Blokes Who Bake

Here it is: the best crepe recipe I've ever tried anywhere. And I've tried plenty.

I'm not kidding. Throw away every other sweet crepe recipe you have, because you'll never need them ever again. Ever.

Ingredients:

1.5 Cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar.

30 g melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 Cups milk
3 eggs, lightly beaten

Method:

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and everything else in another.
Once the butter/milk/egg/essence mixture is nice and smooth tip it into the dry bowl and mix thoroughly.
You may need to add a little more milk, the mixture should be quite runny.
Cook in a pan over a medium - high heat.

Enjoy! Other than the first one, every crepe will be perfect.

14:03

For this.

I'm using Alison Gofton's recipe for banana cake at the moment and I gotta say it comes up REAL good.

Use this:

Quick tips: for good measure add in a tablespoon of plain yoghurt if you have it.

Also ... bananas are best mashed up and left overnight in the fridge. The pulp goes good and black!

Your kids will love you just a little bit more ... for about two minutes. And then they'll be back to complaining about how unfair life is cos they don't have a Playstation and you're the meanest dad in the world.

09:45

Ken reckons this is dead easy. Egg free for the allergic folks ... eggsellent. Ha - what a crack up. I'm really coming out of my shell now. Okay ... that's enough.

Ingredients:

1kg fruit mix
1 cup water
1 t mixed spice
1 t cinnamon
1 t vinegar
1 T brandy
225 gms butter
1 tin condensed milk
1 t baking soda
2 cups Champion standard flour
1 t baking powder

Method:

Chuck into a large pot the fruit, water, mixed spice, brandy, butter, vinegar and cinnamon and bring to boil.

Remove from heat and add baking soda and condensed milk.

Cool, then add flour and baking powder.

Mix together and bake (fan bake preferably) in tin or glass container for 1 ½ hours at 150c.

I use a Pyrex glass dish 29x22x9cm.

Very nice moist cake that keeps well (if you can restrain yourself).

11:43

Doug's famous for his gingernuts. These ones come out so much better than the bought variety.

Ingredients:

100g butter

225g sugar

1 egg

1 Tbsp golden syrup

250g flour

1 tsp baking soda

4 tsp ground ginger

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 170ºC or 160 if you have fan-bake.

Chuck the softened butter and sugar into the food processor with the egg and give it a whiz until it's good and creamy.

Then add the golden syrup and give it another burst for a minute.

Add the flour, baking soda and ginger and whiz away until you have a nice even mixture.

Roll into balls about the diameter of a 50c piece and arrange on sheets of baking paper on top of 2 baking trays.

DON'T be tempted to flatten the balls with a fork, let nature and the oven do their work.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until they look golden and just like Mrs Griffin’s fine product.

Cool on a wire rack.

You’ll get around three dozen.

11:18

So many have asked for this, so here it is. Based on my Grandma's Anzac biscuit recipe, but with a few, ahhh, modifications. this recipe makes 12 decent sized biscuits.

Ingredients:

1 cup of standard flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
3/4 cup of shredded coconut
3/4 cup of rolled oats
3/4 cup of cranberries
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

110 grams of butter
1 good tablespoon of golden syrup
2 tablespoons of water
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

Method:

Prep a tray with baking paper and turn the oven on to bake at 180 degrees.

Chuck all the dry ingredients (except baking soda) into a largish bowl and use a spoon or fork to mix them. Don't bash them to bits, just make sure the brown sugar is broken down and the cranberries are separated.

Chop the butter into a pot with the golden syrup and water and warm over a medium heat. Don't let the combo boil. As soon as the butter is melted turn of the heat and tip in the baking soda. Stir it in (it'll froth up, but that's good) and then pour the whole lot into the dry ingredients.

Using the back of a tablespoon, stir it all together. Again - don't over mix. As soon as you have no dry flour visible, you're done.

Roll into good sized balls and flatten with a fork or fish-slice. Bake for about 12 - 14 minutes, depending on the oven.

Enjoy. They should last a couple of days in an airtight container.

17:44

Why do I bake? Is a question oft asked of me by Blokes Who Don't.

And I could answer it with many complicated words, or with a few simple words ... or better yet with a handy-dandy video of this one time at a PechaKucha night in Wellington.

And look - here it is, in which I answer that very question:

19:20

Holy Cranzac.

It's been quiet on the blogging front lately because of the baking and fundraising and promoting and what-not.

And today, this:

$4K for the RSA.

A lot of people had to work hard for two weeks but handing over the cheque this morning with Reese from Thorndon New World made it worth every single minute.

Cranzacs will be back next year.

