Love and Fudge

My dear Valentine,

I made you some fudge. It tastes good.

Love,

Stay

Every year I try to make/bake an edible valentine that I'm able to post out to girlfirends. This year I also gave some to some boys - my housemate and my boyfriend. So, I give out a lot of valentines... everyone deserves a little love, right? I had a couple of packets of Love Hearts and knew I wanted to make something with those, and a colleague had recently told me about making fudge with marshmallows. So I did a bit of research, and decided to give it a go. My fudge is based on the recipes here and here, but in the end I left both my phone and my laptop in my bedroom so just ended up winging it. I think it worked!!

Photo by the wonderful Ms Zoe O.

Ingredients:
25g margarine
300g dark brown muscovado sugar
150ml evaporated milk
180g mini marshmallows
300g white chocolate, broken into chunks
Heart shaped sprinkles and love heart sweets, to decorate

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cool time: at least 3 hours
Makes 25 pieces

1. Line a square cake tin with cling film, and put to one side.
2. Place your margarine, sugar and evaporated milk into a large saucepan and stir over a low heat until the margarine has melted and the sugar dissolved. Stop stirring and allow the mixture to come to the boil for 5 minutes.
3. Remove from the heat and add half of the marshmallows to the pan. Fold these into the hot mixture until they have completely melted, then repeat with the remaining marshmallows. Stir in the chocolate until this has melted and the ingredients come together as a smooth, yummy, gloopy mixture. Pour this into the lined brownie tin.
4. Sprinkle on your sprinkles (ha!) then place the love heart sweets message up into the mixture. It doesn't take long for a film to develop on the top of the fudge, so work quickly and just press your sweets onto the fudge lightly so that they stick, but don't sink. Pop your fudge into the fridge for at least 3 hours, but preferably overnight.
5. Using the clingfilm to help you, lift the fudge from the tin and place onto a chopping board. Use a long knife to slice the fudge into squares, using the love heart sweets as a guide. Pro tip when it comes to fudge slicing (seriously, I was taught to slice fudge by the guys at Cambridge Fudge Kitchen) - place your knife against the fudge where you'd like to slice, and press down in a smooth movement. Then, gently slide the knife out of the fudge towards your body. Hey presto, smooth sided fudge!
6. Taste one before sharing with you friends and loved ones. This is a very important step - you need to show yourself some love, too!

Happy Thoughts
x

Banana Breakfast Pancakes

Well folks, today is Friday, which means tomorrow is Saturday, so I decided to share my current favourite Saturday breakfast recipe with you. Easy-peasy yet scrumdiddlyumptious banana pancakes. And they only have 3 ingredients...

This recipe started life a a 2 ingredient pancake recipe, but I just wasn't brave enough to try eating eggy mashed banana, so I tweaked it a little. Pretty sure the fitness fanatics aren't going to go ape for this one, but it's certainly good enough for me!

Ingredients:
1 large banana, or two small ones
1 medium egg
20g self raising flour
A little oil, butter, or frylite for greasing

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 5 minutes
Serves: 1 hungry person, or two not-so-hungry people (it makes 4 pancakes)

1. Break your banana into a bowl and then mash it up with a fork - try to get rid of all the big lumps.
2. Add the egg to the mashed banana and whisk with the fork until combined.
3. Tip in your flour and fold in until just mixed.
4. Heat a little oil/butter/frylite in a pan. When hot, spoon 2tbsp of the pancake batter into the pan and spread into a circle shape with the back on your spoon. Let the pancake cook side for 30-45 seconds, until the edges are cooked and bubble start to form in the centre, then flip the pancake over and cook the other side for 30-45 seconds.
5. Repeat until you've used all the batter, then enjoy your yummy, fairly healthy banana breakfast pancakes!

Happy Thoughts
x

Cake'n'Bake Wednesday: Meringue Ghosts

Here's the final of my "Trick or Treat" themed bakes from Cake'n'Bake Club's October 2012 meeting. I had some egg whites leftover from my pumpkin pie mixture that I needed to use up, and thought that these meringue ghosts would be a great way to do just that. And I really like baking things for Halloween. So here are my meringue ghosts!

