One word - CHRISTMAS!!

Well I hope you are all enjoying the festive season! I braved a day at work today and I can honestly say the only bonus was a work pal's chocolate Christmas cake. Lovely traditional fruitcake with the less traditional Tia Maria and chocolate; it was delish!

It has been a ridiculous length of time since my last post and I apologise for that. Baking is hugely important to me, and so is my family. After a difficult time for everyone these past few months, I feel like now is the time to get back to all sorts of cakery. Here is your latest, very large dose of marzipan and sprinkles... Xx

In November our team said farewell to one of our work pals. I tasked myself with a retirement cake and didn't think plain and boring would suffice. As a bit of a magpie, I fancied a go at a rainbow cake.

Now it's a simple sponge cake recipe made in various colours and stacked together into a tower that would look rather fetching and not at all out of place on Willy Wonka's mantelpiece. But when you've been baking for a few hours and your Dad waltzes in with a comment like "what the hell is that?", your confidence starts to dwindle... Why didn't I write down the order in which I sandwiched the cakes together??... How will I ensure that the colours of the buttercream covering THE WHOLE THING will correspond with the layers..?? Sometimes, you just have to make a strong cup of tea, take a deep breath, crank up the show tunes and see what happens! And guess what, as I held my breath while the knife was sliced through, I only bloody did it! Ta da! Went down a treat! It's so easy, just have a go. Though don't eat the whole thing or you'll be a modern day Augustus Gloop.

                   

In early December I 'took off to Budapest' as my Grandma told her pals. My 2 amigos and I had a lovely city break and I was in my merry element with all the Christmas markets and festive frolics. I was keen to sample the local delicacies; I'm always on the recipe hunt. Here's a couple that I shan't be recreating...

        

I bought some beautiful little cookies from a market in Vorosmarty square. They had hundreds of hand iced spiced delights, a mixture between a light but firm trifle sponge and a ginger biscuit! It's the way I describe things isn't it... I found the creepy man selling them a touch less beautiful than the cookies, especially when he whapped out this huge wooden arm to take my pennies and give me my goods. Thankfully, Eleanor caught it on camera for your enjoyment. The cookies looked sweet on the Christmas table on the 25th. 

  

A major hit with us all was the Kürtőskalács or chimney cake. Between a bread and a pastry, the sweet dough is wrapped around a solid wooden cylinder and cooked on coals to brown and caramelise. 

I felt like a right clever clogs because I already knew what they were, and loved that there was zero risk when we were practically throwing our forint at the little Hungarian lady as she wrapped our cake for us. I don't think she understood 'don't bother with the paper lass, we're scoffing it now'. In the same way you're chuffed when you get a question right on 'The Chase', I was proud of my previous funnel cake knowledge. And in the same way I wasn't gonna admit I knew that giraffes can't cough because I saw it on Pinterest, neither was I going to admit my funnel cake facts were thanks to watching 6 back to back episodes of the Hairy Bikers while eating the 'Tobler' of a Toblerone when I was having a 'bad day'.

Nor was instantly 'team funnel' but Mim had never seen such optical illusions in North Wales x

Then all of a sudden it was Christmas! And I had great fun with my little cousins making gingerbread houses and decorating cupcakes. Kate has a great creative eye and her little toadstool outside her house was beautiful. Will's method of 'one sweet on the house and 4 in my mouth' was a personal highlight. My Auntie told me there was a mini disaster when the cat made a run for the open back door and managed to grab a fondant plant pot from Will's festive palace. What greater compliment can you have than a non human wanting to taste your bakes! 

My gingerbread bungalow

Will's palace

Kate's beautiful cottage!

Our second session resulted in these lovely cupcakes!

My festive bakes have included Christmas cake, stollen with thick marzipan, gingerbread reindeer, the usual shortbread and mince pies and a festive Victoria sandwich for anyone who stood still in our house long enough. 

So you've had a bit of an update on my festive bakes and travels. I'll be back to the recipes with my next post! Reward yourselves for all that reading you've just done while it's meant to be the holidays! I'm off for a cuppa and a macaroon! I suggest you do the same xxx

Peppermint Crunch off of school dinners!

This is a school dinner classic.. And I say that although I don't remember us having it at my school but everyone else always associates it with good old school days. My recipe is a twist on 'Aussie crunch' and you CANNOT fail because there is no wrong way to make this mint delight.

Heaven on a plate!

