Recipe: Peach and Raspberry Cupcakes

Ok my promise to be a better blogger didn’t go particularly well... but in my defence after I wrote the last post the UK got hit by a serious heatwave! I know temperatures of over 30 degrees are normal in a lot of the world but here it really isn’t and the UK is not set up to deal with extreme heat (only shops and the like tend to have air conditioning for example) and I don’t cope well in hot weather. Seriously for the last month I haven’t been able to think about anything more intelligent than ice cream! If I could get to my ice cream maker easily (and had space in the freezer) I would have posted some ice cream recipes for something, but I haven’t been able to and my freezer is full. The only advantages of this crazy weather is that my potted herbs are growing nicely and the solar powered fountain in my garden is working! But all is not lost, last week there was a brief temperature drop and I was able to do some baking!

So here is my latest cupcake recipe, I know a recipe post on a Friday? Well I've decided to drop "Monday Recipes" and just post recipes when I have them to post! I’m afraid this post marks a return to the fruity cupcakes though.

For once these cupcakes were not made in the cupcake maker, but they should work in there though! Obviously they’ll be smaller and you’ll probably get more cakes than the stated amount. Please play around with the quantities of fruit to get the amount you prefer, the stated quantities arose from me using whatever I had lying around!

Makes 12

Ingredients
115g/4oz softened butter
115g/4oz caster sugar
115g/4oz self-rising flour
2 eggs
110g fresh raspberries
1 peach, approx 110g in weight

Method
Gently wash the raspberries put them to one side to dry out. Chop up the peach into small chunks, I left the skin on but feel free to remove it if you prefer that.

Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the eggs. Sift the flour and fold into the mixture, then fold in the peaches and raspberries. Divide the mixture evenly between 12 paper cases and bake in a preheated oven at Gas Mark 4/180 C for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack and enjoy. In normal temperatures these cakes should keep for a few days in an airtight tin, beware in hotter climates the cakes may spoil quickly due to the fruit content.

Monday Recipe: Strawberry and Marshmallow Pop Tarts

So this recipe is actually something I made during my recent hiatus, I’ve only now got round to actually writing it down and posting it! To be honest these are so easy to make I’m not sure why it has taken me so long to post this.

Pop Tarts have to be one of my favourite snack foods, even if my indecisive nature means I can’t decide what my favourite flavour is. So imagine my excitement when I found an episode of Nerdy Nummies in which Ro made Nyan Cat Pop Tarts! Now I’m not a fan of Nyan Cat but I was extremely happy to see just how easy Pop Tarts are to make. So here is my attempt at making Pop Tarts!

In the video Ro used a packet mix for the pastry but I prefer to make my own pastry. This quantity of pastry made about 3 tarts (I only made a small batch as this was an experiment) but this is obviously dependent on how big you make them. If you want more just double up the quantities. Mine are strawberry and marshmallow flavour, but please change the filling to whatever you want.

Ingredients
225g/8oz plain flour
110g/4oz butter or margarine, cubed
cold water to mix (as cold as possible)
1 tbsp icing sugar
pinch of salt

Filling of your choice, I used Original Marshmallow Fluff spread and strawberry jam.

Method
In a large bow sieve together the flour, sugar and salt, then add the cubed butter. Using your fingertips rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then add the water 1 tbsp at a time, mixing with your hands, to bring the mixture into a dough, there is no exact measurement amount of water you need, every batch of pastry is different. So just add the water a little at a time until the dough is ready, it is ready when it just clings together. The dough shouldn’t be sticky but should come cleanly off the sides of the bowl as you gather it together. Wrap the dough in cling film or place in a sandwich bag and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180 C.
Then remove the dough from the fridge and leave it for a couple of minutes to warm up, dust the work surface with flour and roll it out, you want the dough to be about 0.5 cm thick. Once it is rolled cut out 6 rectangles all the same size.

Carefully spread the jam and Marshmallow fluff (or your filling) onto 3 rectangles making sure to leave a gap of about 1 cm around the edge. Brush the edge with a little water and place one of the untopped rectangles on top. Use a fork to press the edges together and poke a few holes in the top of each tart. Place on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown, transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly before eating.

These tasted delicious when cold, I left them un-iced so that in theory they could be reheated in the toaster but they er didn’t last than long...

Decorating Tutorial and Recipe: Game of Thrones Cupcakes

Ok so this post took me slightly longer than I was expecting to write, and it’s a really long post so for once I shall make use of the jump break feature! Seriously I've written essays shorter than this post! There are also quite a few pictures.

