Christmas Men

 This Recipe is also covered in gingerbread men with a kick

but.... as it's Christmas I thought I'd go through it again with a few photos

As I made a lot of these this year for friends and family I doubled the original recipe
Recipe Ingredients 


200 g unsalted butter
200 g caster sugar
250 ml treacle
2 egg yolks
500 g sifted plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsps ground cloves
2 tsps ground ginger
1 tsp nutmeg

Destructions 


Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature. Then cream the butter and sugar together

stir in the egg and treacle

combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl

sift the dry ingredients into the butter mix

As the mixture gets thicker and forms a dough you may want to get your hands in there

your finished dough should be easy to mould in to a large ball, chill this in the fridge for at least an hour

when the dough has been chilled it is ready to cut, pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C or gas mark 4.
line several trays with baking paper. Roll out the dough to about 1 cm thick and cut out you cookies with your favourite cutter.  (You may wish to break the dough into quarters to do this  as you may not have enough shelf space in your oven do bake all the cookies at the same time)

place on lined baking trays and place in oven for about 8 minuets. 

cookies will still be a little soft when they come out of the oven when cool enough to handle they can be moved to a wire rack to cool completely

once cooled I store my cookies in a tin for a day, ginger bread always tastes better the day after baking

now they are ready to decorate, be creative I used chocolate chips and white icing but most sweets can be made into gingerbread men buttons. Super markets are filled with various coloured ready to pipe icing.

As I give away a lot of my ginger bread men as gifts I like to wrap them up in shear fabric and tie the top with ribbon the make lovely  parcels for neighbours and unexpected Christmas guests.

White chocolate and coconut loaf

375 g Plain Flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
220 g caster sugar
150 g unsalted butter
3 eggs
40 g coconut
100 g white chocolate

Cream butter and sugar together beat in eggs, in a separate bowl measure out flour and add baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt, sift this mixture into the butter, sugar and eggs then add coconut and white chocolate. Super easy to make i then poured this mixture in to a loaf baking tin lined with baking paper and baked for 1 hour at 175 degrees C.

There was a little mixture left over which i put in muffin cases and baked at 175 degrees C  for 20 minuets.
I thought it was a little dry and next time i make this i may add a little hot water to the mixture but once cooled  it carves like a fresh loaf and is lovely with a smidgen of jam.   

Ginger loaf

It's been a while since i posted any new recipes, due to the volume of birthday cakes ive been making ive been concentrating a lot on decoration and oh what fun we've had with all that fondant. Most of these cakes have been a basic vanilla sponge which you can find the recipe for in Spotty Sponge
How ever i finally invited my mum over for dinner in my new house this weekend and with the evenings getting darker and colder, i think it's quite nice to find those cakes that have a little extra flavour and go well with custard.
Enjoy Ginger Loaf hot or cold, with or with out custard, on your own or with friends and family.

Ginger Loaf 


100 g Caster sugar 
125 g unsalted butter
1 large egg
225 ml Treacle (this is about half a tin, sticking with my table spoon measurement here i went for 5 spoons but if you want a bit more of a kick feel free to put in a little more)
300 g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves ( as with the treacle this is a rough measurement guide and you can alter cinnamon ginger and clovers to taste) 
1/2 tsp table salt
250 ml hot water  


Cream butter and sugar together, stir in egg, stir in treacle.
In a separate bowl measure out flour, add bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt  Slowly in small amount sift the flour mixture in to the wet mix. (we do this slowly so the mixture can absorb the flour evenly, unless you have a high quality electric mixer it which case you can pretty much just wack it all straight in.)

Only the water to add, again we do this slowly to ensure even mixture, do not worry if the mix seems much to wet, the cake we are making is quite moist and sticky. You are now ready to transfer the mix to a loaf tin, in a standard size loaf tin the mix will come nearly to the rim. bake for an hour at 180 deg C / gas mark 4 

Goth girl kitchen, where all the magic happens.

