Bread

I make a loaf of bread about once a fortnight using Paul Hollywood's recipe for an easy white loaf. The first one I made didn't look that good....

But like most things it just takes a little practice. I found the recipe to be quite adaptable and now use it for a variety of loaves and buns. My favourite loaf is my

Poppyseed loaf

You can find the recipe for this bread here; http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/white_bread

For the poppy seeded bread just throw in a handful of poppyseeds at the mixing stage.

Moustache cake

Right before my eldest daughter's twelfth birthday she became obsessed with moustaches. They were everywhere and she had leggings and t-shirts and pencil cases with them on, as did all her friends. I had to make a moustache cake for her birthday. It turned out to be the easiest birthday cake I'd made so far. It was red velvet, her favourite, and a perfect moustache colour when topped with deep chocolate icing. It started as a two-layer circular cake, then was cut in half , one half turned upside down and the whole thing opened up to create a perfect moustache shape. Some fork lines across the top and chocolate sprinkles along the bottom and it was done.

It was so simple that I had to make something to go with it, and I found the perfect cake toppers on eBay and decided on cupcakes. Same red velvet cake inside.

 

So easy to make, yet looks really good. My husband is currently halfway through Movember and this would be the best way to celebrate the moustache coming off at the end of the month, I think!

Autumnal apple picking leads to baking

Last weekend the six of us went to the local orchard and spent an hour picking apples. We got rather a lot. 

Some have been eaten raw, but the majority have been used in new recipes.

Tarte tatin

I used Raymond Blanc's tarte tatin recipe. It said to use puff pastry but gave no instruction as how to make it so I used Paul Hollywood's cheats rough puff pastry. This was my first ever attempt at puff pastry. It didn't go tremendously well and ended up more like shortcrust pastry. It was still delicious but next time I might just use shop bought puff pastry. You can find the recipe for the pastry here; http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cheats_rough_puff_pastry_91549

And for the tart;   http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tarte_tatin_72509  

Apple crumble tart

 A cross between an apple tart and an apple crumble. 

For the pastry;

175g plain flour
75g chilled butter
2-3 tbsp cold water

Put the flour into a bowl and rub in the butter using your fingertips, when it resembles breadcrumbs add the water until you have a soft dough. Roll out onto a lightly floured surface and line your dish. Then pop into the fridge for half an hour. Heat oven to 200c/gas mark 6. Fill with baking beans or I tend to prick the pastry all over with a fork and this keeps it flat ( 9 times out of 10 ) and put into the oven for 15/20 mins.

For the filling;

Around 15 apples
150g caster sugar
sprinkling of cinnamon
3tbsp flour
optional gelatine


Peel ,core and chop up your apples into bitesized chunks then throw them into a pan with the sugar, and a little water ( couple of teaspoons ), leave them to simmer until soft, then add the flour and cinnamon.
 This part is optional, it makes the filling a little firmer and less wet.  Cut up one gelatine leaf and soak in a bowl with 3 tbsp water for ten mins. Then melt by placing the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Add the gelatine to the apples. Add the apples to the pastry and put it into the fridge to set.

For the crumble; ( I got this idea from Mary Berry's apple crumble with walnut and sunflower seeds, though I had no walnuts or sunflower seeds at the the time! )

50g plain flour
50g porridge oats
150g sugar
100g softened butter
50g raisins
I used raisins instead of walnuts and sunflower seeds because that's all I had, but you could use either or both if you wish.

Put the dry ingredients into a bowl, then rub in the butter. Spread over a baking tray and put into the oven at 180c/gas mark 4 for 15/20 mins.
Sprinkle a little cinnamon over the top.



Apple & Walnut Buns

I made these using my normal bread recipe but just tweaking it a little. I use Paul Hollywood's easy white bread recipe

500g strong white bread flour

40g soft butter

12g dried yeast

2 tsp salt

300 ml tepid water

A little olive oil

Walnuts

An apple, any kind

Combine flour, yeast and salt in a bowl. Then add the water and mix until it's dough-like. Then it needs kneading for a good five minutes, if not longer. I use oil on the board instead of flour so as to not ruin the flour to butter ratio. Then an hour in the bowl to rise. I just place a tea towel over the top to stop it from drying out. After an hour or so, when it has doubled in size it needs the air knocking out with a few quick kneads. While it's proving cut up an apple into small cubes and boil in a pan for five minutes then set aside to cool. 

Dived the dough into eight equal pieces and add three walnuts and six pieces of apple to each one, then shape into a ball and put on a baking tray. Cover the tray with a towel and leave for 30 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to gas mark 7/220C.

Put them in the oven for around 30 mins until bread. These are gorgeous fresh from the oven with a piece of cheddar cheese.

Easter

I've been baking a lot during the easter holidays with the kids. These are our Easter cookies.

125g unsalted butter

125g caster sugar

1 medium egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

250g plain flour

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the vanilla extract and egg. Sift half the flour in the the bowl, mix and sift in the other half. Knead the dough until smooth, wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for half an hour. Preheat the oven to 180oc/ gas mark 4. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and use your cutter.  Bake for 10 - 15 minutes and leave to cool before icing.

