Chocolate or Toffee Muffins

This is a great Muffin recipe because with most muffin recipes you have to be very careful not to overmix the ingredients but this one is very forgiving.

Ingredients
2 Eggs
200g caster sugar
130g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
160ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
160g melted unsalted butter
120g of dark chocolate roughly chopped or same weight of dr Oetker fudge pieces


Preheat oven to 170C/gas 3

Beat together eggs and sugar until well combined.

 In a separate bowl sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. In a jug combine the milk and vanilla.

When egg mix is smooth slowly add the dry ingredients mix and milk mix to it a little at a time beating slowly as you do. Beat until all ingredients well incorporated.

Stir in the melted butter with a wooden spoon then add half of the chopped chocolate or fudge chunks and mix.

Use an ice cream scoop to ladle into the muffin cases - I find i use 1 and a half scoops to each case. when all  batter is used sprinkle some of the remaining chocolate or fudge chunks on top before putting in the oven to bake, this ensures you have the choc/fudge all through the cake as if you just put in the mix they tend to sink to the bottom.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until sponge bounces back when touched or a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean

You can add additional toppings if you wish, today I made a toffee frosting and then topped with chopped up chocolate bars :)

Then enjoy!

Mississippi Mud Cake

I made this "Thank You" cake today using a recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Home sweet Home book. This Cake would be great if you need an absolutely MASSIVE cake!! I have to say that the picture of theirs in the book must have been taken from a long, long, way away because it definitely was not as big as mine! If you were looking for a smaller cake I would suggest halving the ingredients and having two layers rather than the three I did.

Ingredients (serves 10-12): For the sponge: 250g unsalted butter, softened ♦ 600g caster sugar ♦ 3 large eggs ♦ 470g plain flour ♦ 140g cocoa powder ♦ 2tsp bicarbonate of soda ♦ ½tsp salt ♦ 375ml buttermilk ♦ 1tsp vanilla extract ♦ 375ml boiling water For the frosting: 800g icing sugar, sifted ♦ 120g cocoa powder, sifted ♦ 150g unsalted butter, cubed ♦ 600g full-fat cream cheese For the decoration: 40g dark chocolate, shaved with a vegetable peeler

Method: Step 1: Preheat the oven to 170C. Line three 20cm loose-bottomed cake tins with baking parchment. Using a hand-held electric whisk, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well. In a medium bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Mix the buttermilk and vanilla extract in a jug. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter and sugar in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture. Mix well on a medium speed. Slowly add the boiling water, mixing until combined. Divide the batter evenly among the three prepared cake tins. Bake for 35-45min. Remove from the tins and let cool before frosting.

Step 2: Whisk the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter together on a low speed until there are no large lumps. Add a little cream cheese to loosen the mixture and beat until smooth, then add the remainder and mix on a slow speed. Turn the speed to high and beat the frosting until light and fluffy.

Step 3: Once the sponge layers feel cool, assemble the cake. Place the first layer on a plate and top with 3-4tbsp of frosting. Smooth out the frosting using a palette knife. Sandwich the second layer on top, then add more frosting, followed by the third cake layer. Next, frost the sides and top. I have also used chocolate transfer sheets to make the lettering for the top of the cake and sprinkled chocolate shavings around the base.

Recipe from Home Sweet Home by Tarek Malouf and The Hummingbird Bakers (Collins, £20).

Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting

I needed to make a birthday cake for a friend today and asked another friend Mandy for a suggestion. She came up with Carrot cake which was great because I have never made one before so it was a great challenge!

I read quite a few recipes first and found that although they had many of the same ingredients they varied greatly in quantities and cooking times, so I decided to base my recipe on what I thought would go well after my research :)

Ingredients

Cake

3 Eggs
200g soft light brown Sugar
100g Light brown muscavado sugar
250ml Sunflower oil
300g Plain flour
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
250g grated Carrots
100g shelled walnuts chopped plus extra to decorate

For frosting & decoration

600g icing sugar (sifted)
100g unsalted butter at room temperature
250g full fat cream cheese
1/2 bag of orange chocolate button melts here http://www.silverspoon.co.uk/home/products/cakecraft/silver-spoon-create-flavoured-chocolate-
1 tube green writing icing


Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas 4 and grease and base line the bottom of 3 20cm sandwich tins.

