“Cookies & Cream Cupcakes” from “The Hummingbird Bakery Home Sweet Home”

Pre-baking discussion:

Nicholas (10): These are going to be EPIC.

Maureen: We’ll see about that. I think I might prefer the salted caramel cupcakes, but maybe that’s just me.

NIcholas: I think everyone is going to love these. I’m going to call them my C + C Cupcakes.

Maureen: Catchy name. I have to say that the instructions for these cupcakes are absolute rubbish. They could not be more vague. They say we need double chocolate cookies, like Oreos, but don’t say if they are with or without the cream filling. They also say we could make our double chocolate cookies. As if.

Nicholas: Maybe I should run to Sainsbury’s and buy their big double chocolate chip cookies?

Maureen: Good idea. We can use those for the cookies.

Post-Baking Discussion:

Maureen: What do you think?

Nicholas: Just as I predicted: EPIC!

Maureen: They’re interesting, I’ll grant you that. You realise, of course, that these are just chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing with cookies stirred into both?

Nicholas: If you want to be technical about it, yes, I know that. But they’re still great.

Maureen: The instructions are still rubbish, but they are good. They’re a little too sweet for me, but that’s me.

Nicholas: I disagree. They’re perfect. Yum.

“Perfect Herbed Grilled Chicken” from “It’s All Good”

Kirstin: This was super easy. I whizzed all the required herbs (and there were quite a few) with some oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and oil, marinated the chicken in it and then fried the chicken. The only problem this evening was the amazing light in our kitchen which I found a tad distracting.

Miles: It’s yummy!

Tom: It makes me think of summer holidays.

Kirstin: Yes, I think this book will be coming with us on our holidays. Even if I can’t get some of the stranger ingredients, I will be able to look at the pictures.

Tom: Ella, you ate all of your chicken!

Ella: That’s because it was delicious!

“Mississippi Mud Cake” from “Hummingbird Bakery Home Sweet Home”

All: Happy Birthday Nicholas!

Maureen: I can’t believe you’re double digits now. I also can’t believe that you chose to go with a new birthday cake. We’ve been eating the chocolate cake I make for birthdays since Andrew turned three.

Nicholas (10): Well, I wanted to try something new. It might be a risk, but sometimes risks pay off. Besides, we’ve liked everything from the Hummingbird Bakery book so far.

Andrew (13): You’re right. Mom, you should make the devil’s food cake they have at Hummingbird. Is that in this book?

Nicholas: No. It’s in one of the earlier books. I checked.

Maureen: OK. I can make that. But only after we’ve finished this cake and/or this month is over. Whichever comes first.

(All begin eating the Mississippi Mud Cake.)

Maureen: What do you think?

“Flourless Chocolate Cake” from “Hummingbird Bakery Home Sweet Home”

Regular readers of this blog will know that we are big fans of flourless chocolate cake.  This is the fifth time I’ve made flourless chocolate cake for the blog, which doesn’t even count the times I make it but don’t record the occasion. If you’re curious, the other flourless chocolate cakes I’ve done are:

- Flourless Chocolate Cake from “The Primrose Bakery Book”

- “Scotti’s La Capreses Chocolate Cake” from “A Taste of Home” by Angela Hartnett

- “Chocolate Marmalade Slump Cake” from “Good Things to Eat” by Lucas Hollweg

- “Henry’s Quick Chocolate Cake” from “Leon 2″.

We’ve loved them all, in different ways. This one I made for a Sunday Lunch because one of the guests was allergic to gluten. But as far as I was concerned, any excuse for making a flourless chocolate cake was a good one. (This is also the reason why I don’t have any dialogue for this recipe review.)

It was, in short, another triumph.

I’m getting to be quite the expert on making flourless chocolate cake. This one differed in that you make a sugar syrup, which you then add to the chocolate.

But this recipe was a revelation in another respect: you bake it in a water bath (or bain-marie, if you want to be technical about it), which prevented the cake from falling.

Let me say that again: This Flourless Chocolate Cake Did Not Fall.

I don’t mind when they fall, actually. You have to embrace that aspect of its personality, and frankly, it’s still delicious, so it doesn’t much matter. But using the water bath is a simple solution to prevent that from happening, so I will do that again, no matter what the recipe.

I also need to take a minute to talk about the consistency of this cake. It was like eating a slice of chocolate mousse. It was light and creamy and chocolately and dense, all at the same time. It would seem impossible that could be so, but it in this case, it really was.

So chalk up this latest version of Flourless Chocolate Cake as an Epic Win. Yum.

“Risotto with Peas and Greens” from “It’s All Good”

Kirstin: I had a lovely time getting this risotto ready even though I am the world’s worst stirrer.

Tom: It smelt delicious from upstairs.

Kirstin: It tastes good too. I particularly love the lemon.

Tom: And no cheese, you say?

Kirstin: None of that bad boy nonsense for Gwyneth!

“Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cookies” from “The Hummingbird Bakery Home Sweet Home”

The Pre-Bake Pep Talk:

Maureen: OK. Let’s make some cookies.

Nicholas (9): Are we making chocolate chip cookies, like we always do?

Maureen: Nope. We’re tying something different. Peanut butter and chocolate.

Nicholas: Yum. Sounds like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, in a cookie.

Maureen: We’ll see.

The Post-Bake Debrief:

Maureen: They’re much flatter in the book. These are all puffy.

Nicholas: You’re right. They don’t look like the ones in the book at all.

Maureen: Also, I just realised that while they had vanilla in the ingredients list, they forgot to include it in the instructions. So there’s no vanilla in these, even though there should be.

Nicholas: I can definitely taste that there’s no vanilla.

Maureen (laughing): No way. I don’t believe that. It does make me worry that the book hasn’t been proofread, which might be a problem down the line. What do you think of them?

NIcholas: They’re delicious. They’re like the peanut butter cookies you make, but with chocolate too. I really like them.

Maureen: They might be best straight out of the oven when the inside is still all soft and warm.

Nicholas: Maybe next time when we make them, we should criss-cross them with a fork, like we do with regular peanut butter cookies.

Maureen: Good idea! That would make them flat, like they are in the book.

Nicholas: We should definitely make them again, though.

Maureen: Yes. For sure.

“Salted Caramel Cupcakes” from “The Hummingbird Bakery Home Sweet Home”

Do you want to make this? Go on. They are amazing. The recipe can be found on Red Online by clicking through this link.

Maureen: These are outrageously good.

Tim: Agreed.

Maureen: My obsession with all things caramel really started when we went to Normandy for Easter. I loved how there were different pots of caramel nearly everywhere we went. Yum.

Tim: We managed to bring a fair few of those pots back with us.

Maureen: I know. I’m hoarding them because they’re so good. Since I never had made this recipe before, I didn’t want to use one of the special Normandy caramel pots for it, so I used just bog-standard tinned caramel for it instead.

Tim: It’s not bad caramel, but it’s not as good as the French stuff.

Maureen: Yes, you’re right. But now that I know this recipe works and is good, I’ll use the good French stuff next time.

Tim: You might want to stick with the regular caramel that we can source here, if you’re going to bake it into the cupcakes and save the good stuff when we’re just spreading it on to bread.

Maureen: I have to say this recipe was a bit of a faff, given that you have to make the cupcakes, core the cupcakes, add caramel inside, make the frosting and then apply the frosting. But the results are worth it. These are delicious.

Andrew (13): I like how when you bite into them, you get a mouthful of caramel. It’s like a caramel surprise.

Maureen: Yes, I like that too. This is not your typical cupcake.