I’ve wanted to do some Game of Thrones (GoT) themed baking for ages and in a stroke of good fortune one of my favourite Youtube channels is hosting a GoT themed contest right now. This gave me the perfect excuse! So here I present 2 designs of cupcake; one is incredibly easy while the other is a bit more advanced. I’ve also included my lemon cakes recipe.

Happy Pi Day!!!

As many of you are probably aware March 14^th is Pi Day, for those who don’t know this day is dedicated to the mathematical constant pi (π). Why? Because if you write the date the American way, (3/14) you get the first 3 digits of pi.

So in honour of this truly great number I made some mini apple pies or are they apple pi’s? Ok I’ll stop now

For some reason my pastry decided to rise a lot,
so these looked a lot neater before they went into the oven...

To make these I just used some leftover short crust pastry I had lurking in the freezer and a couple of dessert apples that needed eating up. So yeah this isn’t a proper recipe really.

Makes 6 mini pies

Ingredients

half a block of short crust pastry
2 dessert apples: peeled, cored and finely chopped
2 dessertspoonfuls of light soft brown sugar
cinnamon to taste
small knob of butter

Method
Roll out the pastry and cut out 6 circles, line a 6 hole cupcake pan with these circles. Cut out 6 extra small circles for the pie lids, then using the leftovers cut out the pi symbol (π). Use a template or go freehand like I did! Then wet the back of each symbol with a little water and stick them to the pie lids.

Melt the butter and gently fry the chopped apple in it for a couple of minutes until the apple starts to soften. Remove from the heat and put into a bowl, add the sugar and cinnamon to the bowl and stir well. Divide the mixture evenly between the pies and then top each pie with one of the lids and push down gently.

Bake in a preheated oven at Gas mark 6/ 200 C for 20 minutes. Leave on a wire rack to cool. 

Monday Recipe: Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes V1

Wow that’s a mouthful! As a fruit hater, my brother is never impressed by all my fruit cupcakes. So he decided to set me some challenges and this is the first one I’ve actually completed! United by our love of American candy (especially Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups), he set me the challenge of making Reese’s cupcakes.  These are my first attempt at the challenge and were made to accompany his massive birthday cake.

This is Version 1 of the recipe, kind of a beta test really! I have 2 variations which I need to try next, but that will have to wait until he buys a jar of peanut butter (I actually hate the stuff so I refuse to buy any).  As usual this recipe is designed for use in a cupcake maker and will make 6 fairy cake sized cakes, the recipe can easily be scaled up and should work in an oven equally well.

Ingredients
1 large egg
30g/1oz Self-rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz coco powder, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
6 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in miniature size (removed from paper cases!)

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg. Fold in the flour and coco powder, then put a small blob of cake mix into the bottom of each cake cases and put a Peanut Butter Cup in each case (obviously on top of the cake mix blob). Divide the rest of the mixture evenly between the cake cases and bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean! Try and avoid stabbing the chocolate when you check.
Leave on a wire rack to cool.

These are tasty as is but are also great topped with a cream cheese frosting. 

Recipe: Pancakes

Just a quick post today since I haven't quite finished the other Valentines posts yet and this post is seasonal anyway.

Today is Shrove Tuesday and in the UK at least that means one thing... pancakes! Shrove Tuesday in the UK is also known as Pancake Day; basically we start Lent by eating as much sugar as possible.

Pancakes are so simple to make and yet I know an awful lot of people who use packet mixes. Those things baffle me, loads of them tell you to add an egg or milk which means you’ve spend a couple of pounds on a bag of flour! That makes no sense to me at all (and don’t get me started on the ones that just involve adding water, they taste disgusting.)Well as a protest against packet mixes I’m sharing this recipe! This is the pancake recipe my mum always uses and in my opinion it makes the best pancakes.

Ingredients
100g/4oz plain flour
2 eggs
250ml/half pint of milk
pinch salt
1 tsp caster sugar (optional for sweet pancakes)

Method
Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl, then make a well in the centre of the flour. Add the eggs and a splash of milk. Beat until the flour is all incorporated, then keep beating while gradually adding the rest of the milk. You should end up with a smooth batter with bubbles of the surface, leave to rest for a while before cooking. You may need to stir the batter gently before cooking.

My favourite pancake topping has to be maple syrup but you can’t beat the classic combination of lemon and sugar. What’s your favourite topping?

