Homemade Bounty

Having made our traditional peppermint pralines last week, there was lots of the shredded coconut stuff left. This happens every year. I once found a bag of coconut I had first used three years before. Honestly! Then and there I vowed to find a recipe that would help me get rid of these leftovers.
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Last year I made some Bounty chocolates using this Cut Out + Keep recipe, but the amounts were totally off, and you'll see in the comments that many had the same opinion. Way too much butter, not enough powdered sugar. Luckily I had tasted as I went along (well, that's half the joy of baking, right??) and added what I needed to make them taste good. And trust me, they were very good. :P This year I thought I'd go about it a little more carefully and write up a better recipe. I measured and added ingredients until the texture and taste felt right and added it all up in the end. There are other variations out there, but most require double cream or condensed milk, and I like the simplicity of this recipe.
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The amounts have been rounded off, and adjusted so you can use a whole bag of shredded coconut (250g). I had about half that left this year, and I still got about 40 bite-sized pieces, so this recipe is quite large. I think I'll stick to half amounts of everything in the future too. The picture above is from last year, when I made them in a size more similar to the original Bounty chocolate. If you do them that big, I think you'll get about 25 bars from this recipe. That's a lot of Bounty! (I'm trying very hard to avvoid the cheezy bounty-ful jokes here folks. Help me out.)
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Quick, before I say something too stupid: Let's get right down to the (huge) recipe!
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250g shredded coconut (the dry, unsweetned stuff, sometimes called dessicated coconut)
170g butter (at room tempererature)
400g powdered sugar
500g chocolate
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Mix together coconut, butter and powdered sugar well using a fork. This takes a bit of effort, and the mixture will seem way too dry at first. Keep working on it for a couple of minutes and it should suddenly come together to a firm, but sticky mass. Press toghether to form a sheet about a cm in thickness - I just do this by hand on a piece of parchment paper on my kitchen counter. Place in fridge for an hour or so, until completely firm. Cut into pieces of desired size - a sharp, hot knife will make this easy. Melt chocolate (temper if you like), cover coconut pieces. Place on plate covered with non-stick paper and let cool completely. Store in fridge.

Christmas traditions: peppermint pralines

There are a few traditions that never change, this is one of ours. There is no christmas without these peppermint pralines! I have to be careful not to make them too early or they will mysteriously disappear long before the big day. They look a little like snowballs, don't you think, even if the dark chocolate shines through?
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I distinctly remember stiff shoulders and aching arm muscles after stirring this mixture, and complaining to my mother that these took ages to get done. I must have been very young then, because although you have to expect to spend some time with these because of the several steps involved, it's a breeze compared to my childhood memories. Thankfully. ;)
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1 dl milk
1 large teaspoon flour
500 g powdered sugar
6-8 drops of peppermint oil (food grade)
300 g dark chocolate
ca 150 g shredded coconut
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Combine milk and flour and bring to a boil. Let cool. Stir in powdered sugar, a little at the time. Add the peppermint oil somewhere on the way - it's easier to stir it in before the mixture becomes too thick. Add more powdered sugar if needed. The consistency should be such that you can roll little balls of it with your hands. Do so, and let them cool in the fridge for a few hours until properly stiff. Melt chocolate and pour shredded coconut in separate bowls. Using forks or other suitable tools, dip each praline first in chocolate, then roll in coconut and let cool completely in fridge. Store in fridge.
I have no idea how long these can keep - because they never last very long in my fridge anyway... ;)

Autumn cooking: Banana muffins

Like so many others of you out there, I crave comfort food these chilly days. When I found two bananas I had all but forgotten in my cupboard, I got the excuse to make something I've been thinking about for a while now: banana muffins!

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Amazing how something so ugly can be made into something so tasty... Overripe bananas are perfect for baking.-

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Living dangerously perhaps? Or are you all fully able to keep flour and melted butter away from your precious electronics without problems? I managed to stay clean this time, but usually prefer to keep my computer a safe distance away. A quick Google search for "banana muffins recipe" yielded 313 000 hits - maybe I don't really need to make this post after all... *lol*
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Anyway, I started with a recipe from Cat Can Cook that's supposedly 100% fool-proof, and then proceeded to make a total mess of it. And the muffins still tasted great! I added an element from a recipe at Allrecipes - a yummy brown sugar crumb. Oh MY. It was sooo good! Crisp, crunchy, rich, sweet... Absolute bliss. Because of the sugar crumb there's no need for any frosting on these, so they can go swiftly from the freezer to the microwave to the table if you have unexpected guests. Or a sudden, irresistible craving for a snack, which happens much more frequently in my world.
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So here's my take on the good old-fashioned banana muffins, adapted from Cat Can Cook and Allrecipes:

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Batter:

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

3/4 cup white sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup melted butter

3 ts vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 ts salt

1 ts baking soda

1 ts baking powder

1 ts cinnamon

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Mix together mashed bananas, sugar, egg, butter and vanilla in one bowl and set aside. Mix remaining ingredients in separate bowl. Combine wet and dry ingredients and pour into silicone muffin tins with paper liner (or greased muffin tin if you prefer). This recipe made 16 small muffins.

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Crumb:

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 ts flour

1/4 ts cinnamon

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Mix together all ingredients and distribute over muffins.