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Makes 18 ghosts

Ingredients:
2 egg whites, room temperature
60g golden caster sugar
60g icing sugar
Coloured sugar ball decorations for the eyes

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 1, and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
2. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, then add the caster sugar a little at a time, whisking well between each addition to ensure the sugar has dissolved. By the time you've whisked in all of the caster sugar, you should have a really thick, pillowy and glossy meringue.
3. Gently fold in the icing sugar with a spatula until it's all mixed in, then spoon the meringue into a large piping bag. 
4. Snip of the end of the piping bag and pipe hap-hazard spirals onto the baking sheet, about 2 inches tall. Carefully stick two sugar balls into each meringue pile for eyes.
5. Bake the meringues for 1 hour 30 minutes, then turn off the oven and allow them to come to room temperature with the oven door still closed. This will ensure you have super crisp, super yummy meringues!

Happy Thoughts
x

Cake'n'Bake Wednesday: Raspberry Meringues

This is another recipe I baked for September 2012's "Five-a-Day" theme, and it's one of my favourite EVER recipes. The meringues take a long time to cook, but are SO worth the wait. You can use either fresh or frozen raspberries.

4 large egg-whites (room temperature)

1tsp cream of tartar

115g caster sugar

115g icing sugar

50g raspberries

Prep time: 15-20 minutes

Cook time: 1hour 30 minutes

Makes 18 meringues

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 1 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Chop the raspberries into small pieces.
2. Whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar together until the egg whites are thick, opaque, and stand in stiff peaks.
3. Whisk the caster sugar into the egg whites one tbsp at a time, being sure to whisk well between each addition. If your sugar doesn’t dissolve into the egg whites properly at this stage you will end up with weepy meringues later! When all of the caster sugar has been added you should be left with a mixture that is stiff, smooth and glossy.
4. Gently fold half of the icing sugar into the meringue mixture until combined, but be careful not to beat out too much of the air you’ve whipped in! Add the remaining icing sugar and the raspberries to the meringue bowl, and fold these in gently.
5. Scoop the meringue mixture onto the baking tray using two tablespoons to shape into rough ovals, then bake for around 1 hour 30 minutes until golden brown and crispy on top.  Turn off the oven, but allow the meringues to cool inside the oven – this will create meringues which have a really crispy outer-layer, and a really gooey inside! Once completely cool, store in an airtight container until ready to serve.

Happy Thoughts,
x

Cake'n'Bake Wednesday: Peanut Butter Fudge

In August 2012 the Cake'n'Bake Club decided to brave the British summertime and take our meeting outdoors for a picnic month. We also decided to invite along as many family and friends as possible, and ended up raising a nifty £105 for Marie Curie Cancer Care in the process! This peanut butter fudge is based on Sophie Dahl's recipe, which I stumbled across one day and have loved ever since! It is a very naughty, but very nice treat!

Time taken: 15-20 minutes for preparation plus 2 hours to set.

Makes 15-20 pieces

Ingredients
65g butter
250g brown sugar
65ml milk
150g crunchy peanut butter
1tsp vanilla extract
150g icing sugar

Process

1. Line a small tray with cling film, so that the cling film hangs over the sides. I used one of those plastic tubs that you often get take-away food in as they are the perfect size!
2. Cut the butter into cubes, then melt in a saucepan over a medium heat.
3. Once the butter has melted, stir in the sugar and the milk until all of the sugar has dissolved. Bring the mixture to the boil without stirring. Once the mixture is bubbling leave it on the heat for a further 3 minutes and then remove from heat.
4. Add the peanut butter and the vanilla extract to the mixture and stir until all of the peanut butter has melted. Leave to cool for a few minutes, then tip the icing sugar into the pan. Stir until the ingredients have combined to form a smooth paste.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared tray and leave to cool to room temperature before placing the fudge in the fridge to set (this usually takes at least two hours).
6. Once the fudge has set, use the cling film to help remove the fudge from the tray and cut into squares. Store the fudge in an airtight container.

Happy Thoughts
x

Best Ever Granola

I know I shouldn't toot my own horn, but this might actually be the tastiest granola in the world. It is delicious, and oh so good for you. One of my new year's resolutions for 2013 was to eat breakfast every day, and this recipe makes that a very easy resolution to keep.

I was introduced to the idea (and the starting point for this recipe) by my friend Jen at Cake'n'Bake Club - you can find Jen's version of the recipe here. I used a different variety of nuts and dried fruit to Jen, and added extra honey, because that suited my preference. That's probably the best thing about this recipe, you can make it your own by subbing out the fruit and nuts listed below and replacing them with your favourite. This granola definitely tastes better than any shop bought granola I've tried, and it's healthier to boot!

