General Chat

Right - enough of these proportion discussions and down to what is important....what do things taste like?

I had a crack at Barry's 5 minute cake in a cup, for this evening's pudding. Split 3 ways with ice cream.

Cooked for 2 1/2 minutes in an 'E' rated microwave (no idea what 1000w is the equivalent to). Rose nicely, well abvove the level of the mug, but had 'set' so didn't slop all over the place.

It isn't a 'light' sponge by any means, but went down a treat. The addition of choc drops (didn't have any) would make it chocolatier and perhaps a little more moist.

Deffinatley on our list when the choccy urges strike.

Bother I am at work and dont have my scales and measurements book. Dear Janey. First of all tartaric acid is from the chemist or pharmacy as you probably call it. Cream of tartar is from the food shop. Cream of tartar is tartaric acid with the flour added (I think). Oh go google it and find out.

Australian measurements.

1 standard cup of flour weighs 4 ounces
1 standard cup of butter weighs 8 ozs
1 standard cup of white sugar weighs 8 oz

off the top of my head.

You need a measuring container with the different ingredients marked on the inside of the container with their respective weights and volumes.

We are now metric in Australia and have been for many years. However my cook books are like their owner and therefore old. So some of my cookbook are in metric and some in imperial.

Our measurements do not mirror the USA. I think they are closer to UK in imperial. Heavens knows what in metric.

We have teaspoons, dessertspoons and tablespoons. Each has a corresponding volume.

Obviously..... your cooking borders on scientific experimentation. Just so you do not have any problems with the excact measurement of ingredients I will post the definitive Australian measurement list later this afternoon. I suggest you keep out of the laboratory until you have this important information.

Edit. You also need to specify if you are measuring by "cup", if the measurement is by liquid volume, or by weight.

Good-whatever-time-of-day-it-is-with-you, Janey.
Having read your recipe for Nanaimo bars, I am game to have a go at making them. Especially as my maiden name was Roberts.
But, silly question - is there an ingredient missing from the second line of the recipe for the second layer?


Joanna

Hi Joanna, from early morning land.

Missing ingredient. Oh that would be right!

Do you know that is an old ploy used by master cooks to protect their secret recipes. Leave out one of the ingredients so no one else can make it exactly the same way.

Janey!! You didn't do that, did you???????

She probably did - lol

Anyway, I've been experimenting with some American 'Cup' measures and imperial digital scales.

Obviously something is going wrongs as

1 cup flour = 4 oz
but
1 cup sugar = 6 1/4 oz

Didn't try butter cos that would be toooo messy

and if you want to make a no messing about victoria sponge use the following all in one recipe

weigh two eggs - say 5 ozs
then add 5 oz each of
self raising flour sieved with a tsp of baking powder
caster sugar
Stork or butter
half an eggshell of water

mix the lot together and put into two sponge tins cooking for about twenty minutes on 190 deg.


you can flavour by adding a tbs chocolate powder mixed with a drop of boiling water to make a chocolate sponge

add half an eggshell of lemon juice with the grated zest of lemon to make a lemon one

same for orange

Nanaimo bars -- I copied & pasted that directly from the website --

http://www.nanaimo.ca/EN/main/visitors/NanaimoBars.html

Just the four ingredients for layer 2: butter, cream, vanilla custard powder and icing sugar. I've never actually made the things, but I've been known to eat 'em from bakeries. That layer is basically a thick creamy icing.

Is our icing sugar the same as yours? Basically superfine sugar combined with cornstarch, which you call cornflour.

I checked another recipe:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/NanaimoBars.html

and for layer 2, it has

1/4 cup (56 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 - 3 tablespoons milk or cream
2 tablespoons vanilla custard powder (Bird's) or vanilla pudding powder
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups (230 grams) powdered sugar (confectioners or icing)

so basically the same?

Give it a try Joanna and let us know! Be warned though, they really are "wonderfully rich", as one site says, and you really don't want to eat too many. ;)


Ann o' GG. I see no chocolate in your recipe! -- Oh, I see, you can make it chocolate.

