My Birthday Cake

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Yes, I made my own birthday cake. Before I go any further I will say that my lovely hubby did offer to make it, or we could have bought one, but I said no. I wanted to make my birthday cake, and I will tell you why.

Regular readers will know that I recently went to a cake decorating masterclass with Cake Boss Buddy Valastro. At the class, I was basically just having a bit of fun and the cake I decorated was a right mess if truth be told! When we left we were given a decorating set from the Cake Boss range, and I decided that I would like to decorate my birthday cake, using the set. Partly to make use of the set, and partly to prove to myself (and the world) that I am capable of decorating a cake slightly better than the one I did at the masterclass!

We were having a birthday BBQ on the Saturday after my birthday, so on Friday, Monkey and I did a lot of baking. Or at least, I did a lot of baking while he basically ate quite a lot of butter and sugar. He was happily occupied at least!

I made a huge batch of cake mix, all following a very simple recipe. To make a fairly small batch (for 12 cupcakes or a fairly thin layer of sponge) you would follow this recipe.

4oz Self Raising Flour
1 tsp baking powder
4oz soft Marge or butter (I use Stork)
4oz Caster Sugar
2 Large eggs
2-3 drops Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 170°C

Put all in a bowl and whisk with electric whisk until smooth and light. (Yep it is THAT simple!)

Bake 30 mins for cake, or 25 mins for cupcakes. Should be golden and bounce back if pressed gently in the middle)

I made 4 times that amount, made a huge cake, in two layers, and 24 cupcakes.

Then I made lots of lovely buttercream icing, using this recipe: (I made a double batch for my cake and cupcakes)

110g Unsalted Butter at room temperature
60ml Semi-skimmed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
500g sifted Icing sugar

Beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract and half the icing sugar until smooth – can take several minutes with an electric hand mixer.

Gradually add the remaining icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.

If you want different colours – your best bet is to add gel food colouring otherwise the consistency gets a lot sloppier and harder to work with.

On Friday night I dirty iced the cake (or applied a ‘crumb coat’) ready for some fondant. Now I didn’t do quite as cake boss would recommend. I didn’t trim the cake to make it flat (I did plan to cut off the tops of the sponge, but it felt too much like a waste of cake!) and I don’t really have the smoothing tools he mentions in his book. I did pipe the icing onto the cake before spreading with a spatula though, and I have to say that was much easier. Normally i am dragging it all over the place and there is crumbs sticking to the icing everywhere, and it basically looks a bit rubbish. Piping the buttercream onto the cake, and then spreading with a spatula, worked a LOT better!

I made some different coloured buttercream for decorating the cupcakes and used a couple of the tips we already had for piping the decorations on. It started off quite well, and I was really pleased with myself.

Then somehow, it went wrong. I know they say a bad workman always blames his tools but honestly something went weird with the piping tips. I used exactly the same technique from moments before, but they went from looking like this…

to this…

What? How? Oh I don’t know, but they look like I suddenly got drunk while piping, and well, as I am 3 months pregnant, I don’t think that happened. Anyway, hey ho, they will all taste the same!

I had planned on finishing the cake on the Friday night too but this had annoyed me somewhat and by now I was tired and irritable and eventually conceded the point to hubby and agreed it may be more sensible to finish icing the cake the following morning!

Feeling fresh on Saturday I set about decorating my cake. Unlike at the masterclass where I just went all guns blazing with no clear idea in my head, this time I had a vague design idea.

I started with the white fondant, which seemed to go ok, although I did make a bit of a mess on the sides of the cake.

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Thankfully I planned on putting a thick band of icing round this bit, which will hide it but I managed to patch it up a little.

Then I cut some ribbons using the handy cutting tool from the set, and applied round the base of the cake (handily hiding my previous errors!).

The set comes with lots of different shaped cutters, but I chose to just use the star shapes for my cake. So I cut out lots of stars in the different coloured fondant and applied to the cake.

I don’t think I was very delicate with the stars as they look a little more like star fish than stars as they are all wavy, but they still look quite pretty! We’d bought some gel icing pens for writing on the cake with, so I had a little practice, and actually found them really easy to use!

So Ouila! My Birthday Cake and cupcakes! Not perfect and my writing on the cake was a little wonky but overall I was quite pleased. I was pretty chuffed with them, and everyone said they tasted yummy, so a big success overall I think!

