Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes

So staying with the theme of cupcakes I decided to make these American style cupcakes! (The next blog won't be cupcakes I promise!) I love Peanut Butter and Jam together, it's a match made in junk food heaven! I have never baked with Peanut Butter before and thought it might make a nice weekend treat.

I based the cupcake sponge on Jessica's Sweet Addictions  recipe for Peanut Butter and Nutella Cupcakes (which look amazing!) This recipe worked so well! I had crunchy Peanut Butter at home at the time and I think that really added to the cake. To make the icing I made a Jam flavoured Butter Icing using a small amount of butter, icing sugar and a berry Jam.

Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes

Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes

Cupcake Recipe

Ingredients

(From Jessica's Sweet Addiction )

2oz Butter

8oz Caster Sugar

4oz soft Peanut Butter

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

8oz Self Raising Flour

Half tsp Baking Powder

100ml Semi-Skimmed Milk

Butter Icing

50g Butter

500g Icing Sugar

2 tble spns Jam

Method

• Preheat oven 180C and prepare muffin tin with cases (recipe makes 24 cupcakes)
• Mix together Peanut Butter, Butter and Sugar until combined.
• Add one Egg at a time and then add the Vanilla Extract.
• Fold in the Flour and Baking Powder. Once combined at the Milk gradually and mix.
• Bake until golden brown ( 20 minutes).  
• For the Butter Icing mix the Butter with half the Icing Sugar. Add the Jam and mix before adding the other half of the Icing Sugar. Pipe onto cooled cakes! 

Apologies for the measurements changing! I wanted to put Jessica's Sweet Addictions recipe as it is on her blog, but I work in grams! This is a lovely recipe and made fantastic, fluffy cakes! The Icing Sugar has the potential to become to wet with Jam, so add the Icing Sugar in two parts. Seen as I have gone Cupcake mad I thought I would also put this forward to Calender Cakes (Laura Loves Cakes and Dolly Bakes) and share another Cupcake.

Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes were so much better that Peanut Butter and Jam on toast! Enjoy! 

Almond and Raspberry Cupcakes

This is something I have wanted to try for a while, I thought the flavour and sweetness of almonds and the sharpness of raspberries would be a nice combination and using berries was fittingly autumnal. The original point of the blog was to try my hand at new things and to learn new skills... but I just LOVE cupcakes! They are fun and easy to experiment with, also it was cupcake week so my hands were tied! ;) 

For these cupcakes I used the recipe for vanilla cupcakes in the Primrose Bakery Cupcake Cookbook. I find their cupcakes really fluffy which I think is to do with the milk. I replaced the vanilla with Almond Essence and used double the amount. I then made an almond infused butter cream and decorated with raspberries. I didn't want to put raspberries in the sponge as they may have been too wet and I like the idea of biting into a raspberry with the butter icing! Really simple, really sweet and they look cute. 

Almond and Raspberry Cupcake
Cath kidston Crockery 

Almond and Raspberry Cupcakes

Ingredients

Almond Cupcakes

(Adapted recipe from 'Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery' cookbook)

110g Butter

225g Golden Caster Sugar

2 Eggs

150g Self Raising Flour

125g Plain Flour

120ml Semi Skimmed Milk

2 teaspoons Almond Essence

Raspberries to Decorate

Butter Icing 

(Also adapted recipe from 'Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery' cookbook)

110g Butter 

500g Icing Sugar

60ml Semi Skimmed Milk

1 teaspoon Almond Essence

Method

• Preheat oven to 160c and prepare muffin tray with cases. (Makes 12 regular or 36 mini cupcakes).
• Mix Butter and Sugar until pale and smooth and add the Eggs one at a time.
• Combine the two Flours in a separate bowl. Also combine the Milk and Almond Essence in a jug.
• Add one third of the Flour mix and fold followed by one third of the Milk and mix. Repeat until all ingredients are combined.
• Spoon mixture into prepared cases and bake for 25 minutes for regular and 15 minutes for minis. They should be raised and golden.
• Cool on a wire rack!
• Once cooled completely, mix Butter, Milk and Almond Essence with half the Icing Sugar. Once mixed add the remaining half until thick. 
• I decorated with a palette knife and added three Raspberries to each and some with a sprinkle of Almonds. 

Almond and Raspberry Cupcakes

If anybody tries them I hope they turn out as well, let me know via twitter (@josieroberts88) if you have made anything interesting or tasty for cupcake week! I think they are my favourite thing to bake and this is something I am definitely doing again! In the meantime I hope everyone is loving the GBBO as much as me! Glen For the Win! Ruby is also fab! Although I would love to able to bake as well as any of them. 