My problems ... I don't really know what a sponge cake is, so don't know how it should be when it's done. I have no way of weighing eggs -- weighing eggs?? I don't know what a sponge tin is, and doubt I have any. And what the * is Stork?

DET - easy way to measure butter, just make sure it isn't too soft.

Fill a measuring cup to 1 cup with very cold water.
Add butter (and hold it under with the knife) until the water reaches 1.5 cups or 2 cups or whatever you need. Ta da. I think I learned that in grade 8 home ec. ;)

But anyhow, doesn't your butter come in wrappers with 1/4, 1/2 and 1 cup lines marked on??

no way of weighing eggs! just pop them on the kitchen weighing scales - two large eggs usually weigh 5 ozs - Stork - a soft margarine

and no, our butter doesn't come like that!!

Yes, AoGG ... now what sort of obsessive compulsive person has weighing scales in their kitchen? ;)

I'm going to try the cake in a mug tonight I think. Oh drat, I can't -- all this talk of baking and I have to wait until No.1 goes shopping to get flour!

However, I have asked Google images for Victoria sponge, and I see it's a layer cake with jammy or creamy things in the middle. It seems it should have straight sides, so a cake pan with removable bottom is the thing it needs? Springform, that's the word. And Google images says yes. Now those I have!

Sterilized Milk

This is defined as milk, which has been heated to a temperature of 100°C or above for such lengths of time that it remains fit for consumption for at least 7 days at room temperatures. Usually the milk is heated to108-111°C for 25 to 30 min.
My mil always used this milk I think because she got to like it during the war . It has quite a distinctive taste.

Is sterilized milk like our UHT milk. It is treated so it will keep for a very long time in a carton without refrigeration.

Are your nanaimo bars the same as our vanilla slices. Description sounds the same.

http://vanillaslice.wordpress.com/


Icing sugar is known as confectioners sugar. Here is another explanation.


It can be a bit confusing with all the different sugars out there: icing, raw, muscovado, caster...the list is endless! Thankfully, it's easy to explain the difference between the two icing sugars on the market.

Icing sugar mixture, also known as confectioners' sugar or powdered sugar, is pulverised granulated sugar crushed together with a small amount (about three percent) of cornflour. This icing sugar is great to use when making icing for kids' birthday cakes or dusting sweet treats.


Similar in appearance to the former, pure icing sugar is also made from pulverised granulated sugar but contains no cornflour.

For everyday cooking, icing sugar mixture does the trick; the only place where pure icing sugar is a must is when making royal icing, modelling fondant and the like. If you are gluten intolerant, be sure to choose pure icing sugar over icing sugar mixture

Janey meet your first obsessive compulsive person on this thread.

I most definitely have a set of scales in my kitchen. They are on the wall and have a flip down tray. I particularly use them at Christmas time when I am making my pudding.

When my children were home and I baked each weekend I always used them. Nowadays I don't bake cake anymore because I throw out more than we eat.


here is another Chocolate Recipe. Not mine but a great favourite at work. Ha! You can do this one, most of the measurements are in cups.

Chocolate Caramel Slice

Base
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup brown sugar (that is soft brown sugar)
1 cup of coconut
125 gm margarine or butter melted.

Combine all ingredients together and mix well. Spread in greased lamington tray. Bake ten minutes at 180 deg C.

Middle

1 tin condensed milk. (heavens are you going to have a problem with that? It is thick creamy sweetened milk which comes in a can or a tube. It is made by Nestle and is absolutely delicious on bread and butter or if you are really lucky eaten from the can with a teaspoon.

1 heaped tablespoon butter
3 tablespoons golden syrup (like treacle only lighter)

Melt all ingredients together and bring to boil. Maintain for five minutes stirring constantly. Spread over base and return to oven for a further ten minutes.
Cool. (That is a direction, not an observation).