Monday Recipe: Inca Berry Cupcakes

Ok so this recipe isn’t particularly Valentines in theme, but now seems as good a time as any to post this.

I stumbled across Inca berries (also known as physalis) while reading James Wong’s new book, Homegrown Revolution. As the title suggests this book is all about growing your own foods but this book focuses on distinctly more exotic fare rather than the traditional (and not cost/space effective) crops like potatoes and tomatoes. I have never had an interest in gardening until I read this book and it has given me some great new cupcake ideas, including this recipe. Seriously I suggest checking this book out it’s amazing.

Anyway I discovered lots of interesting new foods, including Inca berries and before I invested in a plant it seemed sensible to find out if I actually liked Inca berries first. Luckily my local Tesco supermarket happens to sell them and for only £1 a bag! Happily I do like them and thus set about playing with them. The result was the following cupcake recipe.

I decided to top these cakes with a cream cheese frosting mostly because I made these at the same time as the Red Velvet Cupcakes and I had made an awful lot of frosting... James Wong describes Inca berries as having a flavour like a ripe gooseberry with a hint of tropical fruit, followed by a bittersweet aftertaste. And I find the creamy flavour of the frosting makes a great contrast to the tangy flavour of the berries.

As usual this recipe is designed for use in a cupcake maker and will make 6 fairy cake sized cakes, the recipe can easily be scaled up and should work in an oven equally well. The quantities given for the frosting should be enough to cover 12 cakes but this is dependent on how you choose to cover them.

Ingredients
Cake
1 large egg
50g/2oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5-6 Inca berries, leaves removed and chopped into quarters

Frosting
100g/4oz full fat cream cheese
50g/2oz softened butter
300g/12oz icing sugar, sifted
Vanilla extract

Decorations (optional)
6 Inca berries, leaves folded up

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar; then beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour and then mix in the chopped berries. Divide evenly between the cake cakes and bake for about 10 minutes in a cupcake maker  or for about 15 minutes in the oven at Gas Mark 4/180 C. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting, first cream together the cheese and butter, then add the vanilla extract. I used about a teaspoon but add to your personal taste.  Then gradually add the icing sugar and beat it in, the frosting will look quite runny at first but it will thicken up. Once you’ve added all the icing sugar cover the cakes as you want and top each cake with an extra berry. If the frosting seems a little runny add a tiny bit more icing sugar or chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Well that’s it for now; if you try these out I’d love to know what you all think. Later in the year I hope to post some more recipes using crops I found through this book. 

Recipe: Chocolate and Caramel Cupcakes

Chocolate is a fundamental part of Valentine’s Day commercialism, but who wants plain chocolate when you can have chocolate caramels?

Yet again a flavoured hot chocolate that smells lovely but tastes kinda horrid has come into my life; this time it’s a caramel one. But like the raspberry one I’ve mentioned here before it’s basically just coco powder with flavoured sugar, so that means one thing, CUPCAKES!!! No pictures of these cakes as I didn’t bother to frost them before eating them, and un-iced they just look like normal chocolate cakes...

This one is currently available from Whittards, and can be acquired here.

As usual this recipe is designed for use in a cupcake maker and makes 6 fairy cake sized cakes. However it should work in the oven and can easily be scaled up to make more. 

Ingredients
1 large egg
30g/1oz Self-rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz Caramel Hot Chocolate, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg. Fold in the flour and hot chocolate, divide evenly amongst 6 cake cases then bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean! Leave on a wire rack to cool.

The caramel flavour is quite subtle so when frosting these I’d suggest a caramel flavoured buttercream (I have a recipe for salted caramel buttercream, when I get the hang of making it I’ll share it here). 

Recipe: Red Velvet Cakes (Cheating method)

I love Red Velvet Cake, the contrast between the bright red cake and the white frosting always looks amazing. And it’s a chocolate flavoured cake so what’s not to love? And the colour is pretty appropriate for Valentine’s Day. Sadly I find making it to be a bit of a pain in the backside. I struggle to balance the ratio of coco powder to food dye, and more often than not I don’t use enough dye. The result is usually a chocolate cake with a vaguely pink tint if you squint a bit.

But Lakeland has come to the rescue, as they now stock Star Kay extracts. These extracts come in a huge range of flavours and include a chocolate flavour. The extracts are quite expensive, but I’m given to believe that they are a very high quality brand so I don’t mind paying so much for them (and Lakeland have them on 3 for 2 at the moment). So armed with this and some red gel food dye I went into battle and made some adorable cupcakes for Valentine's Day.