10:45

They began by accident. Created because I was baking Anzac biscuits for the kids and happened to have some cranberries left over. In they went and the result was, in a word, unbelievably delicious (yes, that's two words, but let's not lose focus here).

A discussion in the office about the resulting 'Cranzac' biscuit developed quickly from 'we should sell these and raise money for the RSA' to calling Reese at Thorndon New World in Wellington to see if he'd get on board and support the project. And oh my stars, did he ever.

He loved the biscuit, he loved the idea and he even loved the sticker I designed with - in the absence of any need to share credit - my own face under my own name in the middle of it.

So we tinkered a little with baking times and quantities, given the humungous, industrial ovens that they cook with and in a day or two had come up with what was a bloody good biscuit - true to the recipe that I'd accidentally created a week earlier.

Then Reese and his team figured out nutritional information, worked out a price, created a code, and started on production. This was a shade over two weeks out from Anzac Day.

He called me on the eve of their first day of sale to say he'd made 600 packets of Cranzacs. At which point my dodgy heart nearly gave out. I suffered an immediate puckering of the sphincter and shortness of breath. Honestly? I'd thought we might sell a hundred. Maybe one-fifty. But 600 packets?

I imagined half of them going stale post Anzac Day or being heaved into a 'half price' bin.

As I write this we are just over a week in with just under a week to go until Anzac Day - our national day of remembrance. My Cranzacs have gone much better than anyone could have imagined. 1200 packets sold to date.

Read that number again. 1200. Thats 6000 biscuits. With five sales days to go. Already this has been so successful that we're talking about how far and wide to take it next year and I've applied to trademark the name and protect the recipe.

So. If you haven't already - go get some. You have five days left. Proceeds after expenses go to the Wellington RSA.

Kudos to Reese and his team, working round the clock to make the delicious, cranberry-packed treats.
Just quietly, I'm mega-stoked.

13:25

I am asked every second day if I have any gluten free recipes on the website.

The answer is always the same. Nope. There are, I tell people, plenty of gluten free websites that you can Google, I'm just a bloke who likes to bake things for the family and me - and none of us are (yet) gluten free.

Then, yesterday, Zoe didn't ask the question. She just grabbed a recipe she liked the look of and used a gluten free flour mix to bake it. As it happened the recipe came out great!

See for yourself:

The GF element was a mix of rice, potato and tapioca flour and a bit of xantham gum, she tells me. So, you know what? There ARE gluten free recipes on the website. Any of them can be gluten free. If it's a great recipe, it's a great recipe. Just use gluten free ingredients.

Thanks Zoe - like your style.

Now. Are there any dairy free recipes? As it turns out - probably.

07:33

You know that thing when someone asks for a recipe and you give them one and then they make it and take it to a party?

I had that over the weekend. Only the party was a big deal and the recipe really was mine and not just out of the Edmond's book and the person making it needed it to come out great because it had to impress people who know what they're doing. So ... pressure on.

This was what I told her to make. The secret is the cranberries. And the spices. And the brown sugar.

Then when I didn't hear from her after the party I got nervous. I hadn't worked, I thought. She can't bear to tell me how bad it was, I thought. I have failed her, I thought.

So guess how good it felt when I got this text:

OMG! Divine! Blew everyone away!!

Best feeling ever. Because the thing about baking is this: it's for sharing. The food or the recipes or ideas, or whatever. What's the point of baking great cakes if you're the only one eating them?

06:55

A quick thought on spice.

On second thought, this applies to pretty much any ingredients but you can taste it more with the spices you use.

All due respect to the folks at Greggs and other broad scope companies (Pams etc), but for God's sake don't use their spices in your baking.

Go to The Spice Rack, Spice Trader or somewhere similar and get the real thing. This is especially true with ginger. The difference between standard, bland, generic powdered ginger in your ginger slice and the real, full on stuff from a proper spice specialist is unbelievable.

Some things you can scrimp on, but not that.

15:19

I don't know about other blokes but I've had trouble with gingernuts.

Not red-headed people, some of my best friends are flame fried carrot tops, but actual gingernuts. Biscuits. A lot of recipes come out soft or without the desired spicy punch.

Enter Doug.

He's the genius that gave me the best biscuit recipe I've tried. I reckon ... and I'm not normally this adventurous ... a pinch of pepper goes a long way with these cookies.

12:29

If ever proof was needed that I'm the world's laziest bugger then here it is (bookmark this in case proof ever is actually needed in, like, a court of law).

My lovely Mum gave me a journal a few years back with several of her and my grandma's baking recipes hand written into the pages. Since then I've printed and been gifted and stolen and torn from the newspaper hundreds more recipes, folded the pieces of paper and shoved them into the journal with the thought that I'd eventually get around to writing them or pasting them into the book.

