Mmmm...Donuts!

I first made these muffins for a family barbecue and they were a massive hit. They're also so much fun to make because you have to pop a spoonful of jam on a layer of mixture, then try and pour another layer of mixture on the jam and put the tray in the oven whilst hoping the jam doesn't sink to the bottom. Luckily I've never had any jam sink and hopefully never will.

These are a firm favourite of a friend of mine who in turn has friends who make jam. Whenever I make them, it always reminds me of all the flavors those friends make and how great they all taste (if you'd like to see their range just search for Strawberry Fields Foods).

Billy, if you're reading this, grab your jam and get baking matey!

You will need:

280g Plain white flour
1 tbsp Baking powder
1/8 tsp Salt
115g Caster sugar
2 Medium eggs
200ml Milk (as you can see in the photo below, I used soya milk and the muffins tasted no different to those made with cow's milk)
6 tbsp Sunflower oil
1tsp Vanilla essence
4 tbsp Jam (whichever flavor you prefer)

For the top:
115g Melted butter
150g Granulated sugar



1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (180 works for Fan, Gas 6) and place your muffin cases in a tray. Alternatively, you can just grease the tray if you don't want to use cases.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and stir in the caster sugar.

3. Separately beat the eggs adding in the milk, oil and vanilla essence. Make a well in the dry ingredients, then pour in the liquid. Gently stir together until the mixture is just about combined. Be careful not to over-mix as donuts are meant to be light and fluffy, more so than cupcakes/muffins.

4. Spoon a little of the mixture into the muffin cases, enough to fill half the space you would usually use for a regular muffin. 

5. Place a slightly heaped teaspoon of jam in the centre of each muffin.

6. Careful pour over more mixture. Enough to cover the jam but not too much that you run out of mixture before finishing the muffins, or to make the muffins rise too much when in the oven.

7. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, until they look golden brown. You can place a skewer through the middle to check they're done but remember that there is jam in the middle which may stick the skewer.

8. While the muffins are cooling on a wire rack, prepare the topping. Melt the butter in a wide shallow bowl and pour the sugar into another of the same size. Check the butter is closer to room temperature and dip the top of the muffin into the butter. Roll the muffin in the sugar. The topping can be done while the muffins are still warm if that is how you prefer to eat them. I tend to let mine cool purely because I usually make them when I'm expecting visitors and prepare them in advance.

With the excitement of the barbecue, I forgot to take a photo of the finished thing. I'll upload one next time I bake them :-) 

Gotta Catch 'Em All!

A while ago I promised by best friend Caz that I would make her a cake for her birthday. As I usually do, I filed this away in my brain as something to think about closer to the time. Well, her birthday kind of crept up on me and it wasn't until the day before that I checked she still didn't have a cake. The problem wasn't the baking of it but more having the time to pick up the things I needed for decorations whilst revising for exams and going to university. Sometimes I am just far too unorganised.

The plan was to make a vanilla sandwich cake (two cakes with buttercream 'sandwiched' in the middle) with a Pokemon design. Various designs ran through my head the evening before her birthday but I settled on one I knew she'd love. A Charmander. 

How to do it though? It took a while but I eventually found a simple and printable outline that I was able to cut out and use as a template to create the design.

The next day, I realised I had a 3 hour window in which to bake and decorate a cake, as well as get myself ready. I decided to stick with a plain vanilla cake, that way there's more focus on the design of the cake as well as it being a no fail recipe. 

With the cake made and cooling down (admittedly it did have to spend some time in the fridge) I moved onto getting the decoration ready. A vanilla buttercream was deemed a good, and tasty, option as it would allow the decoration I bought to stick to the cake. "What was that decoration?" you ask....dried apricots. Stay with me on this one, it does work I promise.

After spreading a generous layer of thick buttercream (just the way I knew Caz likes it), I placed the cut out on top of the cake. I needed something that would make a dark outline on the cake that I could fill in with the apricots to make Charmander actually look like Charmander. Chocolate buttercream was the obvious choice but I decided to give it a bit of a twist. Rather than using cocoa powder, I poured melted milk chocolate into the icing giving it a much smoother chocolate taste. It also meant that the icing would be quite solid and there was less danger of it running all over the cake. 

Once the outline was in place I took the template off the cake and used it to cut some of the apricots into shape, a bit like making a jigsaw puzzle. I placed each apricot with care, finishing the design off with a little blue icing for the eyes and placing candles near the mouth and tail. The idea behind the candle placement was in the hope that once lit in a dark room, it would look like this little character looked like a fire breathing dragon. 

Everything was fine, until halfway to my friend's house the buttercream began to melt! Ditching the Boyfriend with the presents, I ran to party barely saying hello before hurtling into the kitchen and immediately popping  Charmander in the fridge. My poor friend had to look at her cake by standing with the fridge door only slightly ajar in an attempt to keep as much cold around the cake as possible. 