My kitchen is the centre of the home, I am very lucky to have such a big open space to work in and my collection of baking paraphernalia grows larger every week.

Kitchen island courtesy of Ikea

  

Recipe booked stand much need please Santa. 

Halloween

For Birthdays in late October its fun to have a Halloween theme 

This is two basic vanilla sponges with butter cream and jam centre covered with bright green fondant with black fondant detail. The spider legs are made from mint chocolate matchmakers broken and the melted back together at an angle. 

Baby bump cake

Made for a Baby Shower, i had great fun with this cake. It was baked in a silicone bowl, if you havent baked in silicone before you need to set your oven i little bit lower and bake for a lot longer as the material isnt as conductive at conventional baking tins, and you don't want to end up with a runny centre and burnt crust. I baked the "bust" part of this cake in muffin tins and then layed all three cakes on a cake board before coating in frosting and fondant. For a cheeky twist i added a couple of sugar coated chocolates for belly button and nipples. There are plenty of you tube videos for making this cake so i wont go into too much detail but it really is worth the trouble.

Giant cup cake (1st attempt)

I had a silicone giant cup cake baking tin for my birthday, Above is a picture of my first attempt. I wasnt overly happy with the cake as a whole but haven't been deterred and will be having another go. The tips i have for you so far are 

• if like me you don't use boxed baking mixes the instructions on the giant cupcake mould box are useless. So you will  need a six egg cake mix to fill this mould.
• Use a very firm frosting for the top because there's a lot of it when it starts to fall you will get a landslide effect. 
• If you decide it might be fun to make a fake paper case out of chocolate fondant, Don't it's not.
• There is no room on this cake for novelty birthday candles, although some type of topper works very well like a cherry or sweets. 

layered fondant Birthday cake

This is a cake i made for a friend, that was to be revealed as a surprise at a birthday meal. (thank you Nando's staff for not dropping it, i know it was heavy) The cake it's self is 2 hexagon shaped vanilla sponges with vanilla butter cream centre and vanilla butter cream under the fondant. The fondant is attached in layers. Light green all over, followed by the dark green triangles, followed by the yellow strip at the bottom followed by the flowers. I didnt have an actual design in my head when i started this cake, it just kind of evolved by a need to play with my new flower cutting set. Remember when sticking fondant to fondant you only need a small amount of water.

Super Sweet Sixteen

My littlest sister just turned sixteen, and i thought i would let her know she is super sweet, with this OTT vanilla sponge decorated with pink butter cream (just add a very small amount of red food dye) and white chocolate jazzies ( available from any sweet shop, and much easier and cheaper to place than that many hundred and thousands would have been)  The cake is one layer of sponge baked in a hexagon tin.

Here we also have so cup cakes made over with left over frosting

Mini chocolate sponges

Elegant and great for sharing. This cake was made for my Mom. It is original one chocolate sponge mix. Once the cake had cooled i put it in the freezer for half an hour to firm up before carving. I then used a cookie cutter with an approximate diameter of 5 inches and pushed this through the cake, using a knife to help separate one cake into 4 mini round cakes. (this leaves you with plenty of cut off's to sample just to make sure you got your mix right) I then frosted the mini cakes and covered then in white fondant. For finishing touches i added black ribbon around the base and a fancy chocolate for the top 

Black and Red Tile cake

Add caption

Great for a quirky looking cake or even for you favourite football teams colours. This cake was made for a work friend in a basic round tin in two halves. I used a Victoria sponge with butter cream and mixed fruit jam to hold the two cakes together. I then used more butter cream with a little black food colouring in to frost the cake all over. The black food colouring helps to disguise any gaps when the fondant is applied. With store bought coloured fondant (thank you Angel sugar craft supplies) I cut out several squares about 3x3 cm sq. I used the top from an old herb jar to keep this uniform (make sure you clean it thoroughly else your fondant might taste a bit garlicky) When applying the fondant squares to the cake i recommend you start at the top in the centre as you would with any type of tiling, the butter cream will help the tiles stick. Take time and try to get it right first time, patients is preferable to having to wipe frosting off fondant.  As you work your way to the edge of the cake don't worry too much about messy or uneven edges as you can roll many balls of fondant to "hide" this, its not cheating its finishing touches :-) 