Another reason for making cupcakes this time was for Calender Cakes, something I have wanted to make a post for for ages! So this month its ... Cupcakes! This fun blogging activity is put on by Laura Loves Cakes and Dolly Bakes. Looking forward to the next month! 

Date and Walnut Tea Bread

This is my first blog for a few months... That doesn't mean to say that I have not been baking, I have tried my hand at a few things over the past weeks, some caramel short bread and made a cake for my a colleagues leaving party which was fun! I was so busy I ended up making the cake, which was a fat less sponge with fresh cream and fruit, at midnight! Something went horribly wrong! The cake was flat and hard! So I did what any baker would do at that time of night... I made a 'posh' Victoria Sponge! HA! It seemed to go down well anyway! If I have learnt anything about baking in the time I have been writing this blog is that time is everything and patience comes in a close second!

Anyway, although I have been doing the odd cake here and there, I have had next to no time to blog! But, that ends here!! The Great British Bake Off has started it's new series and it is all we can talk about!! (as far as the circles I swim in are concerned) Between having a bit more time lately and the added inspiration coming from watching cake telly I am back on the blogging! Also with the weather beginning to cool I can bake with out bursting into flames in my flat!

This is a cake I made fairly recently for a staff picnic, everyone brought something with them, made for a lovely day out. For this I made Date and Walnut Tea Bread. This a lovely autumnal recipe, I saw tea was in the recipe I thought it would be a winner and also ties in with the GBBO and Howard's lovely tea biscuits! this was taking from 'Baking Day' a lovely little baking book from Marks and Sparks! :)

Date and Walnut Tea Bread

Ingredients: 

100g Chopped Dates

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate soda 

Rind of 1/2 a Lemon

100ml Hot Tea

40g Butter

70g Light Muscovado Sugar

1 Egg

125g Self Raising Flour

25g Walnuts

Plus a few more to decorate. 

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180c and line a loaf tin with baking parchment.
• Soak the Dates, Bicarbonate Soda and Lemon in  a bowl with the Tea for 10 minutes.
• Mix the Butter and Sugar then beat in the Egg. 
• Stir in the Date mixture.
• Fold in the Flour and Walnuts and spoon in to prepared tin and top with the decorative walnuts.
• Bake for 35-40 minutes. Cool on wire rack and enjoy with Tea! 

Mini Coconut Macaroons

As my parents and grandparents were visiting over the weekend I decided I wanted to make something that would be small enough to eat before we went out for dinner in The Champion in Notting Hill (if you haven't been, its a lovely pub, great food and lovely atmosphere). It was the first time my family were visiting us in our flat and as we hadn't been all together since February, we were in need of a big catch up! And for for 'catch up's'... baked goods are essential! Also baking for my family proves that I am now a domestic queen... which of course I am not! Had they popped over on a Sunday morning the flat would have been in a very different state! 

Anyway, I was looking for something simple and easy to make that was light and bite-sized! I am in no way ready to make almond macaroons but fancied good, old fashioned coconut macaroons! I got the recipe from BakingMad.com and I am not exaggerating when I say it is the most straight-forward recipe I have ever made! But they were visually quite impressive and tasted really sweet. I made the mistake of making them one night when we had a few friends round for a movie... lets just say I assumed they were pretty good as I had to hide the remaining macaroons! I was happy to see everyone enjoying them! 

Mini Coconut Macaroons

I made chocolate chip short bread to go with them. For these I use my previous short bread recipe.  I would definitely recommend this recipe to anyone looking for an addition to bake sale or for guests as they are perfect with a cup of tea! My family were... well... quite frankly, I think they were surprised I could make anything, as before university I could barely boil an egg! But they thought they were lovely and ate the lot!

I hope you liked this brief blog! I can't stress enough how easy and tasty these were, let me know if you try this recipe out and think the same! Also you can follow my baking shenanigans on twitter if you like @josieroberts88.

Mini Coconut Macaroons

White and Dark Chocolate Cheese Cake

I chose this recipe because I wanted to make something from my brand spanking NEW Merry Berry Cookbook, 'At Home'. This was extra amazeballs because my boyfriend got me a signed copy as a gift! I know, I am a lucky girl.... However, he is really the lucky one as he got to meet Mary Berry!  : O

I discovered on #Skintlondon  (if you are not already following this then do it, so useful!) on twitter that she was doing the book signing whilst I was away with friends and was gutted! ( I know, sad fan). I am very happy with my new book, its great to have lots of new recipes and to have had such a thoughtful gift :) Inside it reads, 'To Josie, Hope to see you next time, Keep on baking. Love Mary' ... It is officially my most prized possession!

