Cakes from Kim

My first giant cupcake

2012-02-02T18:27:00.000Z

I was really excited when Find Me A Gift asked if I would like to review one of their cupcake gifts - I've been hoping I'd get an opportunity to try out doing a product review at some point and when I saw that a giant cupcake mould was one of the possibilties, I was in! I've been wanting to try a giant cupcake for a while now especially since after seeing all of the beautiful ones on the Nom! blog so it was great to have an excuse to try it.

I was a little disappointed in the packaging, if I'm honest it does look a bit cheap (which it is I guess, £9.99 but I noticed it's been reduced since Christmas) and I didn't think the picture on the front was particularly appealing. But what matters most it's what's inside, right?! And the silicone moulds themselves seemed good quality, no different in texture and thickness to my silicone loaf tin mould. They come with a filling insert, although I didn't use this, deciding it was better to keep it simple. As far as I can work out you put slightly less mix in the bottom than you normally would, and sit the filling insert on the top to create a 'dip' to put the filling into.

The recipe was the bit I was most worried about. My first attempt didn't go well - I followed the Primrose Bakery's instructions to use one quantity of their victoria sponge recipe, but this wasn't nearly enough. Although they did rise, attempts at a smaller scale giant cupcake were abandoned when it came to turning the cakes out, as most of it stuck to the moulds!

Back to the drawing board, and I figured I'd need about 1.5 quantities of victoria sponge mix. After some internet scouring I came up with a basic recipe. With excessively greased moulds, a bit longer cooking, less time cooling in the tin and a mahooosive dollop of patience and care - the beasts were out in one piece and I was breathing a huge sigh of relief! The patterns from the moulds didn't come out as well on the top part but this didn't bother me too much as I knew I'd be slapping on the buttercream anyway.

Now, what I should have done at this point was level the cakes off - they weren't too domed so I thought I could get away with it, and I was so paranoid of them falling apart I didn't really want to start sawing away at them! Unfortunately this next photo shows why this was a bit of mistake:

To decorate, I whipped up a double batch of Primrose Bakery buttercream and coloured half red (or more realistically, a kind of dirty pink). The base was completely covered in the plain buttercream, and then I placed the top half of the cake on top and slathered the red(ish) buttercream all over. As you can see, I had gone for a seasonal Valentine's theme, so Haribo jelly hearts and Love Hearts were deployed to try to get the effect of a heart patterned case and sprinkles. After this I decided to try to fill the gap between the layers with buttercream, and ended up making a bit of a mess with the buttercream escaping down the sides (it was quite runny buttercream!) - but despite being messy it definitely looked more like a cupcake having the two layers meeting (more flattering camera angles help too!)

Although I was proud to have managed to assemble and decorate it without it (or me) collapsing, I was still a little ashamed of the end result! I felt it looked a bit childish, which I suppose wasn't helped by the slightly cheap looking colour of the buttercream and the uneven cake layers/botched job on the buttercream.

Even though it was a bit disappointing looks-wise, the cake was surprisingly easy to cut and was actually quite nice! The buttercream was a little sweeter than I would usually do it, but because the cake slices were pretty chunky it ended up being balanced OK. I took most of it to work and everyone was surprised by how light it was, having expected a much heavier cake given the size.

My basic giant cupcake recipe:

340g butter, softened plus a bit extra for greasing
340g golden caster sugar
340g self raising flour
6 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Grease the moulds well (I mean seriously well) and place them on a baking tray. Preheat oven to 180c.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy.
3. Sift in the flour, add the eggs and vanilla extract, and beat until smooth.
4. Tip about 2/3 of the mixture into the base mould and the remaining 1/3 into the top mould (the moulds should be about 3/4 full).
5. Bake for 1 hour until risen, golden and firm to the touch. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cakes should come out clean.
6. Cool in the moulds for 10 minutes and then carefully turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
7. Sit the cakes on top of each other to check if any levelling is needed!
8. Whip up a batch or two of your favourite buttercream and decorate as desired.

Overall, I was pretty happy with the mould. The one I used is available online here. I know you can get giant cupcake tins aswell, and I do usually prefer tins - my silicone loaf tin gives a bit of 'side bulge' which did occur here, but it's less noticeable because this is iced. Having said that, you have to be so careful getting the giant cupcake out of the mould and the silicone made it easier to jimmy the knife about and get a feel for where bits might be sticking.

I'd definitely recommend giving the giant cupcake a go - it is fiddly and faffy and a bit scary in parts but, I don't think you lose anything on the taste. Even though I'm a bit embarrassed by my decoration, the faults are things that can hopefully be rectified with a bit of practice - plus even if it's not technically perfect you can win back points for novelty value and ginormous slices!

Grandma's Parkin

2012-01-10T09:00:00.000Z

My Grandma would often bake and there would always be a tin of treats in the cupboard for when people called for a cup of tea and a chat, which they did often. She mostly made scones and tray bakes, with the cakes being cut into dainty little fingers and put into tins to store away ready for visitors. Grandma had a hostess trolley which would be loaded up with cake slices and scones and cups of tea and wheeled into the lounge for guests. This loading of the trolley was a job I loved to do when I was there and still now every time I take a lid off a cake tin and get a whiff of homebaked goodness I am transported back into her kitchen, doing the very important job of selecting slices of cake to display. Mostly I remember ginger sponge, parkin, lemon cake and scones (and a Christmas cake at Christmas), and if she knew I was coming, she would do a couple of plain scones since she knew I didn't like fruit. However, I was still happy picking the fruit out and eating them that way, since they were so nice.

I didn't start to bake myself until after she passed away, and I have always wished I could share what I make with her. I know it would have put a smile on her face for me to fill her cake tins up with home baked cake again, since in her later years, baking was one of the things she was no longer able to do. It was another way in which I could have helped her out and another connection we could have shared. I would love to know what she would think of it all - I suspect she would think I cut my slices too big and slap on far too much buttercream, and I don't think she would have much time for Kitchenaids and gadgets (now you see where I get that from!).

Anyway, I remembered that Mum had kept Grandma's little cookbook collection and I decided to have a look through to see if I could work out which recipes she used. This was the first one that jumped out as we knew she made Parkin, and it was handwritten on a well worn piece of paper.

8oz/240g medium oatmeal (this was almost impossible to find, but my Mum finally tracked it down in Holland and Barrett!)
4oz/125g self-raising flour
4oz/125g demerera sugar
2oz/55g margerine
1 egg, beaten
4oz/125g golden syrup
4oz/125g black treacle
"a little milk and ginger" - not quite sure how much I was meant to use, so did a couple of tablespoons of milk and 2 teaspoons ginger - would probably use a bit more ginger next time.

1. Preheat oven to 160c and line a 20cm square tin with baking paper.
2. Mix the oatmeal, sugar and flour together, and then rub in the margerine.

3. Gently melt together the golden syrup, treacle, ginger and milk in a pan (note: I didn't do this, I just bunged it all in, but after looking at other recipes I should have done it this way!).

4. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the melted mixture along with the egg.

5. Mix to combine, then pour into the prepared tin and bake for about an hour.

6. Cool in the tin for a bit and then transfer onto a wire rack.

I'm really not too sure on the instructions since Grandma's were slightly vague, as I think her recipe was more of a note to self on the ingredients and quantities rather than a detailed step-by-step guide! We ended up spreading melted chocolate over the top aswell which is probably sacrilege... but I noticed that the Caked Crusader also made parkin recently and apparently it is best eaten spread with butter and after a few days of being stored in a tin. Ooops!

Making the parkin really took me back, since 'rubbing in the marg' and 'making a well for the egg' were the two main bits of baking with Grandma that I remembered! It tasted so familiar and distinctly 'Grandma' especially since I don't actually think I've ever eaten Parkin anywhere else. I'm looking forward to trying some of the other recipes in her collection to see if I can conjure up some of the other tastes, smells and memories of happy times with her.

Eunice Grace Whittaker, 10.07.1920 - 10.01.2008

Cinnamon cake with blackberries

2012-01-07T17:45:00.000Z

Another one that was made ages ago! I snipped this recipe out of the Sainsbury's magazine back in October-ish time, but I think it's a Dan Lepard recipe (really should have taken a note, all I have is a very neatly cut out rectangle with the recipe on). I love cinnamon cake and thought the addition of blackberries would make for a very wintry treat.... plus I was desperate for something without apples after the plethora of apple recipes I seemed to be baking in the Autumn!

Edit 17.01.12: Recipe is indeed from Short & Sweet by Dan Lepard and appeared in Sainsbury's magazine. Ingredients and method removed for copyright reasons.

This was a great cake, perfect with a cup of tea. Think I would add more cinnamon next time but apart from that it was lovely, light and fresh with the cream and fruit. The whole cake disappeared within the afternoon as I took slices to my mum and best friend and there were hungry boys around at the house for the F1 that day so when I returned there was only crumbs remaining!

The cake pop disaster

2012-01-04T17:01:00.000Z

This post is long overdue, but I've got to catch up on what I've already baked before I can share anything new! Cake pops are something I had been wanting to try for ages now but had seen many people saying how you need to set aside lots of time and have lots of patience for them (patience not being something I have at all). But after seeing the amazing Halloween cake pops (yep told you it was long overdue) on The Pink Whisk's blog I decided to give them a go as I love all things Halloween and wanted to top the spider cakes I did last year.

It was looking good. I even managed to get the right gel paste colours, some polystyrene boxes for display and track down the proper Silver Spoon buttons (plus a few bags of pink ones, since I was so confident I thought I could make some piggy cake pops at a later date), I cleared the diary and planned time for baking, cooling, crumbing, mixing, chilling, melting, setting, colouring, decorating.... I was feeling so confident! The confidence continued to grow as I baked up my chocolate sponge, made the buttercream and mixed it all into a paste. The balls were shaped, they were in the fridge to chill. Pumpkinny indent patterns were made, the chocolate was melted, the first few were on the sticks. Success!

And then this happened.

And it just kept happening! I don't know what happened with the first few flukes, but I suspect it was probably because I hadn't chilled the balls enough. By now I was in a raging mood and so I just dumped the rest of the chocolate over the remaining balls and left them all to chill.

The disaster became less of a disaster when we tasted them, because I have to admit, there were so tasty! I love chocolate orange and so the taste of the chocolate cake with the orange chocolate was so, so good. I wish I'd taken more care in dumping on the rest of the chocolate as they could really have been pumpkin cake balls, but I'd become obsessed with them being on sticks at that point and probably wouldn't have listened to reason!

It really wasn't worth whipping up and colouring any icing but luckily I had some writing icing lurking in the cupboard so managed to fashion a few pumpkins in the end.

Cake pops are definitely something I want to try again this year as the taste was definitely worth the faff, I just need to work on my patience levels and learn not to flip my lid at the first sign of trouble! Hilariously, by far the main thing people search for when visiting my blog has always been cake pops, so sorry to disappoint everyone twice over!

Christmas Round Up

2012-01-01T16:30:00.000Z

I'm sure you're all sick of looking at festive food by now, so I'll keep this brief! After the madness of last year's Blogvent, Christmas baking in my house this year was a bit more few and far-between! I only baked one new Christmas bake this year which was these Gingerbread cupcakes - recipe was from the Pink Whisk and can be found here.

They were yummy and very festive but a bit on the heavy, treacle-y side for me. Mike loved them though since he is a treacle fiend! Sadly I didn't have any cute gingerbread men to decorate them with but instead used some festive silver balls. I just used normal icing mixed with lemon juice instead of water.

I also made some star biscuits (same recipe as last year)....

... some Florentines, same as last year, which were bagged up and given as gifts, and I didn't even photograph! ....

.... and the starry Mincemeat slice, again the same as last year! Only a couple of slices got eaten, mainly because it was made on the 27th to use up the pastry and the mincemeat and everyone was already full!

Had to be clever with the angles as some of the stars went a bit awry!

I received some lovely new baking books for Christmas, including Lola's Cupcakes and the Primrose Bakery, so I can't wait to try things out from them. One of my resolutions is to try recipes from more diverse sources since I always end up just going with BBC Good Food!

Happy New Year everyone! Hope 2012 is all that you wish for and more xxx

2011 - Top Five

2011-12-31T10:33:00.002Z

Blogging has taken a backseat recently with all the Christmas ~~stress~~ festivities, but I'm back now with a clear Google reader and ready for 2012!

I've really enjoyed 2011 baking and blog-wise, I have been on a couple of brilliant baking courses, tried lots of new recipes and discovered lots of yummy and lovely blogs and bloggers.

Just to round off the year, with an idea stolen from the Hungry Hinny, here are my top 5 most popular posts of 2011:

5. Marbled Mocha Cake:

4. Spiced Toffee Apple Cake:

3. Toblerone Cupcakes:

2. Sausage Dog Cake (I would have pitched a fit if this hadn't been in the list given the blood, sweat and tears that went into it!):

1. Bakewell Tart Cupcakes:

Hope you all have a fab New Year's Eve whatever you're up to, and wishing you all lots of love, luck and happiness for 2012!

Food Bloggers Unplugged

2011-11-29T20:44:00.000Z

Woo hooo! I was recently tagged for Food Bloggers Unplugged by the Hungry Hinny and Jo from What do you make of my cake? - thanks ladies, I was seeing more and more entries popping up and hoping to be able to join in!

1. What, or who inspired you to start a blog?

When I started baking I was taking pictures of the stuff I'd made anyway, and had started a Baking album on Facebook already to keep a record. I'd dabbled with blogging a bit in the past and after I finished uni I was out of work for a while and had the idea to start up a blog about it just to pass some time really and keep a more detailed record, then it just kind of grew from there!

2. Who is your foodie inspiration?
I'm not sure - I don't even know what kickstarted my desire to learn to bake (although I suspect 3rd year procrastination)! I'm still building up my collection of cookbooks and trying new things so there isn't anybody in particular I can pinpoint (other than BBC Good Food!). I love reading other blogs so in terms of inspiration at the moment a lot of it comes from other bloggers as it's probably through blogs that I find the most things I want to try.

3. Your greasiest, batter - splattered food/drink book is?
I don't really have one! I do have a recipe binder though that is getting very splattered, it's full of magazine clippings, printed off and scribbled down recipes from a whole variety of places. I've yet to find any one particular book that I use a lot.

4. Tell us all about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?
I'm notoriously bad when it comes to eating abroad as I'm quite fussy and paranoid - I like to know what I'm eating! So I'm never very adventurous, but a pizza I had at a place called Le Collier in Antibes sticks out in my mind - it was mahoosive (literally I could have draped it over my head, cut out some eye holes and it could have been a balaclava) and at the time was just the best thing ever because I could devour it without worrying what was in/on it! Also, Scotland is technically another country and the fish and chips we had at Anstruther a few months ago were the best fish and chips I've ever had.

5. Another food bloggers table you'd like to eat at is?
Some of the most stunning and fun looking cakes I've seen are from Butter Hearts Sugar and the Buttercream Bakery although a lot of it just looks too perfect to eat! I am a bit of a Pink Whisk girl aswell. All the blogs I read have such droolworthy stuff, I want to sample them all!

6. What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?
I am notoriously bad with gadgets; many cannot believe I will beat cakes by hand rather than using my shiny Kitchenaid. If money is no object I would have to get a whole new house/kitchen of my own (I currently rent) with loads and loads of cupboards and worktop space, a giant fridge/freezer and a larder and one of the those island things in the middle. And cake tins and baking trays of every possible measurements so I would never have to stress about them again!

7. Who taught you how to cook?
Nobody really! I used to bake with my Mum and Grandma when I was little, but the recent baking frenzy is just recipe following. But every time I add in eggs to the mixture I hear my Grandma's voice in my head saying "make a well for the eggs"!

8. I'm coming to you for dinner what's your signature dish?
My signature baking dish is probably really dull and I would have to say just plain old vanilla cupcakes or victoria sponge. They are the only thing I've made time and again as I always want to try new stuff, so they are the only thing I can make with any sort of confidence! Cooking wise my favourite thing to cook is chicken, potato and green bean curry.

9. What is your guilty food pleasure?
Baked beans out of the tin, or even better... out of the fridge! I looooove extra cold baked beans. I don't think I have ever met anybody who wasn't sickened by this. On a more socially acceptable level, beetroot out of the jar! Or just CRISPS. Lots of CRISPS.

10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

My all time favourite bands include The Ataris, The Offspring, Alkaline Trio, Blink 182, Green Day... some people seem to think my main musical tastes are at odds with the tea dress wearing, cake baking person I often am today.

Finally...tag 5 other food bloggers with these questions...like a hot baked potato...pass it on!

