March 2013: Doughnuts, Gluten Free shortbread, Dairy free Cookies and Shortbread mushrooms, Doryaki and Easter...

So a couple of years back I tried to make doughnuts, I don't know what went wrong...they were horrendous. So bad that it took me 3 whole years to brave making them again. I like doughnuts, and I love Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I'm not sure what it is about them, but they are utterly delcious but so expensive so I was pretty pleased when I found this recipe from the 99cent chef- and that it did infact taste very similar to a Krispy Kreme!

I wanted to make something really nice that was Gluten Free at one point and the wife of someone I worked with very kindly said she had a good recipe for Caramel Shortbread. Well I have made it and I can quite honestly say it is the most delicious thing on this planet, you would never know it was Gluten Free, I think it is actually better for using the GF flour as it has the most delicious crumbly textured shortbread base. Well worth having in your baking itinerary.

Speaking of Shortbread, these Shortbread mushrooms are delicious and so very cute and easy to make. These particular ones are made with Pure to make them dairy free for a friend, but they really do taste best with butter. I found the recipe off a website from a girl doing an Alice in wonderland party - I wish I could find the website again but I can't seem to find it! There are plenty of other websites that seem to have similar recipes on though.

Put 180g plain flour, 60g cornflour, 60g icing sugar 1tsp of vanilla extract and 220g of cubed softened butter in a food processor and pulse until combined. (you may need to scrape the sides a couple of times). You should be left with a pliable dough.

Take a small amount and roll it into a ball about 1" in size. Dip the end of an old (clean) extract bottle into some water, and then into some cocoa powder, then press into the ball of dough. Repeat until all the dough is used up bake for 8-10mins at 200°.

March was a busy month - I was quite heavily pregnant so I couldn't do much and baking kept me occupied! I had been wanting to make these  Dorayaki since I ate some in Yo!Sushi. They came out really well and I ate so many by myself!

How cute did my Easter cakes come out! The carrots and flowers were pre-bought from Sainsburys, the mini eggs were a present originally from Whittards of Chelsea. They were plain vanilla, chocolate and mixed fruit cupcakes.

February 2013 - Maternity leave cakes, Swedish Pancakes, Gluten Free Sweetbread bread disaster.

 First up - Proof you should never listen to your husband when cooking. Soup DISASTER. We tried making soup in the slow cooker, all would have been fine but I was tired and unsure of how much soup mix to add - instead of going with my gut I listened to the hubby - put the whole packet in he says. And we ended up with soup you could literally cut! Thinning it out with water made it really bland but help came from Facebook and someone suggested adding some Red Pesto - and it was pretty tasty.


I left work in February for my maternity leave and so there was obligatory cake, I did coffee, chocolate, vanilla and some Cheats Cinnamon Swirls - I used too much filling though and they went a bit soggy (turns out you can have too much of a good thing!)

 What other good thing is in February - oh yeah Pancake day or Pannkakor as they say in Sweden. as part of Swedish Cake exchange I made some Swedish Style pancakes spread with some runny home made Damson Jam I was given by my Cousin and her husband. It was possibly the perfect combination. IF you arn't lucky enough to have any given to you, you can buy Damson Jam or any other fruit Jam you fancy and heat it until it becomes runny.

I tried to make some Gluten Free versions of the cinnamon swirls by swapping the flour to GF flour - it ended in disaster. They didn't look particularly appetizing to start, I tried them on the day I cooked them and they were, not terrible, so I said I'd get some to my cousin. Luckily I tired them again the day after as something the back of my head was told me I should - and lo and behold they were DISGUSTING. Something had happened overnight to turn them from meh, into blegh. I had to bin the lot - it was a bit upsetting.

January 2013: Swedish Cake exchange! Cinnamon buns and Semla

First of all I would just like to say LOOK AT WHAT MY FRIEND GOT ME! Is this not the best xmas present ever?

Cinnamon Buns

Anyway my leaving gift from my friend who went to live in Sweden was this Swedish Fika book from the Swedish embassy (ahem otherwise known as Ikea).


Its AMAZING.
I already had a recipe for Cinnamon buns but these are just a tad superior - they contain Marzipan! I seriously recommend this book it it's just so pretty, and the recipes are brilliant. The only problem is that the recipes appear to be for industrial scale - I halved the recipe in the book and still came out with 20 cinnamon buns!

As something fun my friend would buy some kind of Swedish cake/food and I would try to make one here and then we'd both get to eat it and talk about it with each other. It was a good idea apart from all the calories.




