baking

Incaberry Flapjack Recipe

- Alex Leave a comment

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disclaimer: I was sent the Incaberries to try.

I am not someone who seeks out so-called ‘superfoods’. I am a great believer in all things in moderation (except bananas, which are truly awful and I would say that they should be banished from the planet, except my toddler loves them). So many food trends pass me by … yes, I’ve heard all about goji berries, acai (I still don’t know how to pronounce that) and quinoa (OK – I do actually want to try that one) but I’m not rushing out to try the latest and greatest antioxidant packed goodie that comes along.

However, I am very much into trying new things so when the internet offered me Incaberries*, who was I to say no?

The Incaberries (actually a type of physalis) come from Ecuador and are organic, high in fibre and antioxidants. They are billed as “a great tasting superfood that you will actually enjoy eating”.

Physalis sp.physalis by Thomas Bresson

Physalis is often used as decoration and is known as being quite tart and the Incaberries live up to this reputation. You should have seen the palpable disappointment on my toddler’s face when he first tried them, clearly expecting the berry to be a particularly large sultana …

Andy and I have had quite a lot of discussion about what they actually taste like. Texture wise, they are a dried fruit so they are very similar to a raisin (not quite as juicy as a sultana). The flavour is citrussy and sherberty. Somewhere between a tart raspberry, mixed with some rhubarb, some tangelo and a hint of sour lollies.

If you’re not into tart flavours, it won’t be your thing at all. However, I personally loved them and even Mr Toddler has come around and likes them!

When it came to cooking with them I was originally thinking of making the chocolate brownie recipe that’s on the Incaberry website. However, after tasting them and thinking about both their texture and flavour, I decided that flapjacks would be the way to go.

Now, lots of people seem to think that because flapjacks contain oats they are healthy. This is not true. Yes, oats are another superfood but flapjacks are really just butter, sugar and golden syrup and the oats are there as a vehicle for that. But if you want to pretend they’re a health food – just add incaberries and they’re even healthier!

Flapjacks are a brilliant thing to make with small children. They have few ingredients and it’s a very quick return on your effort. In our household we always seem to have everything we need in the cupboard, too!

Begin by melting 60g unsalted butter with 60g of sugar (I used light brown, but would have used dark brown had I known where it was hiding!) and 2 tbsp of golden syrup. With the golden syrup, lightly coat your spoon (both sides) in a neutral oil before dipping it into the jar: this will ensure the syrup slides off into the pan. For 2 tbsp you only need to do this the once.

When the butter is melted and the sugar has dissolved, pour this mix into 100g of oats and mix well. The mixture will be quite crumbly – almost like you’re making the base for a cheesecake. Finishing by mixing through 40g of incaberries.

Grease a 20cm diameter round baking pan and press the mixture into it (it will be just under 1cm thick). Ensure the incaberries are spread through evenly and bake at 180°C (convention) for about 15 minutes.

I was a bit alarmed by the incaberries all puffing up during cooking but they collapse back down as the flapjacks cooled. The tartness of the berries worked really well to counterpoint the sweetness of the flapjacks.  After all the sugar you get a lip smacking finish.

A word of warning: don’t use baking paper like me! You actually end up having to wait until the flapjacks are stone cold (and at least half a day old) before you can peel it off easily …

* You can find out where to buy incaberries near you using the store locator.

Marbled Chocolate Brownies

- Alex Leave a comment

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I can’t believe that the last lot of brownies I made was back in September last year. Those chocolate and pistachio brownies got a big tick from my brownie taste panel but did rather freak me out on account of the huge amounts of sugar.

Every now and then I catch Justine Schofield’s Everyday Gourmet and it was on that program I saw these marbled chocolate brownies.

There’s not too much different about the brownies, but they have a cream cheese topping which is used to give a very pretty marbled effect. Perfect for people like me who are far too lazy and inept to produce beautifully decorated desserts!

Preheat your oven to 180°C and line a small baking pan with baking paper.

On the stove, in a large pan, melt 125g unsalted butter with 125g dark chocolate and 1 up of brown sugar. If this was just chocolate and butter I would normally do this in the microwave, but here the idea is to get the sugar completely melted, so there’s no graininess in the mixture. You need to be patient and do this over a low heat, with plenty of stirring and monitoring. No wandering off!

Once the sugar is fully dissolved, remove the pan from the heat and mix in ⅓ cup of plain flour, ⅓ cup of cocoa (not drinking chocolate!), ½ tsp of baking powder and 3 eggs. If you are doing this by hand (which I did, for a change!) it will pay to give the eggs a light beating before mixing them in. The mixture will look very very loose – but don’t be alarmed, keep beating and it will thicken up as the chocolate cools and the eggs get incorporated.

Pour the brownie mix into the prepared baking tin.

Now, for your cream cheese topping. The original recipe calls for a branded light, spreadable, cream cheese. Normally, I eschew anything dairy that’s “light” but because cream cheese can be very stiff I did actually buy the spreadable light cream cheese*. Mix 250g of the cream cheese with 1 egg and ¼ cup of caster sugar. I actually found this made too much topping – it’s a shame it’s not possible to halve an egg!

