Temm demanded more baking goodness, so here we go.
Also, it draws near to pancaek day, so I have pancaek for you too.
First, PANCAEK.
4oz Self-raising flour
1oz Caster sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 pint milk (thick)
OR
1/2 pint milk (thin)
Mix it all together. Decide how thick you want the pancakes and add the milk appropriately. Heat a pan, add a little oil to the pan. You want it greased enough so the pancake doesnt stick but not so greasy that its a big fatty lump.
Put a little bit of your mix onto the pan, heat until its brown, then flip it and continue.
When done, put it on a cooling tray.
For chocolate pancakes, add a little cocoa or drinking chocolate to your milk. For strawberry pancakes, add some strawberry milkshake mix (I use Crusha or Nesquik).
For a pan, I prefer to use a nice big skillet-y thing that I also use for various potato breads.
For actual serving, I prefer a coating of sugar and then lemon juice over the top. You may use maple syrup or jam. Or you can toast these pancakes and put butter on them. Their technical name is DROP SCONES, however everyone here calls them pancakes so pancakes they shall remain. If you add a LOT of milk you will end up making crepes. If you do this, good luck. You will need a very big spatula otherwise the crepe will fall apart with any attempt to flip.
Speaking of flipping, if you MUST flip your pancake in the air, be damned sure you've no residual oil in the pan. You will not be laughing if you throw hot oil into the air and coat your face/hands or someone else's face/hands.
THREE LAYER CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE
Preparation is key for this one, as you need to mix the ingredients fairly quickly.
4oz plain chocolate (I use Aero bars or bournville for this)
1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
2 eggs, SEPARATED
1/2 pint milk
4oz butter
8oz plain flour SIEVED
4oz demerara sugar
4oz caster sugar
Ok, separated eggs are easy. Just crack the egg a little and then trap the yolk in one half. Tip yolk from one half to the other, without breaking it, and letting the clear remainder go into you bowl of whites. Separate them as much as you can without smushing them.
Grease and line your tins. You will be needing three, for this is a big cake. Melt your chocolate with the milk and the demerara sugar. You'll want to take your time with this part, make sure its well dissolved. You might have to add things GRADUALLY to the milk in order to speed things up. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO YOU LET THIS BOIL. Add your bicarbonate to it, and leave it to cool.
While this is happening, get your butter and caster sugar and cream them together. Basically this means pulverising them both until you get a light white/pale yellow mix. Beat the egg yolks into your creamed mix.
Whisk your egg WHITES until they're stiff. They should look like the top of a meringue, and you should have no liquid at the bottom of the bowl you're whisking them in. This is known as "stiff".
Add your cooled chocolate mix to the creamed butter/sugar, mix by degrees. This means a little choc mix into the creamed mix, whisk it, then more choc mix, whisk it, etc. Once thats done, add the flour to the mix.
Finally, fold the egg whites into the mix. Folding will require a big spoon. Basically run your spoon around half of your mixing bowl, then cut directly across to where you started. Think of a D shape. The half circle of the D, then cut directly across back to the start. DO NOT WHISK IT WILL NOT WORK. Folding, iirc, beats out all the air, and this is what you want. Whisking will fluff it up, this is BAD.
Once its all been FOLDED in, pour the mixture into the three tins and put them in the oven at 180 degrees C (Gas Mark 4) for about 45 minutes. This cake will NOT raise much, but you should still see it separate from the sides of the tin. Once they're cooked, turn them out onto a wire rack.
ICING
4.5oz butter
3oz cocoa
12oz icing sugar
1/8 pint milk
I tend to make this while the fudge cake is baking in the oven. Why? Because hot from the oven fudge cake is the best way to eat it, so having the icing ready for its emergence is a good thing.
This icing is very tricky. To be honest I don't use 12 oz, i tend to use 11oz and 4oz of cocoa. You will have to experiment as you see fit. You can use this as icing/filling for the previous sponge cake too........ however I prefer buttercream for that one.
For this recipe, melt the butter, and stir in the cocoa. Cook it gently for about a minute, then remove it from the heat. While its cooling, stir in the sugar. I would put about 10oz of you sugar in before you start tinkering with tasting it. Mix it in gradually, it'll make the end result a lot smoother. Rushing it will mean it wont mix fully, which makes crappy icing.
When you're happy enough with the taste, add the milk. You only want enough for a passable pouring consistency. The 1/8pint value I use makes it a bit thicker, as I will be using it as a filling too.
Again I stress, mix the crap out of this icing. If its not mixed well, the sugar will rip your teeth out. Make SURE you're happy with the taste.
Once its mixed, sandwich the layers of your cake together, and if you're spare icing, bung it over the top. Leave to cool.
This cake is very nice when warm, however if you really want to push the boat out I suggest making some of my hot chocolate sauce and serving it with the cake.
Please note this cake is hard to perfect, but when made right it will make slaves out of people.
Happy baking, see you same bat time, same bat channel!!