Ingredients:
225g / 8oz margarine (stork for the win)
75g / 3oz desiccated coconut
150g / 5oz sugar (people may argue it should be caster sugar but granulated is a) cheaper and b) works just as well)
75g / 3oz cornflakes (crushed up into smaller flakes)
1 table spoon of cocoa powder that's been sieved
150g / 5oz self raising flour (I swear by Be-Ro - cheap flour is glorified dust)

Topping:
Around 225g / 8oz icing sugar
Few drops of peppermint extract/essence
Few drops of green food colouring (I always use gel food colouring but this isn't essential for this recipe, you can colour it with anything, within reason i.e. put down that green crayola felt tip)
A large bar of Cadbury's chocolate


This will make a tray 31 x 21cm (or 12.5 x 8 inches) which is your standard Swiss roll tin. I often make double quantity which will fill a large roasting tin.


Pre-heat your oven to 180°c, 350°F or gas mark 4. Grease your tin and line with grease proof paper so it's super easy to lift out once it's cooled.

Melt your margarine in a pan over a gentle heat. Pour onto all your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa, coconut and cornflakes) and mix well in a large bowl. This requires no elbow grease so it's a perfect bake if you're weak and feeble or don't have a flash sale shiny mixer. I'll let you decide which of those applies to you! 

Tip your mixture into your tin and spread out to cover the base. Press it down gently with a spatula or a fork, taking care not to press it down too hard or you'll end up with a very compact, crispy and hard base that can only be bitten by the teeth of wolves. Your base should be around 3cm thick but just go by eye; no one likes a clever bugger with a ruler.

Bake for around 18-20mins until the base is cooked but still a little soft to touch. DO NOT PANIC if your base has risen up in the tin and looks all uneven. It's self raising flour; it's in the name! As your base cools it will settle back down and become more level.

Leave the base to cool and then make your icing. You can make your icing layer as thick as you like but I find about 8oz of icing sugar is a good starting point. Mix your icing sugar with a few drops of peppermint extract/essence and a couple of drops of water. Add green food colouring (it takes only a drop) until a bright peppermint green is reached.

Beat together and add water drop by drop until your icing is a thick consistency that can't be easily poured and needs spread with a knife. If it looks too runny then add more icing sugar. 8oz is just a guide and you can go by eye. Worst case scenario you've got some extra mint icing. You've practically made your own Colgate. Who doesn't love confectionery that doubles up as a means of minty fresh breath.

Spread your beautifully green thick icing onto your cold base, going right to the edges. A thick icing won't take long to set as it is already firm. Melt a large bar of Cadbury's chocolate by whichever means you prefer. Spread on top of the peppermint layer, avoiding using too much pressure or you'll interrupt the peppermint situation. 

Bob it in the fridge to set. Pull the tray out a little while before you want to cut it and it'll be easier to cut without cracking all of the chocolate layer. A blunt knife without a serrated edge is often handy to avoid a peppermint massacre but if you're inpatient and have limited knife supplies, hack away! 

Enjoy my lovelies, over and out for tonight xx

Since I saw you last...

Evening to all and to all a good evening!
I have been overwhelmed by the amount of views Lorna's little bakes has received since my first posts a couple of weeks back. Thank you to everyone who's took the time to have a read and thank you for your feedback.

I am particularly impressed by the people who've shared pictures of their Viennese fingers!! My lovely pal Heather made a gluten free version for her friend, and my work pal Vicki and uni pal Hannah made excellent efforts. Well done lovelies!

Vicki's Viennese 

Hannah's Viennese

A common challenge that the ladies mentioned was that they were difficult to pipe. There are a few ways round this. You can take your margarine out of the fridge an hour or so before hand and let it soften or you can boil the kettle and let the filled piping bag rest beside the warm kettle for a wee while to soften the biscuit mixture. Failing that, you can give your piping bag a bit of a massage to soften it in your hands, but let's be honest it depends if you're baking with an audience. Awkward... As a last resort, I could come and pipe them out for you but that really depends on how good you are at making cups of tea. 

Since I posted last I've been baking loads! Last week I fundraised for Stand up to cancer (cancer research U.K.). All my work pals were great support and bought lots of cake. In one staff meeting I shifted around 2dozen cupcakes, 20pieces of Lemon drizzle, 40 shortbread biscuits, 20 Viennese fingers, 20 pieces of Peppermint crunch and 20 pieces of Mars bar cake. Thanks to the support of work colleagues and a dear pal we raised £92 which was incredible! I didn't bring a single thing home much to the disgust of my Dad but I was thrilled. I didn't really want to be eating lemon drizzle for breakfast.. And let's be honest we've all been there. My pal Stacey likes nothing more than gingerbread and custard for breakfast. Makes your Cheerios look pretty dull now doesn't it!! 

