Red Velvet Cupcakes

I've only baked a red velvet cake once before when I made my partner a gumball machine cake and it had to be very dense to keep the sweets part of the cake up. I liked the taste but wish I could make something more light and fluffy and this lead me to bake some red velvet cupcakes.

I took me a while to find a recipe that I wanted to attempt, some seemed way to complicated but after coming across this Nigella Lawson recipe I knew this one was the one for me. The best thing about today's bake was that I got to have family time with my second cousin from South Africa.

Ingredients

250g plain flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
100g soft unsalted butter (I used stork)
200g caster sugar
1 heaped tablespoon of red food colouring
2 teaspoons of villa extract
2 large eggs (I use free range) 
175 buttermilk
1 teaspoon cider vinegar

For the frosting:

500g icing sugar
125g cream cheese
125g soft unsalted butter
1 teaspoon cider vinegar

Method

First, mix all the dry ingredients together.  

Cream the butter and sugar together. It would look like it normal does. It will more like a dough.

Like this.

Add the food colouring. We used paste.

Mix. It takes a while but it should get up like this.

Add the vanilla extract. We used this one as the baking stuff was 3 for 2 at Tesco.

It smelt so good :)

Mix in the dry ingredients, and eggs bit by bit before adding the butter milk and cider vinegar. This is the second time I have use butter milk. The first time I used it was for blueberry and almond muffins and I think it's a winner for making your cakes oozy.

Separate into cupcake cases. The recipe said it makes 24 but we were a bit generous with the mix so it ended up making 21.

We put all the frosting ingredients in at the same time then realised we needed a food processor. So we mixed them genitally then once incorporated we whizzed them together with the electric mixer.      

The best part about this bake was playing with some different piping nozzles.

These were the results.

We found some raspberry fudge cake toppers which I loved as it reminded me of my polka dot background. They also gave a burst of flavour which complemented the sponge. 

I will defintly bake these again as they went down a treat. I shared with friends the next day and they really liked them too.

If you like chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting why not give it a go?

Happy baking,

Ms B

xx

How to make a football cake

This weekend was my nephew's 2nd birthday and I had a couple of ideas for what cake I would make but decided in the end to bake a football cake. He's football mad at the moment and has impressive skills for a two year old! Not that I'm bias in anyway...

  I wanted to wrap a cute little scarf around the football when I realised that this would be a problem with my sister being a Liverpool supporter and my brother-in-law being a Manchester United supporter. Luckily both team colours are red. Plus with live in Wrexham, Wales so it worked well for this too! 

Now for the baking. I used a two pint pyrex bowl to give the correct shape and used a basic sponge recipe. However, any heat proof bowl will work. Before you make the cake batter prepared the bowl and turned the oven on to pre-heat to 180. Used parchment paper to line a heat proof bowl by cutting it into strips and use butter to 'glue' it down trying to not overlap the paper too much.

Make cake better in a separate bowl. You can use a box mix or the recipe below.

Ingredients 

250g self raising flour

250g soft butter

250g sugar

4 medium eggs (I use free range)

Teaspoon of baking powder

Icing sugar

Jam

White icing

Black icing

Red icing

Green food die 

First mix the butter and sugar together until pale then bit by bit add the flour and baking powder by sifting it into the bowl. Crack the eggs in a mug and beat with a fork and add in a bit at a time alternating between the flour. Once combined pour into your lined heatproof bowl  

Place in the oven for 40 minuets, test the cake putting a skewer in the middle and if it comes out clean the cake is ready, if not leave it for another five minuets and try again. Leave to cool and turn out on your severing place (or cake stand). Cut in half and add your chosen filling. I chose strawberry jam. 

 Next, role out your white icing (tip: put icing sugar on your work station to save stickiness) You can buy icing from most supermarkets however, I got mine from Sugar & Spice as Mike is really helpful and I like to support local businesses. Before you place your icing on top use butter icing, icing sugar or jam  on your sponge so the cake has something to stick to. I used icing sugar for the first time (I normally use jam) and it worked well. Once your icing is on the cake carefully pat it down and cut off the excess (it's always better to have too much and cut off than have too little.)