This recipe looked decadent and really chocolatey! So I immediately wanted to make it! Also I had never made a cheese cake before. Like all Marry Berry recipes, it was really doable and the ingredients were easy to get hold of. It worked out really well although I REALLY need to work on my marbling technique and just decorating and presentation in general! Something to work on for the next bake. If you feel like a treat or have a dessert to make for some reason, I would highly recommend giving this a go :)

Ingredients 

Base

600g Dark chocolate digestive biscuits, crushed.

50g Butter melted.

Filling

200g Belgian white chocolate, chopped.

300ml Double cream.

300g Full-fat cream cheese.

1/2 Teaspoon vanilla extract.

100g Dark chocolate (39 per cent cocoa solids)

Line the base of a 20cm tin with baking parchment.

To make the biscuit base mix the crushed digestives with the melted butter and press into the bottom of the tin using the back of a spoon.

For the filling, melt the chopped white chocolate over a pan of simmering water. Don't let it get too hot and stir occasionally, then set to one side to cool.

Pour the cream into a large mixing bowl, but save aside 3 tablespoons. To the large mixing bowl, add the cream cheese and vanilla. Whisk with an electric whisk until smooth. Add the white chocolate and whisk until thick. 

Spoon 6 tablespoons of the mixture into a separate mixing bowl and spoon the remaining into the prepared tin, smooth over and chill for thirty minutes. 

Add the reserved cream to the reserved mixture and mix the two together until smooth and spoon over the set mixture in the tin. 

Melt the dark chocolate as before ans drizzle over the top. Using the blade of a knife swirl the topping together. (I think I added to much chocolate too fast and it has turned out darker than I would have hoped)

Chill for two hours then turn out and try not eat all at once ;) 

Hope someone else has a go at this one, its simple, fun and easy to make and tasted great! I have not had any time to do any blogging lately, but I have a back log of baking experiments that I will post soon and a lot of things I want to try very soon! Feel free to comment on the blog itself or follow me on twitter, would love some feed back, especially on my own recipes to see if anyone has tried them out at home! :) Happy Baking. 

P.S If anyone happened to pick up a copy of Time Out magazine today, there is some great baking related pieces as it is all about the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory show. I particularly liked reading about some of the Willy Wonker esque bakers and chefs! If you like the sound of experimental jelly and chocolate sculpting, check it out! :) 

Charity Bake Sale

Earlier this month I mentioned in a previous blog entry that a colleague of mine was holding a charity bake sale to raise money for The Alzheimer's Society, for which he will be climbing Ben Nevis in June. I am sure you will all agree, this is a very worth while and important cause. To support Peter in reaching his target many of us donated a home made cake (and many of us also purchased a huge amount of cake!!). This got everybody baking! Putting their cake-baking skills to the test to produce tasty treats!

The bake sale was a fantastic success not only did it raise a huge amount of money for the charity, it  was great fun to be involved with and got everybody chatting, providing a fun day at work for everybody. It was lovely to see what other people bake at home and some of their family recipes.

Peter and his collogues worked extremely hard on organising the event and many members of staff contributed by baking something. Money was raised through buying all varieties of home made cakes, pastries, cookies and puddings, as well as a very successful printed recipe booklet, containing recipes from all the bakers involved. The cakes sold out at rapid speed! To the extent that myself and a friend ran to get some cake before it was too late! There was so much to choose from, from sausage rolls to ginger cake, waffles to brownies, cup-cakes to slices of lemon drizzle cake and all manner of sponges, all served with tea or coffee and supplied to you in a lovely little cake box with a napkin.

Cleverly, for those who had been eagerly awaiting the cake sale but the day happen to fall on their day off, Peter took orders and pre-boxed cakes for those people to pick up the next day. This meant no one missed out and Peter got the chance to raise yet more money! Brilliant!

If you are thinking of holding a bake sale to raise money for charity the here is some of Peter's Top Tips!

"Hello! My name is Peter Elia. I recently had a very successful Cake Sale at my place of work with the help of two of my friends. We raised almost £400 (for the Alzheimer’s Society) in an organisation which only has around 100 staff. So, here are my……………….

Top five Tips on maximising profit for a charity Cake Sale!

1. Try to get as many people baking as possible. Explain the importance of your chosen charity and how their contribution will make a difference.

