The Joy of Baking

I baked again! It's like I've found this new hobby and I can't get enough! This time I made another batch of gingerbread (but it didn't come out as nice as before - either the oven was a little too hot or the self-raising flour wasn't quite right.) I also made chocolate brownies and Rice Krispies Squares and OMG they're fab!!! I have the ingredients to make millionaire's shortbread but I think I'll make that later on.

The recipe I used for the brownies came from Joy of Baking, a great recipe website I came across just the other day. Here it is:

Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients:

• 140g bittersweet chocolate
• 115g unsalted butter
• 15g cocoa powder
• 200g granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 95g all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 125g semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175*C and place the rack in the center of the oven.
2. Butter an 20 cm square pan.
3. Melt the chocolate and butter in a large bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the cocoa powder and sugar.
5. Whisk in the vanilla extract and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Stir in the flour, salt and chocolate chips.
7. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a little batter and a few moist clumps clinging to it. Do not over bake.
8. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Little Baker Girl

*dancing around the kitchen* I baked! I baked! I baked!

I seem to be going through this really strange phase at the moment whereby I appear to be enjoying mixing a bunch of ingredients together and producing something extremely sweet and unhealthily fabulous! *lol* It should probably be noted that although I have a degree which incorporated a huge amount of cooking etc, I'm rubbish in the kitchen. I usually use it purely for making coffee (I could rival Starbucks!) and making bowls of cereal. I'm such a non-cook that I actually didn't own a rolling pin or cookie cutters until last weekend when I decided to bake gingerbread men and oatmeal & coconut cookies. Then last week when I was off that random day I baked two loaves of gingerbread and a tray of Scottish vanilla tablet. It should be noted that I used the wrong type of butter in the tablet so it never set. But ho hum, the gingerbread was fab!! *yay*