Usually I bake sweet treats but today, pizza was what I was craving & so it’s what I made!
Dough was quite thick so I think next time, I’ll roll it thinner.
Scrummy hummus, courgette, feta, cherry tomatoes with a drizzle of balsamic & a sprinkle of mint.
Another Lorraine Pascale recipe!
Over the weekend & after two weeks of no baking, I decided to jump in at the deep end & try something a little different.
Here is my first attempt at banana & raisin pastries!
Finally I have managed to make doughnuts!!
I have had many disasters when attempting doughnuts and they have all failed until now! Behold, strawberry doughnuts! Baked, not fried!
SUCCESS!
While at work this week, a very kind soul had left some home grown YELLOW courgettes in the shared kitchen for whoever wanted them. I admit, I got a little over excited about the yellow courgettes and grabbed one for myself.
Right away I knew I wanted to bake - I had seen a recipe for an Elderflower cake that used a courgette and this is what you have above!
You can sort of see a little of the yellow courgette in the cake but I have posted the courgette so you can see how yellow she is! Gorgeous!
The cake wasn’t bad either ;-) It’s Elderflower but has a touch of lemon too. If you want them recipe, let me know and I’ll post it.
One of my most loved friends is getting married in just 4 WEEKS! I am so excited for her! :)
This weekend was spent in Brighton on her hen do and it was such an amazing weekend. Lots of laughter, drink, food, singing and dancing was had.
As one of her surprises, I made her some Red Velvet cupcakes and placed sugar discs of her face on them!
Sadly, the discs actually melted as it was a warm day but they still looked pretty darn cute.
The pictures above are before the melting had happened.
I have never tried a macaroon before so when I came across the recipe for them and by some miracle had all the ingredients in the cupboard, it was like fate telling me to give them a go!
These are elderflower macaroons which I did try to colour purple but for some reason came out a pale pink. Perhaps I didn’t put in enough colouring or perhaps coloured paste is better then food colouring when wanting a vibrant colour.
Either way, I liked them! and they went down better with everyone else who tried them too which was brilliant as I had no way of judging if they were correct.
I’ll def be making these again. :)
It’s been a while since I blogged as time seems to be escaping me a lot recently! Although saying that, it hasn’t stopped me from baking!
This sponge, I have posted quickly about (below) I made at the beginning of the month for a friends birthday.
You really can’t go wrong with this classic! Vanilla sponge with loads of raspberry jam and buttercream swirled icing. What more could you ask for?
Made this vanilla sponge for a friends birthday. I had a great time experimenting with the icing swirls - I’ve a lot more photos which I will post at a later date.
Next time, I think I may try to cover the whole cake in swirls!
Caramel birthday Muffins. Sweet & slightly sticky icing. I love their little red cases!
These were baked Saturday morning as ordered and I carried them into central London for delivery. On my way, I met so many smiles, happy and helpful people that I am considering carrying cakes everywhere I go from now onward!
The recipe for these puppies is really easy, the dulce de leche can be a little difficult to find but it’s worth the hunt once you taste these!
80g butter
280g caster sugar
240g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
240ml Milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
150g tinned caramel/dulce de leche.
Pre-heat your oven to 190.
Whisk together the butter, sugar, flour & baking powder until crumb like.
In a jug, whisk the milk, eggs and vanilla together by hand.
Pour just over half of the liquid into the dry ingredients and whisk until combined.
Add the caramel sauce to the remainder of the liquid, mix then pour into the combined ingredients.
Whisk until smooth, then spoon into your cases.
The batter is quite running so can be a little messy spooning into the cases! Fill them just over half way.
I made 16 muffins out of this so prepare two muffin tins or maybe cut down the recipe slightly if you don’t want that many :)
For the icing, I mixed together icing sugar with butter, a spoonful of dulce de leche and a couple of spoonfuls of milk. Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth - if too runny, add more icing sugar, if too stiff, add a little more milk or butter.
I drizzled the caramel sauce over the top for an extra caramel taste.
It’s been such a horrible weekend, weather wise. Although, it has been a bank holiday so I guess I should have known better then to expect sunshine in June!
Sunday, I was meant to host my second market stall. I had planned a jubilee theme but as the weather was horrid, I had to call it off. I was really disappointed but that didn’t stop me baking!
I had requests for Banoffee cupcakes again, so I made them with a cream topping and some with caramel sauce. The two combined, didn’t work. The caramel sauce just rolled off the cream!! ha.
I then made Lemon cupcakes with coloured buttercream icing.
And then, as I was in the flow of baking, I made some cheese & onion tear & share bread which was really simple to make. I found the recipe in the great British bake off book which I really want to get (the book I was using, is my Mums and it’s amazing!)
This coming Sunday (3rd June) I am hosting my second market stall up at Dunstable Downs.
I have decided to do a Jubilee theme but before I did, I had been thinking of what I could bake.
Gingerbread was on the top 10. These ones above were made a while back now but I decorated each one differently. It took me all day!
My favourite one is at the top. I love his tash!