The first thing I did was to make the carrots by melting the orange buttons and using a piping bag fitted with a very small nozzle, piping the carrots on to a piece of cling film on a plastic tray. I then put these in the fridge to set.

To make the cake I Put the eggs, both sugars and the oil and beat until I had a smooth batter. In a separate bowl I had the flour, Baking powder, Bicarbonate of soda, Cinnamon, Ginger, Salt and vanilla extract, I slowly added this to the batter mixture a spoonful at a time beat slowly until all added and well mixed.

I then added the grated carrots and walnuts and stirred in with a wooden spoon.

I then split the mixture between the three tins. I always weigh my mixture to try and ensure the cakes are as even as possible but you could just do this by eye. I levelled the tops and baked for 20 minutes untill the sponge bounced back when pressed and a skewer inserted into centre of cakes came out clean.

When cakes are done, leave to cool slightly in tins before turning out on to a cooling rack and leaving to cool completely.

When cakes have cooled make the frosting by beating together the icing sugar and butter, then adding the cream cheese and beating until glossy and smooth. I then layered up the cake with a layer of frosting between each layer, I then spread the whole cake with a thin layer of the frosting, making sure I still had about a third of the frosting remaining. after spreading the thin layer of frosting I put the cake in the fridge for 30 mins. This layer then works as an undercoat for the next layer and stops you getting crumbs in the top layer.

After the 30 mins I spread the remaining frosting on to the cake and created swirls on the top. I then added Walnut halves and my carrots and used the green writing icing to add the carrot tops.

Sticky toffee pudding and toffee sauce

I made this today for Mother's Day because it is my favourite pudding :) and the toffee sauce is amazing, and would be great made just on its own to go with ice cream.

Pudding Ingredients
50g soft butter plus a little for greasing
175g Dark brown demerara sugar (or just normal demerara if you can't get the dark one)
200g self raising flour plus a little for dusting
1tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp black treacle
2 eggs
1 tsp Vanilla extract
200g pitted dried dates
1 Tbsp Bicarbonate of soda

Sauce Ingredients
100g Demerara sugar
100g butter
100ml Double cream

Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5
Grease a 23 cm Tin (I use a rectangular one) and dust with the flour to make it non stick.

Using a mixer, blend the butter and sugar  together. Slowly add the syrup, treacle, eggs and Vanilla extract.
***Top tip - grease the spoon you are going to use for the syrup & treacle with olive oil first and that will help them to just slide off the spoon ***
Turn the mixer down to a slow speed and add the flour, mixing just until all ingredients are combined then switch off the mixer.

Place the dates in a saucepan with 300ml of water and bring to the boil. pour dates and water into a food processor and puree. add the Bicarbonate of soda, then whilst this is still hot add quickly to the rest of the pudding mixture stirring well to combine. Pour into the tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is firm to the touch. It can look quite dark but that is ok.

Remove pudding from the oven, allow to cool and then turn out of the tin. You can then set aside to be reheated a piece at a time when ready to serve.

Sorry picture is sideways!

For the sauce, melt the butter and sugar together, add the cream and bring to the boil. turn down to a simmer     until the sauce is the consistency you would like (it also gets thicker as it cools when you take it off the heat.) Reheat a piece of pudding (I put it in the microwave for 30 seconds) then add the sauce. Yum! It is great with cream or vanilla Ice cream, or both : )

Dessert Cupcakes - Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

First of a series of dessert themed cupcakes I am planning to make. This first one is a Lemon Meringue Cupcake. I had a little help from my little girl Niamh today too : )

We started by making the cupcakes, we followed the same recipe for the Vanilla cupcakes in an earlier post, although we left out the vanilla as the lemon curd added later gives enough flavour - https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=899605640553638927#editor/target=post;postID=113073759303182014

This recipe will make approximately 16 cupcakes. bake as directed.

