Baking Challenge 2: Cookies and Cream Chocolate Fudge Brownies

This post is waaayyyy overdue! I have finally had a chance to do another 'Baking Challenge' and this time it's from Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy. In case you haven't read my blog post for the first baking challenge then I'll just explain a bit about it...

Basically I have set myself a challenge to bake as many cakes/pastries/puddings/tarts/desserts/traybakes (and so on) as I can over the next few weeks, whilst I have lots of spare time on my hands before being overwhelmed with my third year dissertation for Early Childhood Studies! I based the challenge on the Great British Bake Off books, but as you can see I have already branched out to other books and bakers.

delicious gooey centre

So last week I made a big batch of Lorraine's cookies and cream chocolate fudge brownies. I had just bought myself a new brownie tin and was dying to use it! I am not usually a big fan of chocolate brownies (particularly if they have nuts in, that is a big no-no in my book). But this recipe looked so delicious I just couldn't resist. I think it was the Oreos that persuaded me!

I have attempted brownies before but the recipe I used seemed quite dry and the brownies came out more like cake. In my eyes a good brownie should be moist and gooey in the middle, and this recipe gives you perfect results!

I doubled the recipe as my brownie tin is slightly bigger than the tin Lorraine says to use, so the recipe below is enough to fill an 8" square tin.

Lorraine Pascale's Cookies & Cream Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Ingredients

• 165g butter, plus extra for greasing
• 200g dark chocolate, grated or finely chopped (I personally found chopping easier- it takes forever to grate chocolate!)
• 3 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• Seeds of 1 vanilla pod or 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 165g soft light brown sugar
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• Pinch of salt
• 154g pack of oreo biscuits, broken into quarters

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 6. Grease the tin and line with baking parchment.

Melt the butter in a pan then remove from the heat and add the chocolate. Leave the chocolate to melt then gently stir together.

In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla until fluffy. Then add half of the sugar, pouring it in down the sides of the bowl so you don't knock the air out of the egg mixture. Whisk together then add the rest of the sugar.

Whisk the mixture together until it becomes stiffer (note: I felt this was a really vague direction, I had no idea how to tell when the mixture was ready so I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best! I did whisk it for about 5 minutes).

When the mixture is "ready" pour in the chocolate mixture (again around the sides of the bowl). 

Mix in the flour, cocoa powder, salt and a third of the Oreos using a wooden spoon. Pour into the prepared tin and scatter the remaining Oreos on the top, pushing them into the mixture slightly. 

Cook for 25-30 minutes. The middle should still be slightly gooey in the middle! As the brownie cools the top will crack a little, which I think gives it a nice homemade effect.

I served the brownie when it was still slightly warm. It tastes really good with a big scoop of vanilla icecream!

And there you have it! Delicious cookies and cream chocolate fudge brownies. You could substitute the oreos for other things such as dried fruit, chopped mars bar, marshmallows, or even nuts (if you reallllyyyyy have to). After trying these I have been inspired to try making blondies next! Watch this space...

 Happy Baking!

Love Becca

"A Fashionista's Afternoon Tea"...Posh Tea & Cake at the Berkeley Hotel, London

I have been very excited about writing this blog! Today I went to Knightsbridge in London with my Mum, sister and 2 of our friends to have Afternoon Tea at the Berkeley Hotel. Now, when someone mentions afternoon tea I immediately think of scones with cream and jam, cupcakes, or big slices of carrot cake. But let me tell you this was no ordinary afternoon tea! The Berkeley themselves describe it as afternoon tea, "...with a fashionista twist". I'm not even sure if the word 'Fashionista' is in the dictionary but hey, it sounds good! Instead of serving up traditional scones and clotted cream, customers are presented with a variety of different cakes all inspired by the latest fashion designers, including Louboutin, Mulberry and Dolce and Gabbana. I am not a huge fan of fashion and don't tend to buy products by flashy brand names, but I was very impressed with this afternoon tea. From a baking perspective all of the cakes were creative genius and very inspiring.

So let's start from the beginning...

When we first sat down I was drawn to the unique china on the table. It was only when a friend pointed it out that I realised all of the china was Paul Smith...I just loved the colours and how it all matched!