2. Make sure you have a variety of cakes, perhaps some savory and one or two gluten or nut free cakes.

3. Get your friends/colleagues to send you their recipes and put them all together in a booklet. You can also sell the Cookery Booklet for £2. This will also assist with your cake sales as customers will be keen to try as many cakes as possible.

4. Charge £1 a slice for the cakes and 50p for smaller items eg Cookies, Cup Cakes. Make sure you have plenty of cake boxes. You want to encourage your customers to buy as many cakes as possible.

5. Give yourself plenty of time to organise your cake stall. Make it as attractive as possible. Have paper plates, plastic forks at the ready. You can even sell tea and coffee for 50p a cup, so have some cups too. I managed to obtain paper for the cookery booklet, cake boxes, paper plates, forks and cups for free, when I explained to local business that all profit from my cake sale would go to the Alzheimer’s society.

Finally, don’t forget to enjoy the day, make lots of money for a great cause and have lots of fun eating lovely homemade cakes."

Here's Peter himself, Apron and all! 

I Hope this helps anyone who is thinking of baking to raise money for charity and I think Peter did exceptionally well in making it a great day for everyone involved! If anyone who reads this blog and has appreciated Peters tips  and would like to donate, you can via this link for his Just Giving Account.

For the bake sale I wanted to make something summery and fruity in the spring weather. I decided to make something I have been wanted to try for a little while. It is a Mary Berry recipe (of course!) called Wimbledon Cake as it made and decorated with strawberries and cream! Wimbledon Cake is like a gateaux, in that it is a fat less sponge with layers of cream in the middle, strawberries and passion-fruit and then decorated with another layer of cream and halved strawberries. It turned out very well and was very quick and easy! Making this cake also pushed me to finally buy an electric whisk! (yaaayyy) So expect some summer pavlovas cropping up over my summer blogs!! Anyway, I did end up making two Wimbledon cakes before the bake off, as my first one caught a little and I added the cream before realising I had no room in my fridge! So... unfortunately Tom and myself were forced to eat it! HA! It was nice to know what it would taste like too, it was very light and fruity. Here's the recipe for you to try if you like :)

Wimbledon Cake

Ingredients:

Butter for greasing

3 eggs

90g caster sugar

90g self raising flour

Filling and Topping:

300ml whipping cream, whipped until thick.

1 passionfruit 

Strawberries halved.

Method:

Lightly butter the cake tins (20 x 18 cm), line with baking parchment, the butter the parchment.

Put the eggs and sugar into a large bowl. Whisk with an electric mixer at high speed until the mixture is pale and thick enough to leave a trail when the whisk is lifted out.

Sift in half the flour and fold in gently. Repeat with the remaining flour.

Divide the mixture between tins. Tilt to spread the mixture evenly.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190c for 20-25 mins until well risen, golden and beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tins. Turn out on a wire rack, peel off the lining paper and leave to cool.

Spread half of the whipped cream over one of the sponges. Top with sliced strawberries and passion fruit pulp. Put the other sponge on top and press down gently.

Spread the remaining cream on top of the cake, smoothing it neatly with a palette knife. Decorate with halved strawberries.

Wimbledon Cake Take 1

In the panic that the Wimbledon cake would be rubbish and because I was in the baking mood, I also made some basic vanilla cupcakes with pink butter icing. They turned out lovely, but got squished on the bus ride to work carting too much cake! Got some weird looks...maybe they just skipped breakfast! 

I hope the Bake Sale Tips have been useful and that the fruity Wimbledon Cake gets you in the mood for summer! Let me know if you have enjoyed this blog by leaving a comment or Tweet me, I appreciate any feed back and would love to know if anyone is finding the recipes useful : ) 

Rocky Road

So recently I visited the famous London Borough Market with my lovely friend Olivia! Being a London newbie I need a little help finding the good places! If you are visiting London or just haven't been yet its a great place to go and shop for speciality food and for a GIANT lunch! The market has everything from home-made cakes and pastries to organic vegetables, wild game and artisan foods from all over the world. We decided to grab a enormousness, spicy, meat-filled sandwich followed by an equally massive brownie. The market is reasonably priced and a great visit for inspiration as well as buying beautiful gifts. The surrounding coffee bars and cafe's are also wonderful, supplying great food and original brands. For example, Monmouth Coffee Company or, the one we chose that day, Elliot's Cafe, which was friendly and warm with a great range of unusual and fragrant coffee, which, for me was wasted as I am a baby and don't like coffee!