Check out my shiny new backdrop! Much nicer than my messy kitchen!

Star Kay Chocolate Extract is available here. I’ve also found some Star Key extracts in Tesco so if you have access to a large store I’d suggest looking there. However Tesco will have a fairly limited range of flavours.

Naturally these are topped with cream cheese frosting; the quantities given below should provide enough frosting to cover 12 cupcakes. Obviously this is dependent on how you choose to cover the cakes, if you pipe the frosting like I did you’ll probably need more. As for the cakes the usual rules apply, this makes 6 fairy cake sized cakes in a cupcake maker. This recipe can be scaled up to make more and also works in the oven. I’m not sure how well the colour will come out when baked in the oven though.

Now isn't that a fabulous colour?

Ingredients
Cake
1 large egg
50g/2oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
2 teaspoons chocolate extract
Red gel food colouring

Frosting
100g/4oz full fat cream cheese
50g/2oz softened butter
300g/12oz icing sugar, sifted
Vanilla extract (to taste)

Decorations (optional)
Red/pink heart shaped sprinkles
Pink edible glitter

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar; then beat in the egg and chocolate extract. Fold in the flour and then mix in a little of the food dye. Gel dyes are highly concentrated so you don’t need much! Divide evenly between the cake cakes and bake for about 10 minutes in a cupcake maker  or for about 15 minutes in the oven at Gas Mark 4/180 C. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting, first cream together the cheese and butter, then add the vanilla extract. I used about a teaspoon but add to your personal taste.  Then gradually add the icing sugar and beat it in, the frosting will look quite runny at first but it will thicken up. Once you’ve added all the icing sugar cover the cakes as you want and decorate. If the frosting seems a little runny add a tiny bit more icing sugar or chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Guest Post: Spiced Banana Cake

Today marks the introduction of a new feature on Princess Cupcake, guest bloggers. This is the first of several posts written by my best friend Inthannon. Enjoy! All photographs are owned by Inthannon, so please do not use them without her or my permission.

Last week my friend Princess Cupcake asked me to do a couple of guest posts for her since I’m almost as much of a baking enthusiast as she is. This is the first and later on I will bring to the table my Finnish recipes for couple of Christmas goodies.

This first one however, is something I made last night because my fiancée’s sweet tooth was aching. ;) Since I know Cupcake doesn’t care for bananas and I really like banana cake and think it’s a brilliant way to use up over ripe bananas (if you have them in the house), here’s my favourite one with a Christmassy twist.

First thing about banana cake is that the riper the banana the better the cake. The best bananas for this kind of thing are the ones that you look at and think “That’s too dark and gooey to eat” (Obviously if the banana looks like it’s growing unspeakable things or about to walk out of the fruit basket, don’t bake it, bin it). One thing you’ll notice between the cake you’ll make and my pictures is that yours will be darker. This will be because you’ve done what I said and not what I’ve done and used properly ripe bananas... Hello from Miss Hypocrite ;)

Note on measurements: Since I’m weird and foreign, most of my recipes have these strange measurements of dl. This stands for decilitre, which is 100 millilitres. So if the recipe says 2dl of sugar, take a standard measuring jug that has millilitres on it and using the millilitre scale measure out 200ml of sugar. Or go to uncle google and search for a way to convert sugar volume to weight. Or a volume of your choosing.

Spiced Banana Cake (or about 24 cupcakes)

150g butter

2.5 dl sugar

2 eggs

4-5 dl flour (depending on how moist you want your cake, also depends on size of eggs)

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cloves

2 tsp cinnamon

3 crushed bananas

For a standard cake, heat the oven to 170C or Gas Mark 3-4. For cupcakes (unless using a cupcake maker) 180 C/Gas Mark 4. Cream together the butter and the sugar, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix together all the dry ingredients and then slowly add into the mix in turns with the crushed bananas. Mix until even. Pour into a buttered/floured cake tin (deep, 9”/23cm diameter) and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until cooked through. Cupcakes should only take 8-12 minutes in a machine or about 15 minutes in the oven. I used my cupcake maker for these mainly because I’ve only used it twice.

Figure 1 This is pretty much the ideal amount of mix for my cupcake maker.

Note: I tend to almost double the amount of spices since I enjoy spicy things, but there is no real need to do this (unless you’re like me). Also non-stick palette knife is the BEST at getting cupcakes out of the maker. Just slide it between the cake and the maker, apply a little leverage and hey presto, one free cake!

