The Season of Baking

It seems everyone’s in the baking spirit and its great to see so many bloggers posting about baking! Keep it up guys

Food club this week was suitably Christmukka theme. We had a great night which included: mulled cider, purple brussel sprouts, potato latkas, artichoke dip and more!
As part of my contribution I wanted to make something ‘everyday’ in a holiday theme. Here’s what I made:

Triple chocolate chunk cookies
These are chocolate cookies with milk and white chocolate chunks. The holiday is all about colours, so by adding in some pink hearts and a few sprinkles a chocolate cookie is transformed into a seasonal item.

In my opinion the chewier the better!

Brownies
I made my gooey chocolate brownies and decorated them to look like a Christmas tree. Glitter is always a great decoration
So there you have it. Think of simple ways to jazz up your tried and tested recipes!
Happy Baking

All Purpose Rich Fruit Cake

The original recipe is by Dan Lepard and I’ve altered it slightly. This is a rich moist all purpose fruit cake. You can make it a few weeks before Christmas and feed it alcohol. Or, if like me, you live with people that just love fruit cake, it can be for any occasion.

Ingredients:

• 105g golden syrup
• 125g dark brown sugar
• 100ml double cream
• 7g mixed spice
• 5g cinnamon
• 125g butter
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• Zest of a large orange
• 3 medium free-range eggs
• 500g currants, raisins,mixed peel (any dried fruit)
• 250g natural glacé cherries
• 250g strong white bread flour
• 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• brandy, whisky or alcohol of your choice

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Baking time: 2 hours

Preheat the oven to 170C/335F/Gas 3 and line a round deep cake tin with non-stick paper. Place the syrup, sugar, cream and spices in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Take off the heat and add the butter in small chunks and stir until melted, then add the orange and lemon extracts (or zest). Then add the eggs beat slightly till the mix looks smooth, then stir in the fruit. Mix the flour and soda together in a separate bowl, then stir this through evenly. Pour into the tin and bake for approx 2 hours, using your own judgement and a cocktail stick. Leave to cool in the tin.

When cold, spoon the top liberally with your choice of alcohol, wrap well and leave for 3-4 days before icing or leave for a day and eat it as it is. Alternatively, you could feed it alcohol for a few weeks leading up to Christmas and then cover with marzipan and icing.

The cherries go all chewy and yummy.
Serve with a nice hot cup of tea. Perfect

Much awaited recent order: Surgically altered cupcakes!

My latest order was for a cosmetic surgery company. I was asked for vanilla cupcakes, some with the company logo and some breast cupcakes. I know my family and friends couldn’t wait to see how they turned out so here’s the finished product

I was really happy with the way they turned out and think they look great.

Princess Pink Cakes

I had an order for a 12 year old’s Batmitvah cake. She wanted a chocolate cake with pink butter cream and glitter. Here’s How I did it!

Fill the two layers with buttercream. Then apply the first coat all over the cake to catch any crumbs, refrigerate and repeat the process. Then decorate accordingly. Ive used glitter and a written message.

Waste not want not. With the leftover icing I decorated some princess cupcakes!