lördag 24 november 2012

Baking is like diving

Baking is like diving... You either do it rather often or you don't for everybody's safety....
The last two baking sessions went to hell!

2012-11-24 Lingonberry squares
First one I tried to bake pretty traditional Lingonberry squares that I had done quite a few times before rather successfully. But this one time, it just became a dry brick with far too much sugar. Last time I tried to eat one up, I was forced to throw half of it away as it was sooo dry and soooo sweet I could not even swallow it. That is how you find out whether your guests are really polite... If they eat up, they have been well trained... :O) My guess for this serious baking failure is probably due to the fact that I baked the squares a little too long and had disproportionally much sugar compared to berries. Next time, I'll add up more berries. Fact is I did not have enough berries at home when I was about to bake. So maybe the real problem is my unstructured handling of shopping lists before baking rather than the baking itself! Also a further issue is that I probably made the dough simply too thin! But this is only a wild guess.

The baking session from today was also a safe bet that went bad: typical cupcakes half of which were white chocolate chips and half were Nutella cupcakes.
2012-11-24 Nutella muffins
The Nutella cupcakes follow the same recipe with the only difference that instead of spreading in white chocolate chips in the muffin mould, I did spread a click of Nutella instead. And to say the least: It is extremely unclear how long time those small guys need to bake. I have completely forgotten! I do have a time for the big ones, but the small ones... those were not really done... Well, well... Next time maybe I will be more "inspired" somehow? And some cream cheese frosting might cover the taste of those half raw muffins?! Or will the tastes collide?!
2012-11-24 White chocolate chips cupcakes and Nutella Cupcakes

And by the way bad baking sessions: next time remember not to use lactose free cream cheese for the frosting as it gets far too fluid!

Thank God, the looks do not always correspond to the taste. So here you get some little little picture. Which did not turn out as bad as you would have expected from such disastrously tasting stuff... :O)

Just some comment after having actually eaten the cupcakes in their final state. Indeed, they turned out more edible than they seemed to be after the first one I ate. So cooling down may have helped! Or maybe it was the frosting covering its taste?! :)

Lingonberry squares

I tasted Lingonberry squares for the first time when my colleague baked them for a Friday coffee break when I still worked for the Quality Assurance department back in the very very old times.
They were sooo good! I just had to have the recipe. Recipe was actually available to all of us in "Sju sorters kakor" and was actually called "Syltrutor" which means Jam squares.

Being no friend of jam and supersweet stuff, I have decided to swap the lingonberry jam with some real lingonberry. 
2012-11-24 Lingonberry squares

Ingredients
 Dough
270gr flour
130gr caster sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
150gr butter
1 egg

Topping
250gr lingonberries or more 

Crumbles
60gr oates
120gr caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
50gr butter

Instructions
Turn on the oven at 200 degrees (or 175 degrees with ventilation).
Mix sugar, flour and baking powder. Add butter in very small pieces and mix together. Add the egg and mix to get a well mixed dough.

Use a 20x30cm pan and put butter on in to achieve an even baking result.

Cover the pan with the dough. Add the lingonberries.

Mix oates, sugar, vanilla sugar and butter and distribute it evenly over the lingonberries.

Bake the cake for about 20min.

When cooled off, cut in squares.