I decided against icing these, just because I find they are nice on their own (and I ran out of day) but I think a cinnamon buttercream might be really yummy with these. Or maybe something with ginger. This is the beauty of baking, we can all make changes to the recipe if we don’t like something in it.

Until next time,

Inthannon

Monday Recipe Danish Pepper Nuts

At Christmas I can't help but bake recipes that call for spices, especially gingerbread. There is something about the smell of cinnamon and ginger that just screams Christmas to me. 

I got this recipe from an article in The Telegraph magazine a couple of weeks ago in which there was an interesting selection of Danish Christmas recipes. These sounded the most interesting to me so naturally I had to try them! I’m not sure how correct my attempt at these is, my research into these was blighted by a lot of conflicting information.

The following has been summarised from Wikipedia:
Pfeffernüsse are small, firm, round biscuits, sometimes with ground nuts. The name translates to pepper nuts, which describes their spicy taste and the fact that some recipes do contain nuts (walnuts or almonds). They do not necessarily contain black pepper, Danish recipes call for white pepper.

And this is where the conflicts arise, as you can see from below as my recipe does not call for pepper of any kind and the article claimed that the name just comes from the warmth of the spices as there is no pepper in them. Further research I conducted uncovered recipes containing everything from pepper (both black and white), cardamom and even mace! But when baked they do look like the pictures of pepper nuts I found on Google, so I’m just going to stick with this version as I know that I like them! If any Danish folks to read this post please comment below and correct me on the recipe! 

Makes 120
Ingredients

375g plain flour, plus extra to dust
½ tsp baking powder
½ freshly grated nutmeg
½ ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
175g salted butter
180g soft, dark brown sugar
1 egg, beaten

Method

In a large bowl; sift together the flour, baking powder and spices. Melt the butter and stir it into the flour mix. Add the egg and the sugar, and then knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Leave the dough to rest for an hour at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to gas 4/180 C, then shape the dough into small balls, about 1.5 – 2 cm in diameter. Place them on a lined baking tray, leave a little space between them (doesn’t need to be a big space as they don’t spread much). Bake for 10 minutes and cool on a wire rack.

Apparently these keep for up to four weeks in an airtight tin. 

Halloween Petit Fours: Fondant Fancies

I love petit fours, they are so delicate and pretty, and since they have just been featured on The Great British Bake Off (signature challenge, semi finals) I’ve been keen to try my hand at them! So I did try and continuing with the Bake Off theme, I decided to make mini fondant fancies (technical challenge, final); yeah that was a good plan!

The saga of icing these is below!

I think I may have figured out why fondant fancies are a technical challenge; these were really annoying to ice! I was attempting to balance these on a spoon or a fork and then spoon the icing over them. That didn’t work as the cake kept falling off and landing in the bowl which led to my icing getting filled with cake crumbs! I also tried holding the cake and spooning icing over, that just led to sticky fingers!  My hands were covered in icing! Also this icing looks really thick but is deceptively runny, which meant I managed to drip icing onto the floor on more than one occasion!
 I think the best way to ice these is to put them on a wire rack and spoon the icing over and place with big plate/tray underneath to catch the icing that drips off. This wasn’t an option for me as I didn’t have a plate big enough! The result of this is that my cakes haven’t been iced very well, but since the icing is green I’m pretending that it’s ectoplasm and therefore meant to look like this! Oh yeah if you want to add sprinkles, let the icing sit on the cake for a bit first, I applied sprinkles soon after icing and they escaped down the side of the cake while the icing flowed!
 My cake was also too crumby, so I think a Genoese sponge might work better than a Victoria sponge mix, oh well this was a total experiment which I made up as I went along! And most importantly I had fun trying!

I made a chocolate cake for these but feel free to change the cake flavour to whatever you prefer. These would probably look pretty awesome with a Red Velvet Cake as an example. For the icing I used gel food colouring for these as I wanted a really vibrant colour, if you want a more pastel colour I would suggest using the liquid food dyes available in the baking aisle of most supermarkets. Again feel free to change the colour to whatever you prefer if green isn’t your thing!