Ingredients:
50g whole almonds
50g whole cashews
225g rolled oats, the chunkier the better!
25g sunflower seeds
25g pumpkin seeds
50ml sunflower oil
3 generous tablespoons of runny honey
40g dried cranberries


Prep time: 5-10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Makes around 6 portions

1. Start by preheating your oven to 170/gas mark 4, then line a flat baking sheet with baking parchment.
2. Tip the nuts into a food processor and whizz them a couple of times until they are in smaller chunks. Tip the nuts into a large bowl then add the oats and the seeds.
3. Stir in the oil and honey until everything has been coated and the mixture starts to come together, then tip the mixture out onto the lined baking sheet, spreading evenly with the back of your spoon.
4. Bake in the centre of the oven for 10 minutes, then gently remove the tray from the oven, tip the granola back into the mixing bowl, give it a good stir, then put it back on the tray and back in the oven for another 5 minutes - this should help the granola to be cooked evenly!
5. After the granola has been in the oven for the second time, take it out and pour it once more into the mixing bowl, stir through the dried cranberries, then leave the granola to cool, uncovered, in the bowl.
6. Once cool, transfer the granola to an airtight container, where it should keep for up to a week.

Happy Thoughts
x

Cake'n'Bake Wednesday: Quick Sugar Roses

Here's another post from our Valentine's themed Cake'n'Bake meeting in February 2012. A few of the other members seemed keen to learn how to make the little roses that featured on some of my cake pops (posted last week), so I wrote this quick and (hopefully) easy tutorial.

If you want to make large, fantastically detailed realistic looking roses, there are loads of really good tutorials on youtube, (like this, for instance!) However, if you're short on time and equipment but want some small roses to go on top of cupcakes or cakepops, and aren't too fussed about them looking perfect, then this is for you!

You will need some ready to roll/fondant icing in a colour of your choice, plus some icing sugar to powder your hands and prevent the roses from becoming too sticky.

1. Roll your fondant into a sausage shape around 75mm in thickness. 
2. Cut your sausage into 6 pieces, 5 of which are around 1cm long and the other which is 1.5cm long. place any remaining fondant to one side and use this to make other roses.
3. Roll your smaller pieces into balls, and then flatten each into a petal shape with you fingers, paying special attention to the edges, making sure these are as flat as possible. (It's probably best to put some icing sugar on your fingers for this to prevent the petals getting too sticky) The larger piece should also be flattened, but this is better as a long shape.
4. Take your long flat petal and roll this back on itself to make a small spiral. (You can finish here is you just want a rosebud!)
5. Take the smallest of your remaining petals, and press this onto your rosebud at the bottom and sides, but leave the top loose. You want to make sure that each petal overlaps, so place you petals in such a way that the "end" of the last petal you placed is in the centre of each new petal you place. 
6. Use your fingers to roll back the top of each petal, then add the next and repeat the process until all 5 petals are used.
7. You'll find that you have quite a large "handle" of icing where you've been adding/holding each petal. to remove this (and ensure your rose has a flat base so it's easier to stick to your cakes and pops) place a small sharp knife where you'd like to trim the base, then gently apply pressure whilst you turn the rose. You should be left with a pretty rose with a flat base perfect for adding to small cakes!

I hope you find that helpful...

Happy Thoughts
x

B is for Buy N Large, Your Very Best Friend

Disney Pixar # 9 - Wall-E

I think I mentioned in the last post that I'd found it particularly tricky to come up with an idea for Wall-E, but once I had that idea, it was a bloody good one! When struggling to come up with ideas for the films, I usually fall back on one of the following three options:

1. Does any food feature in the film that could be replicated?
2. Are there and themes or images in the film that can be played on?
3. Where is it set?

Looking for food that featured in the film, I initially brushed this off - Wall-E is set in an almost post-apocalyptic future where the entire human race lives on a massive spaceship and takes all of their food in liquid form, how was I supposed to bake a liquid cake? When I later came back to this idea, I did a random google search for "cupcake shake" and found out that this was an ACTUAL THING THAT BURGER KING DID IN THE US! Cupcake flavoured milkshakes... now there's an idea.

I wasn't able to find a recipe for the Burger King cupcake shake, so I just made up my own. They were really, really tasty, but I don't even want to think about the sugar/fat/calorie content!