It hasn't happened. I have a suspicion it never will. But I kind of like the rustic (read: half-arsed) way it all looks, and the fact that in having to unfold every single sheet to find the recipe I'm looking for, I also rediscover plenty that I'd like to try.

Have you got a journal with lots of pieces of paper shoved into it?

17:27

I can't tell you how long I've spent trying to find or create the perfect sweet short crust pastry.

Or maybe I can. Months. Literally every day for months I made pastry until I had it exactly where I wanted it. Almost.

And then this from the pages of the Masterchef NZ cookbook. It's easy and it works and it tastes amazing. So credit where it's due.

I find I need to add just a splash of cold water.

13:09

This is potentially the start of something great.

And I can't say a word about it. Yet.

13:50

How's this for the ultimate compliment:

I bumped into a Mum I know who looooves banana cake almost as much as I do. She's baked banana cakes untold times over the years and just recently tried this one. Which happens to be my recipe.

And her son (a brilliant 13 year old kid) told her it was the best one he'd ever had!

Ingredients:

125g butter
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
3 or 4 smashed bananas
1 t-spoon baking soda
2 tablespoons hot milk
2 cups Champion standard flour
1 t-spoon baking powder

Method:

Get the oven up to 180C. Grease a 20cm cake tin.
Zap the butter for 30 seconds in the microwave (or until it's soft but not melted) then cream in the sugar.
Add the eggs one at a time and keep on beating till it's smooth. Add the smashed bananas and stir through.
Separately stir the baking soda into the hot milk. It should froth up! pour the milk into your mixture. Sift in the dry ingredients.
Don't over mix - just fold it all through and then pour it out into the cake tin.

Bake for around 45 - 50 minutes depending on your oven.

Sheesh I love banana cake. Try it.

18:38

Sometimes you faff around for ages figuring out how to get baked goods into a certain shape. For example: heart shaped cupcakes.

So, you can make them and then cut the shape out, or you can go to the local supplier and buy molds (oooh, expensive!) OR you can do this:

Unless you've lost your marbles, obviously.

Side note: I am aware that heart shaped cupcakes are not in any way blokey. But I have daughters and if they want heart shaped cupcakes and there's an easy way to make that happen, then that's what's gonna happen. Take it up with them if you have a problem.

13:23

A blinding flash of inspiration and the desperate need to use the remaining lemon curd led to this:

Little Gingernut, Superwine cookie cups filled with the delicious lemony loveliness. I don't mind boasting ... These were so good it's ridiculous. So good that even my harshest critic (read: wife) was impressed.

The base is just 100 grams of about a half and half mix of the biscuits blasted and mixed with about 45g melted butter then pressed into a mini muffin tray lined with plastic wrap. Chill the little buggers and fill with good lemon curd.

Serve with whipped cream and/or berries. And a good, big dollop of smug self-satisfaction.

19:43

You think that just because you have good intentions, everything's going to hum along nicely?

Doubt it.

I grabbed a bag of frozen blueberries from the frozen section at the supermarket thinking that a batch of muffins for the neighbours would be a good way of lifting spirits after a tough week. When I got home I realized those blueberries were actually boysenberries.

Shouldn't matter, right? Berries are berries? The recipe will still work, surely?

Nope. Wrong. Uh-uh.

Muffin fail. Instead of cheering up the neighbours, I ended up making the kids miserable by adding stodgy, purple bricks to their lunch boxes.

There's a lesson here somewhere. You'll have to figure out what it is.

11:31

A quick one:

Pancakes and lemon curd. You have to do this.

These are the pancakes:
3/4 Cup standard flour.
1 good teaspoon baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 egg (whisked)
2/3 - 3/4 Cup whole milk
30 grams melted butter.

That mixture only makes 4 - 6 pancakes, but that's enough for my son and I for breakfast. Throw it all and and whisk.When you're cooking here are a couple of tips to make sure they come out perfectly every time:

1. The pan has to be medium - hot. Chuck some butter in. If the butter bubbles and cooks straight away, that's cook. If the butter goes brown or black straight away, that's bad.
2. Go with a smaller pan rather than a bigger one. All cooktops are a bit uneven and a smaller pan gives you a better chance at the pancakes coming out uniform.
3. Use a ladle to put the mixture in your pan. That way you can measure you much is going in and get them near enough to the same size. It's tidier too.
4. Flip the pancakes when they bubble on top.

When they're done, smear them in lemon curd. It'll make you moan. In a good way.

12:58

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