Joy's (very easy) stained glass bakewell hearts

I chose these for the first bake off as biscuits were probably the first thing I learnt to make as a child, and I still use my mum's old recipe today, hence why it's in ounces!

Ingredients:
4oz butter/margarine (works equally well with vegan margarine if you're that way inclined)
3oz caster sugar
6oz plain flour
Any boiled sweets, I used Cherry Drops
Anything else you want to add! For these I added a couple of drops of almond essence and a shake or 2 of cinnamon.

Method:
1. Cream butter & sugar, add vanilla/almond/orange/lemon essence
2. Sieve in flour & cinnamon and mix to combine
3. Roll mixture to about half to 1cm thick on a floured work surface, and cut out desired shape. I find it's easiest to transfer them to a lined baking sheet before cutting out the hole where the sweets will go, as it helps them retain their shape.
4. Fill the hole with crushed boiled sweets (I used half a cherry drop per cookie)
5. Bake at 170oC for 10-15mins or until the sweet fills the hole & the cookies are nicely browned.
6. Enjoy!

Charlie's Banana Muffins

225g Plain Flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

110g butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 bananas (mashed up)

55ml milk, or buttermilk (I use normal old semi-skimmed!!)

2 eggs

115g caster sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 190/gas mark 5

2. Sift all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix together

3. Put the butter and vanilla in a separate bowl and beat together until it's creamy

4. Gradually add the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time beating each time.

5. Add a bit of milk at a time, then a bit of dry mixture, then a bit of banana to the cream mixture - beat well each time and keep doing this until you only have one bowl of mixture!

6. Fill a cupcake tray of cases 1/2 full as they rise quite well, bake for about 20 minutes. Leave to cool in tray for 5-10 minutes.

Stacey's Rainbow Cake

This is my signature bake from the November meeting-lemon flavour Rainbow Cake! Firstly, I apologise from the poopy photos - I had no idea we'd be publishing a blog so I didn't really give the cake photography the time and effort it deserves. Secondly, I wanted to point out that my cake got a bit squished in transit - please ignore the bottom half of the frosting in the first photo!

OK, before I type the recipe, time for a little cake-science. The reason the colours of the cake curl around each other is purely down to the fact it was baked in a bowl! when baking in a Pyrex bowl it's the bottom and sides that cook first, and as they cook they also rise, forcing the top colours down into the middle of the bowl - pretty cool, right? If you were to bake this recipe in a flat tin, your lines would all be even and you wouldn't get the swirls (the cake would still look and taste great though!)

Ingredients

For the cake:
300g margarine
300g caster sugar
3 medium eggs
300g self raising flour
2 tbsp lemon juice
red, yellow, and blue food colourings (I used gel food colourings as I find you get a vibrant colour without watering down your mixture!)

For the frosting:
150g shortening
300g icing sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
black food colouring
edible glitter (I used "white hologram")

Prep time: 30 mins
Bake time: 50-60mins
Serves 8-10

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a round Pyrex (or other oven-proof) bowl with foil.
2. Beat the margarine and sugar together until creamy. Beat in one of the eggs until well combined, then fold in a third of the flour. Repeat until all of the eggs and flour have been used up and you have a thick, smooth batter. Gently fold in the lemon juice.
3. Separate the mixture into 6 even portions, and colour each red, orange, yellow, blue, green and purple. (In cake-land, indigo and violet merge to become "purple".) As a reminder, you mix a red and yellow to make orange, blue and yellow to make green and blue and red to make purple!
4. Carefully place the red mixture into the bottom of the bowl and level with the back of a spoon. Layer each mixture on top of the other, spreading gently to the edges after each layer.
5. Bake for 50 - 60 mins, or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool in the bowl for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Once the cake has cooled prepare the frosting. Mix the icing sugar into the shortening a little at a time until a smooth paste has formed. Mix in the lemon juice to taste, then spread evenly onto the cake. Place a little black food dye into the remaining frosting, then pipe a line across the cake. Add another drop of black colouring into the remaining frosting, and pipe a second line next to the third. Repeat for another two lines so you end up with a grey-scale rainbow. Sprinkle with the edible glitter to finish then serve!

Sarah's Chelsea Buns

This is the recipe for the Chelsea Buns I would have made for Novembers signature bake. They are great fun to make and look and taste great. However, they can be a bit timely with the process but they are quite simple to make.

Chelsea Buns

Makes 12

500g White bread flour
1/2 tsp salt
50g softened butter
75g caster sugar
1 tsp dried yeast
225ml hand-hot milk
1 egg, beaten
For the filling:
25g melted butter
115g sultanas
25g chopped mixed peel
25g currants
25g light brown sugar
1tsp mixed spice

For the glaze:
50g caster sugar
5ml orange juice

1. Combine flour and salt, then rub in butter.
2. Make a well in the middle of the ingredients and add the milk and egg. Mix and kneed for 10 minutes.
3. Allow to prove until doubled in size, then knock the dough back.
4. Lightly grease a 23cm square cake tin.
5. Roll out the dough into a square, measuring about 30cm.
6. Brush the dough with the melted butter leaving a 1cm border along one side.
7. Evenly spread sugar, spice and fruit over the buttered area before rolling the dough up in the style of a Swiss Roll.
8. Cut the roll into 12 pieces and place cut side up in the cake tin.
9. Cover with oiled cling film and allow to prove again for 30-45 minutes.
10. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Bake the buns for 15-20 minutes or until well risen and golden all over.
11. Leave to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack.
12. Gently heat the sugar and orange juice and brush generously over the warm buns.

Happy Baking!

November - The Signature Bake

In order to get to know each other at our first ever meeting, we decided to go with "The Signature Bake" as a theme. The Cake'n'Bakers were invited to bring along something they had a bit of a reputation for baking, or otherwise their favourite cake to bake (or eat!)

Charlie brought along some amazing banana muffins, Craig baked a gateaux (which was extremely brave for his first ever baking attempt!) Joy came with some yummy stained-glass-window cookies, and Stacey contributed a rainbow cake! The quality of the bakes was fantastic - and we all left with very full tummies!

Next time we'll be going with a festive theme, but in the mean time our recipes will be coming this way soon!