Baking Christmas Haul

So, yes I have been a stranger to blogging for a while now! I have been snowed under, not literally, no snow on this side of the world! But University work has been getting the better of me and I have been stressing over uni reading and the likes of essay after essay. Christmas has gone and I have failed to do any of the baking or crafts I have wanted to, and so has New Year! So one of my 2014 resolutions is to get my life back together, no more sitting down at the end of the day and realising I have accomplished nothing whatsoever. As part of this I want to go back to doing what I enjoy...baking. So this year I hope to go to back to baking with a storm! And with this there is hope for more blogging and more yummy food for me and Andrew to eat!

To start of my back to blogging for 2014, I would like to share with you guys a small haul of baking and kitchen goodies I received for Christmas. :)



One of the presents I got this year was from Andrew's Parents and that was a Cookie press, see below. This looks really exciting, the Stamps all say different things: one says 'Eat Me' with a star on which I think will be perfect for an Alice in Wonderland themed bake, another days 'Baked With Love' with a heart on, I am thinking this will be good for Valentines Day and My 4 years with Andrew is looming soon! Perfect for those events I think! The last one, which you can't see in this picture because it is already on the wooden stamp, says 'Home Made' with a picture of a house, which is really lovely and can be used for any sort of bake. I believe this item was purchased from Wilkinson and it is a very lovely set of stamps, perfect for anybody who likes making biscuits and cookies. I can't wait to try this out and obviously eat some very yummy food! I will let you know how these turn out :)

The next item I received only a few days ago was from my friend Belinda, and that is these beautiful measuring cups! Now the only measuring cups I own are some cheap plastic green ones from PoundLand so these are perfect for me. I often look for recipes online which means some are not metric measurements, so this allows me to easily measure out ingredients without the awfulness of trying to convert them. What I love even more about these is the beautiful Nordic design and instead of plastic these are made with china which means they are a lot more stronger. Also inside the cup, there is in small black print at the rim, the cup size. If interested in these they were purchased from Sainsburys. All in all, these will be very much loved and used and are a beautiful addition to my kitchen and baking equipment :)

The next item is even more useful than the last, in all respects. I am ready to chuck out my awful PoundLand scales that were a nightmare to read off and would fall over if you put too much weight on it anyway. I had an awful experience once, of a bowl full of sugar falling on the floor. Lets just say I don't want to have to go through the nightmare of cleaning up sugar off the floor again! BUT now I don't have to, My Auntie Kathryn brought me a beautiful ColourMatch set of scales. Now no more mess or hassle, I can get the exact measurements like the OCD me loves to do. Also there is no need to constantly be cleaning bowls between measurements because I can now just pile it all in one bowl by resetting the scale back to zero for a new ingredient at the touch of not even a button! The whole thing is touch sensitive, which I can't decide whether I will love or hate. I think it will just take some time to get used to it. One good thing about this also is that I can change unit really easily, so like above, no more annoying conversions! The colour is lovely and goes with my kitchen and the glass like top, makes for a lovely shine. If you are interested in this one, I have a feeling it is from the Argos Colour Match range. This will definitely get some use in my kitchen! 

The next two items I received for Christmas were from my mum, I believe she got these from Lakeland, who with the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who brought out a large range of doctor who themed baking merchandise. My mum got me the two sets of Doctor Who Cookie cutters they were selling, these include a Dalek, Sontaran, Weeping Angel and Tardis cutter.  I almost said cyberman there, then again I am use to when there is a Dalek about, for a Cyberman to not be far behind. This will all be really fun to use and perfect for sitting down and watching Doctor Who with. You never know, these could save the day, like Jammy Dodgers did not so long ago :) Looking forward to using these! 

Another Item Andrew's parents got me, was this beautiful and yummy looking cupcake book :) I have seen this book before when I was working at WhSmith, but never picked it up. There are some beautiful looking cupcakes in this book and some very yummy recipes that I am dying to try out and share with you guys! There is also information about icing, techniques and more. So I think this will be a very useful book and provide some very very yummy cakes to eat for me and of course Andrew, who will no doubt scoff them all! 