So here was out first cake exchange - Cinnamon swirls as adapted by me for my bread maker makes approx 20 buns. (I take no credit for the recipe - go buy the book!).

1 packet dried yeast, 250ml milk, 420g Flour, 100g butter, 100g caster sugar, 1 egg, 1/2tsp salt, 1/2tblsp crushed cardamom.

Place all ingredients in a bread maker on the dough setting.

In the mean time make the Cinnamon Marzipan filling, put 50g of grated marzipan, 50g cubed butter, 60g Caster sugar and 1tblsp Cinnamon in a bowl and mix using an electric hand whisk until combined. You should end up with a thick paste. Put to one side until the bread machine is finished.

When the machine has finished you should end up with a lovely silky dough - turn out onto a floured surface and roll into a large rectangle shape. Spread the paste all over (it will look quite thin don't worry a little bit goes a long way!). Roll it into a long log shape and slice into swirls (about 1" thick).  Put on a baking tray leaving a bit of space between - these will expand - and leave to rest under a towel for 30mins. Brush egg wash over the top (1egg + pinch of salt + tblsp of water beaten together) and bake for 8-10mins on 200°.

Semla

Our Second cake exchange involved Semla - these little cakes are eaten around Easter and are quite traditional in Sweden. Its a sweet cardamom bun with a marzipan and cream filling - they are very sickly and while nice to try I don't think I'd make them again.

December 2012 - Xmas! Chocolate Chestnut Roulade, Party Food, Fruit Scones

So obviously at xmas there must be chocolate and chestnut cake! To make this I made half the chocolate cake recipe and filled a baking sheet with high sides lined with baking parchment with it, baked for 8-10mins and immediately rolled it up and waited for it to cool.

When cool, I carefully rolled it out and covered the top with chestnut puree (you can usually buy this in most places around xmas) and topped that with a thick layer of sweetened whipped cream. Then I rolled it all back up, peeling off the paper as I went and sprinkled it with icing sugar.
It was SO good.

Every party need some snacks and having seen some similar ones at work I was determined to make some for myself. They are also by a happy coincidence vegetarian - something a bit more exciting to offer than the usual cheese and biscuits :p
They sounded so tasty but were so expensive to buy from the shops, but seemed so easy and cheap to make it seemed silly not to!

The top ones were mixed pepper and red pesto bites, and the bottom goats cheese and red onion marmalade.

To make the Mixed pepper and Red pesto bites Chop a red pepper and a yellow pepper and add some grated cheese. Slice a baguette into rounds, top each round with some red pesto, then pile some of the peper and cheese mix, plcae under a heated grill until the cheese melts and the top is slightly browned.

To make the Goats cheese and red onion marmalade bites, take a jar of red onion marmalade, and spread on the top of a baguette which has been sliced into rounds. Top with a slice of goats cheese from a cheese roulade, garnish with a sprig of Parsley. Toast under the grill until the cheese starts to bubble and the top s slightly brown.

Et voila. Told you they were easy!

Proof that even I have bad baking days! I was really trying to do too much at once and burnt my cupcakes.

Fruit Scones - Simply add 50g of mixed fruit or raisins to the scone mix. ALWAYS soak you fruit for a couple of hours first - otherwise you end up with dry scones. Soaking them in apple juice gives a nice flavour.

December 2012: Chocolate Strawberries, Scones, Blueberry Mini Cakes and Crumpet Rings Mini Cakes

In December two of my friends moved to Sweden. It was a sad parting, but to send them off properly we had a 'British' themed picnic.

This involved lots of tasty food and of course Scones were a must, one of my friends really likes strawberries so I made sure to include some.

Scones

These are adapted from a Mary Berry recipe.
Put 200g SF flour, 2tsp baking powder, 1tblsp caster sugar and 50g butter in a food processor a pulse until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. With a wooden spoon mix in 1egg and enough milk to make a pliable dough. Roll out until about 1" thick and using a round 5cm cutter cut out and place on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Brush tops with milk and bake 200° for 10-12mins.

We filled them with copious amounts of clotted cream and jam. mmmmm.

Chocolate Strawberries

These are really simple all you need to do is Melt some chocolate, dip the pointed end of the strawberries (washed) in until about half way then place either on a tray lined with Greaseproof paper, or into a petit four (mini cupcake) case. So pretty and delish!

Strawberries in Grand Marnier

This recipe was first suggested to me by one of my customers and it's such a great idea!
Due to the fact my friend was driving I didn't make them but here's how to do them anyway.  Wash, hull and halve some Strawberries put in a bowl and sprinkle some Icing sugar over the top, then drizzle some Grand Marnier over the top (a 2-3 tblsp is probably about right). Using a spoon gently spoon the syrup from the bottom of the bowl of the strawberries and leave to marinate for a few hours. Then all you need to do is eat them - they are very moreish.

