Teacher's whiskey birthday cake and Tetley cupcakes

This is a cake I made for my father-in-law's 60th birthday along with some beer themed cupcakes.

I was a nervous wreck making this cake as it was the first cake I'd made using fondant, however it worked out ok in the end.

The cake itself was two vanilla sponge made in a rectangle tin, I used Jo Wheatley's vanilla birthday cake recipe from 'A Passion For Baking' which is a great sponge to work with. I carved the sponge into a bottle shape and then filled and covered the cake with chocolate buttercream icing. Now came the tricky part - covering the cake in fondant, I used a brown colour to mimick the whiskey inside the bottle and a little black for the bottle top. The Teacher's label was made for me by my lovely friend Paula over at Sweethart's Edible Cake Toppers,  she did a brilliant job with this topper and is always on hand with helpful advice and encouragement, pop over and take a look at her page you will not be disappointed.

The cupcakes are just vanilla and chocolate ones with vanilla and chocolate buttercream, the Tetley beer toppers where again provided by Paula from Sweethart's Edible Cake Topper's.

My Father-in-law was so made up with his cake and I got some really positive comments off all the party guests which for a not so confident cake maker like me it was great to get some positive feedback.

Chocolate heaven muffins

These delicious little chocolate treats come from the book 'weekend baking' by Sarah Randell. I actually made these a while ago but it's took me absolutely ages to get round to blogging about them. I've got a queue of treats waiting to appear on this blog, I'm just struggling to get around to publishing them all - stick with me though readers, I'll get them all blogged about eventually.

These muffins are so quick and easy  to make they can be prepared, cooked and on the table ready to eat within the hour. They are a little pricey to make compared to standard chocolate muffins due to the amount of chocolate used in them however I think they are worth the expense because after all they are chocolate heaven muffins not just chocolate muffins.

I will be honest and say I did not get  to taste these personally this is due to the fact that I made them one lunchtime for my children hoping there may be one left  over for me to taste later. I then went off to work and by the time I got home they had all gone, devoured by my two children, my nephew and my neice. They did all report back that they were delicious and my son asked me to make them again soon which means they most definitely were a hit.

These are the perfect thing to bake in the afternoon ready for when the children come home from school looking for an afternoon snack/treat. Quick, easy and most of all tasty.

The book these are from 'weekend baking' is a really good baking book full of lots of sweet treats there is everything from cakes to cookies to bars and muffins, there is also some unusual flavour combinations that I personally would never think of putting together but after trying them they do work. I've baked quite a few items from this book but these were made before I started blogging but rest assured anything I bake from now on will be photographed and documented on cakes, bakes and family cooking.

Anyway here's the recipe for chocolate heaven muffns

Chocolate heaven muffins from weekend baking by Sarah Randell

Makes 6 (however I got 8 muffins from the quantities below

Ingredients

75g butter

150g milk chocolate (the original recipe calls for 75g dark chocolate and 75g milk chocolate but I'm not a fan of dark chocolate so I never use it and always replace it with milk chocolate. However you can use whichever type of chocolate you prefer)

50g white chocolate

100g soured cream

50ml  milk

50g light muscavado or light brown soft sugar

2 large eggs

175g plain flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 tablespoon baking powder

a pinch of salt

1 tablespoon Demerara sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200c (400f) gas mark 6.

2. Melt the butter in a small pan and leave to cool slightly.

3. Chop all the chocolate into small chunks.

4. In a large mixing bowl and using a balloon whisk, whisk together the soured cream, milk, muscovado sugar, eggs and melted butter.

5. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder. Sprinkle in the salt and add all the chopped chocolate. Using a large metal spoon, fold everything together until combined, but do not over mix.

6. Divide the mixture between the muffin cases. Sprinkle each muffin with a little Demerara sugar. Bake the muffins in the preheated oven for 20 minutes - by which time they will be risen, but still very slightly unset in the middle. They will continue to cook as they cool.

Chicken, potato and spinach curry - Slimming World recipe

Wow I can't believe it's been a month since I last blogged, I do apologise everyone, life has been very hectic over the last month.. I'm now holiday from work for the summer so hopefully I will have more time to devote to my blog.

Anyway the dish above is chicken, potato and spinach curry, this is a Slimming World recipe (which is available from the good to know recipes website) but honestly you would never guess it from the taste or the look of the curry. It is a quick and easy recipe that does not require a lot of preparation and once the ingredients are in the pan you can just forget about the curry until its cooked. These are the kind of dishes I love to cook - put it all in one pot and leave it to cook, it's also a bonus that it is a healthy dish as I am on a bit of a diet at the moment.

