White Chocolate Snickerdoodle Blondies

Recipe base here

I've tried this recipe twice and whilst it has a lot of potential on flavour, I officially give up with this one as the appearance of the complete bake is not so appetising. It's something to do with the pan size (on a basic level) or the ratios (on a more complicated level). From the attempts I have made, I would say that it is the pan dimensions that are not quite working for me. This is especially ironic as the author makes a point of giving advice on varying pan sizes.

This was pretty much good to eat.
If you want to leave this world happy.

As the recipe is quite a pricey one to make here in Sweden, I feel it would be more fiscally responsible to my good self to find a better recipe base and apply these flavours rather than making this many, many times.

This was Attempt #1. I had messed up on the baking soda and
powder components on this one, but on the next one it was
perfectly measured and it still happened 

If you don't mind the appearance, you must make this. The flavour is well worth it!

A flattering picture

Sticky Fruit Flapjacks

Based on the Sticky Plum Flapjack Bars recipe from BBC Good Food (LINK).

I have actually made these before, and they turned out fine, if not a little juicy, most probably because I used frozen fruit.

I've been in the mood for a chewy flapjack, so decided to give this recipe another go.

Everything was fine. The bake was perhaps a little bit over at 45 minutes, but otherwise I would say it went well.

The disaster struck when I misguidedly left the flapjacks to cool completely in the tin. After turning it out, I could not slice them at all, without it breaking into misshapen unsightly pieces. I wrapped up the remaining unsliced block in foil, and it did soften a little bit after a couple of hours, but it was still not soft enough to slice adequately.

I felt that this was a waste of ingredients, so will be cautious before making this again.

Ginger Flapjacks

Recipe base from BBC Good Food (LINK)

I followed the advice of the comments and reduced the butter to 250g, and opted not to use the topping, so I added all the crystallised ginger and ground ginger to the base mix itself, which made them quite spicy, but not horribly so.

What I did do was bake the flapjacks in a rather large roasting tin for 20 minutes - this made them rather hard and biscuity, so should I do them again, I will use my smaller roasting tin to keep them chewy rather than crunchy.

Coconut Carrot Bites

Recipe base from BBC Good Food (LINK).

I was really looking forward to making this recipe, as I am a big fan of carrot cake. I added the remainder of my pumpkin seeds, and whilst they didn't hurt the cake, they didn't really add to it either.

The cake timings definitely need adjusting - I found the cake needed at least another 20 minutes after the topping was added, however the topping was nearly done after 10, so I needed to cover it with foil to protect it.

The resulting cake was moist yet somehow crumbly. I didn't feel it was as 'carrotty' as I would want; the predominant flavour was from the coconut topping - that could definitely have done with more butter - which was not unwelcome, however it made the carrot surplus to requirements in my mind.

Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies

Based on the recipe from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess.

The brownies came out perfectly, despite my misgivings that 125g of cream cheese was far too much.

As I regularly make blondies, with a recipe that requires self-raising flour, I found these rather flat and disappointing, although I knew that was exactly what they were meant to look like.

I commited the cardinal sin - mainly out of laziness - of melting my butter and chocolate directly in the pan over a low heat. I would never do this if I was melting chocolate alone, but I felt the fatty buffer of the butter(!) would protect the chocolate adequately.

The brownies tasted good, I managed to make 30 tiny bite sized pieces out of them, even despite surrendering what I felt would have made at least half of my bites to the baking paper. Perhaps I shouldn't also grease the baking paper.

I probably wouldn't bother making this again; to be honest, I only did them to use the cream cheese left over from the Multi-Coloured Velvet Cake debacle (see earlier post), as dear friends who know me, also know that I don't like to waste anything! 

Marbled Chocolate Brownies

Based on BBC Good Food Recipe: LINK

This is a good base recipe, however I feel that it needs tweaks.

The brownies went down a storm at work, despite the fact that I was a tad disappointed by the texture and consistency of them. When I have made brownies or blondies in the past, they have not been quite so indulgent and more sticky cake-esque, than moist butteriness.

I had reduced the butter to 200g, which I felt was the right amount, however should I make this again, I will change the flour to self-raising, increase the flour to 180g, adding 90g to the dark chocolate rather than 50g to even out the quantities of dark to white, and also provide more absorbency for the butter.

I found making the checkerboard effect rather tedious and messy, and found that the two different batters didn't bind together very well (perhaps because I didn't swirl them enough for the marbling), so I would probably exchange 100-120g of dark chocolate for 80-100g of milk chocolate, which may also reduce the richness of them. I was not able to get golden caster sugar here in Sweden, so mixed 150g light brown soft muscovado sugar, with 150g of white caster sugar. I may increase the white to muscovado ratio, as the latter also contributes to the richness of the brownie. To lighten the load of the arrangement of the batters, I will probably layer the batters, and then attempt some vigorous swirling for the marble effect.

The baking time and temperature definitely needs to be reassessed; after reading others' comments on the site, I checked the temperature and baking time on other successful brownie recipes that I have used and set the temperature at 180 deg C (non-fan assisted), and baked for 45 minutes. From the moistness of the brownie, it wouldn't have hurt it to be in the oven for another 5 minutes, however this temperature and time has been successful in the past. When I used a fan oven, I baked brownies at 170 deg C for 40 minutes, plus another 5 with the temperature off, but the fan on. I always cool brownies in their tin for 15 minutes before turning them out.

With this recipe I buttered and lined my tin (with light buttering on top of the paper), however I found that with the lack of 'stability' or binding-ness, the mixture stuck to the paper, and being someone who hates wasting things, I felt too much came away with the parchment.

I will probably try it again, however will have to experiment with it a couple of times before I think it is worthy of achieving an 8/10!

Rating #1: 5/10