I used the Cake Boss circus kit to make my birthday cake, which retails at £25.00. I received the kit free but all words and opinions are my own.

Easter Fun 2014 – 23 Months old

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Happy Easter!! Hope you have all had a lovely relaxed weekend so far and eaten lots of chocolate? No? Well there’s still time!

We’ve had lots of Easter fun so far this year!

We’ve made Easter Nests, Easter Cards and been on an Easter Hunt, and Monkey has loved every minute!

Easter Nests

There is obviously different ways of making easter nests but I like to use Shredded Wheat, as then they feel a bit more nest-y.

So we used:
1 pack of Shredded Wheat 16s
400g Belgian Milk Chocolate (we are a little in love with the Waitrose own brand Belgian Milk Chocolate at the mo – seriously, you should try it, yummy!!) We actually used a little less than this as I had scoffed some beforehand, but it would’ve been better if we had the whole bars!
Mini Eggs

Basically you bash up the Shredded Wheat, Monkey helped with this, until it is really fine. I actually find using the end of a big rolling pin is the best bashing method! Lots of fun!!

Melt chocolate, we do it over the hob in a bowl over simmering water, but I hear microwaving is very easy too!

Mix, then scoop into cake cases, and add eggs.

Very simple, tasty chocolatey fun! 🙂

Easter Cards

After the success of Granny’s birthday card a couple of weeks ago, i thought we’d use a similar method for Easter cards and involve monkey with some finger painting! The first time we tried unfortunately Monkey just mixed up the paint and we ended up with some murky brown splodges, he had fun, but not very attractive or easter themed!

We tried again at the weekend with some different colours and had much more success! Once the masterpieces had dried I cut them into egg shapes and stuck them onto some cards. Monkey finished them off with some lovely colouring! Easy peasy Easter cards!

Easter Hunt

Because we would like to avoid too much of a sugar rush, we got some other bits in addition to eggs, to make this an Easter Hunt, rather than an Easter ‘Egg’ Hunt. I dotted the chicks and bunnies, signs and eggs around the front garden (the back garden still being mainly mud at the moment, with less places to hide them!) for Monkey to find. With the weather forecast for Easter Sunday a bit miserable we did the hunt on Saturday afternoon, in case it got rained off on Sunday!.

Monkey loved it, I mean it lasted about 5 minutes but he had lots of fun with all his bunnies and chicks, and putting them in his little basket. He obv loved eating the choccy eggs too!

I used to love Easter as a kid, Easter egg hunts, chocolate, but as an adult I didn’t really celebrate it much. Now we have a little man it is bringing the fun back again and I am loving all the Easter fun this year!

Have you had much fun over Easter?

A very diverse week

Posted by Caroline Elliott

There are many words I could use to describe the past week – hectic, varied, hospital, baking, exciting, depressing, progress, hopeful, honestly I could go on, so I have gone for Diverse.

Right… where to start?

We had a lovely weekend, fairly busy but it was my MIL’s birthday on Sunday so that was lovely, and then my parents are having their kitchen renovated at the moment so we invited them round for Sunday tea. Monkey loved a day with all of his lovely grandparents so that was nice!

Monday was a very exciting day! In case you haven’t heard, I was invited to meet Cake Boss, Buddy Valastro by TLC. It really was a LOT of fun. It was also really tiring – a slightly rushed trip down to central London, hours of being on my feet (soooo not good for my Pelvis but I wasn’t about to make a fuss), and you know how it is, all the mingling and small talk can get quite exhausting at the best of times, let alone when being preggo is tiring me out as it is! It was wonderful but I was so tired, some of my London girls wanted to meet for a drink afterwards but honestly there was no way I could do it, far too tired!

I don’t want to go into too much detail about it here, as there is enough for another post about my SPD this week, but there has been some very low lows and a very happy glimmer of hope this week and hopefully we will be making some progress soon on that front. I was at the hospital on Tuesday which felt like a waste of time but have another appointment on Monday that will hopefully be more positive.