Spotty Sponge

Made  for a friend for her birthday i decided to experiment with sticking fondant to fondant, not as hard as i first thought it might be. You use just a little bit of water on the back of the shapes you want to stick. Although i would add make sure you put it in the right place the first time and if you sticking strong colours on be careful how much water you use as it may run.
I have to add here that i recently found the most adorable sugar craft shop that not only make bespoke cakes of what seemed fantastic quality, but also stock tools and  supplies that would enthral any amateur cake maker for a good while. Whilst perusing their ample collection of crafting must wants i noticed they stocked coloured fondant. So whilst i would love to take responsibility for the vivid red on this particular cake it would be most dishonest of me to do so. Thank you Angel Cake. I will most probably be happily spend my pennies with you in cake making times to come.

Vanilla Sponge


100 g /4oz soft unsalted butter
100 g / 4oz self raising flour
100 g / 4oz sugar of your choice (in this case i use just normal caster sugar but a brown sugar would work also)
2 eggs
tea spoon vanilla extract.

This is a basic sponge recipe to make a much cake as i used for the spotty sponge multiple it by 4, so 8 eggs 400 g etc.
cream butter a sugar together until light a fluffy add vanilla extract stir in eggs and flour a little at a time, it really is that simple bake for 20-25 minuets until cake is golden at 170 C/325 F /gas mark 3
You can make just one cake or several layers and stick them together with butter cream, before you ice them.
Spotty Sponge is made up of 3 tiers.
 bottom tier = 4 egg cake followed by the top two tiers being slightly narrower cakes both made with 2 egg mixes each. i trimmed the tops to make them flat, covered them in a vanilla butter cream before icing them with white and red fondant (cheating by using ready made fondant :-P )


Butter cream
225 g /8 oz softened unsalted butter
350 g / 12 oz icing sugar
1 teaspoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat the butter until very soft, stir in vanilla and milk then slowly sift in the icing sugar until beat until smooth, the long you beat this mixture the runnier it will be come so don't over do it or you cake will be sliding all over the place.

 

Chocolate Froggy Birthday Cake

It was recently my frog loving sisters 21st Birthday and i wanted to make her something special for the party..... and so was born the chocolate froggy birthday cake. This cake recipe is great just on its own or you can dress it up like i did for a special occasion. With just a little ready roll icing and hand moulded marzipan

Moist Chocolate Sponge
340g Unsalted butter
340g sugar of your choice
220g self raising flour
170g chocolate powder
6 eggs
hot water

Cream together the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, sift in the flour. In a separate bowl mix the chocolate powder with 2 table spoons of water until it is a smooth paste add more water if necessary and the stir into the main mixture until combined. spoon in to cake tin (this mixture doesn't rise much to don't be worried if the mixture comes close to the top of the tin i used a dome shaped tin for the frog cake to give me a good basic shape to work with later.) Bake for 30-35 minuets at 180 or gas mark 4. The best way to see if a cake is cooked is to gently stick a skewer into the centre when you remove it, if the cake is cooked it will be clean. 

To make a frog

I baked some of the cake mixture separately in a cup cake tin and used two cup cakes to add googly sticky out eyes.  After the cake is completely cool i placed it on a cake board (made from a piece of firm cardboard covered in tin foil)  i cheated just a little bit, there are so many products in your local supermarket that save time and make baking easier and stress free. I used a pre made frosting and covered the cake and attached my cupcake eyes on. Then i used marzipan which i moulded by hand into four foot shapes attaching this around the cake. you should now have a rough froggy appearance. Now the tricky bit, i used ready rolled fondant icing and added green food dye rolling this out i then draped it over the whole cake (including feet) take your time doing this. I also added some extra white fondant icing cut into circles to highlight the eyes and the added pupils and a smile with writing icing.  

