KUMPULAN MASTER BLOG

10 Baking Recipes that only need one egg- whenever you get that baking urge, or you need something sweet, and one egg is all you have, these recipes are just what you need! I can't tell you how often I get the urge to bake something, go to find the ingredients and discover that I only have one egg. I then usually do a bit of searching online, get frustrated that I can't find anything and end up not baking at all. But now that I have this amazing list of one egg recipes, I can bake away to my heart's content with my one egg! Why do we need eggs in baking? Eggs are so important in baking- essentially they give the bake good structure and add moisture. Eve more importantly, the yolk of the egg helps bind ingredients together stop them from separating or splitting. Can you replace eggs in baking? Yes you can, many people with egg allergies or who are following a vegan diet, do this all the time. If you're doing it because you've just run out of eggs, be aware that the...

Chocolate Hazelnut No Bake Cheesecake- an easy-to-make, indulgent chocolate dessert, topped with hazelnuts. Perfect summer dessert. Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake is such a Summer dessert so, on a surprisingly, scorching hot Bank Holiday Monday, it seemed just the right dessert to make. Most of my favourite desserts are rather traditionally British and wintery. (Check out my three fruit crumble recipes for evidence! Apple Crumble, Rhubarb Crumble and Summer Fruits crumble) A big old bowl of something deliciously stodgy slathered in custard isn't really what you want after a summer BBQ though is it? Cheesecake is much more summery and if you add chocolate to it, so much the better! This recipe for Easy Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake is the no-bake variety of cheesecake, so no need to put the oven on in the hot weather. It has chopped hazelnuts in the base as well as sprinkled on top, so it has a slightly Nutella like taste but without the overpowering levels of sweetness. Instead, the...

Spiced Pumpkin Cake- a moist pumpkin traybake cake topped with cream cheese icing and spiced with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Perfect for serving at Bonfire Night or Halloween. It's that time of year again, in the build up to Halloween and Bonfire Night, that we all start searching for 'pumpkin recipes' and 'things to make with pumpkin'. There's always the stand-by classics of Pumpkin Pie and Pumpkin Soup, but if you're bored of those, or looking for something different, then this Spiced Pumpkin Cake might do the trick. It's traybake style, so it's perfect for sharing at a Halloween or Bonfire Night party. You might have bought a pumpkin this year, for carving, and are wondering whether you can use the flesh from inside your Halloween pumpkin to bake with. The answer is- not usually. The pumpkins that are sold for carving, tend to be the types with thinner skins, which makes them easier to carve. They are not known for having good flavour and textur...

Quick Summer Fruit Crumble- a quick summer dessert using blueberries, raspberries and blueberries. Serve it up with ice cream or custard. Use frozen fruit if you can't get fresh. Jump to Recipe I am so ready for Summer to come round the corner, so I can put away my winter wardrobe, plant up up my garden and start carrying my sunglasses wherever I go. I want to eat strawberries, avocados and salad and sit in the garden on sun-loungers. Doesn't seem like much to ask, but summer is being quite contrary... One of the other great things about summer is all the delicious fruit that comes into season- strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, apricots, blackcurrants, nectarines. I love it all! We're not quite in the season for those fruits yet in the UK, although some early British strawberries are knocking around. I use the BBC Good Food Season Table to keep an eye on when I'll be able to find the fruit I want. In my determination to bring summer on, I decided to...

It was half-term this week and, after a couple of days of enjoying my freedom and visiting family and seeing friends, I got the baking itch. I wanted to make something that would serve as dessert and as an afternoon treat to have with a cuppa. Brownies fit the bill perfectly! I had a packet of crushed hazelnuts in my baking cupboard that I had been hoping to use for something, and brownies seemed to fit for that too. Chocolate and nuts is never a bad idea, so I threw them in with the mixture to add some extra texture. My husband is not a fan of nuts in any form, so I ended up doubling the mixture and only putting hazlenuts in half. We were going away for a few days to Canterbury for our anniversary, so I packaged them up to take with us. I thought it might save some pennies if we had our own treats instead of buying cafe treats everyday. Unfortunately, even though we packed very light, there still wasn't room for an enormous tupperware of hazelnut brownies so, at the last minute I ...

Choc-Chip Panettone Bread and Butter Pudding- the best way to use up leftover over Panettone is to make this twist on the traditional British dessert. Use Panettone instead of bread and add chocolate chips for a creamy, comforting winter dessert. Did you get a Panettone as a gift this year? It's a pretty popular gift these days at Christmas, but until a couple of years ago, I had never really come across one, never mind eaten one. This sweet, enriched bread, full of dried fruit, has been made in Italy since the middle ages and has grown in popularity throughout Europe in recent years. Did you know that Panettone are hung upside down when baked, so that their dome shape doesn't get cracked and spoilt? No- me either! To enjoy Panettone traditionally, you slice it like a cake and serve with butter and/or jam to spread on top and have with coffee. Alternatively, you can tilt it sideways and slice circles from the end so that they will fit in the toaster. Apparently, it's amazin...

Happy new Year! The blog has been going for 15 months now and I'm pleased with how far it has come. I can't devote my full-time attention to it and I haven't monetized it, so I am pretty happy with what I have managed to do in the last 12 months. If I am not monetizing it, why am I doing it you might be wondering? Well, it was originally born from wanting to get back into cooking and expanding my recipe repetoire and it still serves that purpose for me. There also does seem to be a market for easy-to-follow recipes and my page visitors are increasing, so, if people are interested in reading, then it's worth carrying on. That's not to say that I have ruled out monetizing it at some point... As 2016 is over, I thought I would do a round up of how things have gone for The Improving Cook Blog- social media followers, popular recipes etc.