 

 

The icing is royal icing. It's slightly firmer than regular icing. You make it the same way though. Just add a litte water at a time until it's the right consistency. First you want to pipe around the outside of the biscuit with quite firm icing. If it's too runny just add more icing sugar.  Once the outside has been piped, you can add a little more water to the icing and 'flood' the rest of the biscuit. While the icing is still wet is when you create your patterns for the top.

 

 
 Left; the hearts are made using a cocktail stick to drop two circles onto the biscuit, the drag the cocktail stick through the circles.


Right; the small circles are made by lightly touching the icing with the cocktail stick. The larger circles are made by holding the cocktail stick in the icing for a few seconds.



 

Left; The patterns are made by making a circle with a cocktail stick and dragging it through the circle.



Right; this is just random swirls using the cocktail stick.




Cupcakes

When I want to do some baking without using a recipe book I like to experiment with cupcake flavours. I use a basic recipe and add just one or two extras.

 

• 125g unsalted butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 125g self raising flour

 

Preheat the oven to 190oc / gas mark 5.

Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Fold in the flour and pour into cake cases. They should take between 15 and 20 minutes to cook.

 

These are my bakewell tart cupcakes.

For these cakes replace the vanilla extract with almond extract. After they have cooked and cooled, slice off the top of the cake and spread with raspberry jam, then replace the cake lid on top of the jam. The icing is 150g butter, 300g icing sugar and a few drops of almond essence. I have also added a few drops of red food colouring to get a nice pink colour. Then top with a whole almond.

 

 

These are my toffee fudge cupcakes.

 

 

 

Replace the vanilla extract with butterscotch extract. Add 3/4 cubes of fudge to each cake  just before they go into the oven ( use more than this and they will sink to the bottom of the cake and make it very sticky). Add a few drops of butterscotch essence to the icing and top with fudge cubes.

Cake decorating

When my youngest daughter was born I subscribed to Cake decorating magazine. It kept my mind off how tired I was now that I had four children. The first recipe that I tried were the white chocolate cupcakes from issue 1, except I had no white chocolate so I used milk chocolate instead. This recipe makes between 12 and 18 cakes depending on the size of your cases.

• 125g unsalted butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 125g self raising flour
• 75g chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 190oc / gas mark 5.
Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Fold in the flour and add the chocolate chips. They should take between 15 and 20 minutes to cook. They're topped with buttercream. I had 18 cakes so I used 150g butter and 300g icing sugar. The star decorations are brown fondant icing.

 

Next I tried the Pretty iced squares. Make a 20cm square madeira cake ( see previous posts for recipe ) and cut into 16 equal (ish) squares. The recipe says to use fondant icing sugar, which I didn't have so I used glace icing instead. The tops are brushed with apricot jam and the icing poured over the top. The designs have been piped on using a narrow nozzle.

 

 

  Next I made butterfly shaped sugar cookies using the shape cutter that came with the magazine. The recipe is in the first issue.

Sugar cookies;

• 125g unsalted butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 250g plain flour

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the vanilla extract and egg. Sift half the flour in the the bowl, mix and sift in the other half. Knead the dough until smooth, wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for half an hour. Preheat the oven to 180oc/ gas mark 4. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and use your cutter. Any shape cutter will work. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes and leave to cool before icing.

 

 

For the icing you will need 450g of royal icing sugar. This is slightly firmer than normal icing sugar. I made three different colours, blue, pale pink and darker pink. You could make any colour. Just add a little water to 150g of the icing sugar and add the preferred colour. Not too much water because you dont want it to be too runny. First pipe the outline of the biscuit, then you can add a little more water and 'flood' the rest of the biscuit, then use different colours to make the patterns.

 

 

This next recipe is for a large chocolate ganache cake, but I made individual ones instead. The recipe for the chocolate cake is in a previous post. The ganache is made from

• 400ml double cream
• 400g dark chocolate

Pour the double cream into a small saucepan and put it on a low heat. Break the chocolate into chunkc and add to the cream. Keep stirring until the chocolate has melted but dont let it boil. Remove from the heat and whisk gently. Allow to cool to room temperature. This will take 1 - 2 hours.
I made 24 small cakes using a muffin mould, then stacked them three layers high and covered them in the ganache. The stencil image in the top is made with a stencil that came free with issue 6.

Birthday cakes continued.....

By her eleventh birthday my daughter had been given a hummingbird bakery book and was always trying out recipes from it, so it seemed fitting that she should have a cupcake cake.

 

 

The recipe, this time, came from Cake Decorating magazine issue 1 - the chocolate sponge cake.

• 225g unsalted butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 175g self raising flour
• 50g cocoa powder

Oven at 180oc ( gas mark 4 )

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time ( they work best if used at room temperature ). Fold in half of the flour amd cocoa and mix well, then fold in the other half. The bottom half of the cupcake is larger than the top half so took around 15 minutes longer to cook than the recommended 15 minutes - 25 minutes.