My parents looked after Monkey while I was at the hospital on Tues, and they had a whale of a time. But we are all a bit daft, as I had forgotten to get them a key to the house so Monkey couldn’t come inside in time for his nap. D’oh! They kept him going but by the time I got home he wasn’t very interested in napping! It wasn’t a terrible afternoon, just very tiring. Then by bedtime he was so overtired and honestly I am a dummy as I gave him some cake at tea time and with the over tiredness and sugar the poor lamb took ages to get off to sleep. We really take for granted what a good sleeper he is usually and nights like that are so rare and worse because I caused it. Poor Monkey 🙁

Wednesday saw our second trip to the hospital , for Monkey this time. I’ve mentioned before how a health visitor had moaned at me that he walked with his feet out and that we should get it checked. Blah blah. Anyway, to avoid a repeat of this at his 2 year check we duly went to the Drs and got referred to the hospital. We have now seen a pediatric orthopedic doctor who has confirmed what we thought, that Monkey is normal and that it will probably correct itself naturally as he gets older, and that then as he becomes more self conscious he will probably turn his own feet in. So it was a waste of time, but in the best possible sense, and much as we hoped it would be the case, you never really know. So for all my moaning about it, I know it was worth getting it checked just to make sure that it is all normal!

There’s also lots of progress on the Garden renovation …. more to come on that next week but it is taking shape, eek! We have got the landscapers in and they are doing a fab job!

Also, the work has all been done in my flat, all the mould is gone (it was disgusting) it has been redecorated and new carpets are down. Phew! Hopefully we get new tenants soon, then we can start to think about the more costly job of extending the lease (eek).

Hubby’s parents have been wonderful this week and have helped with some of the housework. I hate it as I am a very proud person and I don’t like admitting I can’t do everything… but I have to accept that with my pelvis the way it is right now, I really can’t do everything. Hubby is doing his best to keep on top of everything but he’s busy and tired too so even a little help from family is making all the difference at the moment. Thank goodness we are lucky enough to have support from all of our family!

Oh I also went for a drink mid-week with a very good friend who was actually my direct manager when I was last pregnant. It was lovely to catch up as it had been a couple of months, and she is getting married to one of hubby’s friends (I set them up, go me!) in August, so there was lots of exciting thing to catch up on! She also very kindly told me that I look much healthier than I did at this point in my last pregnancy. As my manager she was used to a very grey faced zombie staring at her blankly most days last time, and she is right as the sickness and zombie-ness is nowhere near as bad at the moment, so that is a very good positive thought! My pelvis may suck, but at least the sickness isn’t as bad this time. I’ll take that thank you!

I am really hoping that next week is just a little calmer… but Monkey has 2 birthday parties to go to this weekend! Aaaargh No rest in sight yet!

A Cake Decorating Masterclass with Cake Boss Buddy Valastro

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Buddy Valastro, AKA Cake Boss, is an awesomely talented New Jersey Baker who has become a household name in the US, and across the world. Having watched his show a lot, I have also attempted to make his amazing Red Velvet Cake recipe in the past, and have blogged about it. This blog post led to me receiving an invite to meet the man himself! I couldn’t believe it! After much excitement I agreed and made all the arrangements to head to London for the evening.

Last Monday was The Night! I headed to L’atelier Des Chefs in London for a Masterclass in Cake Decorating and to meet the amazing Buddy. I was excited, nervous, awestruck… but you know what, I had so much fun, and he was LOVELY!

The man himself arrived!

He was such a lovely, genuine guy and seemed genuinely happy to meet us all! There was a real mixture of people there from die-hard fans, to journalists, digital media marketing peeps and a few of us bloggers (including the lovely Lucy from Capture by Lucy, and it was great to meet her!). There may have been more variety than that even, there was quite a few people there and I didn’t get to speak to everyone!

After meeting Buddy and his UK ambassador Juliet Sear we headed in to the kitchen where Buddy gave a demonstration of some of his techniques, giving us decorating tips and showcasing his range of products which you can buy (more on that later). He was also answering a lot of questions, on a whole variety of subjects including the balance of personal/private life with filming a reality TV show – to why he does what he does. He was very lovely and genuine and took it all with real aplomb. He said that for him it is all about family – he wants people to bake as a family and show people that anyone can do it. And you know what, I believed him.

Then it was our turn to have a go at decorating cakes. The hard bit of baking, trimming and shaping the cakes had been done in advance so all we had to do was decorate, but it was for a competition judged by Buddy! Yipes! Right off I made a mess of my fondant so he helped me sort it out and we had a lovely piccy together and a brief chat, though I was a bit awestruck to ask any serious questions not related to cake decorating – sorry everyone!