Meringue Ingredients
4 egg whites
200g caster sugar
a pinch of salt

whisk the egg whites (preferably in an electric mixer) for 5-6 minutes until they form peaks and the mixture stays in the bowl when it is turned upside down : )

Whilst still Beat add the sugar and salt mix a little at a time. beat for 7 -8 mins until you have glossy smooth stiff peaks. When you rub a little of this mixture between two of your fingertips it should not feel at all grainy, if it does continue beating. Line a baking tray with baking parchment with little blobs of meringue under the corners of the paper to hold on the tray. Set up a piping bag with a star shaped nozzle and fill with the meringue mix.

When the cupcakes are baked turn the oven down to 110C

Pipe the meringue tops, I had one of the muffin cases to hand so that I knew the size I was going for. Once piped you can decorate with sprinkles or decorations like my little butterflies as these sugar decorations do not seem to be affected by further baking. Put the meringues into the oven for one hour and then turn the oven off and leave for a further hour.

When meringues have cooled, Make a hollow in each cupcake so that the top would sit neatly on top. Fill this hollow with Lemon curd and level off. Then simply top with a meringue.

Lovely Lemon drizzle cake

Lemon Drizzle Cake one of my favourites!

Ingredients

125g caster sugar

75g butter

150g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

3 tbsp full fat milk

zest and juice of 1 lemon

for the drizzle

zest and juice of 1 large lemon

2 tbsp of Granulated sugar

Heat oven to 180C. Grease and line a 1lb loaf tin with baking paper

Beat the sugar and butter together with a hand held mixer for 5-6 mins until very light and fluffy add the rest of the ingredients, mixing all the time until well combined

Pour into loaf tin and bake for 35-40 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Whilst the cake is baking make the drizzle by mixing the ingredients together. As soon as you remove the cake from the oven, make some small holes all over the surface using the skewer, then pour over the drizzle and leave to cool slightly before removing from tin. Then just try not to eat it all at once!

Blueberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ian wanted a blue themed cake to celebrate coming first in something at work so I decided to go for a Blueberry cake with a cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients

• 175g softened butter
• 175g golden caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 225g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4tbsp soured cream
• 300g  blueberries

For the frosting

• 200g tub Philadelphia cheese
• 115g icing sugar
• 4 tbsp soured cream

Preheat the oven to fan160/gas 4/Conventional 180

Grease a 22cm Cake tin and line the bottom with Baking paper.

Put the butter, sugar eggs, flour, baking powder and vanilla into a bowl and beat for 2  -3 mins until well mixed and light in colour. Add the soured cream and beat again, then gently fold in half of the blueberries.

I found this mix worked very well as often with fruit cakes the fruit can sink to the bottom, a tip to avoid this is to dust the fruit with a little flour before you add it as it helps to prevent it from sinking to the bottom.  But I don't think that would be necessary here.

Gently spoon this mixture into the prepared tin and smooth out the top. Bake for 50 minutes until it is risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Rest for a couple of minutes in the tin then turn out, remove lining paper and leave to cool completely on a cooling rack

Whilst it is cooling make the frosting. Simply whisk together all the ingredients. It will seem quite lumpy at first, but will eventually become glossy and smooth.

When the Cake  is completely cooled top with the frosting, smooth out and decorate as you choose with the remaining Blueberries. You can store this cake in the fridge for a couple of days, but remove from fridge an hour or two before you want to eat it

Easiest ever Chocolate Brownies!

This is a very popular recipe in our house and one I don't mind making because it is so easy!

Ingredients
175g Butter
200g Dark Chocolate
325g Caster Sugar
130g Plain Flour
3 Eggs
icing sugar to decorate

Preheat oven to 170C. Line a square or rectangular tin with baking paper, don't worry too much about neatness, I just lay it over then press into the sides of the tin.

Melt Chocolate and butter together in a large bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or if you are lazy like me do it in the microwave!:) ) stir well to combine then add the sugarand stir well - it will look like a lot of sugar for the chocolate but it is the right amount. Add the flour and stir then finally stir in the eggs and mix until the mixture is smooth. Pour into lined tin smooth out and bake for 30-35 minutes. When ready cracks should be appearing across the top and the top should crack if you press it lightly with your finger. Remove from oven and rest in tin for 5 minutes. Remove from tin by holding a chopping board over the tin and turning it over, remove tin and lining paper then place another chopping board on top and turn back over. Leave to cool then cut into squares and dust with Icing sugar.