Role out your black icing and cut in to a pentagon. I started off with a house shape then my partner helped by thinning down the sides for the correct shape.

Place the black shapes on by dabbing your finger (clean of course!) into a bit of water so it can stick to the white icing. Space them out until it looks right.

Next prepare your green butter icing. It's very easy to make just place a few tablespoons of soft butter in a bowl and bit by bit add icing sugar until you can't taste the butter any more. Add in the green food die (I use gel as it is gives a strong colour for little gel). Pipe the butter icing around the cake so it looked like grass. To do this you can use a disposable icing bag with a star nozzle. 

Role out the red icing long enough to wrap around 3/4 of the cake. Role out the white icing and cut rectangles and place along the scarf so there is one red and one white rectangle along the scarf. Use a fork to press the ends of the scarf and wrap around the cake.

I'm happy to say they loved the cake and it went down a treat! 

If you know some one (big or small) who would like a football cake why not give this a go?

Happy baking,

Ms B

xx

How to bake without scales

A sad day came when I lined up all my ingredients to make my first ever muffins and the battery in my scales died :( 

After a day of being grumpy I decided to go against my usually 'everything needs to be exact' ways and when old school by using measuring cups. 

Luckily I have two sets, the standard measuring cups and these cute Russian doll measuring cups.

I decided to make some blueberry and almond muffins as I love both blueberries and almonds so this was a no brainer. I found this recipe on Life Style Food and it just happened to be a Mary Berry recipe! 

I converted the measurements into cups and hoped for the best.
This recipe includes buttermilk and this was the first time I've ever used it resulting in a supermarket staff member and myself hunting it down.

For those of you who are wondering what the difference is between a cupcake and muffin mix it's the way you mix the ingredients. For a cupcake you start with beating the butter and sugar then add in the rest of the ingredients. For a muffin you mix all the wet ingredients and then all the dry ingredients separately before combining together.    

The last ingredient to go in is the fresh blueberries. These are one of my favorite fruits and paired with flaked almonds just gave the muffins a mix of crunchy texture. The blueberries exploded in the muffins which give a pocket of flavour.     

I took some of these into work and I froze some too and they turned out better than I expected (as this was my first time baking muffins).

What's your favorite muffin flavour? 

If you are baking muffins for the first time why not try this Merry Berry recipe?

Happy baking

Ms B

xx

  

Chocolate orange cake

A while a go I made some yummy chocolate orange cupcakes. I liked the recipe so much I thought I would adapt it into a cake.
So the first step I made was doubling the original recipe.

Ingredients

230g (8oz) butter 

230g (8oz) caster sugar

230g (8oz) self raising flour

2 medium eggs

Zest of 1 orange 
2 tablespoons orange juice

The method is the same (see here) as the cupcakes however, this time I split the mix in a 8" sandwich tin.
While it was baking I made some orange butter cream so the cake wasn't overpowered by chocolate. I have got into a habit of just winging butter icing. I start by using two cups of soft butter then adding twice as much icing sugar. A little bit of orange juice and some zest of orange. Using an electric mixer on full power for 5 minutes adding icing sugar until I couldn't taste the butter anymore.

Once the cake was cool I added the butter icing.

Now for the topping. I had ready made chocolate icing already open so I used that and then I added canned mandarin orange to make it pretty. I chose canned as the segments looked nicer than cut up orange.

I took it to a BBQ and I'm pleased to say that it didn't last long. The photo below was after just 5 minutes.

Have you every adapted a cupcake recipe into a cake? Or if you have ever wanted that chocolate orange taste in a cake why not give it a go?

Happy baking,

Ms B

xx

Chocolate orange cupcake

My friends and I have started hosting a 'pub quiz' style night in each others houses and with all the fun, snacks and cloudy lemonade I thought it would be the perfect excuse to bake. I love to bake (if you haven't all ready figured that out) but what I like most is sharing my bakes with friends and family.

There have only been two 'quiz nights' so far but for the first one I make some cookies and used my cookie stamper, you can fine the post about it here.