For the Cupcakes

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 12 - 15 minutes
Makes 10-12 cupcakes (in my usual cake pan I can get 12 cupcakes from this mixture, but in a new one I used this time which is smaller but deeper I only got 10!)

Ingredients:
100g margarine
100g caster sugar
1 egg
A few drops of vanilla essence (to taste)
1 tbsp milk
A few drops of yellow food colouring (optional)
100g self-raising flour

For the frosting:
75g butter
150g icing sugar
Vanilla essence (to taste)
Up to 2tbsp milk, as necessary
Multi-coloured sprinkles, to decorate

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a bun tray with cupcake cases.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy, then add the egg, vanilla essence, milk and food colouring (if using) and beat until combined. Fold the flour into the mixture, then divide the mixture amongst the prepared cupcakes cases.
3. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown and springy to touch. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.
4. Prepare the frosting by beating the butter, icing sugar and vanilla essence together in a large bowl until creamy. If you find your frosting is too stiff, add a little milk at a time until the desired consistency has been reached. 
5. Once the cakes have cooled, place the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a star tip nozzle and pipe a large swirl onto the top of each cupcake. Decorate with sprinkles then serve. Tip: I LOVE!!! the Wilton 1M nozzle for piping cupcake swirls. Placing even pressure on the piping bag, start your swirl in the centre of the cupcake and pipe almost to the edge, then  - without releasing the pressure - bring your swirl back over itself and into the centre. (I'm not articulating this particularly well, so one day I may venture into video tutorials and post it here...!) 

For the Cupcake Shakes

Prep time: Less then 5 minutes
Cook time: None
Makes 1 Shake!

Ingredients:
2 cupcakes, frosting and all
100mls milk
3 scoops of vanilla ice cream
Sprinkles, to decorate

1. Put the cupcakes, milk and 2 scoops of ice cream into the blender and whizz until smooth. Pour into a  cup and plop the final scoop of ice cream on top. Decorate with sprinkles and enjoy!

Next time it's Up!

Happy Thoughts
x

Clean Cup! Clean Cup! Moove Do~own!!

Disney Classic # 13 - Alice in Wonderland

My inspiration for the cakes (and drinks) came from the food and drink in the movie. Originally I was going to focus on the Mad Hatter's tea party; I was going to make a teapot shaped tea-flavoured cake, then thought perhaps it would be fun to bake the cakes actually in tea cups/mugs. I toyed with the idea of somehow making edible tea-cups, but I couldn't think of how to do so without spending hours moulding them out of sugar paste (which probably wouldn't taste too great with the tea flavoured cake) so I decided against the tea-party. Another idea that I toyed with for a while was a two flavoured mushroom cake - one side to make you grow taller, and the other side to make you grow shorter. (I will most definitely be creating this one in the future. Maybe one day I will hold an Alice style tea party!?) The idea I finally settled on were the "eat me" biscuits and cakes which make Alice grow bigger, and of course I couldn't serve cakes which make you bigger without serving the drinks to make you small again, so I decided to make some (adult) "drink me" potions too ^_^

The tea flavoured cake is a recipe I sort of invented earlier this year. When sat discussing the joys of tea and cake with my friends, Big Mike raised the question of whether or not I'd ever come across a recipe for tea flavoured cake. I hadn't, but for his birthday I decided that I would do the research and try it, however the only recipes I could find for "tea flavoured cake" used green tea. So I decided to adapt a basic sponge recipe by adding tea to it. For the vodka - I came across this video tutorial when searching for "colourful drinks" so I thought I'd give it a go.

Drink Me Potions (Skittles Vodka)

Prep time: 1-2 days             Cook time: none         Serves: this depends on how much you drink! There was more than enough for 10 of us to have a couple of drinks each

Ingredients:

750ml Vodka
174g (share bag size) skittles

1. Separate the skittles by colour into 5 different containers. Add 150ml vodka to each container and place in the fridge. Leave to dissolve at least overnight, but preferably for 2 days.
2. Once the skittles have fully dissolved, use a coffee filters to skim off the excess fat/sugar place into bottles and keep chilled.
3. Serve either in shots or with lemonade.