1. Maria at Goddess' Kitchen

2. Astral at The Art of Being Perfect

3. Kara at Butter Hearts Sugar

4. Natasha at Cooks Cakes and Bakes
5. Anne at Anne's Kitchen

If any of you lovely ladies want to take up my tagging, you can link your entry here and through #foodbloggersunplugged on Twitter

Ice cream cupcakes

2011-11-18T22:04:00.000Z

OK so I know these are completely unseasonal, but I wanted to make something for Mike's sister Louise's birthday that was a little bit different to your standard cake or cupcake. I had seen ice cream cupcakes on a few blogs in the past and thought it was a really good effect so decided to try them out. For some reason I had it in my head that I would have to bake them normally then just place the cupcakes in the cornets... but after a quick google I found a recipe that was actually in a book that was sitting on my bookshelf - the WI Celebration Cupcake book. Turns out you can just bake them in the cones!

I followed the recipe given in the book and have to say it wasn't one of the best tasting cupcakes (but whether or not that was because it was in a cornet, I don't know!) - so I think next time I will try it with my usual cupcake recipe. It was pretty difficult getting the mixture into the cornets as they were quite tight - I used a teaspoon, which took a lot of patience (something I am not known for having!). So I won't post the recipe and would just say follow your go-to cupcake recipe - they didn't take any longer to bake. I was pleased with how they came out, as I was worried about them not rising enough or rising too much, but there were only a couple I had to lop a bit off from.

Now for the fun part! A batch of buttercream was whipped up and piped on for the ice cream effect.

4 Flake bars were cut into 3's and used for the Flake - sticking them in was tricky as I wasn't sure if they would hold as the buttercream wasn't that deep - but they stayed up.

I used strawberry ice cream sauce for the topping and then sprinkles.

These were actually the test batch that I made up so here are the ones we actually gave to Louise.

Nice use of kitchen towel for the presentation I know... can't believe I didn't actually think how we would get them to her, since they are too tall and unstable to be put into any tubs/tins, so had to get a cupcake box with kitchen towel to try to hold them in place. They were still wobbling about all over the place though, so it was a bit of a stressful journey (especially when we had to pick up pizzas on the way too!). They arrived intact though and went down well.

I'll definitely be busting these out again in the summer, I loved the ice cream effect although it did mess with your mind a little bit to eat them - I was so expecting the ice cream flavour even though I had baked the things myself! Next time I'll try out my cupcake recipe instead of the one in the book - but even if you might lose a little bit on taste, I think it's worth it for how cute they look.

Sugarpaste and my new Wilton 1M

2011-11-13T19:59:00.000Z

Ever since my courses in cake and cupcake decorating I have been slowly building up an arsenal of cake decorating weaponry (this could be an expensive hobby!) and a few weeks ago I was finally ready to try out some of my newly acquired skills.

I had to keep it simple as I had the bare minimum of equipment! So I coloured some white sugarpaste pink and then stamped out some flowers. After a few head-scratching moments I remembered how to make roses and made some of them too. I was the most excited about using my new piping nozzle, the Wilton 1M that we had used on the cupcake course, and was even more excited that I actually remembered how to pipe properly - especially the rose swirl as I love the effect.

I know that cupcakes like these are as basic as you get, but I'm so proud of them and making them felt like a huge achievement. When I started baking I didn't really think I'd be able to make anything beyond some runny icing slopped onto a fairy cake! Art and creativity have never been (and never will be!) my strong suits, so I'm pleased that I can make something I'm happy with, even if it is basic!

Apple & Walnut Cake: The Pink Whisk's October Baking Challenge

2011-10-22T21:06:00.002+01:00

I've been going apple crazy this month and so when I read about The Pink Whisk's October baking challenge it was great to have another excuse to try out an apple based recipe! I thought about making something involving chunky apples but then thought I would have a stab at an actual appley cake - I don't have the best track record with fruit in cakes so this was a bit of a risk!

I found a recipe for Apple & Walnut cake with treacle icing on the BBC Good Food website (where else?!) and thought it sounded interesting - I wasn't sure how I felt about treacle/cream cheese frosting but decided to give it a whirl.

The cake....
300g plain flour
1tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
140g dark brown soft sugar
50g golden caster sugar
250ml rapeseed or sunflower oil
4 eggs
3 apples
100g walnuts, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 150c / gas mark 2, and grease/line two 20cm cake tins.
2. Put the flour, cinnamon, bicarb, and sugars into a bowl, and stir together.
3. Grate the apples (unpeeled) and add in along with the oil and eggs.
4. Beat together, and then fold in the walnuts.
5. Spoon into the tins then bake for 45 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Cool in the tin for a few minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

The icing...
100g butter - softened
50g dark soft brown sugar
1 tbsp black treacle
200g tub full fat soft cheese

1. Beat all the ingredients together, and then chill in the fridge until spreadable.
2. Use half the mixture to sandwich the cakes together, then the rest to top.
3. I sprinkled some cinnamon and some left over walnuts on the top to decorate.

This cake was hailed a hit, Mike enjoyed it (but of course!) and I deposited slabs of it with my best friend, my Mum, and Mike's parents - all of whom said it was yummy! I wasn't sure how the treacle would taste in the topping but it really gave the cake a different twist and a bit of a tang. It was lovely and moist aswell.

Next time, I will have to let the butter soften more as I was left with little lumps in the icing that I just couldn't shift, which didn't make for a good look... also I would add a more hefty dose of cinnamon, as you couldn't really taste it in the cake so I would have liked a bit more of a spiced flavour to it. My one other whinge was that my icing wasn't as light as the one in the original recipe... not sure if it was the butter I used or if I just didn't beat it enough, but I just didn't think it looked as appetising somehow!

There's still almost a week left to get your apples out and whip something up for The Pink Whisk's challenge - check out the details here, there are some great prizes up for grabs!

Spiced Toffee Apple Cake: What Kate Baked Autumnal Baking Challenge and Giveaway

2011-10-17T19:16:00.000+01:00

As soon as I saw the Autumnal Baking Challenge & Giveaway at What Kate Baked's new bloggy home I knew I had to enter! Autumn and winter are my favourite times to bake, because of the weather and also because the bakes and flavours of these seasons are what I like to eat the most!

I sort of ended up baking two different things for this challenge... both of which I will include in this post but the second one is the real entry! I will explain... I started to get my thinking cap on and thought of what a truly autumnal bake would be to me. I thought of apples, toffee, and warming spices like cinnamon. I thought of something chunky to get stuck into while curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea. So this recipe on BBC Good Food for Caramel Apple Loaf Cake seemed perfect and I set about making it. Everything was going to plan and I was so smug and confident that I had found the perfect Autumnal bake that I took it into the back yard in the drizzle and took some photos of it with the leaves! Doesn't it look pretty?

And then I cut into it, and sadly it was not the lovely fluffy delicate cake studded with bits of nuts and apples that you see on the Good Food Website. It was a sticky, foamy mess, and I was devastated. According to Mike, the brave daring cake tester, it was actually quite nice, and I don't know what I'm doing wrong with these kind of cakes as every time I make a cake with chunks/slices of fruit in, the same thing happens! However, it wasn't good enough for a challenge of this magnitude and so here is my real entry....

For any readers of Good Food magazine this will be no stranger as it is this month's cover recipe. As soon as I saw it I knew I was going to make it anyway (and to be honest I don't know why I faffed about with bloody loaf cakes to begin with!).

Spiced Toffee Apple Cake (from BBC Good Food magazine, November 2011)

200g dates
200ml milk
250g butter
280g self raising flour
200g light brown soft sugar
4 large eggs
1 tbsp mixed spice
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 small red apples
squeeze of lemon juice
handful of toffees
icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 180c / gas 4 / 160c fan over, and grease and line a 20x30cm baking tray.
2. Put the dates and milk into a pan, and bring to a simmer. Leave for about 15 mins to cool, then put into a blender or food processor and blend to a paste.
3. Put the date/milk paste into a mixing bowl then add the butter, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, eggs, mixed spice and vanilla. Set aside.
4. Quarter and core the apples and slice thinly, adding the lemon juice.
5. Then beat together the cake ingredients until smooth, and tip into a baking tray.
6. Put the apple slices in rows overlapping on the top of the cake - you should fit 2 or 3 rows lengthways.
7. Bake for 45-50 mins - test with a skewer, if it comes out clean the cake is ready. Cool in the tin.
8. Melt the toffees gently in a pan with a splash of milk, stirring, until runny. Dust the cake lightly with icing sugar then drizzle the toffee sauce over the cake.
9. Make a cup of tea, slice the cake into squares, and devour! Mmmmm Autumnal goodness.

This is probably one of my favourite recipes I've made, it tasted a bit like cakey gingerbread and had a definitely kick to it with the spice. Definitely best eaten warm from the oven, but I also think it would also have been yummy with a big dollop of custard. I took most of it into work and one person said, "Mmmm this is just the thing now the weather's turned" - so a definite Autumnal baking win I think!

Thanks Kate for a great challenge, can't wait to see all the other Autumny bakes!

September Bake It! - Jam Roly Poly

2011-09-30T19:00:00.000+01:00

September sees a welcome return of the Bake It! Club - hosted by Amy over at Cooking, Cakes and Children.

This month there was a theme of school dinners, but as soon as I saw the suggested recipe I knew I had to make it! It was 'proper' jam roly poly as my Mum would call it - her all-time favourite! (School dinners must have gone down the pan since she was at school, we never had anything so advanced, it was tray baked sponges and congealed custard for us... although weirdly I did quite enjoy it).

Due to an innate fear of making a roulade I was a bit apprehensive about the rolling element, plus I've not really done must in the way of pastry yet so this was a definite challenge! However I was pleasantly surprised at how simple it was to make. I had a few jam issues - when I spread it out I thought it looked stingy but then when I rolled it up it was spilling out and I had to mop some of it up. Looking back at Amy's now I think mine is definitely lacking in jam, maybe I was rolling it too tight?

Anyway, despite me skimping on the jam, it was quite nice and I'd definitely make this again to tweak the bits I didn't get quite right. Most importantly though, Mum enjoyed it and took the rest home to have the next day. Apologies for the slightly rubbishy pictures, the light wasn't great and in most of the ones we took there was the lovely backdrop of junk on the kitchen table! We were rushing though as we wanted to eat it while it was still warm!

Double chocolate loaf cake

2011-09-27T19:00:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit obsessed with loaf cakes at the moment, since I finally got a loaf tin I just seem to see lots of lovely recipes, even though this is actually only the second one I've done.

I made this because Mike was having to go to a work meeting that he was dreading and I thought I would make him something insanely chocolately to cheer him up for when he got back. After a quick peruse on the trusty BBC Good Food website I found a recipe for a Double Chocolate Loaf Cake that I thought would fit the bill perfectly.

It was pretty simple to make - yes yes, despite the recipe commanding me to use an electric mixer I shunned this and went for the usual wooden spoon! This took what seemed like hours to bake (although hours is probably actually accurate) - after the allotted time it seemed barely cooked and I was thinking it was just going to be Brownie Gate all over again, but after leaving it in for an age the skewer test seemed acceptable.

Unfortunately, due to all this I was too annoyed to faff about with drizzling melted chocolate on it like the recipe picture, so I just melted some milk chocolate, smeared it all over the top and sprinkled with chocolate drops.

Couldn't wait for the chocolate to melt!

Well, it was insanely chocolatey I was after and this certainly delivered! It's more like quadruple chocolate cake and very heavy going! However if it's a simple chocolate loaf you need this is a safe bet, just make sure you have got the time and patience to put your life on hold while it bakes!

Toblerone Cupcakes

2011-09-24T22:17:00.000+01:00

Huge thanks to everyone who shared their brownie tips/recipes with me in response to my last post (please keep 'em coming!) - I will definitely give them another go at some point, and now I have lots more recipes to try.

This is another bake that I have the blogosphere to thank for. I saw this recipe for Toblerone Cupcakes on the Caked Crusader's blog a few months ago and immediately earmarked it for Mike's Dad's birthday as he is a Toblerone fiend!

These little cakes went down a storm with Mike's Dad, and I would definitely recommend the ganache in particular for other cupcakes aswell! It took a fair bit of whisking (I very nearly gave up) but it was well worth the wait - it was so light, but at the same time full of that rich chocolately goodness.

Thank you Caked Crusader! Be sure to check out the Caked Crusader for yourself for this recipe and other beauts - the recent cheesecake spectacular will probably be making it's way onto this blog in future too!

I'm actually doubly proud of these because they are the first things I have made solely using my mixture! I was given the lovely present of an all-singing, all-dancing Kenwood food processor for Christmas but it's been an increasing source of amusement/annoyance to some that I am still beating my cakes by hand... to be honest I will probably still do most of them by hand, it's probably one of the parts of baking I love the most! Somehow it doesn't feel the same just shoving everything into a bowl and twisting a dial. I definitely couldn't be without it now though as there are so many recipes I couldn't do otherwise (plus I'm planning on going soup crazy this winter so the blender is going to have its work cut out!).

So am I alone in my retro kitchen habits, or is there anybody else out there who enjoys a good bit of beating?!

Best ever brownies....?

2011-09-18T19:28:00.000+01:00

I have decided that brownies are my nemesis. For a start, I don't even really like them that much! But also, I'm just not really comfortable baking things that I can't use the trusty skewer test on. Undercooked food is one of my issues - I'm sure that nobody wants to eat things that aren't cooked properly, but I can get a bit unhinged about it. I think most of my cakes end up being overdone because I have to blast them a bit longer "just to be safe..."

So you can see why something containing eggs that is actually meant to be a bit squidgy could be a bit of a problem for me. But I had some eggs that needed using and my cousin coming to stay and I thought that brownies would be the perfect thing to have in a tin to be offered alongside cups of tea.

I picked a 'best ever brownies' recipe from a BBC Good Food book, thinking, well they're the best ever, so they've got to be good right?

200g butter
200g plain chocolate
175g dark muscovado sugar
140g caster sugar
4 eggs
50g ground almonds
50g plain flour

1. Preheat oven to 180c, and grease/line a 20cm/8in square tin.
2. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a pan and then stir in the sugar.
3. Leave to cool for 5 mins, then stir in the eggs until even. Stir in the almonds and flour then pour into the tin.
4. Bake for 30-35 mins or until just cooked through in the middle.

Erm, I'm sorry, but no. Just cooked through in the middle? What does that even mean? How are you meant to know? After 30-35 mins, it was still wobbling all over the place and so I hurled it back in, red mist descending, still none the wiser about how long I was meant to give it. After a very long while I just annoyed and just took them out, thinking they weren't going to get eaten anyway so I might aswell just save myself the electric bill. I left them to cool and then tried to cut them into nice perfect squares like the picture in the book, but they were just so squidgy I thought all hope must be lost. Along with my temper.

So I let my anger loose on the brownies and had a bit of a stab away at them, venting my frustrations and thinking I might aswell get something out of it at least...

...until Mike dared to try a bit (with me half cringing at the thought of him being ill and half in awe at his bravery) and declared them "actually quite nice". And then I felt a bit stupid, so we managed to salvage some half decent looking ones from around the edges.

They didn't look great, so we made brownie sundae desserts out of them with ice cream, marshmallows and chocolate sauce and they actually were quite nice! They were quite squidgy and fudgy in the middle and stuck to your teeth a bit, but they were OK. And nobody died from food poisoning, which is always a good thing.

So I'm not sure if I'll be making brownies again because I don't think I can handle the stress. So can anyone tell me, what a perfectly cooked brownie is meant to look like? And if you have a failsafe brownie recipe, I would love to hear it, try and tempt me out of brownie retirement!

Cupcake Decorating!

2011-09-11T22:28:00.000+01:00

Way back when in July, I headed up to Liverpool with Nicola and Bec to learn how to decorate cupcakes. This was through a bargain Groupon offer with Create, which was another birthday present from my lovely boyfriend (although I am sure he has some ulterior motive for sending me on all these cake courses... hmm wonder what it could be?!).

After a brief panic, we found the Cupcake Workshop tucked away among the back streets of Liverpool, a little bit of cake heaven beautifully decorated with gorgeous crockery, bunting and lots of PINK! Our instructor, Gill was friendly and approachable and not to mention knowledgeable about all things cupcakes! She shared her expertise on how to bake the perfect cupcake before some tutorials on sugarpaste including stamping out decorations, making bows and flowers, and then let us loose with her equipment. Everything was provided for us including all the tools, cutters, and colours of sugarpaste and glitter that you could possible need.

After a quick break for a cup of tea and a yummy homemade cake, we were shown various different techniques on icing cupcakes with buttercream. This was the bit I was most looking forward to as I am not the best at this (and am known for throwing a strop when Mike wafts in and effortlessly pipes a perfect buttercream swirl!). Sounds really obvious but I hadn't even thought to pipe a mini swirl in the middle as a base to get the height on the main swirl.

