Mince Pies

I used Nigella's recipe from Nigella Christmas to produce these lovely little Cranberry mince pies. Very easy but will get you praise from all non bakers :)

Trains!!!

When faced with a icky toddler mothers become inventive!!!

My ebay purchase of a Nordic Ware train tin was a real winner last week.
As my son was basically having nil by mouth, I turned to trickery!

I used the most simple cake recipe I know ... a quatre-quarts (translates to 4 quarters, and makes it very easy to remember!)  as my grandmother called it. Pound cake in the states, and simple sponge over here in UK.

As most of these Nordic ware tins are very intricate spending some time greasing and flouring is probably a necessity :) I've never tried without. I use some melted fat and brush into all the little nooks then give it a good dusting of plain flour. I would imagine you can get away with a spray though. 

To make the wagons I weighed out 3 whole eggs (beaten in the mixing bowl), and than matched the weight with same of  sugar (2 table spoons substituted by vanilla sugar, but you could easily add some extract), melted veg fat (or unsalted butter if you have it) and selfraising flour. Whisked or stir together to a nice thick batter. Fill the moulds to about 2 cm from edge and baked in fan assisted on 170*C for about 15-20 minutes or until the tops are golden and a skewer comes out clean.
If you are using a bundt tin it will probably take 30-40 minutes depending on your tin. But I have noticed that unlike some fluffier cakes (this is quite dense unless you whip the eggwhites seperately like my gran did for special occasion cakes :) - read cakes that will be eaten on the day! It tends to keep longer somehow with non whisked eggwhites) you can open the oven to test no problemo after the initial rising. This cake mix is also great for shaping as it holds together well!

Yummy cake and great fun to play with :) 

Piggies in the mud

A while ago I saw  a cake on Facebook which was destined to be recreated. Today I finally gave it a go! It's a work in progress!  My ganache set too much due to monkey bedtime, causing the mud to be a little too textured and the piglets harder to sink in. The ribbon should have been wider and would have looked neater with a single winding. But a midnight amazon purchase isn't always what you expect  :)  Cake is easy enough to assemble. 

I made  simple buttermilk sponge cake, in two 18cm sandwich tins (Nigella, How to be a domestic goddess). I put them together with the buttercream mentioned in that recipe.

Made ganache with 250ml double cream and 400g plain dark chocolate,  I like it sweet so sifted in a little icing sugar. 

Ganache needs to be set enough to stick to sides and not run out. Thick custard would be a good consistency.  Smeer the sides and stick the kitkats (I needed about 20 two finger bars)  around the side. Tie ribbon. 

Spread the rest of the ganache on top. Ideally you would have your piggies ready to go at this stage as they'll sink in nicer. I had to use a warmed teaspoon to smooth the chocolate down to position them.

I used pink ready to roll  icing, but the original used pink marzipan. 

Belgian buns

I thought it was time to attempt this classic. Turns out it's not so much of a baking classic as a industrially produced one :) I keep seeing them at high street bakeries and supermarkets but struggled to find any recipes actually labelled "Belgian Bun" So in the end I went with another bloggers idea. To be fair, hers look better! But mine do taste wonderful!  I added extra dark brown sugar and cinnamon to her recipe.  Next time I will also smear the dough with butter before adding the filling to make it a little more sticky!  

 

Ingredients:

 450g Strong White Flour

10g dried yeast

1 tsp salt

50g caster sugar

50 (melted and cooled) + 20 g butter

2 large eggs

150ml warm milk

200g raisins

1 tsp cinamom

100g icing sugar (more if you like your buns covered rather than swirled)

2 tsp hot water

12 half glacé cherries , or more if you fancy them!

Method: 

I used my stand alone mixer with dough hook to make the base. 

Warm up milk. Once milk has reached body temperature 

(45 sec at 600 W , glass jug in my microwave) 

add the yeast to the milk with a pinch of the sugar. 

Stir well. (If you use fast action yeast, this is unnecessary and you can just follow original bloggers recipe)

 

Put all dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. 

Whisk together the cool butter, eggs and milk+yeast.

