Brownies. I have posted about them on various occasions and now I have found the perfect recipe (thanks Billingtons!) I love to use it as a base and add other flavours to them.

I brought these into work for my colleagues to try and the resulting feedback was requests for the recipe and a need to lie down for a bit. They are extremely fudgy and indulgent but to me that is what defines the perfect brownie.

Chocolate Fudge Raspberry Brownies

350g dark chocolate

200g unsalted butter

250g soft dark brown sugar

3 eggs

50g SR flour

Small 20g bag of dried raspberries

Fudge Icing

50g butter

3 tbsp milk

5 square of chocolate

100g icing sugar (sifted!)

Freeze dried raspberries to decorate

Jam – love it! Perfect on a scone with some jam and clotted cream, sandwiched in a Victoria Sponge or if it’s the seedless variety, mix it in with buttercream as an easy way to flavour it.

For years I have been put off making jam cos I thought it was really difficult but it’s actually really easy especially if you make raspberry. Raspberries have a higher level of pectin in them than other fruits so you don’t need jam sugar or adding lemon, it’s a simple case of equal quantities of raspberries and sugar, boil it up and there you have it – jam!

Now the organised person in me would have went to one of those pick your own farms during the summer but between going on holiday and being so stressed about driving lessons and my test I just didn’t find the time. I have found though that raspberries are still being sold pretty cheap at Leeds markets if you go to one of the fruit stalls out the back (250g for £1.50) which is a lot less than the supermarkets and if I can time it right and be there around closing time then the raspberries are even cheaper.

Raspberry Jam

2/3 glass jars with lids

500g raspberries

500g granulated sugar

Sugar thermometer (I use my Thermapen)

Baking tray

Jug

Enjoy!

Now I feel the need to make some scones to enjoy my jam properly, yum!

I love Sugar and Crumbs and no they have not paid me to write that, I just find them to be a brilliant baking brand to work with in so many ways.


I have tried out their icing sugars on a variety of occasions and the flavours have always been immense and so like their title, it’s a bit crazy. Like, seriously, how do they get a bag of what looks like normal white icing sugar to taste like strawberry milkshake, turkish delight or salted caramel to name a few? It just baffles me!

A wee while ago I was chatting to the lovely S&C folks on twitter when they mentioned they were working on a new range of icing sugars including one that tasted of milk chocolate. Now, I love chocolate especially Galaxy and Cadbury Ireland Dairymilk (sorry but UK Dairymilk tastes foul in comparison) so I got very excited when they said did I want to try the milk chocolate flavour icing sugar that had yet to go on sale.

Unfortunately between one thing and another it sat in my cupboard for a couple of weeks cos if I’m honest I felt a bit stumped on what to bake. I didn’t want to just bake a chocolate cake, I wanted to try something different but I felt like I was having cake block (that does exist doesn’t it? Writer’s block but for cakes?) So, what do I do when I feel uninspired? I pull out my trusty CCC cookbook. Honestly this book really is a cake bible, it has every sort of cake in it you can imagine and so far no recipe has let me down.

When I spotted Dollybakes Raspberry Yoghurt Bundt I knew that was the recipe I wanted to try but I also felt a bit wary. Rachel (Dollybakes) is the Queen of Bundt and it does feel a bit intimidating using one of her recipes. I really didn’t want to stuff it up. I decided on keeping the sponge recipe the same but knew the S&C icing would work perfectly with the raspberries. I love chocolate and raspberry together (here and here) but I didn’t want to make another chocolate cake so this was the ideal solution.


Raspberry Yoghurt Bundt

225g butter softened
450g golden caster sugar
4 eggs
350g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda1/2 tsp salt
250ml raspberry yoghurt (I used the Onken big pots)
1 tsp vanilla extracts
200g raspberries (set aside a handful for decoration)

• Preheat oven to 150C (fan)

• Grease a flour a bundt tin of your choice

• Beat butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy

• Add the eggs one at a time and a tablespoon of flour to prevent curdling

• Mix the remaining flour, bicarb and salt in a bowl

• In another bowl mix the yoghurt and vanilla extract

• Sift half of the flour mix into the egg mix and add half the yoghurt mix until well combined

• Repeat this process and once all ingredients are well mixed gently fold in the raspberries

• Transfer to the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 1 hour or until s skewer inserted comes out clean

• Once cool, gently remove from the tin

• To make the buttercream mix 125g icing sugar with 40g of softened unsalted butter and a few drops of milk until well combined

• Spoon into the centre of the bundt

• To make the chocolate glaze add a few drops of warm water to 125g icing sugar until you have reached your desired consistency

• Add more water/icing sugar if required

• Pour over the cake and decorate with fresh raspberries

Enjoy!!!


And result? I brought it into work to get everyone’s opinion as there is no way me and Mr T can devour a cake between us especially now I have a wedding dress to fit in to (more about that in another post!) Well, everyone loved it. The said the sponge was the nicest they had ever tasted – credit goes to you Rachel on that one and they loved the icing. I mixed some of the icing sugar into a glaze for the top and using the rest to make a buttercream centre in the ring of the cake. They all said it really complimented the cake.

My thoughts? I feel bad but I wasn’t that keen on this particular product of Sugar and Crumbs and I feel so awful saying so but I think that’s just me being fussy. I’m really particular about milk chocolate and on this occasion I thought it was closer to a dark chocolate flavour rather than a milk. It doesn’t put me off using it again though and I actually used up the end of the pack to make some chocolate cupcakes. I mixed half the icing sugar with normal icing sugar and it was ok. Once again everyone else loved it so I think it’s just me being too fussy.

I still love S&C and I will continue to use their products and if you haven’t – why? Honestly they really do produce the best flavoured icing sugar, pay their website a visit and check them out!

*as always all thoughts are my own*