This pic is to show the kind of cracking you should see when the brownies are ready

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Have spent a couple of evenings making this cake, hopefully it has turned out ok!

It is a real chocolate feast with three different types of chocolate cake all layered up, covered with a chocolate ganache and decorated with even more Chocolate! 

The first thing I did was to make the patterned chocolate for the letters and the crumbled chocolate around the sides of the cake. The pattern was added to the chocolate with chocolate transfer sheets. This was the first time I have used them, and they pattern transferred very well, but you mustn't let the chocolate completely harden before you try to cut it or it will break. Here is a link to a video explaining how to use chocolate transfer sheets .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcHSqgIH4No

I cut out my letters then left them to harden further, then removed from sheet and left in the fridge overnight.

Today I got to work on my cakes. The bottom layer is a chocolate coca cola cake and this is the recipe

Ingredients
250g/9oz self-raising flour
300g/10½oz golden caster sugar
3 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
generous pinch bicarbonate of soda
250g/9oz butter
200ml of cola drink
75ml/4¼fl oz milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4. and grease a 24cm loose bottomed cake tin
2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Melt
the butter and cola drink gently in a pan then add to the dry
ingredients, together with the milk, eggs and vanilla. Mix gently but thoroughly
3. Tip into the cake tin and bake for about 40 minutes or until a
skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Remove
from the oven and leave for about 15 minutes. 

The other layers are a recipe split in two to make two different flavour cakes : 

• 175g butter , softened, plus extra for greasing
• 100g white chocolate (we like M & S or Green & Black's with real vanilla)
• 100g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
• 3 eggs
• 100ml whole or semi-skimmed milk
• 175g caster sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 200g self-raising flour
• 2 tbsp very strong coffee (instant is fine)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and bottom-line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins. For the cake, break the white and dark chocolate into two small bowls, then melt in the microwave on High for 1 min or over a pan of simmering water. Put everything else, except the coffee and vanilla, into a large bowl, then beat until creamy.
• Divide the mixture in two, then add the coffee and melted dark chocolate to one bowl, and the vanilla and melted white chocolate to the other. Stir until mixed through, then tip into the tins. Bake for 20-25 mins until risen and slightly shrunk from the sides of the tins. Cool in the tins for a few mins, then turn onto a wire rack.
• When the cakes were cooled I used a smaller tin to trim a rim of about 1cm off them as I felt they were a little big as they were.
• The next job was to make the ganache.
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• Ingredients
• 430ml double cream
• 300g dark chocolate
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• For the ganache, heat the cream in a pan, then break the dark chocolate into a large bowl. Once the cream is just boiling, pour it onto the chocolate, then leave for 5 mins. Stir until smooth, then leave until thickened and cool. 
• I then started to assemble the cake. I used the cola cake for the bottom layer and topped the whole cake with ganache smmothing with a palette knife. The next layer was the white chocolate cake and Again I covered with ganache and smoothed out and finally did the same with the dark chocolate cake finishing with a final layer of ganache, I then used 5 boxes (!!) of chocolate fingers to encircle the inner and outer cakes, starting with the inner one - and I was very good because I only ate one or two :) I then filled the gap between the two with crumbled transfer decorated chocolate and crumbled flake. I then decorated the top with Maltesers (It took a full large bag) and stuck on the letters / numbers with some of the left over ganache. I added a ribbon to give a bit more stability to the chocolate fingers although it was not strictly neccesary
• Sorry blog is a funny layout today, am good with cakes, rubbish with computers : (
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Vanilla Cupcakes

A very simple recipe - that makes oh so cute cupcakes!!

4 med eggs
250g butter at room temperature
250g caster sugar
250g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
seeds from  half a vanilla pod, or 1tsp vanilla extract


Mix all the above together until smooth and creamy. Fill muffin cases 2/3rds full with mixture, smooth tops and bake at 180 for 12-14 mins until golden and a skewer inserted in middle comes out clean. Leave to cool.