The lovely Lucy from Capture by Lucy

I got the fondant on the cake with the help of his handy smoother tool… (ok so it’s not THAT smooth, but better than I’ve ever managed before!)

But then didn’t really know what to do, and instead of forming a plan, I decided to just have some fun and try out some different techniques, some of which I managed better than others!! My drop lines were not particularly effective as they kept falling off the cake. Think I need some more practice there!!

I was having lots of fun then I looked round and realised some people were actually taking it pretty seriously…. and their cakes looked fab! Oops! So I panicked and stuck a layer of fondant over my messy creation in a last ditch attempt to make it a bit more appealing? (Not sure it worked??!)

Then it was judging time and there was so many fab cakes to choose from (not including mine – though shhh I don’t think mine was the absolute worst – but it was down there with them!) and he chose a lovely cake with a bow decorated by Kirsten at The Little Wedding Helper.

The evening was over and I got my pinny signed by the man himself, and a couple more snaps to remember the evening!

As we were leaving we got an awesome goody bag with a Cake Boss DVD, Baking Tips book, a Cake decorating kit, a book by his UK ambassador Juliet Sear and some fondant icing! Great stuff!

Some of his products were fab, I am very excited to try out the kit we got as a freebie and have popped a couple of others onto my birthday wishlist! 🙂

If you would like to buy any of the Cake Boss range I am sure there are a lot of places you can buy them but I have found them on Very.co.uk

If you would like to see Buddy in action you can catch him on TLC as follows:

The current series of Bakery Boss is on Fridays at 9pm right now

Cake Boss is on Fridays at 9pm from June

Next Great Baker is on Fridays at 9pm from September

I’ve been invited to meet Buddy Valastro!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

If you are wondering “Who is Buddy Valastro?” He is an oh so cool New Jersey Baker who is the star of a very popular show, “Cake Boss” on TLC. He is famous for making some seriously incredible cakes. Cakes that are the size of cars. Cakes that are so intricate and detailed that they look like works of art. He is basically incredible, and very funny. He also has two other shows – “Next Great Baker” a competition show to find the next great baker,which is a lot of fun, and “Bakery Boss” which I have to admit I haven’t seen yet but looks to be a little like Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares…. but in Bakeries, which sounds like it would be very good fun!

And I have been invited to meet him! Moi? Little old me? I have blogged about his amazing Red Velvet Cake recipe before (which is incredible) and somehow, that blog post has led to an invite to a press event! Me and approx. 14 journalists are attending an exclusive cake decorating Masterclass in London. I can’t believe my luck! My initial response to the invite was a LOT of nervous giggling and it took me a few hours to get my head around it! Heck I’m not sure I do have my head around it! But I am definitely excited!!

My version of Buddy’s Red Velvet Cake

Hubby was very excited for me and is happy to look after Monkey while I trot off to London for the evening where I will be attending L’atelier des Chefs for said Masterclass and ‘chat’ with Buddy Valastro! They are even going to pay for my train ticket to London! I’m dead excited (have I mentioned that?) but also really nervous! I love baking and I love his cakes, but he and his staff are INCREDIBLE and create some serious masterpieces. Have a look here for some of their recent cakes.

After a bit of trial and error I have managed to succeed in baking his Red Velvet Cake but this is a cake decorating masterclass, and, well, look at Monkey’s 1st Birthday Cake! Decorator Extraodinaire I most certainly am not! So the masterclass will be great and hopefully I will pick up some tips, but I also hope I don’t completely embarrass myself either!

Decorator Extraordinaire? Ummm …. No

Not to mention the fact that the other attendees are journalists, I am just a mummy blogger who likes baking, I have a feeling I will feel ever so slightly like a fish out of water! I will have to put a lot of effort into faking some confidence I think! I just can’t believe that I have been picked to attend a press event with a celebrity. Little old blogging me! Crazy, but awesome 🙂

I am hopefully going to get a chance to chat with Buddy (eek!) so I need to come up with some questions for him. Are any of you fans of Buddy or Cake Boss? Any burning questions you’d love to ask him? I can’t promise I’ll be able to get answers to any of them but I will give it a good try!