Recently I have been having a bit of a no-baking phase as my scales have been broken, tragically! However, this made me think what I could make without scales and I decided to make Rocky Road or Fridge Cake. I thought this would be easy enough without scales as the chocolate bars have the grams on the packet and then you put in whatever you fancy! This is my recipe and it was very indulgent and chocolatey, a great recipe to make if you fancy something very sweet and gooey! and something that would be fun for children to make as they can add anything they like and be creative!

Ingredients:

200g Milk Chocolate
150g Dark Chocolate
50g Butter
2 Tblespns Maple Syrup
Marshmallows
Raisins
Mars Bar pieces
Crushed Digestive Biscuits

Method:
Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over bowling water.
Mix together melted chocolate mixture and maple syrup in a large bowl and add all other ingredients until combined. (other ideas might include pecans, walnuts or malteasers)
Pour into tray prepared with parchment paper and leave in fridge until set (about 2 hours)
Then finally cut into squares and enjoy!

 I have been tuning into Paul Hollywood's Bread, which I am really enjoying. I have always been afraid of making bread, but it seems a little less daunting now and I think it may be something I will try very soon. Although the slow motion kneading and sexy music did make me laugh...a lot! So far he has covered great British breads and this week was surrounding flat breads, one of which I have (sort of) made before. On a trip to India a few years ago, Tom and I took a cooking class in Kerala. We went to a very welcoming family who opened their home to tourists and taught us all how to cook our own traditional Indian meal, complete with South Indian barbecued fish and Pathara flat bread to go with it! It was VERY difficult! but really fun to try! If you ever visit Kerala look for Bar-B-Que cooking classes in Kumily.

One last thing for today, this week a friend at work, Peter, is holding a larger-than-life Bake Sale for all the employees to buy cake and raise money for a great cause that see's him scaling Ben Nevis in Scotland in the summer. I am taking part, with many other bake-happy colleagues, by donating a cake. I will be doing a blog all about the bake sale with details of Peters charity and some great recipe ideas as well as tips on how to hold your own bake sale from peter himself! So stay tuned for that!

Tea Time in London...

If anyone found themselves stuck for somewhere to take their Mum's last Sunday or if anyone wants  go out for an Easter treat... or in my case just a Sunday afternoon treat... then a great book to buy is Tea and Cake London. It is such a fabulous little guide if you live in London or are just visiting for sweet and kitsch cafe's, the best bakeries or for the capitals most luxurious afternoon teas.

Over the weekend I decided to visit one of the branches featured in the book, Cocomaya. I have walked past it on a few occasions and have always wanted to go in. It did not disappoint! It was situated in a lovely surrounding and an array of teas were served in vintage, mix-match crockery. Considering the area, the cakes were very reasonably priced and were delicious. I would highly recommend Cocomaya! It was so sweet, even down to the little details, like mini jam spoons for their super sweet homemade jam!

However, after eating a lovely Brownie here, I wanted to get baking!!! I decided that after having a few ideas from the cupcake competition I would give one of them a try. I thought about making a mint-choc-chip cupcake, which I am sure is common cupcake recipe, but as chocolate and mint go so well together I thought why not.

This was another recipe that I was creating myself without the use of a strict guide from a cookbook, which makes me uneasy! As I have made so, so many mistakes in baking in the past and I hate waste! But I am learning more every time I bake and am understanding the methods of baking within certain measurements and with particular ingredients. Sounds so simple. Anyway, this is what I made this time and they were a real success and I am so pleased! I hope you like them :) And if anybody does see this recipe and tries them at home then let me know by commenting below or on twitter, I would love to know if you enjoyed making them and how they turned out for you.

Mint-Choc-Chip Cupcakes

160g Caster Sugar

160g Butter

2 Eggs

160g Self Raising Flour 

2 Tble Spns Cocoa Powder

1 Tspn Vanilla Extract

50g Chocolate Chips

Icing:

100g Full Fat Philadelphia

50g Butter

500g Icing Sugar

2 Tspns Peppermint Extract 

Green Food Colouring

Extra Chocolate Chips to decorate. 

Another reason I wanted to make cupcakes..yet again! Is because I have recently purchased a piping bag!  ITS SO GOOD! Got a little carried away on the Lakeland website and ended up buying a few essentials and then a few things that maybe weren't so essential! 

Silicone Cookie Moulds and Silicone Piping Bag

Anyway, the piping bag is brilliant and really easy to use, looking forward to watching a view tutorials on youtube and making some well decorated cakes! I am also very excited at the prospect of making huge Oreos cakes! 