For Icing, mix 500g of sifted icing sugar with 160g butter and 2 tbsp of milk and seeds from other half of vanilla pod or vanilla extract. Beat until smooth, then add colouring if required, and pipe or smooth onto cakes and decorate!

Jammie Dodgers and Custard Creams

Treats needed to go in Packed Lunches this week, so it's biscuits today,  2 of my favourite kinds too 

I used the same basic dough for each biscuit which is really easy to make and very pliable to easy to work with.

Ingredients for dough

170g butter
85g icing sugar (sifted)
170g pln flour (sifted)
55g custard powder (sifted)

Cream together the butter and icing sugar - I start doing this with a wooden spoon before using the mixer so that I  don't get covered in icing sugar when turning the mixer on. add flour and custard powder and using a K beater if using a food processor or a spoon and then your hands if you are not, work together until you have a nice ball of dough. The dough should feel lovely and soft and a bit like playdoh!

Roll out the dough and cut into whatever shapes you like. I Did stars for my Jammie dodgers, using the round end of a piping nozzle to cut out a small circle in half of the stars. I cut out the hole whilst the dough was still in the star shaped cutter so that it wouldn't cause the dough to spread out. For the custard creams I used a standard cutter, but for some of the tops I pushed a mesh shape into the dough before cutting out to give some of the tops a more interesting texture. Bake for about 10-12 mins then leave to cool on trays.

For the Jammie Dodgers I just sandwiched them together with the jam using slightly more in the middle so it would come up through the hole, and then sprinkled with caster sugar.

For the custard creams I made a custard flavoured buttercream icing.

Ingredients

80g butter at room temperature

250g sifted icing sugar 

2 tbsp whole milk

50g custard powder

beat the icing sugar and butter together after initially combining using a spoon. add the milk and the custard powder. Taste and add more sugar or custard powder if required. Then use to sandwich biscuits together. You can be quite generous with it.

Chocolate Mousse and Tuile biscuits

After a stressful day with a broken washing machine, some chocolate was required!

This Mousse recipe is from a little book I received today from Sarah Moss - Thank you Sarah x

The Tuile biscuits are a Leiths recipe and this is the first time I have made them.

Mousse Ingredients

100g of milk chocolate 
2 eggs (separated)
70 ml double cream

Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water then stir in the egg yolks and allow to cool slightly.

Whip the cream in one bowl to soft peaks, and beat the egg yolk in another bowl until stiff.

Fold the cream into the chocolate, and then fold in the egg whites. spooon into Ramekin dishes or other suitable dish / glass and chill for 2 - 4 hours. This is a lovely light bubbly mousse and the amounts above gave me enough for 6 ramekin sized mousses.

Next job was the tuiles, and for something so simple looking they were very fiddly!

Ingredients 

55g of butter (melted)
2 egg white
115g caster sugar
55g plain flour

1. Heat oven to 190/ 170 fan/ Gas 5
2. Line 2 baking sheets with baking parchment each cut into 4 squares - don't be tempted to use greaseproof because some brands of that still stick to the tuiles.
3. allow butter to cool to room temp, beat the egg whites with a fork to break them up a little then stir in the sugar. Stir in the butter and finally add the flour. This will give you a batter type mixture.
4. Spread the batter into very thin rounds or thin strips on the baking paper ( I did strips, dropped a half teaspoon of batter on to the baking sheet then spread it down with a palette knife.)
5. Bake for 5 - 7 mins or until lightly browned. lift the biscuits using the  paper and drape over a rolling pin to give a curved shape. Leave to cool then gently remove baking parchment.

and Enjoy!!

Chocolate Macaroons

This is a lovely biscuit, Much simpler than the french style Macaroons, but just as tasty!

Can't remember where this recipe came from as I have it scrawled on a piece of paper in my recipe book.

Preheat oven to 180/ 160 fan/ gas 4

Line a large baking sheet with baking paper

Weigh 100g of ground almonds into a bowl then sift in 125g icing sugar and 1 Tbsp Cocoa powder and stir.
Whisk 2 egg whites until stiff then fold gently into other ingredients. If you have a pipng bag fill it with the mixture with a plain nozzle fitted or if you don't have a pipng bag, fill a food bag and snip off the corner. Pipe 24 small blolbs about 3cm across, leaving a little space between each for them to spread. Wet your finger then use it to gently smooth the surface of each blob, and then leave to dry out for 15 minutes.