To see Buddy for yourself you catch him on TLC as follows

The current series of Bakery Boss is on every Friday at 9pm

Cake Boss is on Fridays at 9pm from June

Next Great Baker is on Fridays at 9pm from September

SuperBusyMum

Mini Creme Egg Brownies – Success at Last!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I may have mentioned once or twice the challenges I have faced with making chocolate brownies with mini creme eggs. I have seen recipes for them with a big creme egg halved and sat on top of the brownie, and my friend even has a recipe for those that works. Apparently though that is too easy for me.

Is this possible??

For ages I have been seeing pictures of gorgeous brownies where they have cut through a mini creme egg and the fondant is there giving this lovely image. Here’s a picture I found on google.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT COOKED OR TAKEN BY ME 🙂

I have now tried 4 times to get a result similar to this. I winged it first, then I followed a couple of different recipes. No matter what happened though, even when the brownie itself was sill raw, the fondant melted and all we were left with was empty shells! I was starting to think that it is actually impossible and that the images were somehow faked (I’m sure they aren’t, this was just the depth of my despair with my baking).

And then, finally, we have something resembling success.

It’s still a bit hit and miss, there are some empty shells, some nearly empty shells, but (hooray) there are some with fondant in! Wahooo!!

So here is my recipe for some, not so perfect, but ever so tasty Mini Creme Egg Brownies. Before I go any further, step 1 – the trick, it would seem, is to put your mini creme eggs IN THE FREEZER. Ours have been in the freezer for a couple of days. I have tried them in the fridge and at room temperature, and personally, only way I have got them to remotely work, was by freezing them first!

I’m melting…

Ingredients
2oz Plain Chocolate (I use Bournville)
4oz Milk Chocolate
2 x 89g Bags Mini Creme Eggs – FROZEN
8oz Caster Sugar
2 large eggs
4oz Butter
2oz Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Line the base of a well greased oblong tin with greaseproof paper, allowing the paper to come up 2 inches above the rim of the tin.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a heatproof bowl over simmering water on a low heat.

Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Once the chocolate and butter have melted, add to the egg/sugar and mix.

Add the flour, salt and baking powder, and mix gently but thoroughly.

Spread the mixture evenly in the tin. Bake for 15 minutes.

While the brownie is in the oven, take the mini creme eggs out of the freezer and unwrap (they are actually easier to unwrap when cold I find). Monkey had been ‘helping’ me bake and at this point I realised, he was COVERED in chocolate!

After 15 minutes is up, take the brownie out of the oven and quickly place the eggs into the brownie, evenly, or hodge podge, depending on what you prefer!

Bake for a further 13 minutes. Check the brownie is cooked by inserting a sharp knife or cocktail stick into the brownie, if it comes out clear then it is cooked! Times can vary according to ovens so it is worth checking!!

Leave in the tin for 10 minutes to cool, then I left it to cool on a cooling tray for a little longer and then popped the whole thing in the fridge for a bit. Not sure if that helped set the fondant again but who knows!

When it has thoroughly cooled cut and see whether the fondant has evaporated! Hopefully yours will be better than mine. One of the problems with the whole slicing into the egg is that actually the top of the egg caves in when you slice through it as it is quite brittle once it has been melted. So I really don’t know how the other recipes I have seen have managed to have these whole eggs sliced perfectly with the fondant in the exact condition as it would have been….. but then, I am no master baker!!

Give these a try though, they are very very yummy even if they aren’t 100% how I wanted them to turn out!!

I’m always on the lookout for improvements, so may try and do them in a slightly smaller tin next time, so they are deeper… and may change the timings slightly so the creme eggs are literally int here for 10 mins. I am happy with these taste wise though and I’m not really sure I have the energy to try them again for a while, so I thought I would share the recipe with you now 🙂

Have you tried Creme Egg Brownies yet?

Word of the Week? Trying

Posted by Caroline Elliott

The word that best sums up this week is

I think this word is perfect for this week as there is more than one meaning.

Starting with the positives, I have been trying out new things this week, starting with my website redesign and then my new linky the Creative Challenge which went live on Wednesday (and is still open if anyone has been creative this week and fancies joining in?)

