Recipe No. 21- Sticky Orange Marmalade Cake

I had a busy weekend this week and was away from Friday to lunchtime on Sunday so I just wanted to bake something quite quick and simple.

This was so easy, literally the butter and sugar are creamed, then the eggs and then flour added and then a final addition of a good quality chunky seville orange marmalade.

It all went into 1 tin so I didn't even need to sandwich 2 sponges after it had cooked! When it is taken out  of the oven and removed from the tin, more marmalade is heated and brushed over the surface and then it is left to cool. Then a simple glace icing is drizzled over the top and left to harden.

This went down a treat and nearly the whole cake was eaten in about 2 hours! I promise to make something more adventurous tomorrow!

Recipe No. 20 - Lemon Iced Biscuits

Cupcakes didn't seem to go down too well in my new office, I'm the only girl and the other 4 are all men but still, Who doesn't enjoy the odd cupcake or 3?!
This weekend I made biscuits instead thinking maybe that would win them round! I also had a few lemons to be used up so I made Lemon Iced Biscuits.

In the past I always tend to have trouble with overbaking biscuits as I worry that they are undercooked.
So I was brave and stuck to the timings given and voila! Light biscuits with a good texture - nice and crumbly. I also retained a certain amount of girlyness with a heart shaped cutter!

Then I iced them with a simple Glace Icing made with icing sugar and lemon juice, I didn't go for anything too difficult because I like everything to look relatively uniform and simple.

A very simple blog post for a simple recipe!

Recipe No.19 - Paul's Pork Pies with Quails' Eggs

I like to look up a few tips online before starting a recipe that I've never tried before, and I read somewhere that these are a 'labour of love' because they are so time intensive. They were not wrong, this isn't something you whip up when people come round. It has to be a well thought out and planned ahead. Not my best attribute.

So first of all the Hot water pastry - eek! This was really odd, the butter and the flour are combined to make breadcrumbs whilst the kettle is boiled and the lard melted. The lard, water and salt are mixed together then added to the flour, The mixture is stirred to a dough and then you use your hands to make sure it is all combined, then whilst the dough is still hot, it is rolled out and shaped into the muffin tin and the lids and put in the fridge to chill whilst you make the filling.

The filling is made of bacon, pork, onion, parsley and then seasoned. Oh and I forgot meanwhile my mum peeled all of the Quails Eggs which I boiled earlier! The pastry cases are then half filled with the pork filling, an egg is placed in the middle and the rest is topped up with more pork mixture. The lid is added and then a hole made with a piping nozzle to allow steam to escape and the gelatine to be added later.

The pies are cooked for 40-45mins and then removed from the oven and their tin. Easier said than done. I used a silicone Muffin Tin so that I could push them up from the bottom and then lift them out.

After allowing them to cool a mixture of gelatine and chicken stock is made and then poured through the hole that was made in the lid.

The Pies are then refrigerated overnight (see, not a last minute addition) and then they can be enjoyed!!

Yum!

Recipe No.18 - Cherry Bakewell Cupcakes

First of all, sorry I've been absent for a while I started a new job this week and haven't had the time to do any baking. So this afternoon I made the Cherry Bakewell Cupcakes.

The sponge recipe for this is really simple and contains ground almonds to give it a light flavour.
Once the cakes are cooked and cooled an apple corer is used to remove the centre which is discarded (or eaten!) and raspberry jam is spooned in.
Glace Icing is poured over the top and a Cherry added. All the steps are simple but it is a little time consuming.

 Cooling down.

 Filled with jam, ready to be iced.

Finished!

Jam in the Centre.














These make such a nice change from little cakes with loads of buttercream which look pretty but obviously have a lot more calories!

Recipe No. 17 - Devil's Food Cake

A Chocolate Cake for a Cake-o-holic's 25th Birthday. Devil's Food Cake.

This recipe is quite an extended recipe. It has quite a few components that are combined in a specific way.

First of all cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and boiling water are combined forming a chocolaty liquid and left to cool. A bar of 70% Chocolate is melted and left to cool too. 

Meanwhile the butter is creamed and sugar added gradually along with eggs and vanilla (I use the one from waitrose thats in a small pot and is like a thick paste with the seeds in too). The Flour is then sieved and folded in in 3 parts alternately with sour cream (sounds odd). Then all of the cooled mixtures from before are slowly added. This is baked in 3 tins and left to cool. 

