American Style Pancakes | Baking

Pancakes are a guilty pleasure of mine. If they didn't exist, neither would the tub on my belly, but they're far too good to resist! Everytime I stay at my boyfriends, the 6:30am get up is made bearable by the thought of the generous 15 minute journey to McDonald's so I can devour some pancakes, mmmm.

Today I decided to attempt to make some pancakes. I say attempt, as let's face it, I'm not brilliant at making them - unless I buy them from Tesco and microwave them, then they're perfect. Surely that counts?

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

135g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
130ml milk
1 large egg
2 tbsp melted butter or olive oil

Method

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large bowl. Then, in a separate bowl, lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then progressing to whisk in the melted butter.

2. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and beat together with a fork until you have a smooth batter. Allow this to stand for a few minutes.

3. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter. When this has melted, add a ladle of batter into the pan and wait until the top of the pancake begins to bubble. Then, turn over the pancake and cook it until both sides are golden brown. The pancakes should have risen to about 1cm thick.

4. Repeat this until all of the batter has been used.

5. Serve with a topping of your choice.

I chose to top my pancakes with chocolate spread, lemon juice and sugar. A greedy bums paradise! They look quite gross, because quite frankly, I'll never meet the McDonald's expectations, but practise makes perfect so hopefully I'll get the hang of it!

I hope that you enjoyed this baking post, I look forward to posting more recipes in the near future.

Autumn-Blaze
xxx

Creme Egg Brownies | Baking

On Bank Holiday Monday, Kyle and I decided to take a trip to the local town and head to co-operative in order for me to purchase some belated Easter eggs for my Mum and sister. Due to it being the day after Easter Sunday, everything was super cheap, including a box of 5 Creme Eggs for only a £1! I decided to purchase two of these boxes as I have been intending to make Creme Egg Brownies for quite a while.
As today was my only day off work, that is exactly what I got up to!

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

• 185g Dark Chocolate (I used milk chocolate)
• 185g Butter
• 85g Plain Flour
• 40g Cocoa Powder
• 3 Eggs
• 275g Caster Sugar
• 6 Cadbury Creme Eggs (I used 5)

Instructions:

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees, or Gas Mark 4.
• Melt the butter and chocolate together in a bowl over a pan of hot water. This can also be done in the microwave, however.
• Once this has melted, leave to cool.
• Mix the 3 eggs and sugar together using a fork, although this is probably done best with an electric whisk. The mixture is to double in size, and thicken.
• Add the egg and sugar mix into the cooled chocolate and butter mixture. Ensure that the chocolate and butter mixture is lukewarm or cooler before doing so.
• Sift in the flour and cocoa powder, then going on to fold everything together using a spoon.
• Pour the mixture into a brownie tray and place into the oven for around 20 minutes.
• Whilst the brownie is baking, begin to cut your creme eggs in half. This is to be carefully done using a knife, however it does not matter if they split into more than two.
• Once 20 minutes has passed, take the brownie tray out from the oven. The brownie should look fairly soft in the middle, and cooked well around the edge. Place the creme eggs on the half cooked brownie, and proceed to gently press down. 
• Bake the brownie for a further 10-15 minutes until thoroughly cooked.
• Once removed from the oven, ensure to allow the brownie to cool before cutting.

Creme Egg Brownies are super easy to make, and they're also super tasty! I make them every Easter, and can't wait to take them into work tomorrow to share. The brownie tastes great either warmed up or cool with vanilla ice cream, or just on their own.

Have you ever made Creme Egg Brownies? 

If you enjoyed this post, let me know below and I'll hopefully create some more baking posts!

Autumn-Blaze 

xxx