Rose style piping

Then came the really fun part! We were given 12 cupcakes of our own to decorate using our new piping skills and sugarpaste creations, all boxed up in pretty cupcake boxes. We were also given some fillings and shown how to get these into the middle of the cakes. Again Gill and her sidekick Rachel were so accommodating, making sure that everyone got the colours and equipment they wanted so we could be as creative as we wanted. I stuck with the plain buttercream and felt very boring once I saw what everyone else had done! My whole box of creations is at the top of the post, but I think these were my favourite ones:

I really would recommend this course to anyone interested in baking and cake decorating - even if you already know what you're doing, it's great to spend an afternoon playing around with sugarpaste and creating your cupcakes and I'd love to do another one myself. Check out Nicola's blog about the day aswell which includes lots of photos of the venue itself, and if you're interested, visit the Create website to find out more about Gill's courses.

Since the course I've felt a lot more confident with decorating my cakes, here are a couple of batches I've done recently:

Cupcakes for Mike to take to work

Cupcakes for Mike's Mum's birthday buffet

Can't wait to get my hands on some sugarpaste and practice more of my new skills! Thanks Gill!

July Baking

2011-08-20T11:14:00.000+01:00

Where on earth is the summer going? I was just thinking the other day it feels like it hasn't even got started yet, and then realised it's almost August Bank Holiday, which means that it's actually nearly over! I've been rather quiet on the blogging front lately, because I've been doing some overtime at work to pay off some of the car that I just bought. But I've still had time for baking, and so I'm just going to round up July in one fell swoop!

I think these were actually all done in the space of a week, when I went on a bit of a baking frenzy. I ended up taking most of them to work to palm off, along with the last of the fruit cake from my Pink Whisk cake decorating course.

1. Chocolate Orange Muffins

I've had this recipe kicking around for a while, I LOVE orange chocolate and it had felt like a while since I'd make anything a bit simpler as I'd been wrestling with birthday cakes and cake decorating, so it was nice to go back to basics. The recipe is online here, I saw it in Good to Know magazine. I used Terry's Chocolate Orange, of course (although that always feels really naughty when it isn't Christmas). I wasn't really sure about the recipe because it didn't contain any butter, and used sunflower oil, but it made for quite a firm texture and they weren't crumbly at all. They were lovely and orangey, too - definitely keeping this recipe for something quick to whip up, maybe in January to use up all the left over choc oranges (not that there's usually many left over, mind). Also, I really need to invest in an ice cream scoop to get the cake mix in the cases, as I ALWAYS get it stuck on the sides especially with these kind of cases.

2. Strawberry & Polenta cupcakes

Ever since I saw these in one of the little BBC 101 recipes books I've been dying to try them as I thought they looked just gorgeous. But I have to admit being a bit scared of polenta, I had never heard of it before. I must have covered every aisle in Tesco as I tried to hunt it down, having no idea what it was or where it would be (probably should have googled before I left the house) but I eventually tracked it down with the pasta. I've no idea whether it was in the right form (I was expecting it to be floury) but the cakes turned out lovely. The icing was absolutely gorgeous and I will definitely be using that again on other cakes and bakes I think. Mine didn't rise as well as the ones in the book which was the only disappointment - and there is also a great excuse to have to eat them all within a day or so as the icing went a bit weird after that (kind of disappeared!). I wish I'd taken more piccies of these, but it was late and we wanted to EAT THEM!

3. Coconut & Lime Drizzle cake

I've had a loaf tin for a while now and this was the recipe I'd had earmarked to try. I've never made a drizzle cake before and I love lemon drizzle, but thought this sounded a bit different so would give it a whirl. We were not disappointed! The cake itself was dead easy to make, basically just bung it in a bowl and beat. The icing was a bit more faffy, but definitely worth it. Also, it just me that thinks coconut milk smells completely disgusting? It was turning me as I was making it! But in the end it tasted delicious, tasted lovely and light and summery, with a zingy shot of lime. I made this again last week but I think I overdid the lime a bit, it made my face crumple up when I ate it! The limey sugary sprinkling is the best bit, Mike was eating the leftovers out of the cup with his fingers!

The recipe isn't online, so here it is:

100g butter, softened 175g SR flour 1tsp baking powder 175g golden caster sugar 2 eggs Half a 400ml can coconut milk finely grated zest of 2 limes

1. Butter and line a 2lb loaf tin. Beat all the ingredients together until combined, tip into the tin and smooth the top.
2. Bake at 180c for 40 mins until golden and firm to the touch.

For the icing and to decorate:
The other half of the can of coconut milk 200g golden caster sugar finely grated zest of 1 lime juice of 3 limes

1. Tip the coconut milk and 150g of the sugar into a pan. Boil for 5 mins or until syrupy (so you can see the bottom of the pan when you stir).
2. Stir in the lime juice and set aside.
3. Mix the remaining sugar and lime zest to a paste, then set aside.
4. Leave the cooked loaf in the tin while you pour over the icing a little at a time - let the cake absorb it before adding more (I stuck holes in mine with a skewer).
5. Cool, then carefully remove from the tin, sprinkle with lime sugar and serve.

Cake Decorating course

2011-07-24T11:52:00.000+01:00

One of my birthday presents from my lovely boyfriend was a cake decorating course. I've been wanting to learn how to do this properly for ages now but I was really nervous as the decorating part is always something I've struggled with, so clearly some expert tuition was needed!

On 29th June Nicola and I spent the day being taught by Ruth Clemens of Great British Bake Off fame and author of one of my favourite baking blogs, The Pink Whisk! The course was run by Seasoned and was in a beautiful farmhouse where we were fed lots of tea and brownies and a very yummy lunch too.

We took our own cakes to decorate and even though I hate fruit cake with a fiery passion I thought it would be a good opportunity to try one out and would also stop me from stuffing my face too! I made this Easy Apple Fruit Cake from BBC Good Food. It was indeed easy and I am told it was very nice, although a few people were disappointed that the fruit was not alcohol soaked! They were reassured that the Christmas cake most definitely will be!

Anyway, we were taught everything we needed to know - marzipanning, covering the cake and board with sugarpaste, smoothing, crimping, piping - and also repairing disasters, as my sugarpaste tore around one side when I laid it on, Ruth showed me how to patch it up good as new.

Crimping and piping and ribbon

We were also shown crimping and piping and the bit we were probably all looking forward to the most: colouring sugarpaste and making flowers and decorations! I made some rolled up pink flowers, some purple roses and stamped out some green leaves. I didn't end up using the pink flowers as I thought I would keep it simple with my roses in the centre of the cake.

I was so amazed by the decorations that everybody else made and felt a bit embarrassed when all our cakes were on the table at the end - I was really proud of my cake until I saw everybody else's! The icing wasn't as smooth as I'd have liked, and I know my sugarpaste wasn't anywhere near thin enough for the flowers. However it was my first attempt and so I know I just need to practice, practice, practice myself now.

It was such a lovely day - you can also read about it and see photies on Nicola's blog here. I would definitely recommend this course to anyone wanting to learn how to decorate cakes, and even those who already know - I'm sure there would still be lots of tips to pick up, plus it was lovely to just be able to sit and play with the sugarpaste without having to worry about the phone ringing, or what time you had to be making tea, or the pile of washing growing in the basket... it was very therapeutic. You can find details of this and other courses on the Seasoned website.

Chocolate & Caramel Layer Cake (minus a layer)

2011-07-06T18:48:00.005+01:00

After the Sausage Dog Cake I felt like I didn't want to bake again for about 6 months! But the week after it was Mike's birthday and so I couldn't not make him a birthday cake, and I had already selected this Chocolate & Caramel Layer Cake from BBC Good Food ages ago to make for his birthday - at just over 1,000 calories a slice I thought it really could only be justified on a special occasion! So I was doomed to spend another Friday night immersed in the sickly sweet smell of chocolate cake.

I had high hopes for this, and although I was happy with how it looked all assembled, but really, it just went a bit wrong. I was a bit skeptical about the recipe as I have tried cakes before that include yoghurt and somehow they just never seem to come out normal. Sadly this was no exception, after almost double the time in the oven the vanilla layer was burnt on the outside and wobbly in the middle, and in any case, collapsed completely when I tried to take it out of the tin! So that was one layer down and a quarter of the calories gone! I had a bit more luck with the caramel/caramel choc layers but I still wasn't completely convinced they were done properly even though they were on their way to burning, but with no time to make anything else I decided to assemble the cake so at least the birthday boy could blow out some candles and make a wish!

After much scrutiny and debate we did eat the cake although I only managed half a slice as I just couldn't really face any more chocolate cake! Everyone else seemed to enjoy it so I don't think it was as much of a disaster as I had feared, plus the chocolate icing was yummy and despite being one layer short it was still pretty big and pretty messy!

The recipe is here. Does anyone have any similar experiences with yoghurty recipes? I would love to hear any tips or ideas of things to do differently, as I see quite a few recipes including yoghurt and am quite put off trying them again. Looking at the reviews of this cake on the BBC Good Food website nobody else seems to have had a problem, and I'd love to try this again but as it's not a quick and easy bake I'm a bit apprehensive... and at 1,000 calories a slice it's difficult to justify making it for no reason!

A visit from the Fairy Hobmother!

2011-07-02T23:08:00.003+01:00

I've watched green eyed with envy over the past couple of months as I've seen various bloggers have their kitchen-related wishes granted by the Fairy Hobmother from Appliances Online, and I'm pleased to say that after recently making a wish on The Glutton's blog, I've now had a visit, too!

I wished for a griddle pan, because it's something I've been after for a while now because I've been wanting to make some nice steaks - and if I've got money to spend on kitchen stuff, it normally goes on baking paraphernalia so I had a feeling this griddle pan was never going to get bought. My wish was granted and my griddle pan arrived today!

Thank you Fairy Hobmother for granting my wish!

I am told that if you leave a comment on this post and make a wish, that you might be lucky enough to get a visit too! Also, I would love to hear any of your griddle pan recipe ideas, as so far I haven't thought beyond steaks...

Sausage Dog Cake

2011-06-26T19:12:00.006+01:00

It's well known by now among friends and family that I love to bake, and so when my step-brother asked me a few months ago to make the cake for his daughter Franchesca's 5th birthday, I was really chuffed. That is, until when asked what sort of cake she wanted, she said 'a dog cake'. ARGH! Novelty cakes are not something I've ever done before and I have absolutely no confidence when it comes to decoration anyway (although I'm not sure what I was expecting her to say; I doubt that pineapple upside down cakes or victoria sponges are really the thing for 5 year olds!)

After much deliberation I decided to try a cake in the shape of a sausage dog, with the idea that I could make it comically large to hopefully detract from the fact that it would have to be iced quite simply. Also my step-brother used to have a sausage dog that he doted on, so that was quite a nice link too!

Everything started off well - I used a simple choc sponge recipe, baking 3 large square cakes, and 2 in round sandwich tins. Two of the square cakes were cut in half and sandwiched together with chocolate buttercream to make the body, and then I cut out head shapes from the round cakes and sandwiched them together. The off cuts from the round cakes made a tail and a neck, and the legs were made out of the last square cake. I used some ready rolled icing to make a coat, with the leftovers making a collar and an eye (Mike really helped me out there with his precision measurements, I was all for randomly guessing sizes but he held me back!)

Then it was time to coat the rest of the cake in chocolate buttercream, and that's where it all started to go wrong. I made up a big batch of the stuff, but for some reason, it just went really watery and was impossible to use. I really don't know what went wrong; although I had tripled the recipe so perhaps it wasn't as straight forward as that? So I hunted out another recipe I had for chocolate fudge frosting and that didn't let me down, but I was too frightened to mess with the measurements so ended up having to make 4 separate batches! Unfortunately, as the frosting was so thick, it was really difficult to ice and kept falling off the cake and even making the cake crumble a bit around the edges. Argh! I have to admit Mike had to step in and ice the last half of the cake as I was seriously starting to lose my temper and almost ready to sling it in the bin and go to Asda, or give poor Chesca a half iced cake!

I should point out that it was probably the hottest day of the year so far, which may have contributed to the rising stress levels in the kitchen! The cake ended up being almost 30 inches long, and Mike had to make a board for it out of MDF, with 2 cake boards glued on to it! The weather also caused a bit of a problem when getting it to the pub, as the car was like an oven, and we had to drive really slowly because I was worried about it getting rattled around. By the time we got there I was almost too scared to lift the lid in case it had started to melt or got bashed! In the end, I was really proud of the cake - it was so nice to see Chesca's face when it was presented to her (and also the faces of all of the other diners when they saw someone staggering out of the kitchen carrying it!); it definitely made all the blood, sweat and tears worth it. I'm not sure that novelty cakes are going to be my thing, but I'm so glad I did it and grateful to Matt for trusting me to make such an important cake!

This is where she said, 'I want the eye' and just ripped it right off! That was difficult to watch...

Most of his head has gone here!

May Bake It Club: Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

2011-05-29T10:48:00.006+01:00

I've been wanting to do the Bake It! club again pretty much every month since the last time I did it in November but every time the recipe went up I thought it looked great but always found some reason why it didn't happen. When this month's recipe of Lemon Meringue Cupcakes went up I thought it would be the same, since meringue is something I have been trying to hide from, but since I had 4 eggs left over from last week I took it as a sign that I should face my demons!

These were so quick and easy to make, but for some reason my cupcakes sank in the middle! I really didn't understand it - I had put the oven on to my usual cupcakes temp of 180c but after 15 minutes they didn't look anywhere near ready... then I left them in too long and I thought it was going to be a complete disaster. They tasted quite nice though and as they'd been in too long they had a sweet crust on the top which I actually quite liked!

So I ploughed on and made my meringue, which was a great excuse to try out my electric mixer which I got for Christmas and hadn't yet used (I'm such a tech-phobe, I am still beating everything by hand...). After a horrendous experience trying to separate the eggs myself I was sure they wouldn't whisk properly but eventually the meringue formed. Here they are pre-grilling...

...and post grilling...

I haven't tried any after the addition of the lemon curd and meringue topping since I am not a huge fan of meringue, but Mike assures me they are lovely despite being rather over done! I was planning on giving out the rest to family today but that is if I can prise them out of Mike's hands! Get the recipe here to try them yourself!

Bakewell Tart Cupcakes

2011-05-25T19:42:00.001+01:00

Recently I've been starting to lose my temper with the baking cupboard - mainly because the thing I'd go in for always seemed to be right at the back, and also because every time I opened the door something seemed to fall out. I always wanted to have a jam-packed baking cupboard, but it seems that I really need to get a bigger cupboard! There has been all sorts of half empty things hanging around in there for ages that I bought for one recipe and never needed again.

And so these Bakewell Tart Cupcakes were born! I had been wondering how to get rid of the almond extract and the glace cherries, and after mulling it over at work, decided to give these a whirl. Now, I know there's probably loads of recipes for similar things in books and on the net, but I decided to just wing it myself to see if I could come up with something edible. And I did! They were very light and fluffy and the almondy flavour was quite strong - was wondering if it would come through, as I hadn't got an ground almonds to add, but I think that would have been almond overkill. I did some with a blob of jam in the middle and some with a layer of jam between the cake and the icing. I think the ones with the jam on top tasted better, but the ones with the jam inside looked better as it kept the icing nice and crisp white.

I palmed some off on Mike to take to work (since neither of us really like Bakewelly stuff), but to my surprise, not even the gannets in his office would eat them! Turns out though, by complete coincidence, there was a baking competition on in his building that day and so they entered them into that. And they came third! I'm not really sure what the entry / judging criteria was - Mike said that some of the cakes were knitted - and apparently the person who organised it got first place! - But either way, I got a cute little trophy!

So here is my very own recipe for Bakewell Tart cupcakes -

Ingredients:
150g/5oz butter
150g/5oz caster sugar
175g/6oz self raising flour
3 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons almond extract
cherry jam
8 tablespoons icing sugar
12 glace cherries

1. Preheat oven to 180c and line muffin tins with 12 muffin cases.
2. Beat butter and sugar together, then sift in the flour.
3. Add the eggs and almond extract, then beat until light and creamy.
4. If you want jam swirls inside the cakes, half fill the muffin cases with the mixture, place a blob of jam (about a teaspoon) in the centre, top with the remaining mix, and then give the mixture a quick swirl with a skewer.
5. Bake for 20 minutes until risen and firm to the touch. Cool on a wire rack.
6. To decorate, sift the icing sugar into a bowl and mix in tablespoons of warm water, one at a time, until the icing is smooth, spreadable but still nice and thick.
7. (You can spread cherry jam over the top of the cakes at this point if you like, but it will probably give the icing a few red streaks!)
8. Spread a thick layer of icing over each cake, then top with a glace cherry.