Cake170g/6oz butter, softened
170g/6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
150g/5oz self rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz coco powder, sifted

Icing and decorations500g fondant icing sugar
6 tbsp cold water
Green food colouring
Bat and ghost sprinkles

Equipment
8 inch square cake pan, greased and lined
Wire rack
Petit Four sized paper cases

Method
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/180 C
Cream together the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs. Fold in the flour and coco powder then pour into the prepared cake pan. Spread the cake mixture evenly across the tin, try and get the surface as smooth as possible. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
Once the cake has cooled slice it up into small squares, I managed to get 36 squares out of my cake. Cut bigger slices if you don’t want petit fours. To make up the icing sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add the water and mix well. Then add the food colouring and mix until you have a nice even colour. To ice the cakes place on a wire rack with a plate underneath and spoon over the cakes, try not to leave any gaps! Leave for a few minutes then add sprinkles if you want, leave to dry. Then arrange the cakes in paper cases.

Look closely and you can see some escaping sprinkles!

(Apologies for the fact this recipe has only just been posted, I wrote it a few days ago but unfortuately I lost internet access over the weekend and have only just been able to post it!)

Monday Recipe: Apple and Cinnamon Flapjack

Sadly I ran out of natural light today so these haven't been photographed yet. Hopefully I shall be able to tomorrow and will update this entry then! (This is entirely dependent on the flapjack making it through the night!)

One of the best things about Graze boxes is the range of flapjacks they offer, the best of which has to be the apple and cinnamon flapjack. This recipe is my attempt to recreate my favourite snack!

You want to use a good brown sugar for this, it really adds to the flavour. I normally use Demerara sugar but soft brown sugar (light or dark) work equally well so use whichever sugar you prefer. I don’t suggest using fresh apple in this recipe; I think it would go rather sloppy and make a rather wet flapjack. Try and find dried apple, I found this in Asda quite cheaply but be warned that it might not be sold under the name dried apple. When I brought mine it was being sold as “baked apple”.

Ingredients
120g/4oz brown sugar
120g/4oz butter
170g/6oz rolled oats
1 tbsp (approx) golden syrup
25g/1oz of dried apple, chopped
2 tsp ground cinnamon

Method
Preheat the oven to gas mark 2 /150 C and line a 17cm square tin with baking paper. In a pan melt together the sugar, butter and golden syrup. Once they have melted together add in the oats, apple and cinnamon. Mix well and press firmly into the tin. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes until golden brown, leave to cool in the tin. While the flapjack is still warm cut it into as many pieces as you want.

These quantities work in bigger baking pans, however if you use a much bigger tin I would suggest either doubling the quantities or using 1 and half times the quantities. (So 9oz of oats instead of 6oz)

Monday Recipe: Lavender Cupcakes

Monday Recipe: Lavender Cupcakes

As much as I love making fruit flavoured cupcakes there comes a time when all my favourite fruits are out of season and I have to stop. But that just means it’s time for some new flavours, and my current experimentation is with flower flavoured cakes!

I love using flower flavours, they are sufficiently different to intrigue people but not weird enough to freak them out! Rose is actually my all time favourite macaroon flavour, mostly because I love the smell of roses and when used in cooking it actually tastes the way it smells. Which I know sounds mad but try it and you’ll see what I mean! I know eating flowers is weird, but quite a lot of flowers are actually edible. At some point I will do some more research into this and post a list of edible flowers, but that shall have to wait.

So imagine my excitement when last summer I found Lavender Sugar available in Waitrose, naturally I had to buy some and I’ve finally figured out what to do with it! Hello cupcakes! These cakes smell divine and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that lavender (like rose) tastes the way it smells.

As this is an experimental recipe, all quantities are designed for use in a cupcake maker and will make 6 fairy sized cakes. However as always this recipe can easily be scaled up and (should) work when baked in the oven.

Sadly I can't find lavender sugar on Waitrose's online shopping, but this would be easy to make yourself. I'll write a tutorial on that later!

The little "spots" are actually lavender flowers!

Ingredients
1 large egg
50g/2oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Lavender Sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine

Method:
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg.  Fold in the flour and divide between 6 cake cases and then bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean!
Leave on a wire rack to cool.

The lavender in this recipe is quite a strong flavour, so I’m working on adapting this recipe somewhat. Personally I like the strong flavour but my family weren’t so keen, when I perfect this recipe I shall re-post with the new version. And given that this recipe is still in the experimental stages I have no idea what icing to suggest for these. That is something I shall figure out during further experiments.

