Brighton Bakery at Kemp Town Carnival this Saturday!

I am very excited to announce that Brighton Bakery will have it's first stall at the Kemptown Carnival this Saturday 4 June.  As I write this post the delicious aromas of a Sticky Jamaican Ginger Cake that's in the oven right now are filling the kitchen and I will have to do my best not to eat all the produce before it gets to market ;o)

All our cakes will have a bit of a twist (as you may have picked up from reading this blog) - expect appearances from my Beetroot Brownies, Peanut Butter & White Chocolate Blondies and Apple Crumble Muffins as well as some new recipes including a Latin American Chilli Chocolate Fudge Cake I can't wait to make.

If you're in the area it's free to get in so please come along and show your support - if you're not able to make it then wish us luck and do a dance for the weather gods to pray for sunshine :o)

See you there!  x

The first batch of brownies...sort of...

After our market research on Saturday, we think that there might be a gap in the (farmers') market for a stall selling brownies and tray bakes - sweet mouthfuls that people can enjoy with a cup of tea or even to eat on the way round browsing the rest of the stalls at the market.  With this in mind comes my two favourite parts of the process - baking and tasting!

So I pull down all my recipe books from the shelves and decide to start the hunt for the perfect signature brownie.   And there are many recipes to choose from that all have me salivating, spiked with all different kinds of nuts, flavoured with orange zest, caramel, differing degrees of chocolatiness and fudginess, topped with After Eight mints.... I think I might need to host a dedicated brownie party in order to choose between them :o)

And after all that, the recipe that sprung out at me wasn't for a brownie at all, but a blondie.  Like a brownie, but flavoured with brown sugar and vanilla instead of chocolate.  Despite being a brunette myself I don't discriminate, and the need for me to try Rachel Allen's recipe for Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Blondies from her lovely Bake book was just too hard to ignore.

The recipe was pretty easy to follow and put together, although I didn't have the right size cake tin.  Undeterred, I used my  trusty swiss roll tin and fashioned a "wall" out of tin foil that worked a treat and 40 minutes later delicious aromas were wafting from the oven as I pulled out the first batch.  I'm ashamed to admit that I couldn't wait for them to cool down and burnt my finger breaking off a sneaky corner to taste - mmmmmmmmm.  Yep they were goooood.  Buttery, laced with vanilla but balanced by the salty peanuts, fudgey in the middle and perfect with a cuppa in my favourite mug:

The only thing that I would do differently is to chop the white chocolate bigger so that it adds more texture - it seemed to melt away into the blondie.  Oh well, I'll just have to bake another batch....