I'm pleased to say that Caz loved her cake, although it did take a while to finish it off. 

Feliz cumpleaños Carolina!!

Mum's the Word

So the plan was that I would make my Mom a birthday cake this year. There was just one problem. I wasn't going to be able to travel back home until the night before her birthday and there's no way I'd be able to surprise her on the day as she'd see me bake it. In the end I had to get a cake from the local supermarket and just about managed to hide it in the boot of the car. She probably knew all about it (Mom's always know everything) but she at least looked surprised when it was brought over to our table at the restaurant.

Since I hadn't made the birthday cake, I decided to make one of her favourites...Carrot Cake. There was still a bit of a challenge though as I can't eat anything with dairy products and my Mom can't have soya. Looking through our rather large collection of recipe books I found the answer, substitute the milk/butter with oil. It makes the cake a lot more moist and healthier (it serves 10 and works out at 299 calories per slice).

Now I always thought that I wouldn't like carrot cake because it had carrots in and as a child I decided that cake that had fruit or vegetables in, wasn't proper cake. However when I made this one, I figured I'd give it a shot and see what it tasted like. I absolutely love it! To the point where I will now order it when I'm out and about.

So here it is. The Great Carrot Cake :)

You will need:

3 Medium carrots (it ends up weighing around 250g)
3 Large eggs
100ml Sunflower oil, plus a little extra to grease the cake tin
100g Light brown sugar
200g Self-raising flour
100g Sulatanas
Finely grated zest of half a large orange, keep the other half to decorate the top of the cake later
1 tsp Ground cinnamon
Half tsp Ground nutmeg
1 and a half tsp Baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees (170 for Fan, Gas 5) and grease a 23cm round cake tin. I tend to use a loose-based tin as it makes releasing the cake much easier. I also like to put a circle of greaseproof paper in the bottom as well.

2. Peel and grate the carrots using a medium/fine grater. Really you can make the carrot as fine as like, just depends on the fussy eaters in your family.

3. Beat the eggs in a large bowl, then add the sunflower oil and sugar. Whisk until well combined. Stir in the carrot and add the rest of the ingredients. It really is a a recipe where you can throw all the things in and mix so don't worry about adding the remaining ingredients in a particular order.

4. All that's left it to pour the mixture into the tin and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. When the time is up, check the cake is cooked with a metal skewer or knife. I have a multi-pronged meat fork (the type used to carve roast meat) that I find works really well as it means I can check the cake all the way across in one go. The cake can be taken out at this point, as it is cooked, but I like to put it back into the oven for another 10-15 minutes. This drys the cake out a little more as the oil and fruit makes it really moist and can give the impression of not being completely cooked. It's more out of preference that I leave it in than anything else.

5. Once out of the oven leave the cake on a wire rack to cool. To decorate, simply sift icing sugar and scatter the grated orange over the top. Now go and make yourself a nice cup of tea, cut a slice of cake and enjoy your day.

Love is in the Air

Part of Valentine tradition is the giving of gifts to that special someone, with that gift most commonly being chocolate. So as Valentine's Day is approaching and being the big softie that I am, I decided to make something yummy for my housemates to enjoy.  What better way to carry that on but by making chocolate cupcakes, but with an added twist....two oranges. I love this recipe because the cupcakes really do taste like Jaffa Cakes, which I have to say are a weakness of mine. 

A few years ago I bought a silicone tray for making heart-shaped cupcakes and I figured it was about time I actually used it. If you don't have one or perhaps are making these last minute, there is another way to make the cupcakes into a heart shape. Take a normal cupcake tin and place whichever paper cases you have chosen to use into the holes. Then using small marbles (or anything else small and round) put one in each hole between the outside of the paper case and the tin. This will make a section of the case turn inward and make a heart shape. You will need to keep the marble in place until the cupcakes are cooked, otherwise they will lose shape and become circular.

This recipe should make 12 but as is always the case when I make cupcakes, I got quite a few more than that. It does depend on how much batter you put into the cases/silicone mould. 

Ingredients:

2 Oranges

125 ml/ 4 fl oz of Milk

225g/ 8oz Plain Flour

55g/ 2 oz Cocoa Powder

1 tbsp Baking Powder

1/8 tsp Salt

115g/ 4 oz Soft Light Brown Sugar

150g/ 5 and a half oz  Plain Chocolate Chips

2 Medium Eggs

6 tbsp Sunflower Oil/ 85g Melted and Cooled Butter

For the Icing:

55g/ 2 oz Plain Chocolate

25g/ 1 oz Butter

2 tbsp Cold Water

175g/ 6 oz Icing Sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees/ Gas Mark 6 and grease the silicone mould or set up the paper cases as described above. 