Today's post is a dessert recipe for Warm Chocolate Orange Brownie Dessert. I don't often make dessert when we have guests, mainly because I don't feel that inspired about what to make. Don't get me wrong, I love a dessert. It's just that I would always choose a starter over a dessert given the option! If I am having dessert, I often choose some kind of molten chocolate thing, or a chocolate brownie concoction. All that squidgy, delicious chocolatey goodness, topped off with some ice-cream, is right up my street! So, today, I thought I would give this idea a try with chocolate orange flavours. The essence of a good warm brownie dessert is in the previously mentioned squidginess. To get that, you need lots of moisture- melted butter, melted chocolate and eggs are usually the combo that will get you there. Add orange curd to that and you got chocolate orange yumminess! Timing is pretty important with this Warm Brownie Dessert; you want it to be just a little runny at ...

I've been AWOL for the last 2 weeks, as it's been half-term and before that work was VERY busy! I have barely done any cooking or baking during this time because we have been out and about and staying with family. The only exception was making a fruit crumble with my niece, who became fixated with the idea of blackberry crumble after seeing it in a children's tv programme. A bit awkward when blackberries are going oput of season, but the freezer section saved the day! Once we got back, I had itchy fingers to make something, anything food-related! My husband requested pumpkin pie- very seasonal with Halloween around the corner and Thanksgiving on the way. Luckily, I had some tins of pumpkin puree handy as my mum had brought some back from America thanks to our family friends from Texas. I am a big fan of pumpkin pie myself. The first time I ate it was in Norway, where we were living at the time, were at a Thanksgiving party throw by some American neighbours. I vividly reme...

It was the first ever Batter Week on GBBO last week, and after a great deal of umming and aahing, I have made a Banana Toad in the Hole as my contribution to the #GBBOTwitterBakeAlong Batter is a tricky beast. I have great success with pancakes, but home-made Yorkshire puddings are a bit scary. It's partly because my mum is the absolute Queen of Yorkshire Puds. Hers rise to epic proportions and everyone fights over the last one. Her Yorkshire tin got a bit past its best after so many years of use, so she threw it out and bought a new one. She claims that her Yorkshires have never ever been as good again, but they taste pretty great to me! As I had chickened out of doing individual Yorkshire puds, I decided to go for what is effectively one giant Yorkshire and make Banana Toad in the Hole. I sweetened the batter with caster sugar, added cinnamon and laid sliced bananas in the batter. Yum! It's a bit like a pre-built pancake. Even better when you pour some of the chocolate sauce ...

The Ultimate Cheat's Banoffee Pie- a quick and easy version of the classic dessert, to feed a crowd. Jump to recipe Are you one of the many people, like me, who thought that Banoffee Pie was an American thing? I was quite surprised when I found out that Banoffee Pie is, in fact, British. Banoffee just sounds American doesn't it? Maybe it's because they are so good with inventing insanely delicious desserts, that all the yummy involved in a Banoffee Pie seems like it must have been designed by them. Banoffee Pie was actually invented by two British men called Nigel McKenzie and Ian Dowding at a restaurant in East Sussex called The Hungry Monk in the 1970s. The original recipe had a pastry base and coffee in the whipped cream. It was also spelt 'Banoffi' at the time. I have always liked Banoffee Pie, and the fact that my husband had never tried it seemed like a good excuse to make one. I made it my mission to make this recipe as simple as possible because a quick des...

Creamy Slow Cooker Rice Pudding- a classic rice pudding dessert made in the slow cooker; rich creamy and delicious with jam or raisins. Jump to recipe When I haven't made anything desserty, my husband's go-to dessert is a tin of rice pudding. Now, he, like a lot of people, eats his rice pudding cold. In my opinion, this is madness! Why wouldn't you want it all warm and delicious, with some jam melting in the middle? Hot or cold, tinned rice pudding is absolutely nothing on home-made rice pudding. If you make it with your slow cooker, you can leave it be most of the time, you only need to stir it three times, just three! Double bonus- you can make a really big batch and eat it over a few days. This recipe is absolutely full of full-fat dairy products, which is why it tastes so amazing, so if you're watching the calories, step away now. Go on, don't look! Alternatively, you can swap out some of the ingredients- swap double cream for something like Elmlea and swap f...

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble- a recipe for the traditional British dessert. A sharp tasting apple and rhubarb fruit layer topped off with a sweet, buttery crumble. It's easy winter dessert recipe, served with custard. Jump to recipe Today's recipe is for a classic rhubarb and apple crumble. I grew up in a dessert family. We had all the usual traditional puddings: syrup sponge, crumble and so on. These days, my mum only really makes dessert when we are all visiting, as my dad claims he doesn't like "sweet things"... Funny how "sweet things" go missing on a regular basis when only he's around though... A case for Miss. Marple! Rhubarb and apple crumble is one of my favourite desserts to make, especially in winter. It takes very little effort and is always a crowd pleaser, something about the contrast of the slightly sweet but sharp rhubarb and apple against the sweet crumble and custard. Mmmm!

Very Chocolatey American Style Pancakes- American style pancakes with added cocoa powder and chocolate chips to make them extra chocolatey. Perfect for dessert with whipped cream or ice-cream on Pancake day! Pancake Day is just around the corner! We are going for American style pancakes again this year for two reasons. The main reason is convenience. They are easy to make in big batches and then freeze, so you can whip them out the night before you need them and away you go. Also, I have just grown to prefer them. They are more substantial and a bit firmer, less floppy, than traditional British pancakes. Last time, I made banana pancakes which were really nice and were good for breakfast or dessert. This time, as it will be evening when we have them, I wanted something much more desserty, so I went for chocolate pancakes. They ended up being very chocolatey as I added cocoa powder and chocolate chips! Instinctively, I wanted to put the chocolate chips in the pancake batter. I decided ...