Monday Recipe: Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes (no fruit)

This is another variation of my fruity cupcakes; however this one is different in that there is actually no fruit in it at all! The raspberry flavour actually comes from a Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate powder that I brought from Whittards. I don’t like it as a drink since I found the chocolate flavour to be a bit bitter and I couldn’t taste the raspberry, however I noticed that it’s just coco powder with raspberry flavouring added so I decided to add it to my baking ingredients. I find the raspberry flavour comes through much more strongly when used in cake mixture and has the advantage of allowing for raspberry cakes even when the fruit isn’t in season!

Sadly Whittards don’t currently stock this particular hot chocolate flavour so I can’t link to it. But I’m sure if you shop around it may be possible to find something similar, and if you do go into a Whittards I seriously suggest trying some of their other hot chocolate flavours. I find most of them to be very tasty!

As usual this is the cupcake maker version of the recipe, it makes 6 fairy cake sized cakes and can be scaled up to make more. Also works when baked in the oven.

Un iced as I was feeling lazy

 Ingredients
1 large egg
30g/1oz Self-rising flour, sifted
20g/1oz Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Hot Chocolate, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine

Method
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg. Fold in the flour and hot chocolate, divide evenly amongst 6 cake cases then bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean!
Leave on a wire rack to cool.

Since the raspberry flavour is quite strong, I’d suggest topping these with a chocolate buttercream

Monday Recipe: Raspberry Drop Scones

Just a quick recipe today as I'm a bit busy at the moment! It's yet another fruit recipe, but it's not cupcakes and raspberries are still in season so it's fine! And drop scones are one of my favourite snacks.

I take no credit for inventing these, I took the recipe out of a magazine I think it was a Sainsburys one... Also no picture today as these don't tend to last long enough to get a picture!

Ingredients
125g/4oz self-rising flour
50g/2oz soft brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp buttermilk or normal milk
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
150g/5oz raspberries

Method
Sift together the flour, baking powder and cinnamon, then stir in the sugar and a pinch of salt. Beat the milk and the eggs together and then add to the flour mix. Whisk together and then stir in the raspberries. Heat some oil or butter in a frying pan, then add a spoonful of mixture into the pan. (I find a tablespoon or dessertspoon works best.) Cook for a couple of minutes on each side.

Serve warm with a nice cup of tea. If you can avoid eating them all while they are hot, they do taste really nice cold.

Monday Recipe: Roman Honey Cake

I love archaeology, especially the archaeology of Roman Britain and as part of my Archaeology BA (which I have just graduated from so, go me!) I spent a year working in The Roman Baths Museum in Bath. The following recipe is taken from a post I wrote for the museum blog, a link to which can be found below. I take no credit for inventing this recipe it's one that is used at food themed events the museum holds. As soon as I find out where this recipe originally came from I shall post full credits.

The first thing most people think of when you mention Roman food is garum also known as fish sauce. Famously made from rotting fish entrails, the idea puts many people off Roman food. However there is a lot more too Roman food than fish sauce, plenty of Roman dishes don’t actually contain any, this is one such recipe.
I used a 17cm sandwich pan to bake this in, I wouldn't suggest using pans much bigger or smaller than this.

Fresh from the oven, please excuse the fact it's still in the pan!

Ingredients
200g/7oz clear honey
3 eggs
50g/2oz plain white flour

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C (350 F)/gas mark 3. Prepare a baking pan either by oiling it with vegetable oil (olive if you want to be really Roman!) or lining with baking parchment

2. Beat the eggs, and then slowly add the honey. Beat until all the honey is mixed in and the surface of the mix is covered in tiny bubbles

3. Sift the flour and carefully fold it into the mixture

4. Pour into the baking pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean.

Serve warm and drizzled with more honey or enjoy it cold. Either way it’s absolutely delicious!!!

And now a selection of links
Original post on the Baths Blog
The Roman Baths Blog

Monday Recipe: Rhubarb and Custard Cupcakes

The rhubarb season is just coming to a close, but since I had some lying around and its way too hot here to be making a crumble it seemed like cake was the best option! So we have these lovely vanilla cupcakes filled with stewed rhubarb and custard, topped with a custard butter cream. 

I like to use pre-made custard for these, mostly because I’m too lazy to make my own custard! The ginger in the stewed rhubarb is optional, but I do recommend it, it helps to cut through the sweetness of the custard in the cakes and the custard butter cream. This recipe makes 8-10 cupcakes. I don’t suggest making these in a cupcake maker as you need a big cake for these and cupcake makers make rather small cakes!  

My favourite sweets!

