My Greggs Eat Your Heart Out Triple Chocolate Cookies

 Hey guys, my laptop was broken hence the no posts recently, but all is fixed now so I can show my amazing cookies .I have always wanted to make those delicious giant cookies you get in the Greggs. However after failing my attempts at chocolate chip cookies I let my dreams of ever baking theses babies fade.....locked away in a box & pushed in to a corner of my brain.

Until a while ago when I saw Kat from Life of A Cupcake Baker make her killer cookies using  Nigella's recipe.I thought maybe, just maybe like Kat could make those triple chocolate cookies....maybe. 

After while I bit the bullet and thought I'm gonna go for it! You have no idea how happy I was that these worked out for me...I would have been gutted if they hadn't. I followed  Kat's suggestion of using Dark Brown sugar instead of Nigella's suggested Light Brown sugar apart from that I followed the recipe exactly. 

These cookie aren't dainty or pretty according to my sister (thanks).... but they will not apologise for that.....they are chunky and DELICIOUS! 

I put milk and white chocolate chips inside the both whole bags! They had a lovely rich chocolatey taste not too sweet. A nice little crunch on the top which concealed a soft chocolatey centre. Now and again you would bite in to lovely little milk and white chocolate drops. YUM . I had them warm. I had them cold. I had them with milk the next day and on all counts they were guilty of being yum, yum and yum :) 

My Baker's Notes

• It says to use cake taster to see if the cookies are done.....I found this helpful as I worry about under cooking cookies trying to achieve the soft cookie texture I love so much.As soon as the the tester came out clean...they came out.
• Nigella says to not to flatten the cookies....which you really want to do as u scoop a fat ball of cookie dough on to your tray. You look at it thinking I can't just leave this big ball sitting there but It flattens perfectly all by its self. I found the bigger the dough ball the bigger, more even and better looking the cookie .
• Warning the cookie dough is seriously delicious!! it was hard to not to just sit down with a spoon and dive in.

I seriously can't explain how happy I am with these cookies...my friend said they were like millies!  X

The Versatile Blogger Award

I'm really happy to say that my little blog has been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award!! By the lovely Victoria from kick at the pantry door .
This was really sweet of Victoria and I'm really flattered thank you very much V I really enjoy doing this blog and its really nice to receive this from a fellow blogger who has a cool blog her self .




This a chain reaction award and when someone is nominated they need  to thank who nominated you.
Nominate 15 blogs; favs+ new finds.
Share 7 things about them self so their readers can get to know them a little better.
You also need to inform your nominees...there doesn't seem to be anything wrong nominating anyone who was nominated a while back....Its still a compliment :)

So the blogs I have nominated are

Raining Cake and Cookies.
Sweetharts Cakes and Bakes
What do you make of my cake
Life of a Cupcake Baker
A Cup Of Tea Solves Everything
Fold In The Flour
Lotties World of Cakes and Bakes
The Very Hungry Baker
The Cake Hunter
Bake For Happy Kids
A Baked Thesis
Brown Eyed Baker
Sophie Loves Food
Laura Loves Food
Meek-n-Mild

To get to know me a little better here are my 7 things.

1.I was born in Somalia and came here when I was 3.                                                                        

2. I'm a huge dr who fan, I'm quite obsessed with that mad man and his blue box....Eccleston, Tennant and Smith MY Drs!

3.  I work In Education.


4. One of the un-stated reasons behind this blog of mine is to perfect recipes that I could perhaps use for orders as I would love to turn this hobby of mine in to something more.




5.  I love anything with a  Dystopian theme;where society has gone to pot and everyone has to start over and survive in a usually messed society. I'm find how ppl survive and adapt to what has happend fascinating..books,TV 

6. I'm an Identical Twin.

7. As well as baking I'm lover of all things fashion too!

Chocolate Hazelnut Eclairs

So since I saw the Comic Relief Bake Off Chocolate Eclairs technical challenge  ....I knew I wanted to have ago and make some of my own as they looked so yummy. I was apprehensive, having never made Choux Pastry before, but after Victoria's encouragement from Kick at the pantry door I decided to go for it.. thanks V!

Using Victoria's post (a Paul Hollywood recipe) as my guide I made my first ever Eclair. I did this a while ago...... my first attempt unlike V's weren't especially great looking, they tasted yum but looked small +flat. So I couldn't put those up and had another go at making them hoping I would learn from the first attempt.......I kind of did. These certainly looked better, they had risen well and were a better size.