I would also like to enter these into English Mum's Big Bakeoff - I am sure there are going to be loads of entries that are a million times more creative than these humble cupcakes, but I'm really proud of them!

April Round Up and Kreativ Blog Award

2011-05-05T21:20:00.010+01:00

Good heavens, where did April go?! This year is just flying by! Just thought I would do a quick round up of what I made in April - nothing was particularly inspiring or exciting, but since I want to document everything I make it's only right to include them (even though I'm dying to rush on to my next post, but patience, patience!)

Firstly, my mum's birthday on the 9th meant a second outing for the Marbled Mocha Cake

since my Mum is also a coffee cake fiend (there is a lot of them about!). It was exactly the same recipe but this time decorated with chocolate curls and Maltesers. It was just as good on the second run, and I felt the marbled effect was more apparent, but I don't know what I did differently - perhaps was just less enthusiastic with the skewer!Secondly, was Easter. I feel quite sheepish posting my Easter bakes since I have seen so many gorgeous Easter bakes that are in a completely different league to mine. If I'm honest, I was quite lazy - I mostly wanted to chill out over the long weekend(s) and spend less time in the kitchen, so I played it safe.

I had a huge bag of cornflakes left over to use up so went for classic chocolate cornflake nest cakes. I ummed and ahhed about whether to just simply mix melted chocolate with cornflakes but ended up using a recipe including golden syrup and butter. The first batch was made with plain chocolate and I did a second with milk chocolate - the milk chocolate batch were definitely better! A lot less sharp tasting - I struggled to eat the dark chocolate ones.

I also made plain vanilla cupcakes and decorated with buttercream, chocolate eggs and chicks. Again really simple (and the same as last year) but I wanted a big failsafe batch to give as Easter treats for my parents and in-laws.

After seeing what lovely things others had created I definitely have some bookmarked to try out next year. Hopefully Easter will be a bit earlier as this year I was already caked and chocolate-d out after the barrage of birthdays in March/April.

And then finally, THE WEDDING! I had such big plans for a baking extravaganza and had intended on making 3 types of cake plus scones, but in the end I ran out of time so the scones didn't happen, and I ended up just doing some patriotically decorated vanilla cupcakes and the old faithful pineapple upside down cake. I did a bit of an afternoon tea buffet for my Dad and family and so I thought it added to the slightly retro feel. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of our union flag adorned living room, or any of us in our posh wedding frocks/suits (my dad stole the show in a sequinned union flag tie!), but here is one of the table!

In April I was also nominated for the Kreativ Blog Award by Natasha from Rambles and Shambles - thank you! I was so chuffed with this especially knowing how many infinitely more creative bloggers there are out there, and with that I am going to do my blog award duty and nominate 7 bloggers - in the creative spirit of the award I'm going to choose some baking blogs / bloggers who bake that inspire me (and fill up my bookmarks folder!):

1. Natasha at Rambles & Shambles (back at you! Is that allowed?! Recent favourite: Easter Rabbit Cupcakes)
2. Chele at Chocolate Teapot (Recent favourite: Strawberries and Cream Scone cake)
3. Kara at Butter Hearts Sugar (Recent favourite: Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes)
4. Maria at The Goddess's Kitchen (Recent favourite: Lemon Meringue Cheesecake)
5. Ruth at The Pink Whisk (Recent favourite: Tea Cup biscuits)
6. Helen at Afeitar (Recent favourite: Malteaser cake)
7. Nic at Nic's Notebook (Recent favourite: Red Velvet cupcakes)
8. The Caked Crusader (Recent favourite: Royal Wedding baking)

OK so I couldn't possibly restrain myself to 7 and I had to pick 8! If I've nominated you, please don't feel inclined to do this aswell, but I just wanted you to know that I love reading your blog and am grateful for you sharing your creations!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

2011-04-04T20:47:00.005+01:00

I made this one what can only be described as a 'whim'. Anyone who knows me will know that if I am baking something I normally know about it days in advance since I am so stupidly anal about planning food/shopping! But at work last Thursday I became gripped with a need to make pineapple upside down cake, and when I looked up a recipe on BBC Good Food, the only thing that I knew I was missing in the cupboard was a tin of pineapple which I thought must be some sort of sign, and even though I would normally not even contemplate the hassle of going to the shops for one measly thing, my need for this cake was so great that I heaved my weary body there on the way back from work to acquire my pineapple rings!

I've never made this before and was more than a little dubious after some less than successful encounters with fruit-based baking (was it scrambled eggs or Peach and Raspberry Buckle?! It was so hard to tell...) and I quickly curbed my excitement when the possibility of failure hit me.

However! I followed the recipe exactly and I am pleased to report that it was a success! There was one hairy moment when it seemed to be rising out of all control, but somehow seemed to calm itself down by the time my little gingerbread man timer buzzed. It was lovely and moist and quite sweet - at first I wanted a giant slice with a whole pineapple ring on it but half that amount was more than enough! It tasted so homely and traditional, and reminded me of sitting on my Grandma's couch on a Sunday afternoon with tea and cake and the snooker on (not really sure why, since she never made pineapple upside down cake, but still... guess it was just that traditional type of taste!).

I am definitely making this again, as soon as I possibly can. It's gone straight onto the baking list for the Royal Wedding day but I'm fairly confident I'll be baking it again between now and then! Recipe is online at BBC Good Food.

This is also my (quite late) entry for this week's Sweets for a Saturday! View the other entries here.

Blondies with peanut butter

2011-03-25T18:37:00.003Z

This was the second of my peanut butter recipes from last week and is also the second yummy recipe I have tried from Eric Lanlard's Home Bake book.

I think I left it in slightly too long - gave it an extra ten mins as it seemed a bit too wibbly when it came out of the oven and I am a bit obsessed with things being undercooked. I only really got to have a little taste of these - had already OD'd on Snickers muffins so the rest got given away as extra housewarming goodies for my best friend, Mike's family, and Nic's Notebook. But what I did try I liked - they were a lot lighter and sweeter than normal brownies - so they are definitely going on the 'make again' list and I think I will hog them all for myself next time!

Here is the recipe, and this time I actually remembered to take pictures as I went!

You will need:
100g unsalted butter, softened
150g crunchy peanut butter
1tsp vanilla extract
175g caster sugar
1 egg
75g white chocolate
75g walnut halves
125g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
melted dark and white chocolate, to decorate

1. Preheat oven to 170c/gas 3. Grease and line a 20cm square tin with butter.
2. Beat the butter and peanut butter together until creamy, then add the vanilla, sugar, and egg and beat again until light and creamy.

3. Chop up the white chocolate and walnuts, and stir in to the mixture.

4. Sift the flour and baking powder and fold in to the mixture.
5. Spoon into the tin and smooth the top.

6. Bake for 40mins until there is a golden crust but it is still fudgy in the middle.
7. Leave to cool and then decorate by drizzling melted white and dark chocolate across the top.

OK so my drizzling skills leave a lot to be desired! I've been using a spoon and it either comes off the spoon in blobs or lines that are far too thin, grr! If you have any good drizzling tips, please leave a comment and let me know :)

ETA: this is now my entry for Sweets for a Saturday! Head on over to Lisa's blog to see all the other entries.

Snickers and Peanut Butter Muffins

2011-03-20T15:54:00.004Z

I have gone a bit peanut butter crazy this week - it's not something I would ever buy so I needed to use the whole jar up! As a result the very thought of it is now making me a bit queasy.

I saw this Nigella recipe for Snickers and Peanut Butter muffins on Nic's Notebook and have had it bookmarked for ages, and when my best friend moved into a new place last week I thought they would be perfect for a housewarming present, as she is a bit of a Reese's cups fiend I thought she would appreciate them.

The tulip muffin cases I picked up from the cake supplies shop at Lady Heyes - I've never used them before but will definitely be using them again. I love the effect - but I need to work a bit harder on not dolloping the batter all over the sides too as there were quite a few stray bits of muffin burnt onto the tips of them!

I will definitely be making these again (although not for a very long time due to serious peanut butter overload) - I loved the gooey chewy bits of Snickers inside. Head over to Nic's Notebook if you want to try out the recipe!

Toffee and Apple Sauce Muffins

2011-03-15T23:36:00.005Z

I'd been itching to try out some of the recipes in my new Eric Lanlard - Home Bake book since I bought it from the book club in work for the bargain price of £6! Everything looked so yummy that I had a hard time choosing, but these toffee and apple sauce muffins had got me drooling so I went with them.

They turned out fine but my recipe and measurements were a bit of a disaster. I didn't have any Calvados - apparently this is an apple liqueur but since I knew I'd probably never used it again I didn't want to buy a whole bottle for 2 teaspoons, so I just added 2 extra teaspoons of water. In hindsight I perhaps should have got some apple juice instead. So I wasn't sure on my apple sauce - in the recipe it says that the sauce should be the same consistency as the muffin batter but my sauce was very thin and batter very thick, so I don't know if that was the lack of liqueur or whether I just didn't cook it properly! Also I didn't have any full fat milk, I didn't have enough fudge chunks and I had to use 2 and a bit medium eggs - so I was pleasantly surprised when these were actually quite nice!

They were definitely best straight from the oven and I loved the crunchy cinnamon tops. I was disappointed that I never noticed any of the fudge (probably cause I didn't have enough) and the sauce again was a bit thin so kind of just disappeared when they were cooked. I think we preferred them the next day turned upside down and doused in custard, they made a very nice Sunday dessert!

For the apple sauce:
300g Bramley apples
100g soft light brown sugar
1tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp Calvados

For the muffins:
275g plain flour
100g caster sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
75g unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
125ml full fat milk
100g fudge (in small chunks)
2 tbsp cinnamon sugar (which is 2 tbsp soft light brown sugar mixed with 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon)

1. Peel and core the apples and cut into small cubes. Place in saucepan with the other sauce ingredients and 1 tsp water. Cook over a low heat until the apples are tender but not mushy. Leave to cool.

2. Preheat oven to 200c/gas 6. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.

3. Sift the flour, sugar and baking powder into a large mixing bowl.

4. Beat the butter and eggs together then add the milk. Stir this into the flour mixture along with the fudge, until just incorporated (it's OK if the mixture is a bit lumpy).

5. Spoon half the mixture into the cases then spoon over 2/3 of the apple sauce. Cover with the remaining muffin batter. Make a swirl of apple sauce in the top of the batter and dust with the cinnamon sugar.

6. Bake for 20-25 mins then cool on a wire rack.

Now for something completely different...

2011-03-13T22:40:00.000Z

I've never done a meme before and I'm not even sure I've ever made a post that was completely about me! However I actually do love this type of thing - back in the days of My Space I could always be counted on to fill in whatever chain questionnaire was going around and I am a bit of a form geek - I was highly excited about the arrival of the census this week! - so I was quite happy to be tagged in this meme by Nic's Notebook and obviously it's the law that I should now complete this, so here it is!

I am: when I was wondering what to put here, Mike started singing "I am what I am..." (He also suggested "a yam" though so I'm not sure how much notice I should be taking...) but actually, that is quite a good answer, if a little bit cheesy. I always used to care so much about fitting in and whether I liked the right things or wore the right clothes or whether everyone thought I was a bit of a sad case, but now I feel a lot more confident in being able to say if I don't want to do something, and in my opinions of what I like and what I don't, instead of just feeling like I've got to agree with everyone else all the time.

The bravest thing I have ever done: I wouldn't really say I was a brave person, but others have told me they thought I was brave for the following: I first went to uni in London and I absolutely hated it and struggled to make friends on my course. About a week in to second year, and not long after signing a contract on a house, I quit. I didn't really feel like it was brave at the time but looking back I think it was a harder decision than I gave myself credit for. I always hoped I'd go back to studying some day, and in 2007 I quit my job and went to the University of Manchester. It was the hardest but also the best thing I ever did and I graduated last summer.

I feel prettiest when: hmm, I wouldn't say I have a surefire outfit or situation that makes me feel pretty and it mostly depends on my mood! However, I always feel a bit better about myself if I've painted my nails and I'm wearing some dangly earrings. I at least wear studs every day and I hate it if I leave the house and then later realise I forgot to put them in, I always feel a bit weird without them. Probably because I'm always fiddling with them.

Something that keeps me up at night: Pretty much every night I will worry about small things like if the house is locked, if everything is switched off, if the house will suddenly burst into flames, if I heard a noise downstairs, what will happen in work the next day. In general I am terrible for worrying about anything and everything, but I'm lucky in that it doesn't really keep me up at night, it just tends to torment me during the waking hours!

My favourite meal is: SO difficult to choose as I have a habit of saying lots of things are my favourite depending on what I am eating at the time! But I think steak, chips, peas, onion rings and peppercorn sauce probably wins. Or a KFC boneless banquet. It's a tough call!

The way to my heart is: Just to talk to me! Although I'm loads better than I used to be, I am hideously shy, especially when with any more than 1 or 2 people at a time. Often I think this can come across like I'm just miserable or in a mood, and so I'm always eternally grateful for anybody who can see through this and make the effort to talk to me, because then I will open up and once I know you I will prattle on quite happily!

I would like to be: a lot more laid-back. I can get wound up over the tiniest thing and will over-analyse most conversations I have, I'll play things back in my head and wonder if I said and did the right things even though I'll have already worried beforehand over what to say and do! I'll pitch a fit if things don't run to plan and I'll get stressed over really stupid little things. Having said all that, I do think I cope quite well with the bigger things, so I'm not sure which way round is the best really.

So there we go! It's been fun to share stuff about myself for a change - that's why I signed up to Twitter so I can more easily chat with everyone about non-baking things. I'm not going to tag anyone else (mainly because Nicola tagged the only other blogs that I read regularly that aren't solely about baking!) but if you would like to fill it in please let me know and leave me a comment!

Pancakes

2011-03-10T21:54:00.006Z

I'm sure by the time I'm posting this everybody will be sick of reading about and thinking about pancakes (I know I am!) but since I'd never made them before I had to wait until after the event to share my pancake recipe.

Yes that's right - I'd never made them before! I only remember having them for a couple of years when I was younger as my Mum doesn't really like them, and to tell the truth I'm not really a huge fan either... I always like the idea and the look of them but since I'm not big on eggs it always puts me off a bit (eggs in cakes are OK obviously, they are a lot less egg-like!)

I had bought a Pancake recipe book from Asda as it was only a quid, but I ended up using this recipe from Ruth at The Pink Whisk for the 'main course' pancakes which seemed a lot more straightforward and I liked her instructions! Sadly I didn't manage to flip any of them, I had a go but ended up giving up and using the spatula, boo! We had ours with sugar and lemon, of course.

Now for the dessert! This recipe I did use from the cheapo Asda book and I was a bit more excited because there were no eggs involved.

These were chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate sauce and strawberries. They were more American style pancakes and were lovely, but very rich and sickly! I should have done what I did with the normal pancakes recipe and halved it - 12 of these bad boys was way too much for 2 people! Although I have to confess I did like the idea of having a massive stack of them on the plate. Plus the strawberries made it one of our 5 a day...

Makes 12

For the pancakes:
125g plain flour, sifted
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
pinch of salt
250ml milk
75g dark chocolate, grated
veg oil, for frying

For the sauce:
75g dark chocolate, chopped
125ml double cream

1. Put the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, sugar, salt and milk into a bowl and beat to make a smooth batter. Set aside to rest for 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, melt the chopped chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, remove from the heat, beat in the cream, and keep warm while you make the pancakes.
3. Stir the grated chocolate into the pancake batter. Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a frying pan and drop in the mixture - about a tablespoon will be enough for each pancake (allow space for them to spread a little). Cook them for 2 minutes or until bubbles start to appear on the top, and then turn them over with a palette knife and cook for another 2 minutes.
4. Stack them up on a plate, surround with strawberries and pour over the chocolate sauce.

Now try and eat them all! We couldn't quite manage it....

Marbled mocha cake

2011-03-03T18:14:00.005Z

I previously blogged about my failsafe Cappuccino cake, which had always been wolfed down at the speed of light when I baked it in the past, but I struggled to get rid of the last time I made it. I mentioned that I'd found a similar recipe that would probably replace it as my 'go to' recipe for a quick and easy cake for any occasion.... and here it is!

The Marbled Mocha cake.

I ripped this recipe out of the BBC Good Food 2011 calendar and had immediately decided to make it for my best friend's birthday this year. She loves coffee cake and I thought the addition of chocolate could only add to the enjoyment! It's very similar to the other cake in both ingredients and appearance, but with just the added faff of making two mixtures to combine (a small price to pay though for the yummy coffee-chocolate combo though!)