Blueberry Mini Cakes

Always popular blueberry and vanilla mini cakes with vanilla buttercream. Simply add some blueberries (fresh or frozen) to the cake batter before you add the flour adding a couple of extra tblsp of flour as well.

The mini cakes were baked in my Alan Silverwood cake pan and cut in half horizontally - I cook these for the same time as cupcakes - 12mins.

Crumpet Ring Single portion cakes 

These were more of an experiment - these were the same blueberry cake batter, filled with the vanilla buttercream but baked using Crumpet rings. The rings were put ontop of a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and baked for about 15mins.
They look cute don't they!

To finish off the stacks of cake I made - Good old Basic Chocolate Cake squares, with topped with Chocolate buttercream. (I used my other Alan Silverwood pan to make them all uniformly square!)

November 2012: Apple Peeler/Slicer

 So, a long time ago I bought myself an apple peeler corer thing from lakeland plastics, which got resigned to the back of the cupboard and never used.

For some reason or other I got talking about it with someone and I thought, why not get it out and actually use it. So I did. It has got to be the most fun kitchen tool I have, I don't know why I didnt use it more. Every time we have kids round, it comes out and we play making apple 'slinkys'. They have fun, it encourages them to eat fruit we all win.

July 2012: Cheats Blueberry Mini Cake Bites

In July we closed the store for refurbishment and we discussed what we could do for tasting samples which looked good.

I came up with these Blueberry mini cake bites.

To make buy a good quality vanilla Pound/Madeira cake bar - I used Greenhalghes which frankly I've never found a better shop bought one.
Cut it up into bit sized pieces.

Next take a really good quality Jam - I used Dalfour Blueberry which is a luscious traditional jam packed with real fruit. Spread it over the top of the pieces of cake.

Get some pre-made Vanilla frosting - I used Betty Crocker, always handy in a pinch, but a bit on the pricey side. Pop in an icing bag with a large flower nozzle and pipe a blob on the top of each cake bite.

Then simply place a washed blueberry on the top - easy, quick and makes loads. Great for an occasion where you don't have time/facilities to bake your own cakes.

June 2012: Cheats Fruit and Custard Pies

 My mum moved into her new house in June last year, so to celebrate I brought Pie.

As I mentioned in a previous post these are really easy but effective if your short on time.

Buy some premade sweet pastry shells, some luxury vanilla custard and just add fruit.






Everyone loves them, and the mini ones look darn cute.

June 2012: Pretty Piping, Cardboard Boxes, Bannoffee, and Coffee Cupcakes

June was apparently all about the cupcakes, I was lucky at the time to be working with a few other fellow cake enthusiasts and we did a bit of a cake exchange, each week we would take it in turns to bake some cakes for our colleagues. 

I  got the very handy cardboard cupcake carrier from Amazon.

These were some of the ones I did - I loved how these came out. These were strawberry flavoured cupcakes using extract, with vanilla icing and freeze dried strawberry pieces I got from Waitrose, I have since spotted the same strawberry pieces in Morrisons as well.

The pink swirl effect is really easy to do, all you do is paint a stripe of food colouring gel down the inside of the piping bag before you put your icing in and et voila - pretty swirls. You can of course use different colours and widths of stripe to create different effects. For these I painted half the bag - these can look especially good when used with a rose piping nozzle.

These were bannoffee cupcakes, I wasnt that happy with how they looked -I should have skipped the extra drizzle of toffee syrup it made them look a bit messy.

To make them simply add 2 tblsp of Banana Nesquick powder (yes I did say that) and 4 tblsp of milk at the same time as you add the eggs using the basic cake recipe. Using the banana Nesquick makes the cakes really bananary but without that cloggy texture you get from adding real banana's. They are lovely and fluffy and you could do the same with Strawberry Nesquick powder too.

To make the icing I just made the normal buttercream but added 2tblsp of Cartmels Sticky Toffee Sauce (instead of vanilla extract) while I was whisking it up - if you've never had it, you should its delicious.

Mmm. Coffee cupcakes. I'm a bit controversial with these - I don't use actual coffee *gasp*. I actually prefer the taste you get from adding Camp Coffee - the added chicory essence just adds a certain 'something' plus it couldnt be easier to add as its already in liquid form.

Just add 2 tblsps to your basic cake recipe as you add the eggs.
For the Icing add 2tblsp as you whisk it up.