A selection of the cakes sold!

I also had the birthday of one of my oldest friends. She got a little bake as part of her present with these Jack cupcakes from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Truly simple but very effective and an easy make for Halloween this week! Ice your cupcakes with a splodge of buttercream icing and cut a disc of fondant with a round smooth edged cutter. Lay it on top and smooth it down with your fingertips. Using a piping bag with a small snip and no nozzle, pipe your design straight on using your black icing. I had a quick practice on some grease proof to see the effect. I think she liked them! (I've just had a right titter to myself as autocorrect changed grease proof to 'freaks proof'. Ha!)

A quick Jack piping practice

Evil Jack

A selection of Jacks :)

If you have a go at any great bakes, send me some pics! I'm always keen to try new recipes and share ideas. I've got a lot of this week's recipes to share with you so watch this space.... xx

Viennese Fingers

These little beauties always go down a treat at family parties! They are basically two shortbread style biscuits sandwiched together with fluffy butter cream (I say butter cream though I don't use butter for the filling in this recipe. Hard core butter creamers will curse me but I'm already over it). I like to dip them in Cadbury's chocolate (you will soon learn I'm particular about some ingredients and much more relaxed about others - I'll make it clear which haha). They last a couple of days tops in my house, but if you eat cake at the rate of a normal person then these treats will keep well for a good few days in an air tight tin. Made these for work last week and they seemed to be a hit :)

Viennese fingers looking lovely

Ingredients (makes around a dozen):

6oz margarine (butter isn't necessary I promise)

2oz sugar

6oz self raising flour

Couple of drops of vanilla extract

For the filling: 4oz icing sugar, 2oz margarine, drop of vanilla extract.

Pre-heat your oven to 160°c, 325°F or gas mark 3. Cream together the margarine and sugar (either by hand or in your beautiful mixer if your Mam couldn't sleep one night, stumbled across a flash sale on the shopping channel and ordered a jazzy ken wood stainless steel mixer at bargain price... No? Just my mother?).

Add the flour and mix well, adding the vanilla at this stage.
Add the mixture to a piping bag with a decent sized star nozzle. 

Nozzle isn't essential but it adds the lovely waved pattern

Grease a large baking tray and pipe out 7-8cm lengths, making sure you leave space between the fingers for oven spreadage! Naturally, you can either put a couple of trays in together or bake one at a time. I'll let you decide. 

Bob them in the oven and bake for around 18minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the tray with a fish slice and place on a cooling rack or grease proof paper. 

Once cooled, make the filling by sieving the icing sugar and beating with the margarine and vanilla. Important reminder for those with a flash sale kenwood - make sure the plastic cover is attached or you'll have recreated christmas '93 with a snow covered kitchen and will spend the next 10minutes wiping up sugar and breathing sugar into your lungs! 

Sandwich together the fingers in pairs (I kind of love the matching up bit, looking to see how accurate you've been with your piping. You've not done it right if you don't end up with a finger for a borrower sandwiched to a finger for Hagrid as your final match). 

Dip the ends in melted chocolate (I'm not going to say water bath over microwave because I have the microwave-melt down to a tee because life is too short - do what you like!). Leave for chocolate to set if your eyes and belly allow you. I reckon by the time you've washed up and put the kettle on and made a decent brew (no I am not about to do a step by step) they'll have set enough to get your gnashers round them! Enjoy folks xx

Welcome welcome welcome!!

Well hello!! And welcome to my little blog. So I have been toying with the idea of starting this blog for some time now. I have two reasons for collating all this cakery. 1) I have a really bad habit of writing recipes on the back of scraps of card torn off the grease proof paper packet. Or tearing new ideas out of food mags and adding them to the recipe 'pile'. So I thought if I had all my recipe faves in one place I could be super lazy and just scroll to the cake of my choice! 2) I love baking and I love cake.. And I love people who love cake. So if you opt for a ryvita with your brew (other 'edible' corregated cardboard items are available) then I'd hit the 'x' in that top right corner right.. about... now...

So what can you expect from this blog? Well I don't profess to be an expert by any means, but I have a genuine passion for baking and some very easy, fail safe recipes that taste bloody great! So whether you're baking for the office lot, having your pals round for a cuppa and the crack or you just want to stuff your face merrily with some home baked goodness, I'm your lass :)