Category: Baking

More Baking: Cupcakes

As a reminder: this is not a baking blog. Now that this is out of the way, I was looking for non-cookies for a change, and cupcakes would fit the bill. I checked several recipes and settle to use this. Here the result:

Very tasty cupcakes

I recommend to read the well made web page above, but the summary of the recipe:

  • 150 g plain / all purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 2 large eggs at room temp
  • 150 g caster / superfine sugar
  • 60g  unsalted butter
  • 125 ml milk
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 tsp vegetable or canola oil

The only change I did was to replace the superfine sugar with the fine brown sugar.

Time was spot on 22 minutes. The result was 11 small cupcakes which probably should have been 9 slightly larger ones.

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More Baking: Coconut Cookies

Coconut cookies – Simple and very tasty

Since I had dried coconut left over (see here), I was searching for a recipe for cookies with coconuts. There’s plenty, so I picked one and it worked really well. The biggest problem was converting cups into something I can use, so here the metric translation of that recipe:

  • 150g flour (= 1 1/4 c)
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 110g butter (= 1/2 c)
  • 200g sugar (brown only as I had no white sugar) (= 1 c in total)
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 120g coconut shredding (= 1 1/3 c)

Don’t let me rant about the use of tsp. That is pure insanity. Luckily those don’t need to be exact anyway.

  1. Preheat oven to 175°C
  2. In one bowl mix flour, baking soda and salt
  3. In a larger bowl add butter and sugar and mix well
  4. Add egg and vanilla
  5. Add flour little by little (sieving it in)
  6. Mix in the coconut shreddings
  7. Form small balls (about 2-3cm diameter) and put them on baking paper
  8. Bake about 12-14min. Move to wire rack to cool.

The result was as good as I expected. Crispy outside, a bit chewy inside. Perfect on the first try!

More Baking: ANZAC Biscuits

A colleague at work who is from New Zealand told me about ANZAC biscuits. Never heard of them and they do sound like a well known antidepressant.

From the list of ingredients it’s similar to Hobnobs I made 2 weeks ago, but there’s coconut in ANZAC biscuits which is a significant change in taste. I happen to like coconut, so…let’s do it!

This is the recipe I used. Since I could not get Golden Sirup in Japan, I followed the recipe note which mentions that 1/3 light molasses and 2/3 honey is a suitable substitute. I found the light molasses at Tomiz.

ANZAC Biscuits. Crunchy. Sweet. Tasty!

The result was similar to the Hobnobs but they became thinner and thus crispier. Not sure that’s how either is supposed to be since I have no reference. Both are tasty though, which is all which matters!

Update: I think they are a bit too thin and a bit too crispy. Next time I’ll try with slightly more flour and 13min instead of 15min baking.

Hobnob Biscuits

Looking for something to watch on Amazon Prime Video or Netflix, we found The Great British Bake Off and in the 2nd show the topic was biscuits. I do like British biscuits. And there they mentioned Hobnob biscuits which I never heard of. As always, Google is your friend and finding a recipe is not much harder. I used this recipe with some needed adjustments:

  • golden syrup replaced with honey
  • caster sugar became brown sugar
  • self-rising flour became normal flour, salt and baking powder
  • baking soda was replaced with more baking powder

And this is the result:

Hobnob’s, 1 of 2

I can say that they are easy to make, awesome tasty and if I ever find this golden syrup, I’ll definitely try those again.