Dollop generous spoonfuls of the cream cheese mix over the top of the brownie mix. I ended up with 6 or 7 large tablespoonful dollops. Take a knife, and use this to swirl the cream cheese topping through the brownie mix. I went the length of the tin followed by dragging the knife across the width. It’s up to you what you do though!

Finish by baking for 35-40 minutes (40 minutes in our oven), until cooked but still moist.

Allow to cool before cutting into portions. The Everyday Gourmet recipe says it makes 24 but that would be 24 tiny brownies for chocolate hating, not hungry types! I say it makes about 12!

The brown sugar makes for a lovely depth of flavour, the brownies are fudgy, they look stunning and the topping makes a slightly tart counterpoint to the sweetness of the brownies.

Excellent stuff. Even if you don’t fancy fiddling with your favourite brownie recipe, just try adding the topping!

* I was relieved, after reading the ingredients, they actually seemed to be innocuous – quite often all manner of interesting additives are used to replicate the mouth feel and weight of the fat that has been removed.

Sunbeam Snack Heroes Cake Pop Maker

- Alex Leave a comment

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Disclaimer: Sunbeam sent me the cake pop maker to trial.

Sunbeam has recently rereleased the Snack Heroes range. For not very much money at all (they’re all under the $40 mark) you can choose from an icecream maker, an egg cooker, a chocolate fountain, a popcorn maker or a cake pop maker.

It’s an interesting mix of products because some are definitely ‘novelty’ whereas others are pieces of kitchen kit serious cooks are likely to pick up – particularly the ice cream maker. The cake pop maker, which I tried out, falls somewhere between the two.

As you may have noticed, I’m a reasonably keen baker but one thing I’ve never tried to make is a cake pop. I daresay you need to buy some special tin for them or something. And, of course, you need to decorate them and I think we all know how lacking my decorating skills are …

Luckily for me, the cake pop maker comes with some pretty detailed instructions and helpful tips. For example, dipping the stick into a little melted chocolate before pushing into the cake pop to make it more secure, and chilling the cake pops for 15-20 minutes before decorating to make them more stable. Really obvious things, but ones I wouldn’t have thought of.

There’s also a selection of recipes which is incredibly useful because they’re all in cake pop friendly quantities and they give you a good idea about the different types of cooking times you need. I tried the plain vanilla recipe. As a trusty helper, I had one very interested toddler.

I melted 75g of unsalted butter in the microwave and mixed in ½ cup caster sugar, 1 egg, ¾ cup of self raising flour, ¼ cup of plain flour, 1 tsp vanilla essence and ⅓ cup of milk. For a change, I did all of this by hand! Give the mixture a good beating – and depending on your enthusiasm for beating it may be worth your time to sift the flours.

With the cake pop maker preheated, I gave it a quick spray with a neutrally flavoured oil. I then spooned 2 tsp (yes, that’s right!) of batter into each hole (there are 6) and cooked for 4 minutes.

The timing given in the recipe is spot on and the cake itself was nice (always a good start). I found myself to be pretty incompetent when it came to those 2 teaspoons of batter … I think this is one of those things where practice makes perfect. Some of my cake pops were perfect and others kind of did a bit of exploring and came out looking like odd shaped flying saucers. Tidying them up is easily done: I just trimmed off excess cake when they were cool and you’d have never known how wonky they were initially!

One thing I did notice was that the external surfaces of the maker got very hot. You do end up having it on for quite a while (most of the recipes make ~ 30 cake pops, so you’re doing to be doing 4 or 5 batches) and it started to get uncomfortable to open it. To be fair, the very first page of the manual notes “The temperature of surfaces may be high when the appliance is operating”. That is very accurate! It’s also a bit of a shame because this is very much the type of thing people are going to want to use with their kids (in fact, the first thing that Andy said was “oooh, that will be a great thing to do with the toddler”) and older children are going to want to be involved in the opening and shutting. So just make sure you read the instructions and exercise some commonsense!

Cake pops tidied up, cooled and refrigerated, I set about decorating. This wasn’t actually as painful as I expected. I used toothpicks (NOT recommended if you’re going to be serving these to children!), balanced my cake pops in a strawberry container that had holes in the lid (! I think egg cartons would do well here too) and made a very simple chocolate icing (butter, icing sugar, cocoa and hot water).

You need to make your icing pretty thick and I experimented with dipping the cake pops into the icing, but I found that spooning it around them worked a lot better. I wasn’t going for full coverage – just enough to top them and cover up the seams (and any less than awesome trimming).

For decoration, again I found that dipping wasn’t ideal. I put the iced cake pops back into the strawberry container and sprinkled on the decoration. Chocolate sprinkles, dessicated coconut and some silver cachous. Of course, if you’re less lazy than me, you could do fancy things like pipe over a different coloured icing or do faces on them … For me, sprinkling was good enough and also meant that decorating them was a lot quicker than I expected!

So overall, the Sunbeam cake pop maker gets a thumbs up. It is easy to use, does the job and the recipes (or at least the one I tried!) work. It’s also quick. The only drawback I see is how hot it gets.

However, I think the best recommendation is that when I posted on my personal Facebook page that it had arrived one of my relatives immediately posted: “I have one and it is very good. All even in size and no hot spots like one may have in an oven.”

I guess now I just need to learn to decorate!