This time I make chocolate orange cupcakes. I wanted to make these as the host for that night is a chocolate orange fan and I found a yummy recipe online which you can find here.

If you are new at baking there are lots of recipes online with different difficulty ratings and if you are a bit more confident you can adapt the recipes you find by adding your own touch. 

When I first make the cake mix it looked a bit runny but they turned out good. I baked them in my silicone cupcake cases which are a good investment if you bake a lot for your friends. 

This wasn't part of the recipe but I was tight for time so I used ready made chocolate icing then cup up some of the orange I used for the sponge mix and topped off the cupcakes.

 

I made sure I saved some for work the next day and they went down a treat! 

For a different look I sprinkled some green...sprinkles on top :D  

This was a very easy recipe and it was easy to adapt. I may try it again this weekend but make it as a layer cake! Why not give it a go?

Happy baking,

Ms B

xx

Father's day cake

Just a short post today. If you didn't know all ready it's Father's in the UK. Daddy B has seen me make many cakes in his kitchen and take them away without a morsel left for him to try. He has also seen me make cupcakes and cookies which he has been top taste tester! 

As he has been working today we went for a meal last Wednesday and I made him a cake which some of you might have seen on my Twitter and Facebook accounts :) 

For those of you that didn't here it is...

My Dad is a chocolate monster so I made him this double chocolate cake with fresh strawberrys on top and some sprinkles for a spot of colour.

If you would like to have a go making this cake just follow the recipe from my 'The basic chocolate sponge' post. I cheated with the icing as I was tight for time so used Sainsbury's Chocolate Buttercream Icing which is more rich than my butter icing. However, if you want to make your own check out my 'Basic chocolate butter icing'. post. 

Daddy B has been a star so it was the least I could do. 

Why not try baking this for someone special to you?

Happy Father's day and happy baking,

Ms B

xx

  

Chocolate and beetroot cake

*WARNING*

 This cake is easier to make if you own an electric hand mixer and food processor! 

I know what you are thinking...beetroot?! Really?! Well, yes. For a while now I have wanted to attempt baking a chocolate and beetroot cake and the other strange thing about this cake is that it is not made with flour. I do like beetroot but for those of you that don't I have to say that you can't taste the beetroot, the chocolate over powers the beetroot and the texture is similar to a carrot cake.

I scanned the internet and found a few recipes however, I noticed the majority included espresso but as I'm not a fan of espresso. I found one that missed out this ingredient, it was a Jamie Oliver recipe. A staff meeting was coming up so I thought it would be a good opportunity to try it out.

Ingredients:

Olive oil - try find a J.O recipe without this ingredient :) 

Plain flour for dusting

300g good- quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) I found some on offer

250g raw beetroot

4 large eggs (free-range if you can)

150g golden caster sugar

120g ground almonds 

1 teaspoon baking powder 

1 tablespoon of good-quality cocoa powder (not hot chocolate!)

Natural yogurt, to serve - (I didn't include this part)

Method:

I tried to measure out my ingredients however I came in to some difficulty with the beetroot and the fact that I had different size bowls for different ingredients. I would suggest having 2 large mixing bowls and a medium bowl ready, and if you don't have a food processor (like I didn't) I would suggest grating the beetroot first before doing anything else.

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 /350 F / gas 4

• Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a 20cm springfrom tin with olive oil (I normally do this with butter but thought I'd give oil a go. It works just the same so I guess it depends what you have and what you prefer to do.)

• Cut out a circle of grease-proof paper. I used the base of the tin to cut round.

• Dust the sides of the tin with flour, then tap the tin to get rid of any excess. I have never done this before as my tins are non-stick.

• Break up 200g of the chocolate (save the rest for later) and add to a heat proof bowl.

Now I have talked about melting chocolate in the microwave in my previous post. In this post the chocolate is melted over a pan.

• Place your heat proof bowl on top of a small pan of simmering water on a medium heat. (Only put a small amount of water to cover the bottom of the pan twice over). Make sure the bottom of bowl isn't touching the water. Stir now and again.

When your chocolate is melted take the bowl off the pan, tune the heat off first and take the bowl off with a tea towel or over gloves.