The next and last item is from my mum again. Now this item when I unwrapped it, I have to confess I had no idea what it was. All I saw was a very cute green dog. But then my mum explained, this is a oven grip. Now although I may not use this as much as the scales. I completely adore this. And it is green! One thing I love about this is the way you put your hands in the grip and open the dogs mouth like a puppet. Me and Andrew have had lots of fun snapping the dogs mouth at each other like little kids with a new toy! I have to admit I sort of love the sound the grip makes when you slap the rubber bits of the dogs mouth together haha. I am a little weird though. I love this novelty grip and although may not use it as much as the scales, the little green fellow is very much welcome in his new home. Below is a few different pictures showing what the grip looks like from different angles so you can get an idea of the object as a whole, and just because this little thing is so very awesome. I have a feeling my mum may have also purchased this from LakeLand too :)

Hope you enjoyed my latest blog post, and can't wait to be posting more to you guys soon. I hope you all had a great christmas and that 2014 is a good one for you, and you bakers and crafters out there, Keep up the Good Work :D

Old Bakes Part 1

So, I would like to showcase some of my old bakes and crafts on this blog. So I have decided to do this in different instalments. This first one is old bakes, so I hope you enjoy seeing some of my old handiwork :p
These are all from 2013 :) So not too far back in time!

First up is a birthday cake for a friend in April, this was a cinnamon cake with green icing and chocolate shavings. I think Michael would of enjoyed his cake a lot more if he actually had eaten it and not in fact lost his slice :P

Next up is my first batch of cupcakes that I took photos of from when I moved into my new flat. This one has strawberry flavouring for the icing and the cake. However the flavouring was not strong enough to come through the sponge, but it came through on the icing.  I then decorated the cupcakes with red ball decorations.

Next one, just a general cupcake. I have a feeling this may have been orange flavoured, but I can't remember. I am really proud of my piping work on this one though.

Next up some biscuits! These I made for mine and Andrew's 3 years with the farm animal cutters Andrew brought me for Christmas :)

Birthday Butterscotch Bake

Finally a more recent post that I can put up, well not really recent, but more recent than the others.
So the 24th of August was Andrew's 19th birthday and after seeing earlier in the year, some butterscotch flavouring, I was desperate to create a butterscotch flavoured cake for him. However, when it came down to buying the flavouring at the time, they were all out :( So that led me to a bit improvisation on my part.

This is the story of how a butterscotch cake ended being a ginger cake with butterscotch and white chocolate pieces!

So the basic cake ingredients:

• 225g of Butter
• 225g of Caster Sugar
• 4 Medium Eggs
• 2tsp of Vanilla Essence
• 225g of Self Raising Flour

Okay, so that was what I was aiming to follow, so here is what I did. 

I mixed the sugar and butter together till it was really creamy!

I then beat in 4 eggs and slowly mixed in the flour. 

I kept mixing until the mixture was silky soft with no lumps.

Here is where things did not go to plan, I thought I had some Vanilla Essence, so picked up a jar from the cupboard and poured a little into the mixture. I then smelt...Ginger... 

After putting the Ginger in I wasn't too worried at first, because whenever I have used the Ginger essence in the past it has never been a very strong flavour...Boy was I wrong this time! But I have been told the Ginger side to the cake was not a bad addition.

Next I added handfuls of ASDA butterscotch pieces and ASDA white chocolate drops and mixed. 

I greased two pans with butter and split the mixture between the two.

This was placed in the oven for about 20 minutes on 180 degrees until beautifully browned and cooked inside. 

I then left the cake to cool down before decorating. Whilst waiting I made up some simple buttercream using Icing Sugar and butter, often the boxes the icing sugar come in have a basic recipe on the back. When the cake was cooled I evenly spread the buttercream across the cake and sprinkled butterscotch pieces and white chocolate drops across the top.

I then Pushed some candles into the cake and a 'Happy Birthday' decoration. Andrew ended up lighting his own candles, because I am useless at that job!!

Andrew huffed and he puffed, but luckily the three little pig's houses where nowhere to be found.  Finally the last part of the bake, was to cut out a huge slab of the cake each and EAT!!!

Twists On An Older Bake

In my time I have also been exploring with slightly different adaptions of some of the bakes I have done before on this blog and I really wanted to share this one with you guys :)

This is an adaption of the Ice Cream Bread that me and Andrew tried :)

Instead of using Ice Cream we used: 

So instead of using ice cream we substituted it with this Angel Delight Butterscotch Ice Cream Mix, which worked just as well. I am trying to remember if we add anything except flour to this, or whether we made the ice cream mix and added the flour to that. I will update this blog if I can discover so. This was the result of this one:

 If you would like to view the other Ice Cream bread versions and for a more details of this wonder go visit: Ice Cream + Flour = Bread and Bakey Makey Update.