We loved the shoe with Pat's name on!

 

I think the tea pot is my favourite :) Even the menus were lovely. They came in lots of different colours, my favourites being pink and green!

The menu itself sounds wonderful.

A wide selection of teas...I stuck with traditional English Breakfast tea (my favourite) but Max chose the Chocolate Mint Truffle!

The menu excites you and gives you a clear idea of what you will be eating. One of the things I loved about the menu is it includes an insert with photos of exactly what each cake is inspired by.

"From the Cakewalk"...love it!

How cool is that?! Whilst we were looking at the menu we sipped Champagne (we were feeling very posh by this point, even after my Mum gave away that we aren't used to 'fine dining' by responding to the waiter's question of what Champagne we would like with, "the cheapest one"!!!)

We started with a selection of sandwiches. I was happy to hear none of them had any prawns or caviar or something in- I'm really not into that kind of thing! They were all popular fillings that most people would eat and were very yummy.

 Egg mayonnaise roll

Cream cheese and cucumber on a tomato bread. The bread was gorgeous!

Simple, traditional and one of my favourites- Smoked salmon sandwich

Coronation chicken sandwich

Cheese and tomato wrap- with lots of salad!

We hadn't long finished our sandwiches when the waitress asked us if we wanted a refill of sandwiches! I was really surprised as I have had experiences of afternoon tea where they can be quite stingy on the portion sizes. It made a refreshing change to know you could get your fill of food and get your money's worth! Of course, none of us could turn down more sandwiches...however when we saw all the cakes I wished I had saved more room! 

The cakes were served on matching china cake stands. The top tier held the mousse and biscuits, the middle tier held the cakes and the bottom tier held the savoury spoons and cucumber soups. I'm not a big fan of the savoury tasters, plus I didn't think I would have enough room in my stomach, so I dived straight into the cakes...

I started with the white chocolate creme de menthe and raspberry mousse topped with a lemon meringue, which was inspired by Mulberry. The lemon meringue was amazing. The mousse was delicious too, although I'm not sure about the flavours together. They tasted yummy separately though!

Next was the cherry bavarois and coconut cream topped with an edible skirt and heel. Both flavours came across really strongly and I loved the decoration of the leg sticking out the top!

The biscuits were very inspiring and I'd like to have a go at making more biscuits myself. Biscuits can be very simple to make (which I must admit sometimes put me off- I like to challenge myself!) however they can be decorated in so many ways. The shoe and the bikini biscuits looked so effective and were really yummy too- the shoe was chocolate biscuit and the bikini was vanilla. 

**Scroll up back to the menu to see the pictures of what they are inspired by!**

 

This next cake looked really effective. I loved the leopard print on top (inspired by Michael Kors) however the filling was coffee and I am not a coffee fan! 

 This Gucci inspired cake was described as a chocolate mousse embellished with golden beads. The first mouthful came with an exciting surprise that gave me a brief reminder of my childhood...popping candy :-)

The layers look so effective.

This cake is probably my favourite when it comes to looks. The cute Dolce and Gabbana handbag is made out of blueberry cake and wrapped in coloured chocolate. The chocolate was very tasty, but it did turn your tongue blue! I was a little disappointed with the blueberry cake. I couldn't taste any blueberry at all! 

This is a red and white striped vanilla cake inspired by Fendi, filled with fraise de bois cremeux (which was like a raspberry mousse) topped with a large "yellow button". The filling was beautiful.

I have saved my favourite until last...Whilst the colours did put me off at first, this Valentino inspired lemon and raspberry cheesecake was like a piece of heaven in your mouth! It is so original and creative, plus I am a sucker for any kind of cheesecake... The flower on top wasn't edible but was a nice touch.

We were all so full up afterwards (as soon as we had finished a few of the cakes they bought out more!!) but I am happy I managed to try everything. We were so stuffed we couldn't finish everything, so they put our left overs into these rather fancy "doggy bags".

Again they all came in different colours and were a great finishing touch to the experience! 

It was a great day out and an experience I will remember for a long time.

Look how happy we all are :-)

To top it all off we took a trip to Harrod's...but I think I'll save that for another post in the fear of rambling on too much!!

Love Becca x