As I said before if you don't own a food processor I would do this step before any other. 

• I used a Y-shaped peeler to peel the beetroot but I'm sure you can use any. I kept the tops on while peeling so I could hold on to something while doing this and I also wore rubber gloves as I didn't want red hands for weeks! 

• The recipe then says to quarter them and push through the coarse grater attachment on the food processor, then tip into a large mixing bowl.

If you are like me and don't own a food processor then use the coarse side of your cheese grater. (This part is the most labor intensive).  

• Separate the eggs, placing the whites into a large mixing bowl. I separate my eggs like this, passing it to one half of the shell to the other.

• Add the yolks tot he beetroot, look at those colours! 

• Stir the sugar, almonds, baking powder, cocoa powder and melted chocolate into the beetroot and mix together well. This is where I realised I planned my bowls wrong.

• Use an electric mixer to whisk the egg whites until you have stiff peaks.

• Take your spatula and fold a quarter of the egg whites into the beetroot mixture to loosen, once combined, fold int he rest but try not to over mix!!

Looks disgusting smells divine

• Place your mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for around 50 minuets. Mine took about 45 as I have a fan oven. You can check if your cake is ready by waiting until it has risen and piercing it with a skewer or tooth pick, if it comes out clean it's ready!

Once your cake is cool melt the remaining chocolate as above and drizzle over. I ended up pouring it all over then adding edible glitter :)

It states in the recipe to serve with nature yogurt. I didn't as the cake was for a staff meeting but I would recommend following this step. The cake tastes nice, it didn't turn out dry as I expected it too. I love dark chocolate but if you are not a fan the yogurt will take the slight bitter edge off. 

I had a positive response from the staff and I even got to bring some back home! It states that it serves 16 which I think is about right as you don't need a big slice. 

This recipe was fun to do as it had an unusual ingredient and no flour. One thing it has taught me is that I need to start saving for a food processor!

Why not give it a go?

Happy baking,

Ms B

xx

  

Cookie Stamp Review

Cookie stamps have been on my list of things to try for a while now and I found a pack in ALDI which included six rubber stamps and a wooden stamper.

The messages included; Home Made, I <3 cookies, Eat Me, Made With Love and two seasonal stamps; Happy Easter, Merry Christmas. i thought this was a bargain at £3.99 but the real test was if they worked.   

There are lots of recipes out there, I found this one on The English Kitchen Blog  and it's egg free!

Ingredients:

124g (4 1/2 oz) butter, at room temperature (a generous half cup)110g  (1/2 cup) caster sugar1/2 tsp vanilla paste (I didn't have this so used vanilla extract)60ml (1/4 cup) milk150g (1 cup) plain flour
110g (3/4 cup) self raising flour

Method:

As always I measure out all my ingredients first.

Pre-heat the oven to 180*. The English Kitchen then says to line your baking tray with parchment paper however, I don't own one yet so I turned over a roasting tin and lined that.

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until light in colour.

   

Add the milk and dry ingredients a bit at a time and mix until incorporated. 

I thought it looked it looked a bit wet but trust me it is meant to be like that.

Take a table spoon and scoop out the mix. I think I was a bit too erogenous with this as they came out as mega cookies!  

Use your hands to roll into a ball (of course, make sure they are clean) 

Choose your rubber stamp 

Push the stamp down on the dough ball and then lift.

As you can see it didn't turn out that well so I tried doing it again but before I pushed the stamp down I dipped it in flour and I also put the dough in the fridge for 15-20 mins.

I did this with all the stamps and as you can see they turned out much better.

Bake int he oven for 15 -18 minuets or until they turn golden brown.

Here were the results. 

As I didn't have a baking tray I turned over a glass oven dish, however the second batch slipped off (luckily on the parchment) so I squished the dough together, popped it in the fridge for 10 minuets and tried again. As you can see they turned out with a more rustic look but tasted just as yummy! 

I took these into work and also round to a friends, they all said they tasted good, even if they were being polite I thought they were yummy too.

Over all these were a good investment. There are lots of rubber cookie stamps online so why not give them a go?

Happy baking,

Ms B

xx