Rainy Day Chocolate Flake Cake

Hi all!

As the weather from summer, to autumn, to the rain (lets be honest we don't really have a proper autumn or winter in the UK) we need our home comforts to keep us going when the weather brings us down! Therefore cake is the answer (it's the answer when its sunny too but who cares!). In particular chocolate cake! The cake I made a few weeks ago was so light and chocolatey! 

So a quick, simple and tasty recipe is in order.

Ingredients:

Cake:

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

Icing:

• 175g icing sugar
• 75g butter
• 45g cocoa powder
• 10ml milk

Method: 

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

2. Add the eggs one at a time and combine.

3. Sift the flour and cocoa powder together into the mixture and fold to create lots of air, this will ensure that you have a light and fluffy cake!

4. Separate the mixture into 2x 20cm round tins that have been greased and lined with baking paper.

5. Bake at 180C for 25 minutes or until golden brown and the mixture springs back when lightly pressed.

To make the icing:

1. Cream the butter until smooth.

2. Add the icing sugar and combine.

3. Add the cocoa powder.

4. Add the milk, only add to the consistency you want. The less milk added the stiffer and harder to spread on your cake the icing will be. Don't add more than the 10ml.

Decorate however you wish. I added half the buttercream to the top of one of the sponges then laid the other sponge on top. I then added the remaining buttercream and crumbled up some flakes we had left over onto the top of the cake for decoration.

So that was my simple chocolate cake for a rainy day, which seems to be most days at the moment in the UK! Let me know if you make this cake and I hope you enjoyed reading!

Thanks for reading,

Caitlin xxx

Lemon Drizzle Cake

Hi all! 

Just a quick post for a birthday recipe. So for James' actual birthday I made him one of his favourite cakes in the whole world! 

LEMON DRIZZLE CAKE

However, I did make it into a loaf because hey why not? Be creative, be different, don't go with the flow... or something along those lines!

Ingredients:

• 200g salted butter
• 200g caster sugar
• zest of 3 lemons (unwaxed)
• 3 large eggs
• 225g self- raising flour
• 50g full fat natural yoghurt (makes all the difference I promise!)
• 2tbsp good quality lemon curd (luckily I had some that I had made a week or two previously, see mason jar fillers post for the recipe)

For the decoration:

• juice of 1 1/2 lemons
• icing sugar

Method:
1. Heat oven to 170c
2. Grease and line 2lb loaf tin
3. Place butter sugar and lemon zest in a bowl and whisk until light and fluffy.
4. Add one egg at a time and then fold in the flour, spoonfuls at a time.
5. Finally fold in the yoghurt and lemon curd.
6. Place the mixture in the tin and cook in the oven for around 40-45 minutes. Once cooked check by placing and removing a skewer into the middle, if it comes out clean then it is cooked, if not then place back in the oven for 2-3 minute bursts until completely cooked.
7. When cooked, cool in the tin for around 5 minutes, then cool on a cooling rack until completely cool. 
8. To decorate mix the lemon juice with small spoonfuls of icing sugar until your desired consistency. Then once there pipe or drizzle icing onto the top and let it run down the sides of the loaf to create the drizzle loaf effect.

Well, this was a huge success for my brothers actual birthday as it's his favourite! Let me know if you try this one out at all! 

Thanks for reading,
Caitlin xxx

Brother's Birthday BBQ

Hi All,

So July we think Summer, BBQ's, sun and holidays! Well for me July brings the summer holidays and a few birthdays, in particular my brother James' birthday. This year we celebrated it with lots of family and friends, a BBQ and a very lovely sunny day! Oh and of course some goodies baked by myself!

For the party I knew I wanted to challenge myself and so decided to make something I had never made before, and that something was italian meringue. In this case a vanilla cake with Italian meringue buttercream and salted caramel (also handmade, see mason jar fillers post for recipe!)

I also made a batch of galaxy cookies. These also went down a treat and were gone within seconds! These were for people who didn't really fancy any cake, it is basically heart attack in a slice but oh so good! However most people decided on both, why not?!! 

Recipe time!

Cake ingredients:

• 250g baking margarine
• 250g caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 250g self-raising flour
• 2tsp vanilla extract

Icing ingredients:

• 250g caster sugar
• 50ml water
• 4 egg whites
• 2tbsp caster sugar
• 350g very soft salted butter

Salted Caramel refer to mason jar fillers for recipe.

Cake method:

SIDENOTE: best to make this cake if you have a standing mixer as the methods require different speed and when making the cream it is harder to do this without a mixer!

1. Oven 180c, line 2x 20cm sandwich tins.

2. Cream the margarine and caster sugar (until pale and fluffy, this is important to ensure a light cake). On a low speed add the eggs one at a time.

3. Add the flow and vanilla and fold until there are no lumps of flour left.

4. Divide the batter between the two tins and bake for 25 minutes, preferably on the same shelf.

Icing method:

1. Melt the sugar in the water and bring to 121c- SUGAR THERMOMETER NEEDED!

2. Whisk the egg whites with the 2tbsp of caster sugar until you have soft peaks, don't over whisk as you will end up with a sloppy mixture, so stop when your meringue is at a stage of staying in a peak when the whisk is removed from the mixture.