And that's pretty much it for this blog. I am yet to watch it, but there is a new Paul Hollywood programme, aptly named "bread" which should bring about some inspiration to try making bread. Also Mary Berry featured in Food & Drink on BBC a few weeks ago giving tips on making afternoon tea which I will defiantly be tuning into!  

One more thing, St Davids day has just been on the 1st March and I was planning on doing a big Welsh post to celebrate and make some Welsh Cakes, but with no rolling pin and no cutter until now it became a bit of a mission. So instead I will supply you with a great recipe to make your own (they are not just for one day of the year after all, that would just be silly). If you have never had them before, they are really easy to make and  they are similar to scones, but squashed! And really lovely plain, or with sugar or butter or jam... Don't forget the mixed spice is what my Mum tells me, its essential! And just for fun, here's a picture of Tom's dog Milo enjoying one last St Davids Day!! x 

Happy St Davids Day! 

Dipped Shortbread Biscuits - Gift Ideas

I know I have been blogging a lot lately, but there seems to be a lot going on baking wise! I made these chocolate dipped short bread biscuits for a very over due Christmas present for my boyfriends Grandparents, as I left the Christmas shaped, iced sugar biscuits and the biscuit bird jar at home in Wales when we visited Tom's family over the festive season.

But as they are visiting I thought I would finally make them some (fresh) biscuits! I got the idea from London Bakes recipe for Vanilla Bean Short Bread and thought they were a classic biscuit that I had never tried to make myself. In the end I used a recipe from BBC Food and it worked out perfectly. They made 20 short bread rounds that tasted sweet and buttery. I wanted to give them a little bit of an extra sweetness and make them pretty to put in the glass jar, so I decided I would dip one side into melted chocolate. To the recipe on the link I added a pinch of salt and a dash of vanilla extract. I also made them without a rolling pin or cutters...so work that one out! but I have hit the Lakeland website hard this week so will be expecting a few kitchen essentials to be delivered soon!

However, they turned out really well and I hope they like them, even though they are a little late! Now that I know how easy it is to make shortbread I will definitely be making it more often. Such a simple recipe with simple ingredients. I would love to make some chocolate chip shortbread cookies or maybe the Vanilla bean biscuits from London Bakes. The glass bird jar is from The Wallace Collection Museum gift shop and it comes in two sizes, I think filled with biscuits this can make a great home made present.

Dipped Shortbread Biscuits

In other baking-related news, I have some bad news... I did not make the finalists for the cupcake challenge! No surprise there really! I am a total beginner at boiling eggs, so I wasn't overly heartbroken. I will defiantly be entering competitions like that in the future. It was really fun to be given a theme and make something of your own and get creative. Check out the finalists, they all look amazing! Also if you are like me and need some help with your decorating skills then try this Stained Glass Butter Icing course at the V&A Museum. Although it is my two favourite things combined (museums and baking) I am too poor from ordering piping bags and rolling pins, but if you do go enjoy!

Belgium-The Home of Chocolate!

Okay so first of all, Hello I am fat! And its all Belgium's fault! Ha! Seen as I took a trip to the home of chocolate, mussels, waffles, chips and of course beer! I thought I would make a little post about some of the great chocolatier's and other traditional Belgian food that I encountered on a trip to Brussels and Bruges.

Food Market-Including Donkey sausage, Deer pate  and  lots of cheese

Marzipan Easter Sweets 

Food Market-Markt, Wednesdays.

Belgian Chocolate Sea Shells 

Waffles and of course, Nutella 

The Belfry, A must see. 

How true...

Bruges Zot Beer

Owl Chocolates

Mussels-T'oud Kanthuys Restaurant 

Begijnof 

This trip was a Christmas present to my boyfriend and also we love travelling and were over due a holiday. If you are thinking of taking a weekend break, Bruges was a fantastic place to visit, plenty to see and do and very romantic. Also the Eurostar is so quick and cheap that it makes a holiday very doable. If you do go make sure you don't miss the fantastic food market in the Markt on Wednesday and go for a tour of De Halve Maan Brewery  (the only one still producing beer in Bruges) you get beer at the end! Also a good tip is too make sure you visit some of the chocolatiers that make the chocolate in shop, as there are 50 chocolate shops but only a few make the chocolate in store.

Whilst I was away I made a little purchase from a Chocolate tea-room we visited called The Old Chocolate House that boasts the best Hot Chocolate in Bruges... it really was amazing and massive! Made with real chocolate and in a huge mug/bowl that you assemble your self complete with afternoon tea-esque cakes and chocolates to go with it. In the Chocolatier shop in the tea-rooms you could buy your own mug and chocolate to make your own Belgian Hot Chocolate at home! So I thought I would make mine with an extra twist! I mixed my Belgian Chocolate with warmed milk and added a drop of peppermint extract that I drank in my huge bowl-mug!!