Monkey has also been trying more with his speech, yep at 21 months we have no words, I know it’s within the normal range but I really want him to talk. And he’s getting closer, I really believe it. I say something and sometimes he tries to say it back. Onion = Oeeeaaa, Garlic = Garya, Zip =Zzzzz. Just a few examples and I know he’s not there yet, but he is trying, which means the world to me.

On to the not so positive side…

I’ve also been trying to find the perfect recipe to make creme egg brownies. This has been a very trying experience as I keep failing! Seriously, how hard can it be? First off I tried to wing it, big mistake, you can read more about that here if you like. The next time though, I followed a recipe and if anything, they turned out worse and we actually threw most of them away!

Not only did they look appalling but they didn’t taste good either, really greasy, there was just way too much butter in them. Such a waste of good chocolate, butter, sugar etc. The worst of it was that I attempted to bake these as a way of cheering me and Monkey up on a very trying day where we were both grumpy. Eating all the chocolate and butter and sugar definitely cheered him up, but it certainly did not improve my mood that day!!

It’s my own fault as I wanted to be clever and have mini creme eggs that were within the brownie mixture, rather than full size creme eggs that are kind of sat on top of the brownie. I don’t like to be beaten though so I will be trying again soon. Hopefully I will get it right one day!!

Another trying experience this week was our attempt to cut Monkey’s hair. This is not a fun experience, in fact it is downright stressful. He hates it and cries and squirms and shakes his head about so it’s basically impossible for it to end up looking ok. I know we could take him to the hairdressers, but honestly if we can’t get him to sit still long enough (even with the help of daddy, his fave tv shows, scrummy treats to eat) how the heck would we do it at the hairdressers?

Anyway, this is as good as we could get it.

It looks ridiculous! And I managed to scrape the side of his face with the scissors 🙁 scare me so much!

So yes this week has been partly about trying new things, but it has also been very trying!

What word sums up your week?

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All about Cake – from a Novice Baker! #TheThemeGame

Posted by Caroline Elliott

The Theme for The Theme Game this week is Cake! This has got to be my favourite theme so far, by miles!

Photo_E9938D0D-F5AC-397A-AE44-D77A1C27FF7E

Early days of baking

As you may have seen on my blog before I do enjoy a bit of baking since I have become a SAHM, but this wasn’t always the case, and I rarely get it right first time! I had never even baked a cake before I met my hubby 31/2 years ago! I love cooking and am quite slapdash whereas there is a science to baking which scared me, and I still don’t understand. You can’t just throw in a bit of this or that like you do with cooking as it can make it go horribly wrong!

I am definitely a recipe follower rather than a recipe writer but even then I can get it massively wrong! Hubby is a much better baker than I am and he taught me the basics.The first time we baked together, it didn’t go very well as what I thought was a tub of sugar turned out to be salt, so we had a very salty cake batter! Thankfully we tasted it before we cooked it so we could start again and we ended up with quite a nice cake in the end.

I got bitten by the baking bug after that and have spent the last couple of years trying things out. We spent a lot of time baking in the run up to our wedding as we didn’t have a traditional cake. We asked our mums to bake our favourite cakes and then we made (with the help of one of our lovely friends) lots of cupcakes and the top tier. It was all very bright coloured and imperfect but we loved it. There was so much cake!

I’ve enjoyed expanding my repertoire and trying out new things and I’ve definitely learnt that if it goes wrong the first time, learn from it and try try again! As you can see with our fave Chocolate Cake recipe and the Red Velvet cake, it’s taken more than one go to perfect the method. Other times, like with the Angel Food Cake, I fluke it and it goes well first time!

Doing it wrong! D’oh!

Today is a great example of where I was over-confident and then messed it up royally! I decided to make some Cadburys Creme Egg Brownies. I’ve found some great recipes online – but I decided, in all my wisdom, that instead of following one of these tried and tested recipes, I would wing it a bit and use our existing fudge brownie recipe and then just chuck in some creme eggs. It didn’t get off to the best start when I didn’t even follow that recipe correctly! I was supposed to melt the butter and chocolate together, but I just melted the choc and then had to fish the butter out of all the flour etc and then melt it. Definitely an oops moment!

Then, well it just didn’t work! The creme eggs melted completely so that the gooey centre just infused the whole brownie. It was still very tasty but pretty chewy and you got these lovely egg shells randomly throughout. Not what I intended but hey ho, I’ll know better next time. Note that I am all mellow and calm about this – well I’m sure hubby would testify to my stomping around the kitchen grumbling and berating myself for being so stupid. I can be quite hard on myself sometimes in the moment but usually get more rational when I’ve calmed down a bit!