3. With the mixer on a high speed, gently pour the sugar syrup into the meringue. Try to avoid pouring onto the whisk and the edge of the bowl, you want to try and keep it in-between the two of them! It's tricky but believe in yourself!!

4. Continue whisking on a high speed until the bowl is cool to the touch.

5. To make the buttercream, add the softened butter to the meringue one tsp at a time. Don't add it all at one time as it will not work and you will get rid of all the air in the meringue straight away!!

Decorate accordingly. You can choose to decorate this cake however you like, I chose to fill with buttercream and caramel but you can do what you wish. Then I did layers of buttercream and caramel on the top as shown in the photo above.

Cookie ingredients:

• 200g butter
• 300g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 325g self- raising flour
• dash of milk
• 200g of any white chocolate that you like (I use milky bar as it's my favourite)
• 200g of any milk chocolate (I use Galaxy as it's, well it's the best chocolate ever)

Cookie method:

1. preheat the oven to 200c

2. Combine the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy

3. Add the egg

4. Gradually add the flour in and it should all come together to form a dough, if it looks too dry then add in a dash of milk, if it's too sticky then add a little more flour.

5. Break up your chocolate and add it into the mixture.

6. Roll the dough into small sized balls and place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, once placed on the tray push the balls slightly down (this will help to create rounder cookies.

7. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Don't leave them in any longer than this though as cookies should come out of the oven looking slightly soft as when they cool they will harden!

Overall, these recipes were a huge success with my family and I was so pleased with the way everything turned out! Let me know if you try any of these recipes.

Thanks for reading,

Caitlin xxx

Mason Jar Fillers

SALTED CARAMEL

VANILLA AND STRAWBERRY JAM

LEMON CURD

Bold enough for you? Did you get the message?

Well, well, well, these are the three fillers I did for my mason jars! 

Super easy, super tasty and super useful!! 

Strawberry and Vanilla Jam

The jam making process was fairly simple and straightforward, I put into use the skills I had learnt from Richard Hunt during the Cake and Bake Show which made the process that little bit easier remembering the tips that Richard had shown me and if you're anything like me you learn best when you're shown how to do it and then asked to do it by yourself!

The recipe and method for the jam was fairly simple anyway without the prior knowledge to making jam!

Recipe to make around 2kg of jam:

• 1.5kg strawberries (the softer the better)
• 1.5kg jam sugar (preferably with pectin as it helps it to set)
• juice of 2 lemons
• 1-2 vanilla pods, seeds scraped out

Method:

1. Sounds strange but trust me it's needed, pop 2-3 saucers into the freezer.

2. Put all the ingredients into a very large pan and heat slowly so that the sugar dissolves rather than burning.

3. Once the sugar dissolves, bring to the boil and simmer for around 5 minutes. 

4. To test, pull one of the saucers from the freezer and drop a teaspoon onto it; if a skin forms and wrinkles when pushed the jam is ready.

5. If the jam isn't quite set then bring back to the boil for around another 3-4 minutes. I had to do this at least twice before mine set so it all depends on the way you make yours!

6. Leave all to cool for 15 minutes, then take out the vanilla pods. 

7. Pour into a sterilised jam jar, mason jar or any container you have that suits this purpose!

Lemon Curd

This recipe was so simple and tasty, it helped so much with another recipe I used and it made the recipe taste even better!!

Ok so for the recipe you will need:

• zest and juice of 3 lemons
• 150g caster sugar
• 100g salted butter 
• 2 medium eggs

Method:

1. Add all the ingredients together in a small saucepan and whacks until the juice and eggs are all mixed in.

2. Continue to whisk over a low heat until the mixture is thick!

Ok so with this lemon curd I had the genius idea of trying some of it whilst it was still hot, please please don't do it!! As a matter of fact don't do it with any of these recipes as they will all be super super hot and burn a lot!! However once the lemon curd was a lot cooler but still warm I had the idea of dipping a digestive biscuit into the mixture and OMG heaven!! Definitely going to try out a lemon curd style biscuit in the next few months!

Salted Caramel

Last but certainly not least! The salted caramel that was a huge success with all my family when I used it in the birthday cake I made for my brothers birthday BBQ, recipe to come...

Anyway for the salted caramel you will need:

• 200g caster sugar
• 200ml double cream
• 1tsp salt (however I used about 3tsp to make it really salty but your preference!)

Method:

1. Melt the caster sugar over a medium heat into a light brown caramel, keep swirling the pan to ensure no burnt sugar and DONT USE A SPOON AND STIR IT!!

2. This bit WILL splutter but don't worry it's supposed to, pour the double cream into the sugar (still on the heat)

3. Stir over a low heat until you have a smooth caramel sauce consistency and then add in the salt. Leave to cool and pour into your desired container/jar.

So thats all my mason jar fillers, let me know if you try them out! Coming in the next posts you will see how I have used these in my baking!

Thanks for reading,

Caitlin xxx