If you did want to make your own hot chocolate at home then try this great Laduree recipe in the absence of a Belgian at home kit, which I found on the fantastic The Extraordinary Art of Cake blog. Hope this will warm you up a bit in this cold weather! 

Cupcake challenge!

In a previous entry I mentioned that I was going to do something stupid and exciting? Well I have entered the Emerald Street Cupcake Challenge  that is in association with the Hummingbird Bakery. Mostly because it will be fun and a fantastic opportunity to make some sweet American style cupcakes with masses of sugary frosting! Plus its a great excuse to practise making my own recipes and trying out some ideas. Also I am terrible at decorating cakes, so maybe aiming for the competition will help so my cakes look pretty...and edible! Also the prizes are awesome... so its worth a try!

The basic rules to enter include baking a cupcake that fits with the Hummingbird style, to be an original recipe with frosting and that the ingredients be available. So I came up with a couple of ideas and although some of the entries are amazing and my kitchen in my miniature studio flat is too small for the stand mixer prize I am going to enter for fun anyway! I was going to make three and ask anyone who reads my blog to help decide which one, but I had no time to make all three last week and had to go with what I thought and entered the competition before it was too late. I may make the other cupcakes anyway soon as I have the ingredients and I really enjoyed making something that was my own recipe. This is what I made.

New York Cupcake

Makes 12 Cakes

Ingredients:

160g Golden Caster Sugar
160g Unsalted Butter
2 Eggs
1 Tspn Vanilla Extract
160g Self Raising Flour
1 Vanilla pod

Frosting:
100g Full Fat Philadelphia
50g Unsalted Butter
500g Icing Sugar
1 tspn Vanilla Extract

Plain Digestive biscuits crumbled to decorate. Or if being true to the American cheese cake then use Graham Crackers.

The idea behind these New York Cupcakes was to be the flavours of a New York cheese cake but in a dainty, fun cupcake form. I tried to make the recipe appeal to the Hummingbirds American style. I baked  them in white cases and applied the frosting using a palette knife to fit with the look of their cupcakes. They are a vanilla sponge with a cream cheese vanilla frosting and sprinkled with biscuit. This is the first bake that is my own and I hope you like it! And if anyone tries this recipe let me know how it went! Also if anyone else entered this competition then good luck!

Happy Valentines Day! Here's some weird...pink..jelly...stuff.

I hope everyone had a lovely Valentines Day and got all sorts of flowers, cards and goodies from their admirers! On Valentines day morning my very sweet but very skint boyfriend made me breakfast in bed and my scrambled eggs were .. PINK! Ya know, in the spirit of Valentines Day...but as were were eating them although they tasted the same, they kinda looked like brains! But its the thought that counts! And I loved my weird breakfast! Even more so after what I made for Tom (the boyfriend in question) didn't turn out so great and was equally weird and pink!!

I was set on making some lovely cupcakes but as I have been making loads lately I thought he would be fed up of cake! So I decided to make marshmallow! I found a simple recipe online and went ahead with it. It seemed to be going so well until I realised I didn't own an electric whisk... So after both my arms were about to fall off I thought I would try setting it anyway! ... It.Was.Not.Good.

Weird Jelly

So its a little jiggly and more like jelly but it tasted nice, and just as it was with the brain-eggs, its the thought that counts and Tom was happy! Ha! If you do want to make some actual marshmallow and not this disgusting mess then try this recipe from Best Recipes and if done correctly I am sure it works very well. Also if you want to try your hand at some more complicated and fancy marshmallow then try this recipe from Katie's Cakes. This ladies blog is amazing and I just love going through her archive of recipes, there's so many I want to try! And maybe I will give marshmallow another go and do it properly next time! Good Luck! And hope you all had a great Valentines Day and haven't given up cakes for lent! ; )

Baking in Pyjamas

Just a small post today, I know everyone's blogging Valentines Day treats and heart shaped, giant, pink cakes, but I haven't got to that yet, although I am hoping to make something sickly for St Val Day soon. But this evening I have been concentrating on economy bakes! I take great joy in using up stuff in my kitchen that just isn't getting eating by making something nice with it, this week, its porridge oats...

This recipe would be good for you if, like me you are always trying to find ways of making your lunch box a bit less boring! 