The curry was really flavoursome and had the right amount of heat for me although if somebody wanted more or less heat then the amount of curry powder could easily be changed to suit their tastes. My version of this dish was definitely lacking spinach, I had the right amount but as I've not cooked much with spinach I felt as I was preparing it that there was too much and did not use it all. This was a mistake on my part because as it cooked it wilted, so in future when it comes to spinach I will use the amount specified.

We got a good few servings from this recipe, there was only two of us eating it so we enjoyed the leftovers for a couple of days and as with most curries I think it tasted even better after spending a night sat in my fridge. I had mine on it's own but my other half had rice and pitta bread with his which complimented it perfectly.

Chocolate Birthday Cake from 'A Passion For Baking'

I love Jo Wheatley, she's definitely up there with Nigella as my joint favourite family cook.

Jo's first book 'A Passion For Baking' permanently lives on my kitchen table as I use it so much. I have made the Chocolate Birthday Cake from the book at least fifteen times this year alone. It looks and tastes delicious and is really versatile. It is a big hit with family and friends who cannot get enough of the taste. The cake is moist and tasty and the chocolate ganache which I make with all milk chocolate rather than the mix of milk and dark is just to die for, I could just sit eating it with a spoon straight from the dish.

The cake above is from a family gathering and I made it as a last minute offering for the party. I chose this recipe as it has never let me down and I knew everyone would enjoy it. It went down a real treat and I had numerous requests for me to make other people their own individual cakes.

I imagine this particular cake will appear again in the near future (maybe with different decorations) as I make it so much.

Macaroni shepherd's pie

I made this dish a few weeks ago and it went down really well in my house - well who can resist a pasta bake? The dish is a combination of a meat sauce with a macaroni cheese topping. Even my nine year old who is not a fan of cheesy sauces enjoyed this - I think this is because the macaroni cheese and the mince sauce kind of meld into one another and become one especially when it is scooped out of the serving dish and put onto a plate.

The recipe is from the March issue of Good to know magazine however it also available online too, just click here for the recipe. I did make some slight changes to the macaroni cheese part of the recipe as it asks for 350g of Red Leicester cheese now as someone who is watching their weight I personally felt that this was far too much cheese to be using in one dish so I probably put in more like a 125g to 150g. Also the fact that I only had a 250g packet of grated Red Leicester in the house probably helped with this too. The recipe also called for more cheese to be sprinkled on at the end however I missed this part out as I felt it looked cheesy enough without it.I can honestly say that I don't think the dish suffered at all from this change, the macaroni cheese was still very cheesy and it still tasted great.

Here are some pictures of the dish being put together (please excuse some of the pictures as they were taken on my phone).

The mince mixture - I actually made this the night before to save on a bit of time.

The macaroni cheese mixture on top of the mince, ready to go in the oven.

Straight out of the oven.

Macaroni shepherds pie







Chocolate chip cupcakes with chocolate buttercream icing

I made these cupcakes for a trip to Blackpool zoo last week, I thought they would be a perfect edition to the picnic we were going to have. Now whenever I make cupcakes my "go to" recipe is Nigella's fairy cake one from How to be a domestic goddess, I always use this as my basic recipe and then add any additional flavours I need to, however it's also great as a vanilla cupcake recipe. The cupcakes are also moist and full of flavour and they have yet to let me down (I'm touching wood as I type this!!!)

Here's the  mixture waiting to be put into cupcake cases:

and here it is in the cases ready to go into the oven:

Out of the oven and cooling on the rack:

The cases were on the small side either though they were labelled as cupcake cases and in my opinion they were closer to fairy cakes but this did not make any difference to the finished product or the taste of it.

For the chocolate buttercream recipe I went for the one I frequently use from cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery . I do however change the chocolate I use from dark as stated in the book to milk, for some reason I just cannot get into using dark chocolate for cooking I would rather use a good quality milk chocolate. I think the reason I do this is because I am frightened of the dark chocolate being too overpowering and not sweet enough. Anyway here are the finished chocolate chip cupcakes with their chocolate buttercream icing on.

Chocolate chip cupcakes

(slightly adapted from 'fairy cakes' out of Nigella Lawson's How to be a domestic goddess page39)

Ingredients

I got 15 small cupcake size cakes from this recipe

125g unsalted butter

125g caster sugar

2 large eggs

125g self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons milk

100g milk chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/gas mark 6.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy.

3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each egg is added. Then add the vanilla extract.