Add the wet to the mixing bowl.

Let the machine kneed the dough at medium power for about 5 min. Scrape down if necessary, or fling it up to high for a couple of seconds so the dough can clean the bowl up.  

You should now have a very soft pliable dough. Recipe suggested putting it in an oiled glass bowl, covered with cling film. I left mine in the maching with the lid closed after taking the hook out.  Leave to rest for 1 hour or until doubled in size. 

Roll out your dough into a large rectangle (mine was about 50cmx30cm) 

Rub butter on the dough, sprinkle on the dark sugar and raisins evenly. 

Roll reasonably tightly, creating the longest of the two sausage possible :) 

Devide this into 12 equal parts, if the edges of your rectangle  were  as untidy as mine you'll end up with a few smaller buns :) 

Place the buns on lined or greased baking trays (I used cookie sheets) 

Leave enough space between. 

Leave to prove for another 0.5 hour under clean tea towels in a warm draft free place. 

At this point, preheat your oven to 190 celcius for a fan-assisted oven.

Once risen, bake for 15 minutes until golden brown and hollow to the tap. 

Leave to cool completely on wire racks. 

To decorate

Make up the icing to a running, swirlable consistency. 

Swirl or slather to your hearts content and top with the unmistakeable cherry! 

Bon Appétit! 

Carrot and stuff

Jamie Oliver's carrot cake with lime mascarpone icing from his "Cook with Jamie" book is by far the best I've ever tasted.  I've made it several times and it never disappoints. It's full of spicy flavours and citrussy zing. Not sure the man would approved of my kitchy decoration but who cares... my cake - my chocolate carrots :)

When all else fails ...

My have husband has left us ... well for two weeks anyway.  Feeling particularly blue on this commercial holiday,  also feeling very pregnant and stressed out with toddler refusing to nap which means I can't indulge in soppy daytime movie to drown my sorrow. 

Instead I have been forced to resort to food colouring to lift my spirits.  We used a generic cut out biscuit recipe and made icing by eye.  But would highly recommend Walton icing colouring!!!! No nasty flavour and very vibrant!  Happy Valentine!

Chocolate Fudge all the way!

I ordered a personalised Gruffalo cake topper a couple of weeks ago when we had decided on the theme.  So I had to make a round cake which would be of interest to toddlers and mums alike.  Chocolate fudge seemed an obvious winner.  I went with the very straightforward Leiths tip it all into tje bowl and whisk recipe with sour cream ganache.  Came out super!  Looked a treat with the topper even with messed up edge!

Sausage rolls baby!

We're having a toddler get together tomorrow to further celebrate my sons second birthday.  Thought I'd make some sausage rolls to start.  Can't think of anything easier.  Ready rolled puff,  the rectangle is easiest.  Cut into two long strips.  Place little cocktail sausages along the edge of the length. Squeeze a little Tommy K in front of the sausages and roll up, making sure to eggwash the edges. Cut between sausages,  place on baking tray with some parchment or grease proof and bake at 180* fan assisted for about 15-20 minutes.  DONE!  On to the cake !

Mouse on a log

For my sons 2nd birthday I searched the web for some Gruffalo themed cakes. The ones that looked amazing were beyond my abilities and the ones within my abilities looked ..... shit!

So when my husband agreed to make a small mouse out of fondant to go onto whatever cake I made, the thought of the Yule Log I'd seen Mary Berry make on the Great British Bake Off Masterclass started to take shape.

I followed her recipe to the letter, and oh my is it easy!!! Mary does not tell porky pies!
I did mess up melting the chocolate into the cream for the ganache first time! So set on not burning the chocolate, I managed to leave some substantial chunks. Which then resulted in a massive clogging up of the nozzle of the icing bag.

So after cream and ganache version 2.0 had been applied the result looked charming and more importantly .... tasted excellent!  It does feed more than the suggested 6-8 people if used as cake along side other offerings of your choice ( I chose a quite simple but delicious New York Cheesecake by Nigella)

Would recommend recipe to anyone, especially novice bakers looking for a challenge :)
Original Mary Berry recipe