2. Finely grate the rind of the orange and squeeze out the juice. Pour the juice to the milk until it measures 250 ml and add the rind.

3. In a big bowl sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Stir in the brown sugar and chocolate chips.

4. Beat the eggs in a large jug (if you don't have one then use a bowl; a jug just makes it easier to pour) and continuing beating whilst adding the milk and orange juice and the oil. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the liquid in. Gently stir until all the ingredients are combined.

5. Spoon the cupcake batter into the mould/cases and place into the oven for 20 minutes. Once out of the oven, allow the cupcakes to cool for 5 minuts before putting them on a wire rack. When using a silicone mould, you have to leave the cupcakes in the mould until completely cool. If you try to take the out beforehand then they will fall apart by getting stuck in the corners.

6. To make the icing, break the chocolate into a heatproof bowl and add the butter and water. Place the bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Constantly stir the mixture until melted. Take the bowl away from the heat and sif in the icing sugar, beting until the icing is smooth. You can spred the icing whilst it is still warm but only do this if you planning to eat them straight away. 

I mentioned that I was making these to a couple of my friends and they gave me some really cute pink sprinkles to put on top. When adding decoration to the top of these cupcakes, you really do want to keep it simple. You don't want to put too much or anything complicated as it already has a different shape and the added 'surprise' of the orange flavour. 

Happy Saint Valentine's Day to all you wonderful people. Whether you're in a relationship or not, I hope you have a lovely  day. 

Boys and their Toys

So it's my house mate's 24th birthday this week and as he is a big kid, I thought I'd make him some toy themed cookies. Last year for his birthday I bought him a 3 in 1 Lego set and this year the theme continued with an ice cube tray that makes the ice look like little Lego men. I knew his girlfriend has also bought him a large Lego man head that acts as a cookie jar. I  came up with the perfect thing to fill it with...

Lego head cookies!!!

I got the idea and recipe separately but it's all really simple and if you need to improvise then this recipe can cope with pretty much anything you throw at it. I figured this out as I went along and I've added my thoughts to the original recipe so it's up to you which you follow. Plus it may answer questions you may have, saving you Googling time.

My cookies are a slight variation on the typical iced sugar cookies as I'm not that confident with runny icing (or Royal Icing to everyone else). I've kept the recipe for the cookies themselves the same but instead of Royal Icing, I've used buttercream and a small icing tube with a thin nozzle which you can pick up from any supermarket. The yellow colour doesn't really need to be added to the buttercream but if you want a deeper yellow then you can find the amount of food colouring as an optional extra with the ingredients list for the icing.

Happy baking and I hope the kids (big or little) in your life enjoy them as much as mine did.

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

330g Plain Flour
3/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
225g Butter
225g Sugar (Granulated not Caster)
1 Egg
1 tbsp Milk

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to around 190 degrees C

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and sallt together in a small bowl and set to the side. In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat the egg and add into the butter/sugar mixture along with the milk. Slowly add the flour to the wet mixture until it begins to form a dough and come away from the sides of the bowl. Once the dough has formed, split into two and wrap in clingfilm/foil/greaseproof paper and leave in the fridge for around 2 hours. (Alternatively, if the dough is still sticky then add small amounts of flour until its at a consistentcy you feel is easier to roll out. No need to leave in the fridge, just roll it out).

3. Remove as much dough as you want/need from the fridge and once unwrapped, roll out until it is approximately 1/4 inch thick. If you want to cut the cookies into a Lego head shape then there's a template at the bottom of the post. Otherwise, use whicever cutter or template you wish. (I currently don't have a rolling pin, I will at some point, so if you're in the same position as me then anything cylindrical works. My preferred object is a bottle of wine wrapped in clingfilm to make it more hygenic. Justification for why there is always wine in my kitchen: I have an Italian boyfriend, who is also my housemate, who likes wine.)

4. Grease a baking tray and place the cookies around 1 inch apart (you can place them closer but be careful as they may merge during baking) and place into the oven for 7-9 minutes. (Mine had to stay in for what was more like 15-20 minutes but stick to the original times. If they aren't golden and slightly brown around the edges then leave the cookies in until they are.)

5. Leave on a wire rack to cool. (Wooden chopping board works just as well but you have to keep turning them over to allow each side to cool.)

Vanilla Buttercream

Ingredients:

110g Butter

110g Icing Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

1. Mix the butter and the sugar together. Finally, add the vanilla essence making sure to stir it in well. 

2. Place 2/3 spoon, just one from your cutlery drawer will be fine, of the icing on each cookie and spread over with a knife. 

3. Once all the cookies have been coated with buttercream, use the small tube of icing to draw the outline and face of the Lego head. 

4. Eat and enjoy.