Ginger bread men with a kick

A Christmas Favorite, and all those extra spices really make the difference and they make the house smell amazing.

SPICY GINGER BREAD MEN (makes 10)
100g butter
100g caster sugar
125ml treacle (you can also use golden syrup if you want to make a milder biscuit)
1 egg yolk
250g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 ground cinnamon
1/2 nutmeg
whole teaspoon ground cloves
whole teaspoon ginger


Cream butter and sugar together until smooth, stir in the treacle and then the egg yolk, combine your dry ingredients and then blend into the wet mixture. You will end up with a lump of  dough rap this in cling film and stick it in the fridge for about an hour, this gives the dough time to firm up and you time for a cup of tea and a  chance to clean the kitchen, you'll need the space to roll it out.

Roll out the dough (you will find it easier if the surface is covered in flour) and using a cookie cutter make the shapes you desire. i would recommend using baking trays covered in baking paper but you can just grease them, cook for 8-10 minuets at 180 or gas mark 4

The fun is in the finishing touches and decorating gingerbread men can be as simple or silly as you like, icing,sweets, chocolate or even fruit make you little men smile.

Granola Bars and Flap Jacks so whats the difference

I like to cook and as my friends and family will testify i'm not actually too bad at doing it.
Recently having a craving for flap jacks got me to wondering what exactly is in these tasty treats. As it turns out not really that much, and they don't take long to make either. Since discovering this iv'e made several batches but also discovered that a basic flap jack is remarkably similar to a granola bar. So what's the difference?
Replace the golden syrup for honey and the chocolate for dried fruit and it really is that simple. The wonderful this about this recipe and from making thing from scratch is that you can include those things you love and skip the things you don't. Not a fan of apricot, then leave it out. Got an unfortunate chocolate allergy then make it with   almonds and walnuts, anyway you get the idea so on to the recipe.

FLAP JACKS (makes 15 small bites)

200g Rolled oats ( i normally use supermarket own breakfast oats, you can also use muesli but be aware there is nuts and fruit in these mixes)

70g plain flour
85g unsalted butter (i recently used an olive oil spread in place of this and it didn't make much difference)
40g brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon Baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
65ml Golden syrup (this is about 3 table spoons, i'm loving the new squeeze bottle golden syrup do now makes it so much easier to measure)       

190g Chocolate (either chocolate chips or rough chopped chocolate, it can be milk, plain or white and you can replace this with fruit or nuts of your choice, i like to use about 150g  of plain chocolate and chop it in to chunks and then add a little almond  and hazelnut to make it up to 190g

in a large bowl measure out your oats and sift in the flour and baking soda then add the chocolate/fruit/nuts of your choice.
in a saucepan over a low heat melt the butter, once melted stir in the sugar then add the golden syrup and vanilla extract.
Mix the two together (i'd use a wooden spoon) ensure there is no dry mixture left in the bottom of the bowl.

you will want top prepare a baking tin something about half an inch deep will do i use a circular pie dish but a large Pyrex casserole dish lid is about the right size, lining this with baking paper will make life a lot easier later on, but you can also grease the sides.
Press the mixture into your tin/dish/lid of choice, don't be afraid to push it hard right into the corners this will help it stick together, then bake for 20-25 minuets at about 165 or gas mark 3, until golden brown.

It is very important that you let the flapjacks cool completely, as they cool they set, if you try to cut them before this they will still be to soft and you may find they break up, still very tasty (especially crumbled over yogurt ) But once totally cooled you should be able to cut them into squares.

If your after a Granola bar recipe switch the golden syrup for honey, (same amounts)  and be creative with the  fruit. you can get exotic dried fruit mixes in supermarkets, also using muesli instead of oats will give you a good mix of nuts.