June 2012: Diamond Jubilee - custard pie and cream cakes!

Last year it was the Queens Diamond Jubilee, I think the current royal family do a very difficult job very well - they make great ambassadors for the country, give us hours of amusement, and do wonders for our tourism. It was nice for the whole country to get together and reminisce  about the 'good old days' and bring a sense of community back even if only for a short while.

In the spirit of things I made some red white and blue cakes for the jubilee for a car show we went to with the MG club.

 This fruit tart couldn't have been easier - it was a pre-bought sweet pastry shell (from morrisons), filled with pre-made luxury vanilla custard (from the fridge section at Booths) topped with fresh strawberries and blueberries. It was delish.

These chocolate butterfly cakes were not quite in theme but my husband wont eat a cake unless its chocolate so chocolate cake we had to have! They did have union jack cases though.

These were vanilla cupcakes, with whipped cream, strawberries and blueberries.

 And for the centrepiece - Vanilla layer cake with, fresh strawberry puree, whipped cream, fresh strawberry's and a couple of blueberries for garnish!

Cake tins and pretty things...

I have mentioned before that I love hoarding cake tins and tools.

The basic cup cake pan is a must, I have 2 deep ones for doing cupcakes in and 2 shallow ones for doing pies (or mini yorkshire puds) in, the shallow ones are also handy if I'm baking lots of cupcakes as I can still use those, the shape just isn't quite as good.

I got mine from the supermarket, I always line them with cupcake cases so there is no real need to spend lots on a cupcake pan.

If you're going to bake lots of layer cakes you need at least 2 round pans the same size, mine are 8 " and I find they are just the right for how I like to cook them. Everyone is different, again I tend to line mine with cooking parchment paper (the cakes come out easier and the tin is less likely to get damaged) I got them from the supermarket as well. Mine are non-stick but I have used silicone ones before and they work perfectly fine too.

You don't have to spend a fortune when your starting out, keep a look out at local pound and bargain shops - you'll be surprised what you can find.

This Alan Silverwood pan is probably one of my favourite pans, it was expensive but I use it so often as it makes the cutest cakes mini round cakes with no waste. I also have the Alan Silverwood adjustable pan which is quite useful.

I have a large collection of pans in all sorts of shapes and sizes which I have collected over the years, I recommend getting a silicone Bundt pan as they are much easier to get the awkward shapes out of and great for all sorts of quick and impressive looking cakes.

This website does a whole range of good silicone moulds for various things (their mini robots are brilliant for chocolate and make really detailed treats to put on the top of cupcakes), and Amazon and ebay are great places to find any others you could possibly need.

For piping I use this nozzle set and disposable piping bags from Lakeland plastics. The big star nozzle does the perfect swirls on cupcakes, and this Wilton nozzle makes lovely roses without any effort (Note: I did not buy mine from this shop but it was the best link/picture I could find quickly.

Look out for sprinkles and cake toppers at your local supermarket you'll probably be surprised at what cute things you can find. I use Wilton gel food colourings when I need to, gel's are much better at providing vivid colours without needing much and they don't tend to interfere with the texture of the cakes/creams/buttercreams.

At some point I will get all my pans/moulds out a photograph them just to show how many I have, but not today :)

May 2012: Strawberry Cream cakes

One of my favourite combinations of cake is vanilla sponge with whipped cream and strawberry's. It's divine, sweet, light and a picnic classic.

All you need to do is make up a batch of the basic recipe using Vanilla extract as your flavouring. While they are baking you want to take half the number of strawberry's as the number of cupcakes you have made out of a punnet of washed and hulled (so in this case 12 - if you're short on strawberry's 1/4 will also work). If you are making a layer cake then you will want 6.

Using a blender (stick or jug doesn't matter) blend the rest of the strawberry's with a tablespoon of Icing sugar - put to one side.

Whip some double cream (about 500ml should be fine) with 1tsp of Vanilla extract and 1tbsp of Icing sugar.

If making cupcakes then cut off the raised top of the cupcake, baring the fluffy cake underneath and apply a little of the strawberry goop to each one (this stops the goop from sliding off), if doing a layer cake spread across the top of the bottom layer of the cake.

Pipe the whipped cream on top of each cupcake, or spread across the bottom of the top layer of the layer cake; Put the top layer, on-top of the bottom layer, then spread cream over the top as well.

Finally chop each of the reserved strawberry's in half and place on op of each swirl of cream on the cupcake; for the layer cake Place them as if you were putting one on for each hour on a clock face.

Eat - especially good with a cup of delicately flavoured tea and a cake fork!