hoping to keep them fairly simple, but make them so perfect that they hold their own. @dawnadays reminded me of the option of sticking a Rolo in them (I remember doing that with some cupcakes years ago!) and I might add some piped ganache on top. I'll stay away from nuts and marshmallows, but might add other chocolate types, and if I go completely mad, a cheesecake layer on top!

Ingredients:

• 200g Dark Chocolate
• 85g Plain flour
• 25g Cocoa powder
• 1/4 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
• 100g Golden caster sugar
• 50g Light Muscovado sugar
• 1/2 Tsp coffee granules
• 1 Tsp Vanilla extract
• 2 TBSP Buttermilk (Or Milk with a squeeze of Lemon Juice.)
• 1 Egg
• 100g Mayonnaise.

Preparation: 

1. Preheat the oven to 180c/Gas4
2. In a medium to large bowl (You'll add other ingredients shortly) Melt 100g of the chocolate in the microwave, in 30sec bursts, or over a simmering pan of water.
3. Allow to cool a minute.
4. Sieve the flour, bicarb and cocoa powder in to another bowl, then chop up the otther 100g of choc into small chunks and add to the flour mix..
5. Add both sugars to the melted chocolate and stir.
6. Add the Coffee granules, vanila extract and buttermilk, and stir.
7. Add the Egg, and stir well.
8. Then add the Mayonnaise and mix well.
9. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and fold together thoroughly.
10. Prep a (approx) 20cm x 20cm tin, or individual brownie tin like I used.
11. Pour the batter into the tin, and give it a good wobbly to get it settled in the edges.
12. Bake for approx 30mins for a tray bake, lower the time for the individual brownie tin - about 22-25mins.
13. Allow to cool for 1 second. 
14. Eat them all :)

....and here's a version I made for The Oxford Bake Off: The 'Out of this World' Brownie! :)

Yeah, I know, WTF? lol 

A lovely full-on choc brownie with dark orange choc chunks, a Chilli Chocolate pool covered with a white chocolate moon! So, straight forwards then.

Ingredients: For a 9" x 12" tray bake and in brackets for the square brownies tin.

• 225g (150g) Unsalted Butter
• 275g (180g) Dark Chocolate
• 4 (3) Free range eggs
• 275g (180g) Dark Muscovado Sugar
• 200g (133g) Plain Flour
• 1/2 tsp (1/3tsp) Baking Powder.
• 100g Dark orange chocolate chopped into chunks

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 180c
• Grease and line a 9" x 12" tin (Cake release spray brownie tin) 
• Melt the butter in a saucepan
• Add dark chocolate and melt.
• Cool for a few mins.
• In a large bowl, or mixer bowl beat the eggs and then add the sugar and mix together.
• Add the choc mix to the eggs mix and continue mixing
• Sift the flour and baking powder and add to the wet mix.
• Add the chopped up dark orange chocolate.
• Fold in with a spatula until flour is fully incorporated.
• Pour the mix into the tin, or split evenly into the 12 brownie tin. 
• Bake for about 25 mins.
• If using the brownie tin bake for about 17 mins.

Now I didn't write down the quantities I used next for the individuals, but it was something like....

• During the next 3 stages, cut out holes in the brownies with a 5cm straight edge cookie cutter, removing about 3/4 of a centimetre of brownie with a teaspoon while the cutter is still in the brownie.

• While the brownies are cooling, heat 100ml of double cream in a saucepan until bubbles form around the edge.
• Turn the heat off and add 150g of  chilli chocolate.
• Allow it to melt a bit then stir gently until mixed together.
• I then used a tablespoon measure to add the choc mix to the holes in the brownies leaving a few millimetres for the white chocolate 'moons' to sit on top.
• Allow to cool and harden for a bit.
• Melt 150g White chocolate, and add on top of the dark choc pool so that the edges are flush with the brownie.
• Allow to cool a bit.
• While the white chocolate is still a bit warm but not liquid, use a modeling tool, or the end of a teaspoon to pull up little peaks on the moons.
• Allow to cool a bit more.
• When the choc is still malleable but not sticky, use a large and small ball modelling tool and a cocktail stick to make lots of little craters in the moons.
• Cool and Eat! :) Or if you want to be a complete loon, make a planet out of a too-small ball of Oasis with blue and green food dye and a sprinkling of icing sugar for the north pole, make brownie holders out of bits of wire and tinfoil, half fill an old baking powder tub with 20p's and push into the oasis planet, travel to Oxford Town Hall, put it all together finding out that the entire structure is nowhere near stable enough so that if anyone even looks at it it will fall to pieces! Keep checking it every 10 minutes! Oh to have been able to get a 20cm oasis ball locally at the last minute instead of a 9cm :D

Choooooons!!! Sorry, Chooooooon! Just the one for now, I've spent so many hours getting sucked into youtube for each post that by the time I've finished, I can't type for my beard getting in the way! I'll add some more as I come across them :)

But, for now, for my little square delights.... Ladyhawke - Delirium! (I've given up trying to embed vids for now as the big music groups are knobs. Thank you. (UPDATE: *nerd alert* OK, so if I can add an official video from the blogger YouTube search, I can then get an embed code from it, in-post, which works! Sweeeeeeet!)