Bake at 175 degrees Celcius in ca 20 minutes.
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They taste amazing straight out of the oven... Just as good the next day (except for the lack of crunch), and freezes well for future muffin cravings. Lessons learned: One, next time I'll try piling the brown sugar crumb in the middle instead of spreading it evenly over the top, to see if that's more visually appealing. Two, that crumb is going on every single batch of muffins from now on! YUM. Muffin heaven.

(ETA: I tried the sugar crumb in a pile thing, and it didn't quite work out. The moisture of the melting sugar made the muffin soggy in the middle and it didn't rise well there, but rather ballooned out near the edges, overrunning into the muffin tins. An even spread is definitely the way to go.)

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A little taste of heaven

There's no better reason to have a go at a delightful butterscotch recipe than finding a carton of double cream about to expire in your fridge... :) That sort of removed any guilt that might have arisen when dishing out lots of cream, butter and sugar. It had to be used, right? It's not my fault that it just begged to be used on something so amazingly tasty as butterscotch sause? Right? Anyone? *grinning wildly*
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You can find the original recipe on Smitten Kitchen, but I've rewritten it for you using metric measurements. I always find it a little tricky to measure butter by the cup... Be aware that my recipe is also about double the size. I find it more convenient to not have half a carton of double cream left over, but it also makes for a whooole lot of butterscotch... :P
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You need:
150 g unsalted butter
3,3 dl (= ca 280 g) packed brown sugar
3,3 dl double cream
ca 1 ts flaky salt (or 1/2 ts of regular salt), or to taste
ca 4 ts vanilla extract, or to taste
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Melt the butter on medium heat. Add sugar, cream and salt. Stir while it all melts and blends together. Resist the urge to pour it in a cup and drink it right away.
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Let simmer carefully for about five minutes while stirring now and then. That's right, there's no need for a sugar thermometer or a cold water test to get it right. Just let it bubble away for those five minutes and rest assured that it will all be ok.

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Remove from heat, add vanilla extract and stir well. And this is where the magic happens. The strength of your salt and vanilla extract may differ from others, so don't skip this part. Fill a teaspoon with butterscotch and taste it - very carefully, as it's still very hot! Then add more salt or vanilla extract, or both, depending on taste and preference. Stir well and taste again. I usually end up adding a little bit of salt and a couple of teaspoons of vanilla extract. The salt gives the butterscotch that unique zingy taste, and the vanilla is, well, pure vanilla heaven.

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I recommend letting the butterscotch cool to room temperature before serving. It's not really a must, but when hot it is very runny! If it is allowed too cool it becomes more viscous - in fact, if you leave it in the fridge for storage (and it must definitely be kept in the fridge for the week or two you can store it) it can become semi-solid. Just leave it on the counter for a while before serving, or heat it very slightly if you're the impatient type.
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When I read this post at Smitten Kitchen I knew I just had to try this. Anything that inspires such vivid and passionate writing has to be good, right? And let me tell you, she was not kidding. This sauce is amazing. Nothing I can write can do it justice, it's just that good. I want to sip it straight from the bottle. Not to mention how it tastes on ice cream! Yum. Or try it on fresh or baked fruit. Don't take my word for it, give it a try for yourself, it's incredibly simple. Now there's a new addiction for you (I mean me). :P And if you think you have more than enough, how about making it a gift? Just be sure to tell the recipients to consume it within a week or so. Enjoy!

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New food addiction: homemade crispbread

My latest addiction in the cooking department is crispbread! Homemade, delicious, crunchy, healthy, addictive crispbread. ;) So easy to make, so good to eat. Since I got the recipe just after christmas, I've made them nearly ten times... They just don't last long in this house. ;) And since five people have already requested a copy of the recipe, I figured I might just make a blog post about them!

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The recipe is incredibly easy to memorize, but requires a quite a few ingredients:

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2 dl coarsely ground whole rye flour

2 dl oats

2 dl oat bran

2 dl wheat bran

2 dl sesame seeds

2 dl sunflower seeds
2 dl pumpkin seeds

1 dl flax seeds

salt

7-8 dl water

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It's a fairly flexible recipe - if you're short on something, just compensate with the other ingredients, or replace with other things, for example coarsely ground whole wheat flour, chopped pumpkin seeds or other suitable ingredients. Adjust to taste!

- Pat the mixture onto baking sheets using a spatula or even your hands. I strongly recommend using multi-use teflon baking sheets, they make everything so much easier! The recipe makes almost three pans of crisp bread. Score lightly with spatula to make it easier to break them apart later. You might see in the picture above that near the edge I haven't as much scored, as made a little gap - I've found that this prevents the edges of the crispbread from curling up too much.

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Bake on 160 degrees Celcius for 30-40 minutes using your oven's hot air fan. The crisp breads are sensitive to temperature and moisture balance, so keep an eye on them and adjust baking time as needed. The last pans typically needs a few minutes less than the first, as some of the water has evaporated and been absorbed.
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The crispbread keeps for a long time - not that it ever needs to. Mine disappears in a week or two. ;) I keep it in paper bags or just in a box without a lid, but for longer periods of time perhaps an air-tight container is better.

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Enjoy as is, or with a little bit of good butter. Trust me, you'll love them!