A couple of things to note with making Choux Pastry, 

• It makes your arm ache like anything! I had my twin take over while I rested my poor arm and then took over again. 
• Making them although painful, was actually straight forward. Its made up of two parts the second stage when you add the eggs to the dough looks like its all gone wrong but keep mixing and it will come together!

• I found piping them tricky, how wide I should cut piping bag and how long I should make them. They still weren't the shape I wanted, I would have preferred them to be much longer and bigger like those you see in shops.
• Lastly think about how your going to put your chocolate on. I should have brushed or piped it on, the dipping method was bit uneven and doesn't give the neatest of finishes. 

Excuse my crumbs!

I'm sooo glad I made them because they were seriously delicious. The Pastry was lovely and crisp. The cream was beautifully light,refreshing and delicious as I sweetened it with icing sugar. I don't use Vanilla Extracts because of the alcohol in them so I didn't put that in, not that it mattered at all the cream was gorgeous! The ones from shops are never sweet enough for my taste. The choc was yummy and the addition of Hazelnuts gave you that lovely Chocolate Hazelnut flavour,whilst adding a lovely crunch and providing different texture to the whole Éclair.

I'm gonna enter these to the Tea Time Treats Challenge as this months challenge is Ooh La La! French Tarts, Cakes, Bakes and Pastries. This month's host is lavenderandlovage.

I might make Profiteroles next time as I will probably get a neater looking finish on those. All in all my experience with Choux Pastry + Eclairs was delicious  X

  

Chocolate Mudcake Cupcakes with fresh cream frosting

Hiya guys, feast your eyes on theses beauties! Chocolate Mud Cake cupcakes. I don't usually make chocolate cupcakes and I thought it was time to right this wrong. I opted for the mud cake variety as I wanted SERIOUSLY CHOCOLATEY cupcakes.

I'm really glad I made them and this will be a recipe I shall use again. An important thing to note is that these cupcakes are much better eaten the next day. My cupcakes don't normally get to see day 2 but I am so glad these did. When I made them I tasted them with and with all honesty they were quite average chocolate cupcakes, I wasn't especially impressed. But when I ate one the next morning OMG they were amazing! Lovely RICH and CHOCOLATEY a million times better. 

On the first day they were average chocolate cupcakes ,on the second day they had fully transformed into chocolate mud cakes! 

                     

                              

The recipe came with a chocolate butter cream recipe but I didn't want that, and decided to go for a fresh cream frosting. I wanted something light and refreshing to balance/compliment the rich chocolateness  So I whipped double cream and sweetened with icing sugar.

 I was seriously happy with the end product, the fresh cream really worked well with the mud cake as you got a light, refreshing sweet cream followed by the rich chocolatey cupcake. You needed the sweetened cream to provide some sweetness because the cupcake wasn't sweet just very chocolatey.

I used my Milton 1M star nozzle to pipe this on, I started on the outside and piped in. Fresh cream is certainly more temperamental then butter cream, the air bubbles I couldn't get rid off inside the piping bag meant when I piped I wasn't able to get continued swirl it kept spurting and cutting me off. Then it wouldn't give me a clean neat finish so I had to get strategic with where I placed my flowers decorations!

Chocolate Mud cake Cupcakes Recipe (makes 16)

56g Plain Flour

56g Self-Rasining Flour

22g Cocoa Powder

1/4 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

156g Caster Sugar

90g Dark Chocolate (This needs to have high cocoa content mine was 7o%)

93g Butter

3/4 Instant Coffee (This is to boost the chocolateness you won't be able to taste the coffee)

65ml Water

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vegtable Oil

56g Buttermilk  

Preheat oven to 170 c

Melt chocolate, butter, coffee and water in a pan, stir till choc is melted, as soon as it has take it of the heat wait for it too cool down.

Combine wet ingredients;buttermilk, oil, eggs. Once the choc mixture is cool add the wet ingredients and mix till everything is combined. Important to make sure you don't add it if its hot as the heat might start to cook the eggs.

Now dry ingredients; 2 flours bicarbonate of soda and sugar can go in to mixture , mix till everything is combined. 

Divide mixture into cases and bake for 20-24 mins or until your skewer comes out clean. Mine were done around 20 I was being careful to not over bake so kept checking towards the end of the baking time.

Enjoy x

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