Saturday, 23 April 2016

Butter Making!!

Hey Guys,

My family are very supportive of my interest in cooking and occasionally they will give me something that I might like and earlier this month my grandma gave me a butter churner!


It takes a surprisingly short amount of time to actually make the butter; the majority of the time just churning the cream! You have to churn it until the butter and buttermilk separate and then you must "wash the butter"! In the churner I used 300ml of whipping cream, so it takes around 15 minutes to separate and look like it does in the picture below.


It's also possible to use the buttermilk in other recipes within a few days of making it to avoid waste and it going sour. In my next post I will include a recipe that includes buttermilk so you will be able to use it! The butter will keep for up to two weeks, but I would advise that if you eat it, to immediately use it as it tastes much better!


Within the churner came a small booklet that explained  how to make it and possible flavourings. The butter churner is from Kilner and a link to the website is at the bottom of the post, if you want more information on the churner or any other products they manufacture.

Homemade Butter From "A Step by Step Guide To Using Your Kilner Butter Churner" Booklet

Ingredients - 
  • 300ml Whipping Cream for 120g of fresh butter
1. Before you start to make your butter, thoroughly wash your butter churner and make sure that your cream is at room temperature by allowing it to stand outside the fridge for two hours. It must be room temperature as otherwise the cream won't separate to butter and buttermilk.

2. Pour the cream into the churner, reseal the lid on top and begin to turn the handle to start the churning process.After a few minutes you will notice that the cream is becoming slightly foamy around the top, and then around seven minutes into your churning the cream will start to thicken. After another 5 or so minutes the cream will become very thick; this means that you are almost done! Once the churning has become particularly difficult , after about a minute the pressure will lessen and if you look into the jar your cream will have turned a pale yellow and will have separated the butter and buttermilk.

3.  Carefully pour the buttermilk into a glass, don't throw it away as it can be used in other recipes, and pour the butter into a large bowl and pour cold water over the top of it. Gently massage the butter and squeeze it together to remove the remaining buttermilk. Repeat this a second time with clean water.

4. If you wish to salt your butter, sprinkle one quarter of a teaspoon of salt over the butter and mix it in using the cleaned churner. You can use the paddles to shape the butter into a square shape. You can also be creative with you flavourings for your butter if you don't wish to salt it, like for example:
  • Cinnamon and Honey Butter - With the butter at room temperature, place your butter in a bowl with 60g of honey, one quarter of a teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Combine together using the paddles from the butter churner.
  • Parmesan, Basil and Tomato - With the butter at room temperature, place the butter in a bowl with 4 table spoons of parmesan cheese, 8 - 10 shredded basil leaves, 1 table spoon of finely chopped sun-dried tomato and a pinch of salt. Combine together using the paddles from the butter churner.
  • Chilli and Lime - With the butter at room temperature, place your butter in a bowl with half a table spoon of dried chilli flakes, 2 tea spoons of grated lime zest, a squeeze of lime juice and a pinch of salt. Combine together using the paddles from the butter churner. Try it and adjust if its not to your taste.

Saturday, 2 April 2016

Melted Bento Cupcakes

Hi Guys,

Over the time that I have been interested in cooking, I've acquired quite a large collection of cookery books, a great number of them focusing solely on cupcakes! One of my favourite books contained a recipe called "Melted Bento Cupcakes."


Bento means a single portioned meal in Japan and the authors of this book claim that this word perfectly sums up this cake, "too good to share!"
The main cake is chocolate and the icing is white chocolate. As well as this the main cake includes chopped pieces of chocolate and a caramel filled chocolate in the centre. The recipe said to use milk chocolate pieces within the cake and the caramels, but due to a lack of these ingredients, I used dark chocolate instead and a  mini creme egg in the centre for a bit more festivity as you can see in the photo below!


The inside of the cupcake was stuffed with extra chocolate pieces and the creme egg had seemed to crystallize and turned into a delicious gooey mess inside it! Also on top of the cakes, for extra decoration, you had to place some fragments of mikado (a chocolate covered biscuit stick!) which completed it! 


Melted Bento Cupcakes - From "Making Cupcakes with LOLA"

Making Time - 40mins 
Baking Time - 30mins

Ingredients -
  • 95g Self-raising Flour
  • 60g Cocoa Powder
  • A Pinch of Salt
  • 125g Butter, melted
  • 225g Caster Sugar
  • 1tsp Vanilla Essence
  • 2 Eggs, beaten
  • 175g Milk Chocolate, chopped (Or dark chocolate)
  • 12 Caramel-Filled Chocolates (Or mini creme eggs as an alternative)
  • Chocolate Sticks, to decorate (Mikados)
White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
  • 50ml Double Cream
  • 150g White Chocolate, chopped
  • 60g Butter, cubed
  • 250g Icing Sugar
  • 125g Cream Cheese
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Centigrade/350 degrees Fahrenheit/Gas mark 4. Prepare a tray of 12 cupcake cases.

2. Sift together the flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl. Then, put the melted butter, sugar, vanilla essence and eggs and beat together until well mixed.

3. Mix the dry ingredients into the sugar mixture and combine the chopped chocolate. Distribute the half the mixture into the cases and then place a caramel filled chocolate into the centre of each. Fill the cases with the remainder of the mixture, so that the chocolates are covered. Place them in the oven for 30mins.

4. Whilst the cupcakes cool start to make the icing. Firstly, put the cream in a saucepan and heat until it begins to bubble around the edges, then remove from the heat and stir in the white chocolate to get a glossy ganache and allow it to cool to room temperature.

5. As the ganache cools, put the butter in a mixing bowl and beat with a hand whisker until light and fluffy. Add the cream cheese and the icing sugar and beat for 2-3mins. Beat in the ganache, once cooled, then place in the fridge to allow to firm so that it can be piped.

6. After an hour or until the icing is stiffened, take the ganache from the fridge and place in a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe onto the cooled cupcakes. Decorate with the chocolate sticks, broken into lengths.

Please Enjoy!!!