Top

150 gm cooking chocolate
60 gm copha (white vegetable shortening)

Melt together and spread over chilled slice. Leave to set.

Cut into squares. It is very rich so make the squares smallish

I feel really stupid explaining the ingredients.

What do you mean? You don’t have scales! A prerequisite for any British home. We’ve weighed things since the Roman times, not having to develop other methods for your Frontier era.

Another moreish old favourite – you can tell because the weights are in imperial.

KRUNZLE

2 oz margarine/butter
2 good tablespoons of Golden syrup

Melt together in a pan

Add – 8 oz crushed biscuits – digestives/sweet but plain/ginger, what ever is to hand
1 oz cocoa/drinking chocolate powder

Mix well
Press into a 7 in square tin ( or anything else of a similar sq in)

Melt 2 oz chocolate and spread on the top

(this can be omitted if wished – but who’d want to??)

Place to set in a cool place – fridge etc
Cut into squares.

Store in an air tight tin and try not to eat all at once.

Loved your descriptions AuntyS. They made me laugh. I'm just glad you didn't call the condensed milk 'Connie onnie' which is, I believe a Lancashire expression for that product. That would really have thrown our Canadian friend.


I vaguely remember sterilised milk but you don't see it around much these days do you? It used to come in tall glass bottles with a metal lid - rather like a beer bottle.

Cx.

I'm afraid that all this chocolate talk is a little too early in the morning even for me. ;) Remember, it's just after 10 a.m. here, and it was 9 a.m. when I first had a read. Time for my banana.

This would be why I could never decide which one food I would take if I were stranded on a desert island. Chips or chocolate ... chips or chocolate ... you can eat chips for breakfast, but Nanaimo bars, I dunno.

Okay, you call 'em "crisps", but you have to admit "crisps or chocolate" doesn't have the same ring to it. ;)

DET!!

I've been too foully sick for most of the time since this thread that I haven't been able to try any of the recipes. So tonight I decided to copy them all into a word file, nice big print, reorganized a bit for them to be easy to follow, and take it home and give some a go sometime soon.

So I'm copying yours, DET, and I get to
"Sift flour, salt, baking powder into mixture and stir in"
and I look at what I have on the monitor, and I say ... what flour?

Not "what kind of flour?" - just "what flour?"

I think you left out something crucial. ;) And I'd been so busy reading about licking bowls I didn't notice before.

Wanna just give me the flour part? anything else that might be missing too, of course!

DET! DET!

I have discovered that Barry has helpfully deleted his cake-in-a-mug recipe. I had not had a chance to copy it.

But I see that you tried it. Did you keep a copy? Can you put it back here for me?

I've added the flour (4oz Plain) on my original post. Sorry about that.

The cake in a mug is around somewhere. Just need to find it.

Barry’s
5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

1 Coffee Mug (large)
4 tablespoons flour (that’s plain flour, not self rising)
4 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla essence

Spray PAM (oil) in mug. Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.

Add the egg and mix thoroughly

Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.

Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla essence, and mix well.

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.
The cake will rise over the top of the mug but don’t be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired

EAT! (This can serve 2)


Not having a Spray oil, I just wiped the mug round with a paper kitchen towel and a little oil.

It is not necessary to cover the mug with cling film before microwaving. The mixture rises straight up. Lets say it looks a little X rated - lol

If memory recalls, the cake was a little ‘dry’ but as we ate it between 3 as a dessert with ice cream/dairy cream, it was fine. Chocolate drops may have made it a bit moister.

Ooh. This chocolatey thread has popped up again! It was great fun trying the mug cake with the grandchildren and watching it rise in the microwave. A little dry as you said DET but next time I think I will try a 'rounder' mug....the one I used had a narrow base and a wide top....we call it my daughter's 'flower vase' mug. I think the result will be better with a broader base.

Somewhere, I have the recipe for a chocolate peppermint cream slice if any one likes choclatey minty things. Now, where did I put it???

Glad you are feeling better JC - chocolate is a great restorative at times......lol


Cx.