Bake for 15-20 mins until Macaroons feel firm and peel easily from the paper. Leave to cool on the paper and then peel off.

For the filling gently melt 50g dark chocolate until smooth, then stir in 2 tbsp of warm milk.leave to cool slightly then use to sandwich 2 macaroons together.

Vanilla Shortbread

I love this recipe, maybe a little bit too much!!

The recipe comes from BBC Good Food, and always turns out a good result.


http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1172/vanilla-shortbread-dough

They have neglected to include cooking times and temperatures though, but I bake at 180/gas  4/fan 160 for about 11 mins.

A tip I have for ensuring an even thickness for all biscuits, and therefore a good bake  is to roll out the dough using guides at the side, I use 2 hard plastic drinking straws, and rolling the rolling pin along these with the dough in between works very well.

Here is a picture of my Shortbread, with my usual liberal dusting of icing sugar!

A great use for this Shortbread is as a gift, who wouldn't want to receive a jar of delicious Shortbread? Yum!

Starting with the basics - Victoria Sandwich

If you can make a good Victoria sandwich you can always have a recipe to fall back on as it is a real crowd pleaser. A Victoria sandwich can also be adapted with different flavour combinations, but following the same simple method.

The method I use is the all in one method shown to me by my Mother-in-law. I find it quick and easy to use and I seem to get great results.

The first thing I do is decide on the size of cake I want, if I am using  20cm sandwich tins I use four eggs.

from this point it is very easy!

1. Heat oven to 180/ fan 160, gas mark 4
2. Weigh the eggs in their shells and remember the weight ( for cake below mine were 216g)
3. Weigh out the same amount of butter (at room temp), same amount of self raising flour and the same amount of Caster sugar. Add 1 tsp of baking powder. You can then decide if you'd like to add a little flavour, I would usually add either 1 tsp Vanilla extract or the grated zest of a lemon.
4. Place all ingredients in a bowl and beat until smooth
5. I grease my 2 sandwich tins with butter and then shake flour over the surface to make them extra non stick.  If I can give you a tip about your tins, never use them for anything other than baking, I have had many tins ruined by making Sausagemeat stuffing in them!
6. Split the mix between the 2 tins and smooth out tops with a palette knife.
7. Bake for about 20 mins until golden. You can test if they are ready by either seeing if cake springs back when pressed lightly or insert a skewer or cocktail stick and if it comes out clean, the cake is done. Turn out on to a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.
8. For the filling gently warm 3-4 tbsps of Strawberry jam,adding 6 strawberries which have been sliced. spread this onto bottom layer of cake and leave to cool.  You can then use a buttercream icing, but I prefer fresh cream, so I whip 200 mls of double cream until it holds its shape well, then I pipe it on to give a nice finish. Place top layer of cake gently on top and then finish with a dusting of icing sugar, and Enjoy!

Strawberry Cake with piped White Chocolate Buttercream icing

Forgot to photograph this cake at home, but here is a picture of my lovely friend Christine with the cake I made for her birthday. The Cake itself was a victoria sponge made with the all in one method, but with the addition of 250g of finely chopped strawberries mixed through before baking the filling between the two layers was strawberry jam and sliced strawberries. For the icing I made a white chocolate buttercream, this was a good consistency for piping, but I think I paid the price for not sifting the sugar as the nozzle was blocked a couple of times. This was really my first attempt at piping after getting new piping bags and nozzles for Christmas, and I was reasonably pleased with it. I covered the whole cake with a layer of icing, then piped flowers on the top and covered sides with grated white chocolate. I sliced four slices into a whole strawberry, then fanned it out a little to use for decoration. The final touch was to use my icing sugar sifter with a little added edible gold glitter to make it just a little more special. Happy Birthday Christine!

Hi, I've started my blog to inspire myself to try out even more recipes this coming year : ). I will use my blog to record what I have made, successes and disasters! Also I will review as many recipes as I can and try to provide hints and tips along the way.