Eat Me Cupcakes

Prep time: 40 mins Cook time: 20 mins Serves: makes 20 cupcakes


Ingredients:

60ml boiling water
3 tea bags
200g margarine
200g caster sugar
200g self raising flour
2 medium eggs
4tbsp lemon curd
500g ready to roll fondant icing
various food colourings/dyes
piping icing
various dragees/sprinkles for decoration

1. Place the tea bags into a container and pour the boiling water over them. Set this to one side for at least 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and place cupcake cases into a bun tray.
3. Beat the margarine and sugar together in a large bowl until creamy. Sift roughly half the flour into the bowl and fold into the margarine and sugar mixture. Add one egg to the bowl and beat well. Sift the rest of the flour into the bowl and fold into the mixture. Beat in the final egg until all ingredients are combined.
4. The tea should now be cool, and quite thick (almost syrupy). Add the tea to the cake batter a spoonful at a time, mixing well.
5. Carefully spoon 1tbsp of cake batter into each cupcake case and bake for 20 mins, until light brown and firm to touch. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and place on a wire wrack to cool.
6. Whilst the cupcakes are cooling, colour the fondant icing. I used 5 different colours (100g icing each) and this was more than enough to cover 4 cupcakes in each colour, plus some fondant left over.
7. Once the cupcakes are cool, spread each one with a thin layer of lemon curd. Roll out the coloured fondant on a powdered surface until around 7-10mm thick. Use a round cookie cutter to cut 4 circles from the fondant and place these on top of the cupcakes. Decorate each cupcake with writing icing, dragees and sprinkles and enjoy with a cup of tea (or some skittles vodka)

Next time we're flying to neverland, and I'll be making a map for when we're there!

Happy Thoughts
x

Pink Elephants on Parade

Disney Classic # 4 – Dumbo

I had a few different ideas for Dumbo; I was going to try to bake Casey Jr., I was going to make a circus tent, then I thought about making clown and circus animal cupcakes instead, I thought I could make some cute “stork delivering baby” cookies – basically my head was a jumble with the possibilities. There is just so much to love in Dumbo! I was discussing the dilemma of having too many ideas with my friend Helen, when she suggested that I do something based on the Pink Elephant sequence. YES!! Immediately I knew that I wanted to make some pink marshmallow krispie squares – in the shape of elephants!

When it came down to it, I ended up with 6 elephants and lots of spare marshmallow krispie cake which wasn’t the right shape or size to make more elephants, so I cut this into squares and iced some bubbles onto them. ^_^
Here is the fellow I used for my template:

I based these on a mallow krispie recipe found here. Granted, marshmallow krispies may not be as technically difficult to make as some of the other cakes – but I had so much fun making and decorating these cakes I would definitely recommend giving it a try. (Although do not underestimate the time/effort it took to ice these bad boys!)

Prep time: Around 1 hour Cook time: no cook

Serves: 6 elephants and 15 bubble bites
Ingredients:
175g unsalted butter
360g pink and white marshmallows
450g rice krispies
175g icing sugar
1 tsp milk
drop vanilla essence
Pink food colouring
100g white chocolate
Pink icing tube
Black icing tube

1.Line a rectangular baking dish/roasting pan with greaseproof paper.
2.Make a template by drawing/tracing the outline of the image you are using onto some greaseproof paper and cutting this out.
3.Using a very large saucepan on a very low heat, melt 100g of the butter.
4.Add the marshmallows to the melted butter and stir continuously until all melted
5.Add the rice krispies to the melted marshmallow and butter mixture and mix well until all of the rice krispies are covered. TIP: keep the pan on the heat whilst mixing to keep the marshmallow workable – once it cools it becomes really difficult to mix!
6.Press the mixture evenly into the dish/tray you are using and pop in the fridge to cool whilst you make your buttercream
7.To make the buttercream; place the remaining butter, icing sugar, milk and vanilla essence into a large bowl and beat until smooth. Add pink food colouring to reach the desired shade.
8.Remove the krispie cake from the fridge and turn out onto a chopping board. Using your template, cut the cake into the required shapes. Cut any leftover cake into small squares and put to one side for later.
9.Melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over some boiling water. Cover half of the elephants with the white chocolate, and pop in the fridge to set.
10.Cover the remaining elephants with the pink buttercream, making sure to smooth over the surface.
11.Using the original image as a guide – ice the outline and details onto the elephants using the black icing on the pink elephants, and the pink icing on the white elephants
12.Go back to the small squares that were put to one side, ice a bubble design onto these using either or both of the icing tubes.
13.Eat and enjoy (perhaps with a glass of bubbly :-P)

Next time: Bambi - and I’ll be making a lavender loaf cake. (Yes it IS related to the movie… I’ll explain all next week ^_^)

Happy thoughts
x