So, if you think that you can’t bake as you’re hopeless in the kitchen, you really should give it a go because if I can do it then anyone can!

Here’s a very simple recipe to get you started, but even if it doesn’t g0 too well, never mind, try, try again and think about all the cake you get to eat while you try and perfect it. (I actually have to limit my baking these days or I will put all the weight I have lost back on!)

4oz Self Raising Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
4oz Soft Margarine (we use Stork)
4oz Caster Sugar
2 Large Eggs
2-3 drops Vanilla Essence

Preheat the oven to Gas 3 or 170C

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk with an electric whisk until light and creamy.

You can either use this to make fairy cakes or a sponge cake. Bake for 25-30 minutes (depending on your oven). It should be golden and if you press gently in the middle of the cake it should bounce back.

Oila!

Do you bake? Or do you prefer eating cakes? Have you had as many baking fails as me?

Baking with a toddler – messy but brilliant! – 19 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

For quite a while now I have been thinking about doing some baking or cooking with Monkey but honestly have been too scared by the thought of him being in the kitchen around sharp knives, hot ovens, you get the idea. I may have mentioned once or twice that Monkey is a Fussy Eater, and in my extensive reading about ways to help with that I have read that getting them involved in the kitchen is a good way to go. For example, Supernanny’s Little Chef Technique, but, at risk of repeating myself, knives, hot ovens… aaaagh.

Then one day I was getting dinner ready and he was so unhappy at me being in the kitchen that I let him come in with me. He played on the floor to start with with some cake tins and spoons, then he got interested in the sweet potato I was peeling, so I sat him on the step stool so he could see the worktop and he helped me put the chopped sweet potato into the steamer and the peelings in the bin. Simple things of course but it gave me confidence to try baking or something.

One afternoon after a short nap, I decided to go for it, put his lovely pinny on, and we made a very simple Victoria sponge cake. Unfortunately I am a bit of a control freak and didn’t want him to ruin the cake – no matter how much I told myself it didn’t matter how it turned out, I just couldn’t do it! So he helped me grease the tins etc. then I set him up with a mini bowl and all the ingredients (apart from the raw eggs) and he absolutely loved it.

I let him stir the ingredients for the cake too and he loved licking the spoon and bowl once the cake was in the oven.

He had so much fun and then helped me with the washing up.

He’s been dying to do it again and keeps pulling the step stool up to the worktop. It went so well the first time that I thought we should do it again, this time with some yummy biscuits. I’d made them once before and you can see the recipe here.

Again I’m afraid I got a bit freaked when he was grabbing the ingredients as I measured them in so again he got a little bowl of his own, which he loved so I don’t feel too guilty about it! He helped me stir it all up though and again he loved eating the mixture off the spoon.

The greatest thing about this baking experience was how much he enjoyed it!

He carried on playing way after the cookies were in the oven. I love these pics as he looks like a proper little chef!

He was still playing at the worktop once the cookies were baked and I had washed everything up and even cleaned up around him!He had a brief play at the sink then wanted to get back to ‘his’ square of worktop where he was then happy playing with bowls and spoons… and then had a hilarious moment where he realised he could see his reflection in the food processor. So cute as he was pulling lots of funny faces! haha

It was so much fun and I think the first time ever that we have spent an hour and half on an activity! So I have now overcome my fear of having him in the kitchen (not completely of course, a healthy dose of fear for his safety is permanent I think) and am looking forward to making lots more things with him in the future. Whether it helps his fussy eating, only time will tell.

Oh and the baking resulted in this yummy cake

And these yummy biscuits

Do you like baking with your toddler? What do you like to bake with them?

Mary Berry’s Angel Food Cake with Lemon Curd and Passionfruit drizzle

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I love Baking and like to try something new. Sometimes I bake to beat boredom, other times there seems to be so much going on that I have to find time to bake! This was one of those times.

I saw this recipe on Bake Off last year and have wanted to make one ever since but I haven’t have the right tin. For Christmas, my lovely mother in law bought me the tin! Wahoo! So I have been dying to make it ever since. Here is how it went!