There wasn't as much of a marbled effect as I'd hoped, but it was lovely and moist and you could really taste both of the flavours.

There it is among the slightly retro buffet I made. I've gone a bit buffet mad recently, every time somebody comes over I immediately think, 'Oooh, I can do a bit of a buffet!' I'm a bit annoyed that I didn't really think through sticking the candles in, so they aren't very even, and I think it looks slightly like the Millennium Dome!

You will need:
225g/8oz soft butter
2tbsp cocoa
2-3 tbsp instant coffee
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
225g/8oz golden caster sugar
225g/8oz self-raising flour
2tsp baking powder
4 eggs

For the coffee frosting:
2 x 250g tubs mascarpone
86g/3oz golden caster sugar
4tsp instant coffee dissolved in 4tsp boiling water

1. Preheat oven 180c/gas 4, and line bases of 2 buttered 20cm sandwich tins.
2. Mix the cocoa with 2 tbsp boiling water in a medium bowl until smooth. In a cup, mix the coffee with 1 tbsp boiling water, and then add the vanilla extract and stir to dissolve.
3. Put the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs in a large bowl and beat until smooth.
4. Spoon half the mixture onto the cocoa and beat well. Flavour the remaining mix with the coffee.
5. Spoon alternate dollops of mix into the tins and tap sharply to level. Run a skewer through the mixes to marble them together. Bake for 25 mins or until set and springy when touched.
6. Cool for 10mins in the tin, then complete cooling on a wire rack.
7. For the frosting, beat the mascarpone with the sugar and coffee until well mixed. Sandwich the cakes together with some of the frosting, then spread the rest on top. Decorate with chocolate coffee beans or other chocolately topping.

So this is my new favourite cake recipe (apart from Victoria Sponge, obviously!) which I will call upon when I need something yummy and reliable!

Do you have a failsafe cake recipe?

The Unwanted Cake

2011-02-27T14:50:00.007Z

What a sad story this is! This poor cake just didn't want to be eaten.

I've made this Cappuccino cake a fair few times now, including a couple of birthdays last year, and it's never let me down. It's simple to make and with the decoration being quite plain, it always looks OK too. Unfortunately, this time I really struggled to find people to take it off my hands!

One of my friends had commented on a picture of it on Facebook a while ago saying how much she liked the look of it, so I decided to bake it for her when she came over for a tea a few weeks ago. I was just putting the finishing touches to it the night before (literally sprinkling the cocoa powder over it!) when she texted me to cancel. At the time we were slightly selfishly relieved because it meant we could greedily cut into it straight away and fill our faces.

The next day Mike took a few slices into work for his colleagues... but one of them had phoned in sick. He tried to palm the last slice off on to someone from another office, but he was on a diet. He did end up taking it, but when he brought the box back the next day he said he'd given his slice to someone else. Then another friend came over the next day and I offered her a slice... after a bit of cajoling she did eat it, but picked out all the nuts! Sadly, a few days later, I had to sling the last few slices into the bin as they were starting to go mouldy.

So I felt quite sorry for this cake - I've never had to throw any of it away before! This has always been the cake that's never let me down, that fits so many occasions, that's always come out perfect and been enjoyed by everyone. The saddest thing about this story is that I've actually since tried a similar recipe (blog post coming soon!) which will probably replace this one as my failsafe cake recipe, so I'm sorry little Cappuccino cake, but I think this is the last time we'll see you!

Thanks to Mike for the photos in this post!

Cherry Shortbread Hearts

2011-02-15T21:06:00.004Z

Last year I started what I think will become a tradition - to bake something heart-themed and therefore slightly cheesy, for Valentine's Day.

This year I've noticed quite a bit of Valentine's backlash, and it makes me kind of sad... I know it's gone very commercial (like everything it seems; is it just me or was Halloween in particular really OTT last year?!) but surely you can enjoy it without having to buy into the commercialism. It seemed that nobody was even bothering to acknowledge it - at work people were saying things like 'we don't need Valentine's Day to show each other we care so we don't bother' - I mean, neither do we, but isn't it just nice to have a day where you can just celebrate what you have together?

Anyway, I digress... so last year I did some heart cupcakes, which I didn't think I was going to be able to top (and I don't think I did) but I want to do something other than cake, since we seemed to have eaten so much of it lately (more on that soon!) but I saw a recipe for these cherry shortbread hearts on the BBC Good Food website and thought I would give them a go especially since I haven't made shortbread yet.

Firstly, I was alarmed by how much butter was in them! A whole pack! It's not called 'all-butter' shortbread for nothing then, is it?! I was also a bit scared that it was a James Martin recipe so immediately thought it would be complicated and feature ingredients that I'd never heard of but it really was so simple and everything went smoothly. I don't know if I was using the wrong size cutter but it made about 22 biscuits and I also made a whole tray of mini hearts to take into work (yes, I had to force some Valentine's spirit into them somehow!) and STILL ended up throwing away some dough!

As is also tradition they had to be encased within something featuring hearts and this year I had the foresight to pick up a box from Clinton's rather than wrestling with an old Celebration's tub and some wrapping paper!

Here are the mini ones all bagged up to take into work.

One of the women in the office wasn't there when I came in with them, and I was so flattered when she tried one and then asked me where I'd bought them from! Hopefully I might get some commissions next Valentine's Day (if they can be persuaded to celebrate it of course!) ....

Baileys and Chocolate Chip Scones

2011-02-06T22:12:00.005Z

OK, so the title's not exactly accurate - it was Tesco Finest's version of Baileys, but I can't tell the difference myself!

When I saw The Pink Whisk's recipe for these scones on Friday, I knew that they HAD to be made before the weekend was out! Scones have been on my list of things to make for ages, and I don't like raisins or sultanas so I was in search of something a bit different.

Mike and I are in agreement that these were possibly the nicest things to come out of the kitchen here so far! You could really taste the Baileys!

They were so quick and easy to make aswell - all done and dusted during the course of tonight's Top Gear.

Mike had his with that and chocolate spread, as suggested in the original recipe.

I cheated and got some squirty cream, which made for nice decoration!

We both scoffed two each in one sitting and really had to exercise some self-restraint at that point!

You can get the recipe here. Thanks so much to The Pink Whisk for sharing these beauties!

ETA: Mike would just like me to point out that it was him who did the squirty cream hearts! I couldn't possibly take credit for anyone else's handiwork!

January: the baking drought

2011-02-05T11:56:00.006Z

Wow, is it really February already... where is this year going?

Well, this blog has been a bit of a poor show since Christmas. I'd love to tell you that it's because I've been so busy baking that I just haven't had time to show off my efforts, but unfortunately, that hasn't been the case. I was starting to worry that I'd lost the baking love, but I think that real life had just taken over a while - with starting my new job just before Christmas I suppose I've just been trying to find my feet in this new co-habiting plus full-time job routine. And another spanner in the baking works was that we've just got ourselves the Playstation Move, so that along with Little Big Planet 2 meant that after tea we have been tending to sit around gaming and eating leftover Christmas chocolate!

So I just have 4 measly things to share that I made in January, only one of which is baked goods but I'm pleased to say that 2 of them are my own ideas for once.

1. Cheese, onion and parsley mashed potato

Now, mashed potato is one of my all time favourite comfort foods, especially during the bleak days of January. Unfortunately, Mike isn't a massive fan, and I hate seeing his little face fall when I plonk a massive dollop of it onto his plate. So I've been trying to jazz it up a bit, and found that adding some grated cheese, fried onions, black pepper and parsley made it a bit more palatable for him. Personally I still prefer it simply with lashings of marge and black pepper!

2. Carrot and Lentil soup

I went a bit lentil crazy for a week, after seeing a few recipes in the Morrisons magazine (so much so that we've still got boxes of lentil curry lurking in the freezer) and this recipe was perfect to try out my new food processor! It really was yummy and super healthy too! Could have done with being a bit thinner, as I just dumped it all into the blender when really I should have processed it in batches. Hey ho, you live and learn!

3. Ham, cheese and tomato tart

I almost never take any notice of the recipes on the side of packets, but this one on the side on the Jus Roll pastry packs caught my eye and I snipped them it a while back. I just added some red and green peppers aswell and it made a really yummy tea along with some salad and new potatoes, felt a bit more like a summery dish, so can't wait to make it again in the summer and eat it sitting in the sun (if we get any!). It was also good to take the leftovers to work in our lunchboxes!

4. White chocolate and cranberry cupcakes

And finally, some baking! I can't believe these were the only thing I baked in January, but I had some white chocolate and some dried cranberries left over from Christmas so thought I'd better use them up, as well as the festive cupcake cases that I never used either! I just added 75g of cranberries and 100g melted which chocolate to my usual vanilla cupcake mix, and topped with white chocolate fudge frosting. Also, have you noticed the spelling mistake in the above picture?! One of Mike's cheeky friends mixed the letters up while he was over the other week!

Anyway, even though the cupcakes and the cheesy mash are very simple creations, I've been so pleased with them because they are my first little steps at being slightly more adventurous! I've always followed recipes so closely because I'm scared of getting thing wrong, so it must show that I'm getting a bit more confident in the kitchen and not as afraid to try things out.

With Valentine's Day and my best friend's birthday around the corner I'm back scouring blogs and magazine for new recipes and feeling ready to get back into the kitchen.

Welcome back baking mojo, I've missed you!

How to beat the January blues....

2011-01-11T21:22:00.006Z

... smash up the Christmas Gingerbread house with a rolling pin, of course! I can't quite understand how I brought myself to do it. After it had been sat proudly on the table for the best part of two weeks I didn't think it was wise to eat it though, so I thought I may aswell have some fun with it, and it was quite therapeutic!

Happy New Year everyone! I've been in a kind of baking hibernation these past few weeks, which therefore leads to blogging hibernation given the nature of my blog. After all the Christmas baking and Christmas chocolate still lying around the house I just haven't been able to face making anything yet. I managed a batch of mincemeat custard tarts as the pastry was about to go off, but most of them are still in the tin, and not even worthy of a photograph.

I'm yet to feel the baking itch this year, but I may be lured back into the kitchen by two things... firstly, the January Bake It recipe (I'm craving savoury stuff at the moment and they look like just the ticket), and secondly, this beast of a Christmas present that I received from Mike's parents:

I've been wanting a food processor/blender for a while now and I was quite overwhelmed when I unwrapped this! It will be a challenge for me as it has got about a million attachments and I really am not very good with technology, so I'm going to make a determined effort to read the manual and learn how to use it! I can't wait to try out some soups and smoothies in it for a start.

Hope you've all had lovely Christmases, and hopefully I'll be back soon with something I've made rather than destroyed!

Blogvent Day 24: Finished Gingerbread House!

2010-12-24T22:13:00.002Z

Hurrah! I'm so pleased to be able to share my first gingerbread house as my final Blogvent post! I think next year I'm definitely going to make it earlier as I've literally only just finished it now, and I still have presents to wrap. It's such a good job that work let us leave at 2pm as otherwise I never would have got it done!

It's nowhere near as good as the recipe one, but for a first go I'm really happy with it. I stuffed it with marshmallows to try and keep it upright, and used royal icing (which is a bitch to beat by hand isn't it!?) to stick it together and for the roof. The chimney is a stack of fruit pastilles! I must admit I did mess up the roof a bit - went storming in, slathering icing all over it to stick on the 'tiles' then realised you were meant to dollop just a little bit of icing on each one to stick them in individually, then spoon icing on the top to look like a snowdrift. So it just looks like I ran out of roof tiles...

I also had the idea of icing the year on the back as I wanted to make this a little tradition of mine now, and it will be fun to look back at them over the years and see which ones worked and which ones were a total disaster!

So this is it! Blogvent over. I've really enjoyed posting every day, it's been a great challenge and made me get myself organised and try out new recipes that I might not have otherwise done. It's also been great to discover other lovely blogs while searching for other recipes to include when I haven't had chance to bake something myself. So thanks to Chloe and Faye for coming up with such a lovely idea!

I hope you all have wonderful Christmases, and wish you all lots of love, luck and happiness for 2011 xxx

Blogvent Day 23: Under Construction...

2010-12-23T22:15:00.004Z

A long long time ago now, on the 1st December, I blogged about how much I love gingerbread houses and how I'd been challenged to make one this year.

Well, that process finally got started last night as I made my gingerbread! Can you see the deliberate mistake though? Yes, there is no door, and there are no windows. Helpfully, after they'd been in the oven for about 10 minutes, a distant voice shouted, 'Did you remember to cut the door out?' Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgh! No, no I had not remembered, and it was all I could to restrain myself from yanking it all out of the oven and hurling it into the bin! I will just have to pipe them on!

I was hoping to stick it all together today, but got bogged down with wrapping presents and getting last minute bits from Tesco, so I'm just hoping work let me go early tomorrow so that I'll have time to put it together! But whatever state it's in tomorrow, it will be the final Blogvent post! So I'd better pray I can do something with it, really...

Here's one of the other last minute things I got from Tesco! How cute is he?!

Blogvent Day 22: Mini Gingerbread Houses

2010-12-22T18:47:00.004Z

Photo is by Chele at The Chocolate Teapot and is used with permission

These may be my favourite Christmas bake of this year! Today's Blogvent treat are these tiny gingerbread houses, small enough to perch on the side of your mug! They are by Chele at the Chocolate Teapot - who I must say is on fire with the Christmas baking! I've seen so many lovely things on her blog I probably could have got Blogvent covered without having to bake myself! See how Chele made these beauties here.

In other news, I'm hoping to get my gingerbread made tonight for my gingerbread house! I posted about it for the very first Blogvent post and I'm really hoping I can get it done for Christmas Eve. I'm not sure how well it's going to go, because I'm meant to be making templates for the pieces but have realised that the only measuring device I have in the house is an Ikea tape measure!

Blogvent Day 21: Cranberry and stem ginger buttermilk scones

2010-12-21T19:21:00.003Z

Photo is by C at Cake, Crumbs and Cooking and is used with permission

Today's Blogvent treats are these yummy cranberry and stem ginger buttermilk scones, from Cake, Crumbs and Cooking.

Scones are something I've not tried to make yet and this is a recipe I'm definitely bookmarking as there are no nasty currants or sultanas lurking in them! Whenever my Grandma made a batch of scones she would always make a few plain ones for me, and these would be the perfect opportunity for me to eat some scones with a bit more flavour and without having to leave little piles on my plate of stuff I've picked out!

Check out Cakes, Crumbs and Cooking for these and more scrumptious looking treats - I've got my eye on the cinammon apple crumble cake and the ginger and spice cupcakes too - I love anything spiced, especially at this time of year!

Blogvent Day 20: Christmas Pud Cakes at last!

2010-12-20T21:38:00.005Z

After posting about this recipe a couple of days ago, I was so pleased when I got a spare couple of hours inbetween Tesco, Asda, cooking a Sunday roast, and watching the Apprentice to bake these Christmas pud cakes! I'm also really pleased to be able to blog about something I've made myself again! Lovely as it is to discover and share things that others have baked, it was only making me feel more sad that I hadn't had chance to make anything myself last week.

If you do try this recipe, I'd advise leaving the custard powder out of the icing - I followed the recipe exactly but my icing turned light pink! I had to throw it out and start again, and minus the custard powder it turned out great.

I was a bit annoyed that I got specks of the cake in the icing, but I think that was in my haste to get the icing on before it got too congealed! They were pretty heavy going - very chocolately! - and I had to pick out the cherries, but apart from that they were yummy! I'd definitely recommend this recipe - it's quite straight forward and they really do look like mini Christmas puds, which makes for a great effect. Plus they taste way better than all that yucky fruit in a real pud! Recipe available on the BBC Good Food website.

Blogvent Day 19: Crumbly cinnamon and chocolate squares

2010-12-19T22:24:00.003Z

Day 19 and sadly nothing I've baked myself yet again! This was another recipe I had earmarked for Christmas as it doesn't feature mincemeat, but I'm going to have to hold on to it until next year due to tin-related and time-related issues!

The recipe is from the BBC Good Food book 101 Teatime Treats and while I'm on the subject, I can't recommend these dinky little BBC books enough! I've used so many recipes from them, most of which are available on the BBC Good Food website aswell. They've been perfect for me, being relatively new to cooking and baking - all the recipes are straight forward and they normally turn out how they are supposed to, if you follow them properly!

Anyway, advertising spiel over, as this recipe isn't online, I will post below:

175g/6oz butter, at room temperature, cubed
200g/8oz golden caster sugar
175g/6oz plain flour
3 eggs
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp baking powder

100g/4oz plain chocolate, roughly chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100g/4oz light muscovado sugar
85g/3oz chopped mixed nuts

1. Preheat oven to 180c/gas 4. Line a 7x11in tin with baking paper. Put the cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat until well blended and creamy.
2. Tip into the tin, spread evenly right into the corners, then scatter the chocolate on top.
3. Mix the remaining topping ingredients and scatter over the top of the chocolate.
4. Lightly press to compact, then bake for 40 mins until risen and firm. Cool in tin then cut into squares.

Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow with something I actually have baked myself!

Blogvent Day 18: Christmas Pud Cupcakes

2010-12-18T22:02:00.004Z

I'm very late today with my Blogventing, Mike was laughing at me that I've been so good all week despite being stressed with my new job, and the first day I'm off, I forget all about it!

I was hoping to make these this weekend, plus a whole load of other Christmassy treats too, but I went to Asda to get supplies and got so stressed in making sure we got the Christmas food (how can Asda run completely out of spuds?!) that it was too much to think about baking supplies aswell! On the upside, I did get some ace festive cheeses :)

Anyway, the recipe for these cupcakes is here (good ole BBC Good Food again!)

Blogvent Day 17: Gingerbread Men

2010-12-17T09:00:00.001Z

Photo by Kara at butter hearts sugar and used with permission

Are these or are these not the best gingerbread men you've ever seen? Today's Blogvent post is these gingerbread men that I saw on a fabulous blog I have just discovered - butter hearts sugar.

I love anything gingerbread man related, but I fell in love with these instantly because they reminded me of those Fred & Ginger birthday cards you can get - I went through a brief obsession with them and used to buy them for everyone because I thought they were hilarious, but then I kept thinking I must've bought people the same one twice at some point. I've since moved on to the 'Violent Veg' ones, which always have me rolling in the aisles at Clintons!

Anyway, I digress! Despite loving gingerbread men so much, I have yet to bake them myself! I am definitely going to follow Kara's recipe when I get myself a decent sized gingerbread man cutter.

Visit butter hearts sugar for more lovely looking and beautifully photographed bakes!

I'm so glad this week has come to an end. I'm really hoping I can bake some things myself over the weekend!

Blogvent Day 16: Starry toffee cake squares

2010-12-16T09:00:00.001Z

I'm one of those weird people who doesn't seem to like any kind of Christmassy food. Mince pies, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding - bleurgh!

I'm sure there must be others like me out there, so I've been trying to find some recipes for little festive bites to have as an alternative to all that fruity rubbish!

I think these starry toffee cake squares from BBC Good Food will do the trick! I'm even all ready with the right tin, so I hope to be able to make these in the next few weeks. The recipe is available online here.

Blogvent Day 15: Spiced chocolate cake

2010-12-15T09:00:00.000Z

Today I'm bring you another item from my baking wishlist - look at this beauty I came across in the Sainsbury's magazine!

Chocolate! Ginger! Cinammon! Decorative stars! It basically features all the greats, and looks amazing too, but the only thing stopping me from making it this year was the fact that I didn't have the right tin - sounds like a lame excuse, but I'm having to build up my baking paraphernalia slowly and often I end up picking recipes based on whether I've got the right tins. I'm sure I could have done this in a different tin, but I'm not clever enough yet to know what that tin should be and whether I should make any adjustments to the measurements. Plus, I just don't think this would be the same if it wasn't in a jolly ring shape...!

The recipe is available online here.

Blogvent Day 14: Chocolate Stars with Nuts & Cranberries

2010-12-14T09:00:00.000Z

Unfortunately, for the next couple of weeks this blog is mostly going to be 'here is what I wish I'd been baking...'! This is the first example - a recipe I saw in the December issue of the Good to Know Recipes magazine.

I can prove I meant to make them - you can see my little sticky label on the top of the page! These got bumped down the list though because they needed to set in a container, which means that they'll probably end up setting all unevenly as the fridge is quite small, and things tend to end up balanced precariously on top of each other! They actually look quite simple to make and I love white chocolate, which would balance out the nuts and cranberries which I'm not so keen on!

Hopefully next Christmas I'll have a bigger fridge and I can give them a go! The recipe is available online here.

Blogvent Day 13: Christmassy Cake Pops

2010-12-13T09:00:00.001Z

Today's Christmassy baking treat is from Charlotte's Cupcakes! I love these little reindeer cake pops and you can visit Charlotte's blog to see some cute snowman ones too, aswell as lots of other yummy cakes she has been baking. The recipe that Charlotte used is available on the Bakerella website here.

I love the idea of cake on a stick but my only worry is that one bite wouldn't be enough and I'd have to eat the whole lot!

Blogvent Day 12: Peppermint creams

2010-12-12T19:06:00.004Z

I'm a bit late today with my blogvent post, but better late than never!

We were having some friends around today and I wanted to make something a bit different from the usual mince pies to have with a brew after lunch. I saw the recipe in the latest Good to Know Recipes magazine - can't find it online, so I will post below!

They are so simple to make, but very messy and quite fiddly! It took me ages to get the consistency right to roll out the mixture - basically I had to add a lot more icing sugar than the recipe suggested, but that might have been me being a bit over zealous with the peppermint extract and so it was too runny because of that. Anyway, it was worth the faffing!

115g icing sugar
55g condensed milk
few drops of peppermint extract
25g plain chocolate, melted

1. Gradually mix together the icing sugar and condensed milk in a bowl. Mix in a few drops of peppermint extract.
2. Knead the mixture until smooth and firm, and roll out to 5mm thickness. Cut into shapes with a small cutter and leave in a cool place to set.
3. When set, decorate the peppermint creams by drizzling the melted chocolate over them with a small spoon. Allow the chocolate to fully harden before serving.

This week will be a challenge Blogvent-wise, as I am starting my new job tomorrow! So I will be on the lookout for yummy Christmas recipes from other bloggers to share with you, as I'm pretty sure the only time I'll be spending in the kitchen this week will be to warm up some ready meals!

Blogvent Day 11: Mincemeat Swirls

2010-12-11T12:47:00.005Z

I stumbled across this recipe here when searching online for Christmas recipes - I was mainly looking for quick, easy ideas for things I could rustle up for last minute guests or if I was pushed for time.

They should have been perfect! Here is the recipe (original can be found here)...

Ready rolled puff pastry
About 1.5 of 411g jars of mincemeat
1 egg, beaten

1. Grease a couple of baking sheets and preheat oven to 220c.
2. Unroll the puff pastry with the long side closest to you and spread the mincemeat all over, leaving about an inch gap at the side closest to you.
3. Start at the far side, and roll the pastry towards you, Swiss roll style.
4. Brush the inch gap you left with the egg and seal.
5. Turn the roll so that the seal is at the bottom and slice into about 1cm slices.
6. Place on the baking sheets and bake for about 15 mins, until golden.

I ended up leaving mine in too long as I was getting ready to go out, and then I should have taken them off the baking sheets straight away, but I left them cooling too long so they all stuck to the sheets. I managed to prise about 3 off, which didn't end up looking that bad when plated up and dusted with icing sugar!

Anyway, I will definitely be trying these again over Christmas and will have to remember to keep my eye on the clock next time!

Blogvent Day 10: Better gingerbread cupcakes!

2010-12-10T10:29:00.004Z

Photo is by Ruth at The Pink Whisk and used with permission

Oh how much do I wish I had waited a bit longer before making my gingerbread cupcakes, after I saw this recipe this morning!

The Pink Whisk has today posted a recipe for gingerbread cupcakes which looks a million times better than the one I used, and the little gingerbread men decorations are so cute! See the recipe here.

I really want to have a go at these myself but they may have to wait until next year - I found out yesterday that I am finally starting my new job on Monday and so I don't think I am going to have time to do anything much else other than drool over lovely things that others have baked now!

Visit The Pink Whisk for lots more lovely Christmas recipes!

Also I am really happy to say that I won the prize for the November Bake It Club at Cooking, Cakes and Children with my attempt at the Chocolate Fudgy pudding! I will definitely have to make sure there is time to bake some Christmassy biscuits with my cutters! Thanks Amy!

Blogvent Day 9: Gingerbread Latte

2010-12-09T09:00:00.000Z

I'm new to the Starbucks gingerbread latte love - I only discovered it this year, so it appears I have been missing out! After having one and becoming hooked, I decided to have a look online to see if there were any recipes out there. And there were!

The original recipe I used is available here. The quantities aren't very exact so you'd probably need to tweak it to your taste. The first go I had contained waaaay too much ginger and was a bit of a throat burner, but when I tried it today with a little less ginger and added some vanilla extract it was lovely, so the quantities I used today are below.

Makes 2
Coffee
Milk
Big dollop of golden syrup (i.e. a generous tablespoon)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Teaspoon vanilla extract
Whipped cream
Ground cinnamon

1. Put some milk in a pan (however much you like for 2 coffees) along with the golden syrup, vanilla extract and ginger and heat until steaming.
2. Make 2 cups of coffee (about half fill the cups).
3. Add the milk to the coffees, and top with whipped cream and a sprinkling of cinnamon.

Enjoy! Also, I am now on Twitter (@cakesfromkim) so please say hello if you are on there too!

Blogvent Day 8: Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

2010-12-08T10:59:00.005Z

photo is by Chele @ The Chocolate Teapot and used with kind permission

Today's Christmas treat is courtesy of Chele at the Chocolate Teapot... click on the cookie for the recipe!

I discovered Chele's blog a few days ago and thought these bad boys would be great for Blogvent. I've got candy canes left over from the box I bought for the hot chocolate and so that seems like a good enough excuse to me... and an excuse to buy some more candy canes, just in case...

Visit The Chocolate Teapot for loads more yummy recipes!

Blogvent Day 7: Gingerbread cupcakes with clementine buttercream

2010-12-07T12:13:00.003Z

Mmmm. I realised the other day it's been ages since I've made any cupcakes, and since it also feels like ages since I baked anything that I would love to eat myself, I decided to treat myself to some gingerbread cupcakes.

Also it is finally a recipe that is not from some sort of BBC outlet! I found this one in the December issue of Good to Know Recipes - which I must say has loads of great Christmassy recipes for baking and food in general that are all really straightforward and look quite simple to make (perfect for me!).

Anyway, these tasted really nice and festive - just the addition of ginger and cinnamon to a normal cupcake recipe gave them a good kick, and you could really taste the clementine tang in the buttercream - yum! However, eating just one icing star turned Mike's teeth and tongue an alarming shade of blue!

The recipe for these cupcakes can be found on their website here. It's all self explanatory but my one top tip - which is probably really obvious to everyone anyway - is that after piping the icing, wait until it has hardened slightly before shoving the icing star on, otherwise this happens...

What a sorry sight that is! Anyway, that's also probably to do with the fact that I only had a hulking great big star cutter to use, instead of the little dainty ones used in the original recipe!

I also used some glitter star sprinkles from Lakeland and did some with sprinkles only. We ended up feeling like that ones with just the sprinkles looked the best, and I feel like sometimes, less can more with cupcake decoration... what do you think?

Blogvent Day 6: Starry Mincemeat Slices

2010-12-06T10:00:00.003Z

Back to the kitchen now for today's Christmassy Blogvent bake: Starry Mincemeat Slices!

I've been doing so much Christmas baking over the past week that I'm now deliberately making things that I don't like, this being another example! This Blogvent challenge has been good though as it's been making me try out lots of the recipes that I'd earmarked for Christmas, so now I've got a good idea of the kinds of things to make sure I have in the cupboard over Christmas, what to make as prezzies for people, and what never to bother with making again (I'm looking at you, truffles!).

Anyway, this is another one that will be making another appearance over Christmas - I'm sure we'll have some family around at some point and I love making up a bit of a buffet type spread, and I can imagine this beaut featuring centre-stage on the table! Once again Good Food has come up trumps with a quick and simple recipe, which can be found here.

It does seem like a bit of a cheat using ready rolled pastry and mincemeat from a jar, but sod it - sometimes you've got to save time where you can, and anyway I haven't had any complaints from my trusted tasters (Mike and his Dad!)!

Blogvent Day 5: Peppermint hot chocolate

2010-12-05T10:00:00.000Z

Apologies in advance for the rubbishy photos in this post; not that I claim to be an expert usually, but I just couldn't seem to be able to get a decent angle/light to take these pictures in!

A bit of a break from baking today, but still yummy and chocolatey and Christmassy I promise!

Peppermint hot chocolate! I've never made actual proper hot chocolate before, and have normally been content with Options, but after this I feel there's no going back! The recipe is here (yes yes, Good Food again!) and is really easy to chop and change depending on how many people you are catering for - I halved it and made it for myself, Mike and his friend after they had come in from the cold (although admittedly they had been playing badminton so I don't know how cold they actually were, and it probably undid all their hard work running around the court...)

I think they look really cute and festive with the candy canes hung on the sides!

Back tomorrow with another Good Food recipe and then I am going to brave a couple of recipes from elsewhere... how will I cope?!

Christmas Baking Carnival / Blogvent Day 4: Florentines

2010-12-04T10:00:00.001Z

Florentines are another great Christmas gift idea and are so quick and easy to make, which is definitely helpful at this manic time of year! They are also great for something to have in the house for any guests that drop in during the festive season!

There are loads of different recipes floating about on the web but the recipe I settled on was from Cupcakes and Small Bakes - they are just like cornflake cakes with a bit extra really! As I can't find that recipe online anywhere, I will post it below:

Makes about 25
85g/3oz cornflakes, crushed
85g/3oz toasted flaked almonds
50g/2oz dried cranberries
50g/2oz glace cherries, sliced
397g can condensed milk
140g/50z milk chocolate, melted
140g/50z white chocolate, melted

1. Preheat oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4 and line a few baking sheets with baking paper.
2. Put the cornflakes, almonds, cranberries and cherries into a bowl and then stir in the condensed milk until all the ingredients are sticky.
3. Spoon about 25 tablespoons of the mixture onto the baking sheets, leaving space inbetween them for spreading. Flatten each one slightly with the back of a wet spoon.
4. Bake for about 12 minutes until golden brown.
5. Cool on the sheets for about 5 minutes and then transfer them upside down to a sheet of baking parchment, and leave to cool completely.
6. When cool, spoon or brush the melted chocolate over the bases of the biscuits and then leave to set.

I think they look really pretty and festive all bagged up and tied with ribbons - I'm definitely going to be doing some more batches of these to give as gifts this year. Hopefully I will get chance to try out some of the alternative Florentine recipes too!

This is also my entry for the Cherished by Me Christmas Baking Carnival - a lovely blog I have just discovered thanks to Nicola! Can't wait to see what yummy things everyone else has baked!

Blogvent Day 3: Chocolate Truffles

2010-12-03T12:31:00.004Z

Truffles were another idea I had for festive gifts after seeing a recipe in the December issue of Good Food magazine (p.163).

There were 3 flavour suggestions: candied orange, stem ginger, or coconut and cherry. I went for the orange as I *love* chocolate orange, but unfortunately I could only get candied mixed peel instead of just orange... this meant that the flavour didn't really come through and I was cursing myself for not doing the ginger ones!

The truffles were really fun to make although you probably need to set aside at least half a day to be faffing about with them - they took longer than the 2 hours stated to chill - and make sure there's lots of room in the fridge, I lost a couple of truffles through trying to shift things about! It's pretty messy business once you start scooping and rolling the truffles as they start to melt straight away, as you can see...

It was also really difficult to get the truffles looking nice and smooth - when coating them in the melted chocolate, you really need to work quickly, and it was quite difficult to cover up the fork prong shapes... so some of them did look a bit beastly, but I guess at least it's clear that they are authentic and homemade...!

I used petit fours cases from Morrisons to put the truffles in, and am still on the lookout for boxes... these were a practice run, really. I'm not sure I would use this recipe again as they were pretty heavy going - although if you really are a chocoholic you will love them! If they had had a stronger orange flavour that would have probably made a difference though, so that's probably where I went wrong.

I've been doing some recipe hunting though and I've got a recipe for Baileys & white chocolate truffles that's next on the list, which is much more up my street!

The Snow Day Bake Off: Mincemeat Custard Pies

2010-12-02T23:45:00.001Z

We got some snow at last! As we haven't lived here long, we were doubly excited about this as we couldn't wait to see what the place would look like with a dusting. We haven't had much, but it was enough to mean that Mike was told to work from home and I had an excuse to be holed up in the kitchen!

This also seemed like a great opportunity to enter A Slice of Cherry Pie's Snow Day Bake Off, and so this is my entry.

After wandering around outside taking some photos, marvelling at how pretty everything looked and grinning from ear to ear about how much we love where we live, I made some Mincemeat Custard Pies to warm us up.

Mike wasn't sure how he felt about the mincemeat-custard combo, but eaten still warm from the oven and with a dusting of icing sugar, he was very pleasantly surprised! I can't really comment as I don't like mincemeat (!!), so I only nibbled around the edges...