 

The cake is decorated with strawberries and buttercream icing; 150g butter, 300g icing sugar. The strawberries were a little wet and made the top half of the cake a bit unstable, but they were yummy anyway. On the top is a little fondant icing cupcake.

 

 

 

 

Next was my youngest son's 2nd birthday. His favourite programme was Peppa pig so I started with Peppa's house. To make the house shape I baked a square cake and cut out a smaller square and a triangle and stuck them together using buttercream icing, then covered it in royal icing. To get the right shade of yellow I used a large piece of white icing and a small piece of yellow icing and rolled them over and over again until they were combined to make pale yellow. The most time consuming parts were the windows and the roof. The roof is made up of individual overlapping red icing squares. The windows are squares with four mini squares cut out.

The cake is a madeira cake. Slightly firmer than a regular sponge and good for cutting. The recipe came from issue 2 of Cake Decorating magazine.

• 200g unsalted butter
• 200g caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 200g self raising flour
• 100g plain flour
• grated zest of 1 and 1/2 lemons

Preheat the oven to 170oc (gas mark 3) 
Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Fold both flours into the mixture, then add the lemon zest. It will take around 60 - 80 minutes to cook.
 It can be left for up to 24 hours before decorating.

Peppa's house sits at the top of a hill, so the cake was covered with light green royal icing to represent the hill. The path was made by cutting out the path shape from the green icing then filling it in with buttercream and sprinkling rainbow sprinkles over it. The house is kept in place with the help of two skewers. The peppa pig character wafers around the bottom of the cake were found on ebay. The peppa and the car were free with a peppa magazine!

My husband is an avid fisherman so deciding what kind of cake I was going to make for his 29th birthday was really easy. The cake is a madeira cake with the addition of toffee flavouring and some fudge pieces. The fudge pieces all gathered in the middle and made the cake sink, which was perfect for making the pond.  The icing is buttercream, coloured blue for the water, and green for the grass. I found a fishing road and fish mould on ebay and used brown fondant icing to make the rods and fish. The grass is made by using a nozzle on the end of the piping bag with tiny pin sized holes.

After getting Super mario bros 2 my eldest son asked for a mario cake. I started by making the Mario. He's made out of coloured fondant icing and held together with cocktail sticks.

 

Next came the other decorations for the outside of the cake. A yoshi face, yellow stars and three flowers.






















The cake is a madeira cake filled with buttercream and raspberry jam.

 



Birthday cakes

We had a system for the children's birthdays, that I would make a cake one year and the next buy we would buy one. This system worked brilliantly until my eldest daughter turned ten (she's now twelve). I wanted to make her a better cake than I had made before to celebrate her getting to double figures. It started there.The next birthday was my baby boy, who was turning one; I had to do something special and after that I couldnt go back to making simple cakes, they had to be better every time. The day before each of their birthdays is devoted entirely to cake making.

A three layered cake of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. I used a basic sponge recipe from an old bero book I'd had for years ( It was my mother's ) and added flavouring. It was ok, as were all my cakes. Was it brilliant? no, but I was learning. I sprayed it gold with edible spray for effect and baked the 10 for the top.

When my baby boy turned one he had a 'The very hungry caterpillar' teaparty. As well as the caterpillar cake, he also had themed food relating to the story. Apples for Monday, pears for Tuesday, plums for Wednesday, strawberries for Thursday, oranges for Friday,


















and for Saturday one piece of cake, one icecream cone, one pickle, one cupcake, one slice of watermelon, one sausage, one piece of cherry pie, one pickle, one salami, and one slice of swiss cheese.

The little namecards I found on ebay. They cost a couple of pounds, needed cutting out and sticking onto card, but fit so well with my theme.


The caterpillar themed cake was made of chocolate cake ( another bero recipe ) and iced with buttercream. It was made using a giant cupcake mould. The bottom of the cake is lined with chocolate fingers. I made a cupcake, lollipop, watermelon, slice of cheese, a sausage and a cherry pie out of fondant icing. The caterpillar himself is made of cake pops covered in candy melts. There are also wafer butterflies on the top ( these I found on ebay ).

 

Next was my eldest son's 7th birthday. At the time he was a massive lego starwars fan. He had the game, the figures and a bedroom decorated to match. So naturally I was going to make a lego starwars cake. It was my first attempt at a fondant 3d figure. It didnt go too badly.

 

 

 

The cake itself was a victoria sponge, the recipe this time coming from Mary Berrys complete cookbook.

• 175g soft butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 175g self raising flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder

The method is very simple. It says to combine all the ingredients in a bowl and beat well. Divide the mixture between to tins and bake in a preheated oven at 180oc (gas mark 4) for about 25 minutes. Leave to cool, then sandwich together with jam. It really is one the easiest recipes I have come across.

 

 The cake is covered with royal icing and spray painted silver. The Darth Vader and the lightsabres are made from fondant icing.
I used a lego Darth Vader figure for the inspiration for the figure on the top of the cake.