Recipe
Cake Ingredients
125g Plain Flour
300g Caster Sugar
10 Large Egg Whites, at room temperature
Finely grated zest of 2 large unwaxed lemons
1 tbsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp Cream of Tartar
1/2 tsp salt

Method
1 – Heat the oven to 170C/Gas 3 and put the oven shelf in the bottom third of the oven

2 – Sift the flour and 100g of the caster sugar into a bowl and set aside. 4

3- Separate the eggs, put the whites into a very large bowl (keep the yolks in a smaller bowl for later) and whisk with an electric mixer on high speed for 1 minute until frothy.

4- Add the lemon zest (careful not to zest your thumb too like I did, ouch!) and juice, cream of tarter and salt and continue whisking for 2-3 minutes until soft peaks will form when the whisk is lifted. I think this is how they should look:

5 – Whisking on high speed, add the remaining 200g caster sugar a tbsp at a time and whisk until the whites form firm but not stiff peaks.

6 – Sprinkle a 1/3 of the flour mixture over the whites and gently fold in with a large metal or plastic spoon until combined (I can’t remember why but you shouldn’t use a wooden spoon to fold egg whites, I think it takes the air out). Repeat with the remaining flour mixture, in 2-3 batches, folding gently to keep as much air in as possible.

7 – Transfer the mixture to an un-greased 25cm Angel Food cake Pan with Legs, then gently run a knife through the centre of the mix to dislodge any large pockets of air.

8 – Bake in the oven for 45 -50 mins, I baked mine for 45 minutes and it was definitely done, maybe even a couple of minutes over. It is done when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

9 – Remove the pan from the oven and immediately turn upside down (hence the legs), Leave to cool for at least 1 hour.

10- Run a palette knife around the inner and outer edges of the pan to loosen it from the pan, then invert the pan onto a plate and use the palette knife to loosen the cake from the base of the tin. Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

Lemon Curd Ingredients

10 large egg yolks
400g Caster Sugar
Finely grated zest of 2 large unwaxed lemons
Juice of 4 large lemons – about 200ml (I don’t have a posh juicer and the juice I squeezed out of my 4 lemons was about 150ml, so I used a bit of Jif lemon to top it up)
175g unsalted butter, cubed

Method
1 – Mix together the egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest and juice in a large pan.

2 – Cook gently over a low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon (make sure to stir the sides and base thoroughly) for 5-7 minutes until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon.

3 – Remove from the heat and stir in the butter until melted and smooth.

4 – Strain the lemon curd through a sieve into a large jug (it suddenly starts to resemble lemon curd at this point!)

5- Mary Berry’s recipe says that you should fill two 350g sterilised Jars with curd and seal with a lid. Then use the rest of the curd for the topping. I only seemed to have enough for one 300g jar and there was nearly 200g left which I used for the topping. I’m not sure if we heated it for too long or if I didn’t have enough lemon juice, but there was nowhere near enough for two 350g jars plus some for the topping!

6 – So fill jars with as much lemon curd as you have and then leave some (the recipe is very vague but I kept about 200g and it seemed to work well and taste yummy) in the jug for the topping. Cover this with clingfilm and leave to cool.

Topping Ingredients
300ml whipping cream, well chilled
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 passionfruits

Method

1 – Whip the cream with vanilla extract until it will form soft peaks.

2 – Spoon the cream over the cold cake and smooth down with a palette knife.

3 – Cut the passionfruits in half and scoop out the seeds and pulp. Stir into the reserved cooled lemon curd and drizzle over the angel food cake before serving.

It’s not exactly the simplest bake in the world and I certainly didn’t do it perfectly (when I was tipping the mixture into the tin I kept finding pockets of flour and sugar – not quite as well folded as I thought!) but it turned out pretty well actually! It tastes yummy and very light though it’s an interesting texture because of the egg whites.

The sauce is a lovely combination of sharp and sweet and it goes very nicely with the delicate flavour of the cake but I actually think the cake would be nice without such a strong topping too.

I am particularly surprised with how well the lemon curd turned out – it has now set and is exactly how I think of Lemon Curd! Feels really nice to have made it – makes me want to make jams and all sorts now haha – maybe one day!

Happy Baking!

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Mary Berry’s Angel Food Cake with Lemon Curd and Passionfruit drizzle