The best thing about these is that they were so quick and easy to make - only taking about 20 minutes in total! The recipe is available here on the BBC Good Food website (what would I do without it?! I'm not sponsored by them, honestly!) I will definitely be making sure I've got the ingredients in over Christmas as they will be brilliant to quickly whip up for any last minute visitors.

Now, can we have a bit more snow please?

Blogvent Day 2: Spiced Christmas cookies

2010-12-02T11:55:00.004Z

It's not Christmas without some spiced biscuits and I found this great little recipe in one of my trusty BBC Good Food books - 101 Teatime Treats. I've scoured the BBC website for it but the exact recipe doesn't seem to be available online, so I will post below:

Makes about 24 depending on what cutter you use!
85g/3oz butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
100g/4oz caster sugar
1 egg - beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
2tsp mixed spice
2 tbsp golden syrup
250g/9oz plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
icing sugar or granulated sugar, to decorate

1. Beat butter and sugar together until pale and then add the egg slowly, beating as you go.
2. Stir in the vanilla, spice, golden syrup, flour and baking powder. Add a bit more flour if the mixture is very sticky.
3. Shape into a flat disc, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for about an hour.
4. Preheat oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4 and grease a few baking sheets.
5. Roll out half the dough to the thickness of 2 £1 coins and cut out shapes with festive cutters - repeat with the remaining dough.
6. Place the cookies onto the baking sheets and bake for 10 mins until just golden around the edges.

To decorate, I sprinkled the cookies with granulated sugar before putting them in the oven. Alternatively you can just dust with icing sugar once cooked.

The recipe also suggests piercing a hole through the tops of the cookies before baking, then threading a ribbon through once cool, so they can be used as tree decorations. I bagged mine up in these great presentation bags from Lakeland so they can be given as festive gifts.

PS: they also taste great dunked in tea!

Blogvent Day 1: Gingerbread Houses

2010-12-01T11:40:00.004Z

For the past few years now I've drooled over the gingerbread houses in places like Selfridges and John Lewis, and this year there is a recipe in Sainsbury's magazine that my friends and family have challenged me to try...

It's quite daunting reading through the recipe (especially when you get to the page with diagrams and measurements!) but I am determined to give it a try this year.

Unfortunately, the Sainsbury's recipe doesn't seem to be available online, but here are links to other similar recipes:

Waitrose slightly fancy looking minimalist gingerbread house
Delicious magazine's quite 'busy' gingerbread house
Rachel Allen's lovely gingerbread house with gingerbread people
BBC Good Food's gingerbread house which they claim is 'moderately easy'...!

If you don't fancy making one from scratch, I have seen a few 'kits' in the shops that just need assembling. I've seen Dr Oetker kits in the supermarkets, but there are also kits available from
John Lewis, Jane Asher, and Selfridges.

If anyone else is attempting a gingerbread house this year, or has done one in the past, I would love to hear from you!

Bake It! Club November - Fudgy Chocolate Pudding

2010-11-30T14:36:00.004Z

I've been wanting to try out a recipe from the Bake It! Club over at Cooking, Cakes and Children for a while now, after first hearing about it through Nicola and her lovely blog Nic's Notebook. And finally, I've done it!

This month's recipe for Fudgy Chocolate Pudding (which can be found here) was impossible to resist, especially when living with a chocoholic. It was really easy to make and perfect for warming us up on this freezing snowy day! Ice cream would have been my ideal accompaniment but we didn't have any, so I went with the simple dusting of icing sugar, which ended up being quite apt for today's weather and felt quite lovely and festive too!

Will definitely be keeping a copy of this recipe in my book as it will be perfect for feeding a crowd over Christmas. Can't wait for another helping after tea!

Blogvent!

2010-11-30T11:24:00.003Z

I came across this lovely Blogvent idea through Fayefayesparkle and Clobelle's blogs and thought I would try and take part. Basically, it works like an advent calender, so every day you post something Christmassy! I will be trying to take part with a baking theme, of course - so over the next 24 days I'm hoping I'll be able to blog about Christmassy treats I've made, or yummy recipes that I've spotted on the web or in some of the many magazines I've been poring over recently. I really hope I'll be able to do it, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's festive treats, too!

Victoria Sponge Take 2, Halloween and Bonfire Night...

2010-11-26T10:38:00.007Z

As it's taking me quite a while to blog about what I was baking while the net was down, I thought I'd do a round up post to cover the rest so I can then get on with posting about the Christmas goodies I've been making this week!

I resurrected the failsafe Victoria Sponge recipe for Mike's sister's birthday at the end of October and we decided to just cover it with sweets (another clever tactic to mask the fact that I'm actually quite rubbish at proper cake decoration). I really liked the effect and she seemed pleased too! Looking at it again now makes me feel a bit sick, as I had to bake 3 Vic sponges in October, so think I will have to lay off it for a while now...

Next up was Halloween, and I'd been on the lookout for some scary recipes. Mike bought me this fantastic book, Lilli Vanilli's A Zombie Ate My Cupcake which has some amazing recipes in! But this year I decided not to try any of them, as I didn't feel confident that I'd be able to do them properly... looking back I'm a bit disappointed in myself for not giving it a go, but by posting about it I'm officially challenging myself to try them next year! Anyway, I did make some spider cakes from the BBC Good Food website which were really easy and fun to make!

They are just chocolate chip muffins with chocolate spread for the body, and liquorice for the legs and eyes. Mike ended up doing some too and we were experimenting with different body textures and shapes for the mouths! Here are some of the rest of our spider army!

I wanted to make some treacle toffee for Bonfire Night but didn't get around to it in the end. We had a good Bonfire Night, and went up to the local community centre where I couldn't actually believe the size of the bonfire, which also looked alarmingly close to the houses behind... we actually had to move away from it because it was giving off so much heat we were starting to feel like our faces were sliding off!

This was followed by one of the best fireworks displays I've ever been to - I should have some quality pictures to share with you from Mike's fancy SLR camera, but somebody forgot the battery (I'll give you a clue: it wasn't me!) and so the Blackberry snaps will have to do!

And finally, I'm sorry to report that I have a disaster to share with you. I'm always in 2 minds whether to post about things going wrong, especially as one day I'd love for this blog to be connected to a little cake business of mine, but I started it up to document my attempts at learning to bake and so it only seems fair to admit when I arse things up, plus hopefully it'll be good to look back on in future!

So anyway, after all of the plain sponges I'd been making I fancied something slightly different and so found a recipe for Peach and Raspberry Buckle in one of the BBC Good Food books - pretty much the same as this recipe on the website which just uses apricot instead (I have to say, just reading the comments there about how easy it is to make is raising my blood pressure a little!). I was so excited about it that I went out and spent a tenner in Lakeland on a new cake tin, and so you can imagine my disappointment (and blind fury) when this is what it turned out like:

VILE. The crumble topping was soggy, there was no sign of any sort of cake inside, and the eggs had gone a bit odd. It was basically some peaches and some raspberries mixed with with scrambled eggs. Ugh! I'm still not sure where I went wrong - the mixture did seem a bit runny when I put it into the oven so I don't know if there was too much juice and water from the fruit. I did cheat and use tinned peaches and wondered if it was that but I've seen some of the smug commenters on the BBC website also used tinned, so it can't just be that. Anyway, I need to stop thinking about it now and move on!

It feels bad to finish the post on such a sour note, but I'll be back very soon with tales of the Christmassy stuff I've been trying out this week!

Happy Birthday Dad

2010-11-14T14:52:00.007Z

The first week in our new place was quite stressful for an added reason: I'd been asked to bake a cake for my Dad's 60th birthday! A table had been booked at the Marsh Cat in Parkgate and so I knew my cake would be coming out from the kitchen for all to see - argh! This was extra worry because the part of baking I really need lots more practice in, is the presentation...

Luckily, my Dads cake of choice is Victoria Sponge and so I knew it wasn't going to have to be too complicated, but I still did a practice run as I'd actually never baked one before (despite it being my favourite too) and to get used to the new oven (convenient excuses to have a whole victoria sponge all to ourselves!)

I used this recipe from the BBC Good Food website which I'd highly recommend. I've used it three times now (more on that in a later post) and it's not let me down. I just used strawberry jam (Bonne Maman to be exact) to sandwich it together and doubled the buttercream to spread over the top and sides.

We decided to keep the decoration fairly simple - my Dad is into amateur dramatics and originally I wanted to make the whole cake in the shape of the masks but decided that would be a bit too much of a stretch (next year will definitely have to have a go!) so just went for icing them on. It was a joint effort really as Mike made me a template to ice around for the masks. This is the finished article:

I also wanted to share this picture, despite not really wanting photos of myself on the blog, this just always makes me smile! A bit of background is required: when we first moved in, all the windows had been left open for days to air the place, and so we were plagued by flies... to begin with, we were quite humane and tried to shoo them out through the windows but it got the point where you'd think they'd gone, sit down and get comfy, and then hear an ominous buzzing starting up again...! At one point I thought Mike was going to fall through the window brandishing the Argos catalogue during a particularly frantic fly chasing session!

So we were taking some pictures of the cake in the kitchen and who do you think intruded on the first one...

I love his pose aswell, he looks like he is doing a little star jump! Cheeky little bugger.

Anyway, the cake was a success and I felt quite proud at seeing one of my creations come out of a restaurant kitchen with the candles all lit. The stress was worth it!

First week in our first home

2010-11-09T20:02:00.008Z

Hello! I'm baaaaaaack! We are FINALLY online, nearly 2 months after placing our order. What a palava! I'm so looking forward to catching up on everyone's blogs, I can't believe how out of touch with the world I feel.

I have quite a few baking posts lined up, but first I wanted to share some pictures from our first week in the new place - I was snapping away on my Blackberry as the camera was packed away in a box somewhere!

1. Favourite bit of new place #1: Beams! I have always wanted to live somewhere with beams.

2. Favourite bit of new place #2: the lounge. It's tiny, but cosy, and I love the brickwork around the patio doors.

3. Favourite bit of new place #3: my round window! This is right next to the bed and I love lazy mornings in bed watching the world go by... well, the occasional tractor at least!

4. Breakfast on the first morning. I was overjoyed at finding a toast rack in the cupboard! Needless to say, it hasn't been used since...

5. Surely no week in a new home is complete without a trip to Ikea! 6 weeks later and we still haven't decided what DVD storage to get, but never mind, it's just a good excuse for more meatballs and Daim cakes if you ask me!

6. My first baking session in the new kitchen, set against a backdrop of awesome housewarming gifts! I love the 'bake' letters, which we were a gift from Mike's sister, and she also made us a couple of extra letters - a 'M' and a 'I' which means we can also spell out our names!

7. The outcome of the first baking session - good old faithful cupcakes.

8. This is the first 'proper' meal that I cooked in the new kitchen - please excuse the filth around the pan and on the hob... I'm quite a messy cook! The kitchen was a right state, there were blobs all over the floor, up the walls, on the side of the microwave... it looked like somebody had been shot! Anyway, I've been building up a stash of recipes cut out from various magazines over time and this was one of them. It's from BBC Good Food magazine and you can see it on the website here, but I will repost below:

Chicken, potato and green bean curry

Serves 4
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 onion, chopped
6 chicken thigh fillets, cubed
2 potatoes, cut into small cubes
2 tbsp mild curry paste
500g tomato passata
200g fine green beans
150g pot natural yoghurt
plain rice or naan bread, to serve

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion and chicken together over a medium heat for 5 mins until the onion is soft.

2. Add the potatoes, curry paste and passata, bring to the boil, then cover and gently simmer for 15 mins.

3. Add the beans and a splash of water and cook for 10-15 mins more until all the veg is tender and the chicken is cooked through.

4. Remove from the heat and stir in the yoghurt.

5. Serve with rice or naan (or rice AND naan if you're greedy like me!)

I will be back very soon with more posts of what's been going on in my kitchen, but in the meantime I'm looking forward to catching up with everything I've missed during the last 6 weeks of net-less hell!

Still no router...

2010-10-08T17:58:00.003+01:00

Just thought I'd take the opportunity for a quick post while I'm at my mum's house... we're now all moved in, but as feared, our net access has been well and truly ballsed up, despite us having ordered 2 weeks before we moved to make sure it would be set up on time! It still could be at least a week before we're back online again....

Looking forward to catching up on what everyone has been up to while I've been in net-less hell, and sharing some pics of our new place.

See you all soon, I hope!

Carrot Cake and a challenge!

2010-09-23T22:51:00.004+01:00

Well, I'm all packed ready for the big move tomorrow and Saturday, so thought I would sneak in a quick blog entry before I pack up my laptop. Not sure when internet access will be sorted - although its meant to 'go live' tomorrow, the router hasn't made an appearance yet, so who knows when that will be sorted!

This is the carrot cake I made for Mike's dad's birthday a few weeks ago. I don't like carrot cake, so I was a bit whingey about making it when Mike suggested it... but since it is his favourite I gave it a go, and I'm glad I did because it was an opportunity to bake something I wouldn't normally bother with.

I ate a slice to be polite (and I always think it looks a bit suspicious if you present someone with a cake and then refuse to eat it!), but I'm really not a fan, and rather embarrassingly had to leave a little pile of raisins on my plate like a child! (nasty things - one of the most unpleasant surprises I've ever had was when I tucked into a bag of Revels without realising they had added raisin ones...)

The icing was meant to be drizzled in lines, but I had so much of it I slopped it all on, hence the running down the sides. Anyway, Mike's dad seemed to like it, so I think it was a success, even though it tasted pretty vile to me!

I've got a huge challenge this week - my Dad is 60 next weekend and I have been asked to make the cake! We're going out for a meal and so it will be sent into the kitchen to be brought out in front of everyone. I'm so nervous - luckily, his favourite cake is Victoria sponge so that bit will be quite straight forward, but it's the decorating I'm worried about! I was going to try and ice the theatre masks onto it, as he's really into his Am Dram, but I'm aware that could end up being a complete disaster...!

Hopefully I will be back soon, but if I'm not, then it's because I'm still waiting for the router...

Chocolate Toffee Cupcakes

2010-09-13T18:53:00.004+01:00

Apparently it's National Cupcake Week, so I'm glad I didn't get round to posting about these last week, since I have neither the time nor the money to bake anything this week, sadly!

I had been trying to find a recipe for some kind of toffee cake, which is apparently the favourite of the friend who I baked the cupcakes in the last post for. Recipes for actual toffee cake seemed few and far between and the closest I found was this one which was just for normal cakes with a toffee and chocolate topping. I got all the ingredients but changed my mind at the last minute (too paranoid about making something rubbish!) and stuck with the old favourites instead.

Since I had the ingredients, I made them anyway and was really happy with how they turned out.

I think the toffee needed to be a bit thicker so I could put more of it on, and the marbling wasn't quite as neat looking (OK, not remotely as neat looking!) as the one in the book, but it was fun to do. Mike liked them so much that he had one for breakfast several days in a row!

Recent cupcakes and a tantrum

2010-09-04T08:20:00.004+01:00

Firstly I wanted to say thank you so much for the lovely comments on my last post. I'm still quite new to the blogging world, and I'm never quite sure on the correct etiquette for responding to blog comments. I'd like to respond to all of them individually, but I worry that people don't check back to their comments for replies... some I've been able to reply to the email notification, but that's not always possible. Anyway, I'm sure I'll work it all out in time!

I'm pleased to say that WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!! So we're moving in on Friday, September 24th. I can't wait! Apart from having my own kitchen, I also can't wait to have people round for tea and I've already started thinking of menus in my head. I also wanted to be baking things each week so I've always got treats in for when people come over, but I'm sure that will never work out in reality... I'll probably get really lazy. Plus, there probably won't be much time left for baking after cooking, washing, ironing, hoovering, scrubbing the bath... argh! What am I doing?!

I haven't done much baking over the past couple of weeks due to some friends being over from Canada, so we have been out and about with them. However, I did find time to whip up some cupcakes for a friend's birthday. She is a total girly girl so I went a bit crazy with pink buttercream and lots of sprinkles. I want to make the buttercream pinker next time, but as it was my first time colouring it, I played it safe as I didn't have time (or enough butter) to make any more if it went wrong...

Also I found a different cupcake angle!

And then came my first strop. Mike has been wanting to try icing for ages, and since I'd done the ones I needed for my friend, I let him finish the cakes off. Oh dear. I should have known that he'd be good at it, since he has a design degree, and does everything painstakingly slowly with his tongue out for concentration. He even placed his sprinkles on one by one! Rather embarrassingly, I had a bit of a childish tantrum when his cakes were iced better than mine... after a few days, I was calm enough for him to tell me where it seems I'm going wrong, and just to prove I'm over it, I'll post a picture of his beauties! I do take comfort in the fact that they are pink cupcakes with sprinkles and therefore probably the most girlyish think he could have iced...

