Domestic Goddess, Here We Come
The follow up to the best-selling Perfect, Perfect Too contains more invaluable recipes and tips from award-winning food writer Felicity Cloake. We've selected our favourite baking recipes from the new food bible to whet your cake-craving appetite. Warning: the following recipes will make you want to eat a lot of cake!
Blueberry Muffins
What you'll need:
Makes 9 muffins
75g frozen blueberries
75g fresh blueberries
240g plain flour, plus a little extra
110g butter, softened
200g demerara sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
½ teaspoon salt
240ml buttermilk
Click on for the recipe...
Blueberry Muffins
1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/fan 170°C/gas 5 and line a muffin tin with 9 paper cases. Toss the frozen blueberries with a little flour and put back into the freezer until ready to use. Roughly crush the fresh blueberries with a fork.
2. Beat the butter with a hand or stand mixer until it is very soft – the consistency of mayonnaise. (NB you may need to warm the bowl in a pan of hot water first if your butter is still quite hard.)
3. Beat the sugar into the soft butter, followed by the beaten egg, and mix until well combined. Stir in the mashed blueberries.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and ½ teaspoon of salt in a new bowl and mix together.
5. Fold half the dry ingredients into the mix, then half the buttermilk, then the remaining flour and buttermilk. Add half the frozen blueberries and mix in until just combined, but be careful not to overwork the batter.
6. Spoon into the prepared tin and dot the remaining frozen blueberries on top. Bake the muffins for about 25–30 minutes, until well risen and golden.
7. Allow to cool slightly before serving, but these don't keep well, so don't wait too long.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
What you'll need:
Makes 15
120g salted butter, at room temperature
75g light brown sugar
75g granulated sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
240g plain flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
170g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
Sea salt flakes (optional – but if not,add a pinch of fine salt to the dough along with the sugars)
Click on for the recipe...
Chocolate Chip Cookies
1. Using a wooden spoon, or (and even better) a food mixer, beat together the butter and both sugars until just combined. Add the vanilla extract, then the egg, and beat in well.
2. Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into the bowl and stir in until it just comes together into a dough. Fold in the chocolate pieces until evenly distributed, then, if you’ve got time, chill the mixture overnight, or for up to 72 hours.
3. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/gas 6. Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper, and divide the mixture into golf-ball sized spheres, spacing them well apart on the tray, so they don’t melt into each other as they cook. Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, until golden, but not browned.
4. Sprinkle them lightly with sea salt, if using, and allow to cool on the tray for a couple of minutes, before moving to a wire rack to cool completely – or alternatively, sampling immediately.
Ginger Cake
What you'll need:
Makes 1 x 23cm loaf
100g butter, plus extra to grease
100g dark muscovado sugar
175g self-raising flour
4 teaspoons ground ginger
175g golden syrup
3 tablespoons ginger wine
2 free-range eggs, beaten
A walnut-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
150g candied ginger, finely chopped
75g icing sugar
1 piece of stem ginger, to decorate
Click on for the recipe...
Ginger Cake
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/gas 4 and grease and line a 23cm loaf tin with butter. Use an electric mixer or a wooden spoon to cream together the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl with a pinch of salt until fluffy. Sift together the flour and ground ginger and set aside.
2. Pour the golden syrup (the easiest way to handle the syrup is with a spoon dipped in boiling water and a silicone spatula) and 1 tablespoon of wine into the mixture and stir to combine.
3. Gradually beat the eggs into the mixture, then slowly fold in the sifted flour. Finally, stir through the fresh and candied ginger, making sure they’re evenly distributed, and spoon into the prepared tin.
4. Level the top with a spatula and bake the cake for about 50–60 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
5. Allow the cake to cool in the tin. When it’s at room temperature, make the icing by mixing together the icing sugar and remaining ginger wine until smooth, and drizzle this over the top of the cake (it will be quite liquid, but will set as it cools). Slice the stem ginger thinly and arrange down the centre of the cake as decoration.
TIP: If ginger wine isn’t already sitting in pride of place in the wine rack I urge you to invest: it’s pretty cheap, keeps for ages, and comes in useful for all sorts of things, including whisky macs for clearing colds.
Perfect Too (Fig Tree) by Felicity Cloake is out now. Order your copy here.