Tin Loaf :)

Okay, Okay, by now you probably have already guessed how much I love baking bread. This one is only a slight variant on my previous ones, but I want to share it with you guys anyway :)

So this one, I have used from Paul Hollywood's How To Bake book (page 34, if you have your own copy :P). This is the ingredients featured within this glorious book:

• 400g of Strong White Bread Flour plus extra for dusting
• 8g of salt
• 7g of instant yeast  - side note: I have noticed most of the small packets of instant yeast contain exactly 7 grams in, so saves you from some awkward measuring, but check the packet just in case.
• 25g of butter
• 250ml of cool water
• Olive oil for kneading and oiling the tin (somewhat optional) 

And the method :) 

Put the flour into a large mixing bowl, add the yeast to one side of the bowl, salt to the other, and plonk the butter in as well.

Pour 3/4 of the water into the bowl and turn the mixture with your fingers. Slowly add the rest of the water  until all flour is picked off of the sides of the bowl. Don't pour all of the water in, in one go because you could cause your mixture to become to soggy, so pour bit by bit and that way you only use what you need. 

Keep mixing until you end up with a rounded dough. Place some oil on a clean surface and knead for 5-10 minutes until you get a neat smooth dough. At first kneading with oil feels really gooey, but Hollywood says to 'work through the initial wet stage'. 

From this   to this 

Then slightly oil the bowl and place the bread in, cover with a tea towel, for its first rise.

whilst waiting, oil a 1kg loaf tin or two 500g

After at least an hour or more, once the dough is doubled in size, shape the dough into a ball by knocking out the air. Then form into the shape of the tin. (Paul Hollywood says: flatten the dough out slightly and fold the sides into the middle) The top becomes smooth, and the fold of the dough will be at the bottom. 

Place the dough into a tin and put the tin into a clean plastic bag for the last rise. 

Once doubled in size, dust the dough with flour and slash the top with a knife.

Fill a roasting tray with water and put into the bottom of the oven .

Bake for half an hour, when its ready you will hear a hollow sound when you tap the bottom and smell a very very yummy loaf!

 

And as usual add some butter or margarine whilst still warm and you get the most yummiest bread and butter ever!!!

Flap-A-Jack Attack

It has taken me a while, I know, but I'm finally getting round to posting a few things on this blog, before the hectic year two of Uni swamps me next week! So I hope you enjoy my post on FlapJacks and if you enjoy books, remember to check out my YouTube channel: BookNomming.

Now for my FlapJacks!!!
The recipe I used was part of a book that my Primary School made, it's a combination of many different recipes from the pupils and teachers. The one I used was not mine unfortunately , but I do have a recipe in that book (Chocolate Fondant Waterfalls - a recipe featured in the old children's programme, Planet Cook!), which I may do soon for you guys...and Andrew of course, who will no doubt eat it all!

So below is a copy of the recipe :) 

Note: It's a relatively simple bake that anyone can do at home and tastes so good!!!

My recipe below is in grams, whereas the picture above is in ounces.

For this Recipe I used Sainsburys Scottish Porridge Oats ( I brought a 1kg bag, but you won't need all of that :p) and Sainsburys Golden Syrup (The Jar held 680g). I also believe for this recipe I borrowed some Demerara Sugar from Andrew's mum as I did not have any at present.

So the first step was to melt 85g of Demerara sugar and 140g of butter over the hob until melted and and all mixed in. However, make sure the sugar does not burn on the bottom of the pan, you can avoid this by stirring the mixture often with a wooden spoon.








The next step was to pour 85g of Golden Syrup into the mixture and mix together.














Once mixed together I turned off the heat and then weighed out roughly 225g of oats which I chucked into the pan.

Keep Mixing the concoction until the oats are all coated in the mixture.












I then greased a large rectangular tray, for this I normally keep the empty wrappers of butter and wipe it across the tray, either that or I cut of a small chunk of butter and just wipe round the tray with my fingers.


Spread the mixture evenly across the tray. In this case, the mixture was nowhere near enough to fill it, so I had to repeat the previous actions to double up the mixture (whilst keeping an eye out for the sneaky fingers of Andrew eating half of the previous mix!).

After placing the second mixture in, I placed the tray into the oven for around 20 minutes, but really it does not need long at all, as long as it has had enough time to brown off and merge a bit more together, it will be fine :)

Wait for it to cool down a little as to avoid burnt fingers and tongues, and as soon as it is cool enough to touch, gobble up as much as you can, before your hungry boyfriend eats it all! :P

Pictures of the finale product :P 

I was very tempted to put a very embarrassing picture of Andrew up eating flapjack but he would only let me put up his plate unfortunately. I am guessing he liked it :P

Muffins...

Muffins... 

Source: http://capt-nemo.deviantart.com/art/Derpy-Loves-Muffins-215964768