...and the one and only Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine - The Only Living Boy in New Cross. (Can't have proper vid due to knobs) Lucky enough to see Jim Bob and Fruitbat at Beautiful Days Festival last year :D First time since Earls Court '91. 20 years!!! (Updated: Right, Stickin to the Man! Click play, slide to a couple of secs from the end, let it end, THEN you can play the official 'emimusic' vid from the selection! Muwahahahaha! When that's finished you MUST then play 'Bloodsport for All' Sweeeeeet!)

Mayonnaise! In Brownies!?! 'stwisted man! Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians - Stwisted.

Cheesy Chorizo Chomps.

Time for another savoury bash! And these are waaaaaay tasty! Well, they are if you like chorizo, philly, and peppers :)

It was time for another attempt to play with a roll of puff pastry as my first attempt went a wee bit bosoms up due, I think, to it being past it's use by date and then trying to roll it after it had got a bit too warm and sweaty. It was a mess lol Oh, and the filling attempts were crap, I tried one half with apple n cinnamon, and one half raspberry jam. Don't use jam it just bubbles and goes hard and sticky, and the apple lot were undercooked....etc Just brand ma butt with a big L for learner!

So, these, I consider to be at the other end of the success scale. They worked really well, fresh puff pastry from the fridge, chucked in the freezer for an hour and a half before cutting (Instead of squashing a long pastry sausage with a knife like the last time lol), and baked to gorgeous perfection. Luvly Jubbly! The only not-really-negative point was that they had quite a lot of filling as I used 320g roll of pastry instead of 500g. But they worked :)

These are based on This Recipe from Allrecipes


Ingredients:

• 1 320g pack of Ready-rolled puff pastry. (Or 500g if you want more chomps to chomp on)
• Small bit of Butter
• 1 Red Pepper
• 200g Chorizo
• 200g Plain or Herbed Philadelphia
• 1 egg
• Grated Parmesan for topping
• Paprika

Preparation:

• Chuck a knob of butter in a small pan on a medium heat.
• Finely chop up the red pepper and soften in the pan for a few minutes.
• Finely chop up the Chorizo (I used pre-cooked slices for this first experiment) and put in a mixing bowl.
• Add a sprinkling of Paprika, the peppers, cream cheese and egg and mix together.
• Take the pasty from the fridge and unroll on a clean surface.
• Quickly and evenly, spread the filling out on the pastry.
• Roll the pastry up to form a nice savoury Swiss roll stylee log. When you get to the end just press it against the log a bit to stick the end together.
• Place in some cling film, or the plastic that the pastry was originally rolled up in, and stick it in the freezer for at least an hour.
• After about 20-30 mins the pastry log will have firmed up a bit so if you want nice round chomps just give the log a turn so it's not sat on one side all the time it's chilling. If you want 'D' shaped chomps, don't turn it :) Saying that though, mine did squash a bit still when I cut the log, but, they cooked out pretty round! (See Pics) 
• Preheat the oven to 200c/Gas6 so it's heated up when the log's chilled.
• Grease/prep a couple of baking trays. I used cake release spray, I use it for everything lol. I used 30cm x 20cm trays with 6 chomps on each one. From the log you should get between 12 - 15 depending on how thick your slices are.
• Take the log from the freezer and immediately cut into slices 1-1.5cm wide.
• Place on the trays.
• Top with a sprinkling of the Parmesan.
• Bake for about 25 mins. Check after 20 mins.
• Allow to cool slightly before chomping. 
• Chomp Chomp Chomp!

Choooooooons! (In new soopa-doopa, embeded, full-screenable, gloriousness!)

Right, what goes with sausage...... hmmmmm, ok I'll leave that for now...

Little savoury wheels of joy! Ooh, Jimmy Barnes - Driving Chorizo wheels, and while we're down under, the Aussie majesty of  Cold Chisel - Bowriver! 

Um, Sausage, Spanish, Costa del sol, um, ex-pat criminals, bank robbers, ah yes! Audioweb's fine version of Bankrobber!

Moving on, in honour of the Puff Pastry. Peter, Paul and Mary - Puff the Magic Dragon (Oh go on, sing along!)

In honour of the spirals...... Inspiral Carpets - Two Worlds Collide.

Ah, I stumbled across this gorgeous, GORGEOUS bit of 90's! T.H.K - France. This featured on the classic compilation album from DeConstruction Full On Edition One - A Year in the Life of House

.....from the same album - Datura - Yerba Del Diablo. 

....um, from the same album again :) -The best remix of  Felix - It Will Make Me Crazy (Mmmm Remix) 

Oh, go on, one more. A bit of local action, some guitar anthemism from Coventry! The Enemy - You're Not Alone.

I'm just sticking in random chooons that I love now! haha!

Last one, honest. Massively Massive Massiveness from Delirium ft Jael - After All (Svenson and Gielen Remix)