We Won an Award!

As you might have guessed from the sudden trailing off of posts, my writing gig at The Mancunion has mostly come to an end. In fact, in less than a week my time at the University of Manchester will be over and then it's on to pastures new.

My last essay! And the most interesting

Currently I'm procrastinating grammar revision and thought I'd let you know about an exciting development. As you might know, Miriam and I are co-editors of the food and drink section at The Mancunion and a couple of weeks ago we won Best Section during the 2017 Celebrate Week Awards ceremony. This is quite impressive (and slightly surreal) when you consider the fact that we've only been editing the pages since January.

The award itself

Decadent Boost Brownies

I gave up drinking diet coke at the start of June and genuinely haven't missed the stuff but when I tried to stop eating chocolate at the same time then that was a whole different kettle of fish! In an attempt to get temptations out of the house, I made these brownies with all of my chocolate and sold them for charity (Cleft Palate). The results were extremely more-ish and went down well with all who tried them.

You don't have to use Boost bites, instead you could pick any of the sharing bags of mini chocolates. Maltesers . . . twirls . . . even chocolate buttons. I had a mix of twirls and boosts in my cupboard, which gave a lovely richness and texture to the finished brownies.

Gluten-Free Brownies

We all know someone who's coeliac or doesn't eat gluten, it's becoming a common phenomenon now.  I came across this recipe years ago when a friend was newly diagnosed and envious of all the cakes and sweet treats that everyone seemed to be enjoying. It's such a good recipe that it's now my go-to brownie recipe, although I rarely use gluten free flour as none of my immediate friends here are coeliac. The only problem is if someone is allergic to nuts as the way the recipe keeps down the flour is by using ground almonds. On the other hand, if you like nuts then add hazelnut butter in place of half the butter (keeping the other half) - it makes it taste of nutella!

A Strange Time Of Night For Blog Posts

Right now, I should be asleep. In fact, I should think that most of you are asleep at the moment (unless you're my friends and family in Singapore, in which case, Mum, I promise not to stay up and blog when I have lectures!). I have this thought buzzing around in my head, stopping me from sleeping, which is how incredible it is that I've only just started this blog and yet my page stats on Blogger say that I have had 262 page views already, from all over the world, though I have just realised that my Thai visitor was probably actually my dad on one of his business trips there, but I don't think I know anyone in Switzerland and not 50 people in America, and they are reading my blog! Also, there are drunk people outside my window and I can't find my earplugs!

My mum sent the link to The Interesting Food Blog to some of her friends, and I hope they're enjoying reading my writing. A few of them sent her emails back saying well done, a fact that I was really touched by, and my godfather commented about Callebaut chocolates on the Thank You cookies post (I also can't believe I only just discovered they existed). One friend suggested that my next post was about savoury food to keep variety going. As I sat there, scratching my head as to why, for I had equal sweet/savoury posts published, I realised that she had probably been told over the years just how much I loved to bake and that I could spend hours, days even in some cases, making and decorating cakes. My previous blog was all about my baking and I realised very quickly that, although I love making complicated bakes, my everyday staples were brownies, cookies, chocolate cakes and Victoria sponges and that there are only so many times and ways that you can post about the latest batch of cookies that you made, identical to the last batch, and the one before that. Amanda, I promise not to let this blog get like that and to always strive to make unusual but do-able recipes and document them here. The other piece of advice given to me, again by Amanda, was that the most successful blogs drew you in and made you want to read the next instalment and I've been wondering how I can do that. All I can say for now is that I'll work on it.

One of the things I miss most about Singapore is the pork buns that I ate for snacks and ordered at Din Tai Fung on my many visits to their Singapore restaurants. Much to my eternal dismay there is no Din Tai Fung here in Manchester although there is the different, but equally good, Yang Sing (but they only serve Dim Sum before six) so I set out to make my own pork pau - it's complicated. My next post will be about this quest and the very long time it took to get there (hint, the whole process lasts 5 to 6 hours each time!!).

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings and I wish you a good night!

Peanut Butter Brownies and Apparently CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!

Yes, you read the title right; Harvey Nichols has just sent me an email telling me that Christmas is just around the corner and I need to book Christmas drinks there ASAP. I know that it's now September and Christmas is in about three months (or 110 days, 5 hours, 5 minutes and 30 seconds away if you really want to get technical - thanks http://www.xmasclock.com - although that might be for a different country, I'm not sure!) but let's celebrate Halloween and Guy Fawkes night first!!

For a not at all christmassy, but maybe a just right for the start of  Autumn, snack I wanted to make David Lebovitz's dulce de leche brownies but didn't have the titular ingredient, so, after a bit of googling I hit upon the idea of peanut butter brownies (recipe from Good Housekeeping). Yummy! And I have about a kilo of peanut butter at home. Swirling the two mixtures together made it look so pretty and they tasted fairly good (apart from the edges as I forgot to set a second timer whilst chatting to a friend). In the future I would set another timer and cut the peanut mix by a third as it almost made two complete layers instead of marbled swirls. I used my Callebaut 54% chocolate in this recipe plus their cocoa powder and it made for a intense but not too strong/bitter chocolate flavour (NEWSFLASH I just got the Callebaut milk chocolate chips and the white chocolate ones and both taste good but the milk chocolate is divine, more chocolaty than high street brands and so moreish!)

Marbled Brownie Recipe

Oven at 180˚C

Baking tin required - I normally use an IKEA tin or a rectangular sandwich tin which lets me remove all bar one side of the tin for easier cutting. Whatever you use make sure it's well greased.

Cut as many slices as you want

Ingredients

175g butter

125g dark/milk chocolate

250g sugar - the original recipe says "light brown soft sugar", which has one too many adjectives for my liking! If you have muscovado sugar then use that, if you don't then regular sugar should be fine.

2 eggs - again, the original recipe says medium but really whatever size you have to hand

125g plain flour

25g cocoa powder

Peanut Butter Marble (this is two thirds of the original recipe)

17g MELTED butter (stick it in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time)

27g icing sugar

67g smooth peanut butter

¼tsp vanilla extract (not essence - essence is terrible as it is a synthetic flavour and not really real vanilla)

Method

Melt the butter and chocolate in a big pan on the hob (if you're concerned about burning it then use a bain marie - a bowl suspended over pan/bowl of hot water so that it doesn't touch the water but that the heat melts whatever is in the top bowl).

Take off the heat and stir in the sugar followed by the eggs and then the flour and cocoa powder. This is your brownie base.

For the peanut butter marble you need to combine all the ingredients in a separate bowl until smooth-ish.

Spread ⅓ to ½ the brownie mix into the bottom of your greased pan and dollop half the marble over the top.

Repeat the above step with the rest of the brownie mix followed by the peanut butter marble and then swirl the tip of a knife through the dollops to create a pretty pattern, but try not to over mix it!

Cook in the oven for 20-35 minutes, depending on your oven. I would start at 20 and then check before putting another timer on for five minute increments. You want the brownie to have a crisp/cracked top but still move slightly in the middle, so it's a bit gooey and lovely to eat but not to runny you need a spoon to eat it with (I have had to do that before and it's not great!)