I’m a massive fan of the Hummingbird Bakery books and own two of them – Cake Days and Life is Sweet. I’ve made a few recipes from them over the years and like all my cook books I don’t get to use them often enough. I’m thinking while I’m on maternity leave I should aim to make one recipe a week from my ever growing collection.
Recently I was offered the chance to review the newest
Hummingbird Bakery Book, Life is Sweet and oh my, it’s just amazing. I was
asked to make one recipe from the book but there were so many to choose from I’ve
two recipes to share with you. If I’m honest I’ll probably share even more over
the coming months, I just need to choose which ones…
Divided into ten chapters there wasn’t just the usual cakes
and cupcakes but also less common sections including Cookies, Pancakes and Ice
Cream. The pictures are stunning and the recipes easy to follow. Many of the
recipes are quite different and quirky (Tomato Soup Cupcakes, Strawberry
Chiffon Pie and Brownie Pudding to name a few) making this book quite unique from all of the other baking books that I own.
One of the first recipes to catch my eye was the Red Velvet
Brownies. Now I have my go to brownie recipe but I am always on the lookout for
new ones to try. These brownies were delicious and I brought them along to our
regular Tuesday NCT catch-up to get the girls opinion on them (and we need a
lot of sugar these days to get us through the sleepless nights). My only
criticism of them is I found them to be slightly more cake like and not as
gooey as my regular brownie recipe but this could be to do with my oven – maybe
I overbaked them slightly? The ones in the centre of the tray were a lot gooier
so I am thinking I might have had them in the oven for a few to many minutes.
Red Velvet Brownies
200g unsalted butter
390g caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
55g cocoa
1 tsp red gel paste
2 tsp white vinegar
4 eggs
175g plain flour
½ tsp salt
Cream Cheese Layer
390g full fat cream cheese
100g caster sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp vanilla extract
- Preheat the oven to 175C
- Grease and line a 23 x 32cm tin
- Melt the butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water
- Stir in the sugar and vanilla until slightly thick and remove from the heat
- Whisk the cocoa, food colouring and vinegar into the butter and sugar mixture
- Add the eggs and beat until smooth
- Fold in the flour and salt
- Pour most of the batter into the tin setting aside about 60ml for the top
- Beat together the cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth
- Pour this over the brownie mixture and dollop in the leftover batter swirling it into the cream cheese with a knife
- Bake for 30-35 minutes when the top should be firm and starting to turn golden around the edges
- Leave to cool before cutting
Enjoy!
This book is truly fantastic and I can’t wait to try more
recipes from it. On Monday I’ll be sharing their recipe for a chocolate cake
with mayonnaise it (yes you read that right).
If you wish to purchase this book, it’s available from
Amazon at the bargain price of £5!
***Disclaimer - I was sent this book to review but all thoughts are my own***
3 comments
Thank you so much for this recipe!! I lived on top of a Hummingbird Bakery for several months before moving home to Canada, and have been craving them since!
ReplyDelete(One thing I noticed, in the direction you say "Whisk the cocoa, food colouring and sugar" but I think here sugar is supposed to be vinegar).
Thanks again!!!
woops! Thanks for noticing, I better change it.
DeleteI haven't made them in months - need to rectify that :)
Did you try to remake them to see if they'll be gooey-er? Im trying them this week. Thats a lot of eggs needed!
ReplyDelete