This is a recipe taken from another Marks and Spencer cookbook (I think I went in to get a cake tin and came out with a cake tin, loaf tin and two cookbooks...) called Baking Day. I adapted the recipe a little as I was out of demerara sugar so I used golden caster sugar and also added some sultanas, five a day and all that...

Oatmeal Cookies 

Ingredients

• 175g Butter
• 275g Demerara sugar
• 1 Egg
• 4 Tbsp Water
• 1 Tsp Vanilla extract
• 375g Rolled oats
• 140g Plain flour
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 1/2 Tsp Bicarbe

Makes 30 biscuits.

Method

• Preheat oven to 180c and grease two baking sheets. 
• Mix together butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in egg, vanilla and water until smooth.
• Mix together the flour, oats, salt and bicarbonate of soda and add to the mixture. Stir until combined.
• Place tablespoons of the mixture onto the trays spaced apart and bake for 25 minutes and cool on rack. 

Oatmeal  Cookies

Also if you are in London and looking for something to do this Valentines day then why not try a macaroon making workshop at Valentines at Boxpark or eat some cakes and jam at Muswell Hill Market. 

I had a day off...

So I  had a day off and £4.75 in my bank... Then this happened!

Snicker Doodles

The Snicker Doodles I was really excited about because I LOVE cinnamon. But their  name is misleading, I thought they would be really gooey but they are quite a simple biscuit. Still tasty with a cup of tea though. More importantly they were SO much fun to make! I would recommend this recipe for anyone with kids who like to bake. This is from a Marks and Spencer Cookbook called Kitchen Encyclopaedia: Baking.

Ingredients:

• 75g Butter
• 175g Caster Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 250g Plain Flour
• 1 Tsp Baking powder
• 3 Tbsp Sugar
• 1 Tbsp Cinnamon       

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180c and line two baking sheets with grease proof paper. 
• Mix butter and sugar until fluffy and then gradually beat in the egg and vanilla.
• Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix into a dough.
• Mix together the sugar and cinnamon on a plate and roll 24 small balls of the dough in it. 
• Pop the balls of dough onto the tray and press down lightly. Leave room for spreading.
• Bake for 12-14 minutes and cool on wire rack. 

Banana Bread

The banana bread is one of my favourites as my mum often makes it. I got this particular recipe from BBC Food mainly because it used buttermilk and I needed to use mine up! This is always great if you have bananas going a bit too ripe...although mine were fine...I just really wanted banana bread.

Honey and Granola Cupcakes

I also made these honey and granola cupcakes taken from a Primrose Bakery cupcake cookbook my brother got me for Christmas (yes I got a fair bit of cooking stuff this Christmas!) These cakes are loooovely. Kind of more like small muffins, they would be a good (albeit unhealthy) Sunday breakfast. I did substitute a bit of granola for chopped walnuts as I ran out after making the mixture! They turned out really well all the same.

Ingredients:

• 110g Butter
• 120g Light soft brown sugar
• 175g Clear honey
• 2 Eggs
• 220g Plain flour
• 1/2 baking powder
• 1/2 bicarb (I just doubled the baking powder)
• 1/2 Tsp Salt
• 65ml Semi Skimmed Milk
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 65ml Plain yogurt
• 250g Granola (I used 200g plus 50g chopped walnuts)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 160c and line muffin tray with cases. (I had small cases so it made a few more cakes)
• Mix together the butter, sugar and honey until fluffy then beat in one egg at a time.
• Sift together Flour, baking powder and Bicarb in a bowl and in a jug put together the milk, yogurt and vanilla. Then add one third of the flour followed by one third of the milk mixture and mix, then repeat until all ingredients are mixed. 
• Fold in the granola and fill the cases two-thirds full. Bake for 25 minutes and cool in tins for ten minutes before moving to a wire rack. 

In other news, I have been cooking a few savoury dishes that use potatoes. Basically, I clicked the wrong thing online food shopping and, well... I accidentally ordered five big bags of potatoes! Oops. What an idiot! So there has been a lot of cottage pie! Spanish omelette made a cheap, quick meal and got rid of some potatoes! But I have also made a potato and leek soup and STILL I have loads left! So recipe suggestions are welcome!

In the next few weeks I am doing something a little bit exciting and stupid and if anyone does see my blog I will be needing help and comments to make a cake related decision! But until then let me know if you try any of these recipes, know anything good to make with potatoes (rolls eyes)  and if you enjoy the blog!

P.S If anyone loves Mary Berry in the creepy, stalker way that I do then watch The Mary Berry Story  on BBC1.