Hitting the spot

Sunday had me craving pretzels for some reason.

Soft, buttery, bread pretzels.

So I set to and baked a batch, using this recipe.

The method is very similar to bagels, which I've only made once, starting off with a yeasty dough and then a dunk in a boiling hot bath before finally baking. 

As there are only two of us here, I halved the recipe which produced half a dozen decent sized pretzels.  We were out of coarse salt so I sprinkled the tops with sea salt and caraway seeds.

They baked in no time and were delicious eaten straight from the oven.  (I did eat a cold one later and recommend eating them hot.)

Next time I'll line the baking trays with parchment as most of the pretzels stuck and needed a fair bit of chiselling to free them.  

And, as you can see, I definitely need more practice with the shaping.

 

Loved these cupcakes

There was leftover sour cream to be used up and the Boy had a cake tin to be filled before returning to his student flat.  So chocolate cupcakes it was. 

I don't tend to muck about with vanilla cupcakes, sticking with the standard Victoria mix, but I'm always on the lookout for the ultimate little chocolate cake.

Today, it was the turn of this recipe (very slightly amended) from here which makes approximately 16 muffin sized cakes.  I used half the given quantities which made 12 fairy cake sized morsels.

 

Chocolate cupcakes

1 cup granulated (I used caster) sugar

¾ cup plain flour

¼ cup plus 2 tbsps unsweetened cocoa powder

¾ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp bicarb of soda

Pinch salt

1 egg

½ cup  sour cream

¼ cup  sunflower oil
 1
tbsp vanilla extract

½ cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan assisted/gas 4.  Line fairy cake or muffin tins with paper cases. 

In a large heatproof mixing bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarb of soda and
salt.  Add the egg, sour cream, oil and vanilla extract. Mix with a wooden spoon just until smooth and combined. Pour in the boiling water and
slowly mix in. The batter will be very liquid.

Fill the cake cases to just over halfway.

Bake for 15-19 minutes or until the cakes are firm to the touch and a cocktail stick or skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean.

Allow the cakes to cool slightly in the tins then remove and transfer to cooling racks. Let the cakes
cool completely before topping with buttercream or your favourite icing.

 

This is a quick and easy recipe (even quicker if you don't drop the freshly opened tub of cocoa powder onto the floor then spend the next 10 minutes clearing up the mess). The addition of boiling water certainly produces a very runny mixture which probably could be poured into the cake cases if you have a lipped bowl instead of using a spoon.

For the icing I stuck with my usual chocolate buttercream: double the amount of icing sugar to butter, a good dollop of full fat cream cheese to cut through the sweetness, a shake of cocoa and a splash of vanilla extract.

Of course, I had to try one.  The verdict?  Light, moist, satisfyingly dark in colour and not overly sweet.

 

In fact, so good the Boy went back to uni with just four. 

 

New favourite

The local gallery I mentioned in the previous post has a rather good gift shop which sells some of Virgina Graham's* ceramics.

I'm loving these "inside out" mugs and our motley collection in the kitchen cupboard could certainly do with a bit of reviving.

On a less happy note, the Seven Days of Specialness swap has ended, just as I was getting into the swing of starting the day with the opening of a surprise package.  But I'm sure you're itching to find out what I received from my swap partner so here are all the goodies. (The little cupcake is actually a delicious smelling lip gloss). 

Yes, seven special February days indeed.

* Photograph from Virgina Graham's website

Coveting this

I love winter clothes.  It’s probably something to do with all those layers, ideally topped by a proper winter coat.  I’m not one for high fashion (bit too old for that) and would rather buy something which will last more than one season.    Black is my all time favourite colour, whatever the time of year.  In my view, you can’t go wrong with black,  though I’ve been bravely branching out into colours recently.  This is what I’m coveting at the moment – a Jaeger coat.  I love it.

                                                      

And I’m determined to have it!