The filling and topping was made by melting more 70% chocolate and combining with even more sour cream however I didn't particularly like the bitter strong taste so I added icing sugar too. The tiers are then stacked and smothered in the chocolatey glue but it looked a bit higgeldy piggeldy so I removed one tier (Don't worry it won't go to waste!) This was probably for the best as the whole things needs to taken to the birthday recipient! Finally I melted white chocolate and drew a 2 and a 5 on some baking paper sellotaped to a tray, then once they were dry carefully peeled them away and placed them on top.

I'm the first to admit that it's not the prettiest cake I've made but it is by the far the chocolatiest! Its really moist, smells amazing and is supposed to improve after a day (although who could wait that long?!) It's got that great dark colour, I'm sure there will be requests for this time and time again!! 

Recipe No. 16 - Perfect White Loaf

I love fresh bread for breakfast with strawberry jam on, or for lunch as part of a nice sandwich but I never think far ahead enough to make it in time for lunch let alone breakfast so last night I made a 'Perfect White Loaf'

The recipe states that it makes 2 medium loaves so I halved it to make just 1. Luckily when I first left it to rise The Jonathan Ross Show had just started to that hour flew by and then for the second hour of rising time I watched a programme about all the old talent shows like Popstars: The Rivals rekindling my love for Darius Danesh (Best Audition EVER!)

So the Loaf cooked for half an hour and then I took it out and went to bed, this morning I had Bread and Jam for breakfast and then a Bacon Sandwich for lunch..Perfect after a snowy trip to Tesco!

A great, simple recipe. Just don't start on it after 9pm if you're tired!

Recipe No.15 - Oat and Raisin Biscuits

Today I was in the mood for some nice chewy biscuits, so I made the Oat and Raisin cookies. I rarely make biscuits and I'm prone to over baking them as I worry that they are underdone as they're so soft when you take them out of the oven.

Oat and Raisin are my favourite type of biscuits, much more than chocolate or ginger for example.
The Book states that these are 'Easy for kids' and that is accurate! The butter and sugar are creamed, the egg,milk and vanilla beaten and added to the butter/sugar mix and finally the flour, oats and raisins are added to the bowl. This makes quite a stodgy dough which is baked for about 13minutes.
When you take the cookies out of the oven they are still really soft but they firm up after about 5 to 10 minutes.

These are delicious as the vanilla really comes through, in future I would probably add a touch of cinnamon in too.

Without a doubt will be making these again as they are so quick!

Happy Baking! xx

Recipe No.14 - Paul's Iced Fingers

Who isn't transported back to childhood when they eat an Iced Finger?
They are something that a lot of people associate with a trip to the bakers with their mum or dad.

On the Tv series these were one of the technical bakes, and now I can see why! It is so hard to get the buns to look the same once they have been baked, Iced and filled.

The dough for this at first seemed quite odd as it has milk and butter in it making for quite a yellow dough rather than a pale or white dough. This is left to rise and then cut into equal pieces and formed into sausage shapes and left to rise for the second time.

The oven has to be really hot as they only need to be cooked for 10 minutes and here is where I went wrong. First of all I left too much space between the buns so that when they cooked they were all separate rather than slightly joined in a line. This meant that each had a - albeit soft - crust all over the bun rather than just the top. Second of all I checked on them after 8 minutes and they were a lot browner than I wanted them to be, in the words of Paul Hollywood 'a slight overbake'. So they cooked quicker in my oven and didn't look as pale as I wanted, they appear like they would have a hard crust but they were still soft thankfully.

Now Icing, this again is so hard to make all the buns look even and I wish I had done as Mary-Anne did on the series and piped the Glace Icing on to achieve a Uniform look but instead I stuck to the book and dipped the buns and left them to dry.

Meanwhile the jam is warmed and sieved to remove any pieces of fruit and the seeds, Then the whipped cream and jam can be added. They are best eaten soon after filling so I took some over to my neighbours so as not to eat them myself!

I would definitely make these again as they are such a memorable treat! Just in future I would keep a close eye on them whilst in the oven!

Waiting to be filled...

One for me!