4. Sift the self raising flour into the bowl and then fold the flour into the mixture.

5. Add the milk to the mixture although if you feel the mixture looks wet enough you can leave this step out.

6. Add the milk chocolate chips to the bowl and fold in, trying to distribute the chocolate chips as evenly as you can.

7. Place the mixture into cupcake cases and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until the cakes are cooked through and golden on top.

Chocolate buttercream icing

(slighly adapted from cupcakes at the Primrose Bakery)

Enough to ice the 15 cupcakes from above

Ingredients

100g good quality milk chocolate

150g unsalted butter

1/2 to 1 tablespoon of milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

175g icing sugar

1. Melt the chocolate in a bowl in the microwave until it is smooth and has a pouring consistency. Keep your eye on the chocolate as it can burn so easily - I usually heat in thirty second intervals and check and stir after each thirty seconds.

2. In a large mixing bowl beat the butter, milk, vanilla and icing sugar with a hand held electric mixer until smooth. Add the melted chocolate and beat again until thick and creamy. If the mixture looks too runny to ice your cupcakes, beat for a little longer and this should thicken it.

3. Ice your cupcakes however you would like to. I used a Wilton 1m nozzle to do the ones above.  

Carrot cake from the Hummingbird Bakery

Ok so I ended up making this recipe after me and my Dad were having a conversation about carrot cake and he said he had a bit of a disaster with one that he had tried to make, his carrots had apparantly come out like long ribbons, I thought this was probably due to how he had grated them. Anyway he said "if anyone can make a carrot cake it will be you" - so in my eyes that was a challenge. I'd never made carrot cake before but I promised him I'd fetch him one the following week so when I got home I poured over my vast collection of cookbooks and decided to give the Hummingbird Bakery recipe a chance. I'll openly admit to owning all three Hummingbird Bakery books and not actually baking anything from them - I think it's a case of too many baking books not enough time to bake from them all.

This recipe is for a three tier cake which is fine if you have three tins but if like me you only have the two then you'll have to bake two layers and then bake the final layer separately. Also let me warn you, you need 300g of grated carrots and if like me you do not have a food processor then you are unforunately going to be grating by hand, however I honestly promise you it is worth all the effort. Just remember when you are arm deep in grated soggy carrot that in a few hours you'll be munching on a delicious piece of cake.

I followed the recipe as it is in the book however I did not decorate with the extra cinnamon as it states in the book as I really detest the stuff - the smell, the taste it just does not agree with me.

Here's the finished product - please excuse the very homemade/rustic look of the cream cheese frosting, no matter how hard I try I can never get it to have the polished perfection look, I will achieve that look one day soon I promise.

Now for the verdict - well it was a big hit with everybody. My Dad and also my Mum loved it, my Auntie and cousin took some home and later sent me a text to tell me how delicious it was. I thought it was tasty, moist and had just the right amount of sweetness. It not only tasted good but it looked magnificent with the three layers, I really wish I had got a picture the inside of the cake but it slipped my mind as we were too busy devouring it. I will definitely be baking this one again so I will try and get a snap then. I honestly can't believe I waited so long to bake a Hummingbird recipe and this successful cake has spurred me on to try some of the other delights from their books. Recommendations of recipes to try are more than welcome.

Carrot cake from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook

Ingredients

for the carrot cake

300g soft light brown sugar

3 eggs

300ml sunflower oil

300g plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, extra to decorate if you like

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

300g grated carrots

100g shelled walnuts, chopped

1. Preheat your oven to 170c (325f) Gas 3.

2. Put the sugar, eggs and oil in a bowl and using a handheld electric mixer beat until all the ingredients are well incorporated - don't worry if the mixture looks slightly split. Slowly add the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, salt and vanilla extract and continue to beat until well mixed.

3. Stir in the grated carrots and walnuts by hand until they are all evenly dispersped.

4. Pour the mixture into your prepared tins and smooth over with a palette knife. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and the sponge bounces back when touched. Leave the cakes to cool slightly in the tins  before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

5. While the cakes are cooling you can prepare your cream cheese frosting for which you will need

Cream cheese frosting ingredients

600g icing sugar, sifted

100g unsalted butter, at room temperature

250g cream cheese, cold

1. Beat the icing sugar and butter together in a bowl using a handheld electric mixer on a medium speed until the mixture comes together and is well mixed.

2. Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until it is completely incorporated. Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed and continue to beat until the frosting is light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes. Do not overbeat, as it can quickly become runny.

3. When the cakes are cold, put one cake layer on a cake stand or plate and spread about one-quarter of the cream cheese frosting over it with a palette knife. Place a second cake layer on top and spread another quarter of the frosting over it. Top with the last cake layer and spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides of the cake. Finish with walnuts and a light dusting of cinnamon if you wish