Ingredients
Cake
115g/4oz butter
115g/4oz caster sugar
115g/4oz Self-rising flour, sifted
2 eggs, beaten
½ tsp vanilla extract

Custard Butter cream
75g/3oz butter
175g/6oz icing sugar, sifted
½ tsp vanilla extract
3 dessertspoons custard

Finishing Touches
Custard
Stewed rhubarb with ginger
Rhubarb and Custard sweets

Method
Make the stewed rhubarb by chopping up 2-3 sticks of rhubarb and placing it in a pan with a couple of tablespoons of sugar, a splash of water and about 1 teaspoon of powdered ginger. Cover and cook on a low heat for 15mins, stirring occasionally until the rhubarb breaks down. Leave to cool.

Make the cake by creaming together the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour and divide between the paper cases. Bake in the oven at gas mark 4 or 180 degrees C for 25mins until golden brown and cooked all the way through. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

Once the cakes are cooled, cut a hole in the top of each cake. Trim the piece of cake you removed so you get a flat piece of cake. Put a spoonful of the rhubarb into the hole, then a spoonful of custard and then place the flat piece of cake over the hole. Then cover with the butter cream and top with a rhubarb and custard sweet.

To make the butter cream, cream together the custard and the butter. Then beat in the vanilla and icing sugar until smooth. Chill before using!

I find these cakes are best served chilled, keeping the cakes cool helps to bring forward the flavour of the custard in the butter cream. The downside is that this does suppress the ginger flavour somewhat, but the ginger is only there to cut through the sweetness of the icing anyway!

Monday Recipe: Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes

Lemon drizzle is one of my favourite cakes, it’s tasty and easy to make. And it works pretty well as a cupcake. However speed is of the essence here, the lemon syrup must be added while the cakes are still hot! The usual rules apply, these quantities are designed for use in a Cupcake Maker, but the recipe can also be baked in the oven. This amount will make approximately 6 fairy sized cakes, but can easily be scaled up to make more.

I suggest leaving these on a plate to cool as the syrup can get everywhere!

Cake Ingredients:
1 large egg
50g/1oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
Zest of ½ a lemon

Syrup Ingredients:
Juice of 1 lemon
approx 2 tbsp’s of caster sugar

Method:
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg.  Then fold in the flour and lemon zest.
Divide between 6 cake cases and then bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean!

While the cakes are cooking place the lemon juice and caster sugar into a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved. Once dissolved taste and if desired add more sugar to taste, keep the syrup warm until the cakes are done. When the cakes are cooked, poke a couple of holes into the surface of the cake with a cocktail stick and immediately spoon over the lemon syrup.  
Leave on a wire rack (or plate!) to cool.

I find the best topping for these cakes is a plain water icing, just mix some icing sugar and water together until you are happy with the consistency and spoon over the cakes.

Monday Recipe: Honeycomb Cupcakes

I admit it, a lot of my baking is fruit based at the moment as all my favourite fruits are in season. But not everyone likes fruit in their cakes so here is something a little different.  These cakes are made with honeycomb (also known as cinder toffee), sounds odd but it works very well in cakes. The heat of the oven causes the honeycomb to melt and turn into toffee, very tasty!

As per usual these quantities are designed for use in a cupcake maker and makes 6 fairy cake sized cakes. However they also work baked in the oven and can easily be scaled up to make more.
I normally use a 40g Cadbury’s Crunchie Bar for these but a handful of honeycomb pieces also works as would homemade honeycomb!



Left un-iced so you get an idea of the toffee made by the melted honeycomb



Ingredients:
1 large egg
50g/1oz Self-rising flour, sifted
50g/2oz Caster sugar
50g/2oz Softened butter or margarine
40g Crunchie bar or other form of honeycomb

Method:
Using a rolling pin, break the honeycomb bar into pieces. You want small pieces but try and avoid turning too much of the bar into dust!
Cream together the butter and sugar then beat in the egg, then fold in the flour and the smashed up honeycomb.  
Divide between 6 cake cases and then bake in the cupcake maker for approximately 10 minutes or in the oven at Gas 4/180 C for about 15 minutes. The cakes are ready when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean!
Leave on a wire rack to cool. When cool top with melted chocolate.

I like to mix some popping candy into the chocolate for a bit of fun, however if you don’t have any try sprinkling some more crushed honeycomb on top. Oh and a word of caution, make sure you break the honeycomb into small pieces, if you use large chunks when it melts during cooking you might get rather large holes in your cake!