Cake'n'Bake Wednesday: Mummified Mini-Pizza

Here's the second recipe I baked for Cake'n'Bake Club's October 2012 meeting - Mummified Mini-Pizzas. I ended up making quite a lot for the Halloween themed meeting, simply because I love Halloween bakes! I'd recommend eating these warm straight from the oven, as they are then REALLY tasty.

Prep time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook time: 25 - 30 minutes
Makes 16 mini pizzas

Ingredients:

For the pizza base:
3g (1/2 packet) dried yeast
1tbsp sugar (any kind)
2 tbsp olive oil
150ml warm water

175g white bread flour
75g wholemeal bread flour
Pinch of salt

For the topping:
50g tomato puree
One red pepper
Half a bag of grated mozzarella (can also use cheese strings, but I find that grated mozzarella tastes nicer!)

1. Start by making your pizza dough. tip the yeast, sugar and olive oil into a jug with the warm water and stir well. Put this to one side for a few minutes to allow the yeast to start working.
2. Tip both kinds of flour and the salt into a large mixing bowl, and mix together with your hands. Make a well in the centre of the bowl of flour and pour in your liquid mixture. Stir the flour from the sides of the bowl into the wet mixture with a fork until a rough dough forms. Tip this out onto a lightly floured surface a knead for a good 10 minutes before returning to the mixing bowl and covering with clingfilm. Leave in a warm place for an hour to prove.
3. After an hour the bread should have double in size. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. 
4. Tip the bread dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly for a minute or so to knock out the air. Roll the dough out to around 0.5cm, then cut circles out of it with a cookie cutter. Place these circular pizza bases onto the baking tray and bake for 10 minutes before removing from the oven to cool slightly before adding the toppings.
5. Meanwhile, cut small "eyes" out of the red pepper. Was the pizza bases are cool enough to handle, spread a little tomato puree on each one. Give each pizza two red pepper eyes, and then arrange the grated cheese around the eyes, leaving gaps in between to look like bandages.
6. Bake for a further 15 - 20 minutes until the cheese has melted and started to brown, and the underside of the pizza is completely cooked. Serve immediately - we don't want those Mummies to escape!

Happy Thoughts
x

Individual Bailey's Cheesecakes (and a very special birthday...)

This post is dedicated to my Mum. The lady who taught me how to bake (and so much more than that!!) The lady who loves Bailey's, and loves cheesecake. Today is my Mum's birthday, so this recipe is especially for her.

Mum and I, circa 1988

There's actually a funny story around this post... you see, although I now live in Cambridge, I grew up in Derby, and that's where my Mum still lives. I only get to go back to Derby 3 or 4 times a year, but Mum's a real opportunist, so whenever I'm back she puts me to work. This could be sewing felt onto jumpers for some festive fun, or adding glitter accents to figurines to make decorations for her Disney Christmas tree (yes, Mum has a Disney Christmas tree, in addition to her traditional Christmas tree. Well, what did you expect!?), but usually she puts me to work in the kitchen. And her favourite thing to get me working on is cheesecake.

So, there was one such weekend I was back in Derby, and I was tasked with making a Bailey's cheesecake for Mum to take into her office on her last day of work before starting a new job. So I set to work, giving just one condition: when Mum got to work the next day and put her cheesecake onto a serving plate there, she would take a photograph for me to use on the blog. She agreed, and an epic, 10-12 slice cheesecake filled with chocolate and Bailey's swirls was created. I quickly jotted down the ingredients and quantities that I'd used, and came back to Cambridge. A few days later, I text Mum to ask how the cheesecake went down, and if she could send me the photos. She replied to say it was really yummy, but she forgot to take a photo. Head, meet desk.

I could have just made another Bailey's cheesecake and taken a photo of that, but I'm strictly tee-total these days, and even when I did drink I didn't like Bailey's, so I couldn't justify making a cheesecake that wouldn't be eaten just to take a photo. I love my blog and my readers, really, I do, but that is a bit too much for me! So the recipe got put on the shelf until the opportunity next arose (i.e. I was next at Mum's house and she wanted another Bailey's cheesecake!!)

Anyway, getting back to the point... the opportunity next arose at Christmas. I couldn't make a whole Bailey's cheesecake as it wasn't completely family friendly. But, I'd recently ventured into the realms of individual desserts with my Individual Malty Malteser Cheesecakes, so I knew just what to do.

Individual Bailey's Cheesecakes!! OK, I think I've prattled on long enough now so just one last thing to say before I get on with the recipe:

Ingredients:
30g melted butter
6 digestive biscuits
60ml double cream
60g cream cheese
30g icing sugar
1tbsp baileys
Grated chocolate, to decorate

Prep time: 15 minutes
Chill time: at least 1 hour
Makes 2 individual Cheesecakes

1. Melt the butter in the microwave, then pop to one side to cool slightly.
2. Put the digestive biscuits into the blender, and whizz until they resemble fine crumbs. Tip the crushed biscuits into the melted margarine and stir until evenly coated. Split the biscuit mixture evenly between the two ramekins, and press down with the back of a spoon. Pop in the fridge to set whilst you prepare the filling.
3. Pour the cream into a small bowl and whisk until thick and pillowy. Add the cream cheese, icing sugar, and Baileys and whisk until all combined to a thick and creamy mixture. 
4. Spread half of the mixture over each biscuit base. Sprinkle a generous amount of grated chocolate over each cheesecake, then pop back in the fridge until ready to serve!

Happy Thoughts
x