Brownie pops with a twist

On Thursday a lovely package of goodies arrived at work from Frank PR as part of their campaign for Hellman's Mayonnaise. I had been due to go along to a tasting on Tuesday night but as it was my first day back at work for a week I was there till nearly 7 so couldn't make it so this was sent so I could try out their recipe for posh brownies.

Now I do like a brownie, and I'm quite partial to a bit of mayo on a sandwich, but together? Sacre bleu. Or blurgh I was thinking.

How wrong I was. The recipe was a doddle to follow and I only changed a couple of things. I used my own vanilla extract as I just don't use essence ever, and I omitted the walnuts as I had plans for these little brownies!

The brownie was incredibly moist, rich and very chocolaty. No hint of mayo at all. When I mixed the mayo into the mixture pre-baking it just looked and smelt wrong so I was glad it baked away. I can 100% say that these brownies were a revelation to me and are now probably  my go to brownie recipe. Also I'm chuffed to have been introduced to Waitrose chocolate for baking. I must admit to being a bit of a baking snob and only usually using Green & Blacks but that can get very expensive, although I do tend to buy it when it's on offer!

So rather than just stick to scoffing some incredibly delicious, but lets face it rather boring looking brownies, I decided to get all Westwood on them and pimp them slightly. But without the fake ghetto accent.

Not particularly original but I decided to pop my brownies! I basically mooshed up the brownie mixture and rolled it with a teeny bit of melted chocolate (I did buy some *gasp* Betty Crocker frosting to mix into it but I just couldn't do it!) and then dunked them in some melted chocolate.

There were a few pop casualties on the way but the ones that survived were pretty and tasted rather lovely.  The ones that didn't make it were quickly thrown into the leftover melted chocolate and given to Manny for lunch as a chocolate fondue type of thing - just as well he's off to the gym tomorrow night!

You can find the recipe for Hellman's Mayonnaise brownies here, and a video (with the crying one off "celeb" Masterchef so I've not watched it - it may have put me off making the brownies) showing you how to make them here.

Un petite post

Starbucks have launched a range of Petite Treats and although we aren't lucky enough to get the Petite cupcakes they have in the States (including the divine looking mini peanut butter cupcake) I thought I'd do a little post about them.

The range includes three cake pops; sparkle, rocky road and almond and two whoopies; chocolate and red velvet. The almond cake pop seems to have replaced the American Tiramisu cake pop, which I prefer the sound of!

As a Starbucks card holder I was lucky enough to get a voucher for a freebie mini today so I popped into the one on Bankside and couldn't resist picking up two petites (they are mini after all!).

First up was the red velvet whoopie. I must say, and I may lose readers here, this was as good, if not better than a couple of store bought whoopies I've had. It looks a bit shiny in the pic, mainly due to our office being lit up like Blackpool at the time of the Illuminations, but it wasn't. It was a perfectly edible flavoursome whoopie. The cake/cookie part was perfectly fresh and the filling was tasty, if a little bland (could've done with more vanilla).

My second choice was...can you guess?....the sparkle cake pop. Hello, sparkles! (Manny can insert some smart ass "oooh I sparkle" joke about Edward Cullen here but that's only because he's a bitter old fart who doesn't get Twilight).

Firstly, let me apologise for the photos. I took the cake pop home and alas some of its sparkle stayed in the bag when I took it out. Also my kitchen is the opposite of my office and is lit like a Chilean coal mine. Only darker.

So the pop. I've said before I'm not that fussed about cake pops - often they have too much frosting to cake ratio, but this one really didn't. The chocolate outside was really tasty and the middle was moist but not overly so (Kelly seemed to get a wet cake pop, which just doesn't sound nice so maybe I got lucky!). Either way it was really delicious - one of the better cake pops I've tried. I hear gasps from the cake purists out there but as you know I'm nothing if honest and I really enjoyed this cake pop and would eat it again!

I'm not sure if Starbucks will be offering the free petite on a Thursday again but they often do offers for card holders so it's worth getting one!

23rd March - quick update: we popped to the Kings Road Starbucks the other day and bought a couple of coffees and cake pops - both were stored in the fridge so when we tried to eat them they were hard and incredibly cold. They'd probably have been fine if brought to room temperature but as we wanted them with our coffee it was rather disappointing. Manny reports that it was really nice but a bit firm.

Horrific Cupcakes

I just wanted to remind readers that next weekend sees London's first over 18s cake shop, Eat Your Heart Out and The Pretox Potion, at Maiden on Shoreditch High Street.

I've had a sneak peak at the menu and WOW I'm stunned by how much they are going to have there and believe me when I say there will be oodles of gruesome cupcakes featured. I honestly don't know where to begin as there are so many to choose from but a few that stand out are squirting eyeball cupcakes and squeezable zit cupcakes which sound fabulous and gross at the same time;

Who can resist squeezing a spot? We know it’s gross but it’s also too tempting. These cupcakes will tempt to you the edge with their ooozingly ripe giant zit. Buy one, squeeze it and watch the puss
squirt out.

YUM!

And lets not forget 2 girls 1 cupcake, and what is bound to be Manny's favourite The Re-animator. Oh and vaginas!

I tried to persuade Miss Cakehead that they should play Lividity's Pussy Lover as a tribute to these cakes but I don't think she agreed! (please don't click the link if you're easily offended - the song is a little rude). Mortician would be another great choice for store music! I should be dj'ing but then they mightn't get many visitors if I was!

As well as cupcakes there will be delightfully gruesome cake pops, larger cakes, tarts and Human Centipede cookies.

The store is open from midday on Friday until Sunday (Halloween). Each day they will open until they sell out - selling 666 items of baked goods each day so don't dilly dally (or walk like a zombie) and get your arses down there for some gory baked goods. And you can pick up a blood bath shower curtain from Maiden while you're at it if you want to add some gore to your home (I imagine we'll be getting one).

We're planning to go on Friday so look out for pics and a review on here.