Anyway, I will be back very soon with chocolate toffee cupcakes and hopefully a carrot cake, which I'm going to be attempting for Mike's dad's birthday. It will be a nice change from cupcakes! Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

A kitchen of my own!

2010-08-20T19:44:00.003+01:00

Even though I'd decided to keep this blog strictly about baking, I was so excited about this that I had to share... and I've managed to put a baking spin on it, too.

This week, my boyfriend and I found our first home! So, as long as our rental application goes through OK, we'll be moving to Frodsham, Cheshire in a few weeks' time. I can't wait! A big part of the excitement comes from finally having a kitchen of my own. I've only ever lived at home, or in shared uni accommodation and so I really can't wait to have a kitchen that I don't have to share with anyone (because I don't think Mike is going to spend much time in there, apart from when he does the washing up, of course!). Hopefully this also means that I'll be able to bake a lot more, too.

It's difficult to know how much stuff to share about myself on my blog. When I first started it, I wanted to keep it fairly anonymous, and pretty much baking only. But I want to appear friendly, too - especially as I'm reading and commenting on other people's blogs - seems odd to read about and comment on other people's lives, without really sharing much about myself.

Anyway, it's something I'll have to give a bit more thought to, I guess. But for now, here's some coffee cupcakes I made last week for a friend. I was quite pleased with them, especially the coffee buttercream! The lighting was really bad though, so I didn't get any decent photos at all, but I thought the gingerbread man decorations that I found in Lakeland were too cute not to share!

The simple things

2010-08-07T10:29:00.004+01:00

A post I read recently by The Domestic Novice made me feel a lot better about my recent baking activity. Now that it's well known among friends and family that I enjoy baking, when birthdays and occasions roll around it's possibly almost expected that I'll whip something up... not that I mind, of course! But because I've been baking a while, I feel like I'm past the stage where if I make something rubbish, it can be passed off as 'awww, she's trying, bless her!' - which means I hesitate to try something new or different for a special occasion.

So for two recent birthdays, I played it safe and went for batches of simple vanilla or chocolate cupcakes.

They were well received, but I'd been thinking it's time I tried something different that would be a suitable alternative to these for birthdays and other events. I guess working full time again has been a shock to my system, and there hasn't been much time to 'trial' recipes as well as actually baking them for specific people.

Anyway, when I saw how yummy The Domestic Novice's tray bake looked I realised that there's been nothing wrong with what I've been doing so far, and that I shouldn't stress about trying to create something elaborate.

So thank you, Domestic Novice, for reminding me that the simple things are often the best!

Right rhubarb, wrong time...

2010-07-25T21:41:00.004+01:00

I'm excited to report that I finally found some rhubarb, but unfortunately, I was so excited to find it that I bought it without considering exactly how much time I had available to do anything with it...! But anyway, over the past few days I've managed to squeeze in a couple of batches of rhubarb-themed muffins.

First up were the rhubarb and custard muffins that have been on my wish list for ages.

I suppose I wasn't as pleased with them as I thought I'd be - probably because I'd been thinking about them for so long that I'd built them up too much! I was hoping they'd be like those M&S melt in the middle chocolate pudding things, and like in the advert, you'd stick a fork in and then the custard would run out in a perfect little trickle. That's not quite how it worked out unfortunately!

They were still pretty tasty, and I think I just need to use thicker custard next time, and put less of the muffin mix into the case before the blob of custard. With these I ended up with hardly enough mix to cover up the custard blobs! I wish I'd taken my time making them, but I was in a rush on Thursday evening. It really does seem that they were cursed - having finally managed to get some rhubarb, I then had to try 3 shops before I could get some soured cream - and then I nearly ended up lobbing the oranges through the window as the grater wouldn't grate the zest properly! So I think I need to make the next batch when I'm feeling a bit less stressed...

This evening I made rhubarb crumble cupcakes! I was really pleased with these and they were quite fun to make. Basically they are just a standard cupcake mix, with a bit of cinnamon, top with some roasted rhubarb and then sprinkle on some crumble. They were especially yummy when eaten still warm!

There's not much else to say about these other than that they are possibly my favourite thing that I've made so far! I'm making a rhubarb crumble tomorrow and then I think I'll give rhubarb a rest for a while, it seems like it's all I've been thinking about lately!

Sometimes I cook, too...

2010-07-16T19:02:00.006+01:00

It's not a cake or a bake, but I was so proud of my Jambalaya that I wanted to share it on my blog. I made it as a 6-month anniversary meal for my boyfriend.

As well as baking, I have been trying to be more adventurous in terms of cooking in general over the past year or so. I've always been such a fussy eater, and so there were loads of things I'd never tried - which usually landed me in trouble if I went out to eat anywhere that wasn't British.

Anyway, I got this receipe for chicken & chorizo Jambalaya out of the free magazine from Asda, what a find it was! To me now (and probably most other people) this isn't remotely exotic, but a year or so ago, I probably wouldn't have touched peppers, celery or chorizo, and certainly would have left out the thyme! Thought I would share the recipe because it's so yummy and easy to make...

Serves 4
100g chorizo
500g chicken, diced
1 large red onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 celery sticks, sliced
3 red/green peppers, sliced
200g white long grain rice
400ml hot chicken stock
400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp chopped thyme

1. Slice the chorizo and dry fry with the chicken until the fat runs out of the chorizo and the chicken is browned. Transfer to a saucepan, leaving the fat in the pan.

2. Cook the onion in the frying pan for 2 minutes. Add the garlic, celery and peppers and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring, then add to the chicken & chorizo.

3. Stir in the rice and pour over the hot stock. Add the tomatoes, season and stir. Cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the rice is cooked, stirring occasionally and adding more stock if needed.

4. Stir in the thyme and serve.

I also made a rhubarb crumble for dessert, which I was so eager to dive into that I forgot to photograph... I was a bit disappointed because I was hoping to have rhubarb left over for the rhubarb & custard muffins I've been eyeing up for a while, but I didn't have any left at all (stupid me not realising that a handful of rhubarb is barely enough for a crumble, let alone anything else)... today I've been on a rhubarb hunt again but nowhere has any, I'm starting to think these muffins just aren't meant to be!

Must do better

2010-07-07T17:47:00.004+01:00

Argh! I hate it when life gets in the way of baking... I've just started doing some temping, and so it's a big adjustment getting back into a 9 - 5 routine when I've been used to being a student, so by the time the evenings and weekends come around, I just find myself wanting to catch up with friends or blank out in front of the laptop...

Anyway! I have been wanting to share some pictures of my second attempt at Gill/Helen's Chocolate cake, which I baked again for my boyfriend's birthday. I definitely think it went better the second time around, and I got the consistency of the frosting better, meaning I could ice the sides aswell. I'm not sure it looked that much better, since it was all a bit wonky, but nobody seemed to really care and the cake was consumed quite rapidly!

It was the first time I'd really tried to write anything on a cake, and I think my skills leave a lot to be desired! I just bought some of the chocolate writing icing and it was so difficult to get it central, all the same size, etc, and I kept thinking I was going to misspell something! Definitely need to get some practice in.

I also made a small batch of cupcakes for Father's Day which led to me brandishing the writing icing once again... I almost don't want to post a picture because it does look a bit like a child did it! But in the spirit of sharing everything, here they are...!

It's my cousin's birthday this week and so this thankfully means I'll be forced into the kitchen to bake some cupcakes for her party, otherwise I'd probably just be lazy again. I'm just going to do some standard vanilla and chocolate ones because I can't risk them going wrong! I'm really hoping I can try something new soon, as the last few things I've baked have been 'safe' things I've tried before!

Feeling Fruity

2010-06-22T18:54:00.003+01:00

I'm really not a fan of fruit and I usually have to bribe myself to eat it, so the thought of ruining a lovely little cake with some nasty bits of fruit makes me feel quite uncomfortable! But I thought that some of the recipes looked quite good, and I thought I could always pick the fruit off mine, so I tried a couple out!

These fairy cakes were from 101 Teatime Treats and were actually the first lot of cakes I made when I started to bake, back in January for my step-sister's birthday. They are really simple - just plain fairy cakes with a dollop of marscapone, a raspberry and a dusting of icing sugar - but I think they look pretty.

For my step-mum's birthday in March I made some strawberries & cream cupcakes from 200 cupcakes - again, just plain fairy cakes with the middles scooped out, some whipped cream spooned in and sliced strawberries on top.

I wasn't too impressed with the presentation on these ones, it didn't look as good as the book... I think mostly because I'd overwhipped the cream. I was planning to do them again at some point during Wimbledon, and was thinking I might pipe the cream and then just top with a whole strawberry - since I think my slicing skills are also an issue!

I was just about to say that rhubarb is the next fruit on the list to try, but apparently rhubarb's actually a vegetable... either way, I like the idea of rhubarb and custard muffins, so I'm hoping to try those soon!

My first baking disaster

2010-06-14T10:56:00.007+01:00

I got the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook for my birthday and had been poring over it for weeks, trying to decide what I should bake first! I (sensibly, or so I thought) chose to keep it simple and try the vanilla cupcakes. Unfortunately, these ended up providing my first baking disaster. I suppose I've been lucky so far in that I've been trying to bake for a year now and this was the first thing that just had to go straight into the bin. I don't know what went wrong - I had to convert the measurements from grams to pounds and ounces, so perhaps some of my measurements were a bit off... basically, they were burning on the top but not cooked in the middle, and were spilling out over the sides of the cases! What a sorry sight this picture is:

Anyway, I shouldn't really just be posting about how rubbish I am. Luckily, as it was my niece's birthday, I couldn't do what I'd normally do and throw a massive strop/sulk for a few days/vow never to bake again, so I made another batch from my usual recipe, which turned out fine, and Piping Icing Attempt No. 2 went much better than the first...

I also picked up some cake boxes from Chester Market, which I think look much nicer than the old tins of Celebrations and Roses I've been using to distribute my cakes around so far!

Adventures in Chocolate

2010-06-09T09:11:00.004+01:00

I've not tried baking many chocolatey things so far; in fact I think the only chocolate cakes I'd ever made were the Valentine's Day ones. So, since my boyfriend is a chocolate fiend, I thought I should get some practice in.

These chocolate drop muffins were an interesting experience! I'd never tried muffins before and the recipe was a bit different to what I'd got used to - it included yoghurt for a start. I baked them for the stated time but they still seemed undercooked, even though the tops looked like they were starting to burn, and so maybe the skewer test wasn't appropriate for a recipe including yoghurt... I again made the mistake of trying one before icing - I really need to learn to stop doing that! But once the chocolate frosting had been applied they were really quite nice! Luckily I don't think the excessive time they spent in the oven did too much harm, but I think next time I should take them out a bit sooner.

Next on the list was an actual chocolate cake! I saw this recipe posted by Helen on her lovely blog Afeitar and had to try it out! I had a few 'issues' with the icing, I just couldn't get the consistency right and struggled to spread it at first, so ended up not having enough to spread over the sides aswell, although this did mean that there was a lovely thick layer on the top of the cake! Helen's tip of putting it in the microwave for 30 seconds was a good one - my boyfriend (an expert in all things chocolate) reckoned it was one of the best chocolate cakes he'd ever tasted! Well, I can only hope that wasn't just flattery... because I'm making it again for his birthday on Friday! Hopefully I'll get the icing right this time and it will look somewhere near as lovely as Helen's did! Thank you so much to Helen for sharing the recipe.

First attempts at piping!

2010-06-04T13:03:00.004+01:00

I had been wanting to try piping icing for absolutely ages, but even after receiving a piping set for my birthday in April I had to wait another month to try it out because I was so busy with uni assignments and exams! Last week I finally got around to it and tried piping vanilla frosting onto some plain cupcakes...

The frosting was a bit too runny and so they didn't come out looking as good as I'd hoped, but for a first attempt, I don't think the technique was too bad! With some flowers added they looked a bit more interesting...

... and some stars too...

I've had another go this week with larger cupcakes and better frosting and they look much, much better, I will be posting some pictures of them soon!

Baking for Mum

2010-06-03T12:15:00.001+01:00

My Mum loves coffee cake. So, for Mother's Day I made coffee and walnut cupcakes, again from Hamlyn's 200 cupcakes book.

I tend to prefer cakes before they are iced, but tasting these ones before icing them was a serious mistake which almost ended in me slinging the whole lot in the bin... luckily I was talked down off the ledge and once the coffee buttercream had been applied they were much more palatable!

Mum's birthday wasn't too long after, so this was another excuse to get into the kitchen again. This time, I made a Cappuccino cake, which I think is one of the best things I've made to date. It's from 101 Teatime Treats and is sooo easy to make, I've done it for 2 birthdays now and also once more just for fun! The filling and topping is marscapone cheese with coffee, which I thought sounded vile but is actually really nice.

It's so nice, that I'll post the recipe:

For the cake:
250g/9oz butter, softened
250g/9oz light brown soft sugar, plus 2-3 tbsp extra
300g/10oz self-raising flour
4 eggs, beaten
50g/2oz walnut halves, toasted and finely chopped
200ml/7fl oz very strong coffee, cooled

1. Preheat oven to 180c/Gas 4. Butter and line bottoms of 20cm/8in sandwich tins.
2. Beat the butter and sugar until pale.
3. Add flour and eggs and keep beating until evenly mixed.
4. Fold in the walnuts and half the coffee.
5. Spoon into the tins and bake for 25-30 mins or until golden and well risen.
6. Leave in tins for 5 mins before cooling on a wire rack.
7. Sweeten the rest of the coffee with the extra sugar and drizzle 4 tbsp over the sponges, and leave to cool completely.

For the frosting:
500g carton mascarpone
2tbsp light brown soft sugar
cocoa powder or drinking chocolate to decorate

1. Beat the mascarpone, sugar, and remaining coffee until smooth.
2. Use half to sandwich the sponges together and spread the rest over the top of the cake.
3. Decorate with a dusting of cocoa powder.

If you want to make the cake slightly healthier, substitute butter for margarine, and use low fat mascarpone. I always use marge instead of butter because I have a slight intolerance to butter so can't eat too much of it. Personally I really don't think it makes too much difference to the taste, but I always use actual butter for buttercream - some things you just shouldn't compromise on!

My Valentine

2010-06-01T19:56:00.006+01:00

One of the first batches of cupcakes I made was for Valentine's Day.

My boyfriend has a very sweet tooth (actually, I think all of his teeth are sweet!) and because I was a poor student at the time I didn't have a lot of money for a present, so thought I would bake him something instead.

They are from this book and I used silver balls to decorate instead of the jam suggested in the recipe, because it seemed a bit fiddly and I thought the balls looked prettier. I made some vanilla ones because I originally thought the white icing would look the prettiest, but I also made some chocolate ones too because they are his favourite, however, I think the chocolate ones actually look just as good!

As luck would have it, one of his Valentine's presents to me was a cupcake stand!

A confession: Not all the photos that will appear on the blog will be this good - these ones were taken by my boyfriend on his fancy pants SLR camera! Here's a close up - as you can see the finish is far from perfect but hopefully I'll get there one day!

The First Post

2010-06-01T19:12:00.002+01:00

Hello.

I've been trying to learn to bake for the past year or so. I'm not sure why I suddenly became gripped with the desire, but I remember buying a birthday cake for my best friend in February last year and thinking, 'wouldn't this just be so much better if I'd made it myself?' Also, my Grandma loved baking, and would always bring out some homemade cake or scones whenever anybody called for a brew, and I think it would be nice to do the same. I've also been heavily influenced by Desperate Housewives, and would love to be the kind of person who can whip up a basket of muffins at the drop of a hat, like Bree.

So I started following some blogs, and picked up a couple of books, and got stuck in. It was hard at first because I have a chronic egg phobia, so for a while, I could only make cookies because I couldn't bring myself to crack an egg. But then I conquered my egg phobia and the world became my oyster! I still have to hold my breath and pull strange faces as I beat the eggs, but I'm getting better...

And I'm pleased to say that this year, I baked a cake for my best friend's birthday! It wasn't great, and it wasn't iced very well, but I hope the fact that it was baked by me with love made up for the shoddy icing job! Here it is:

I've just finished my degree, so I'm enjoying having a lot more free time to bake at the moment, and so thought I would set up a blog to document my efforts, and hopefully it'll be nice to look back in a few years to see how far I've come. It would also be lovely to meet some like-minded people to chat too and swap recipes and tips with, so I'd be delighted to hear from anybody else who enjoys baking, or just enjoys chatting in general :)