Stacey's Meringue Ghosts

So, I possibly went a bit over-board with all the recipes this month. BUT in my defence we did have a few more non-baking guests than usual so I wanted to make sure they all had enough cake. I also had some egg whites leftover from my pumpkin pie mixture that I needed to use up. And I really like baking things for Halloween. So here are my meringue ghosts!

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Makes 18 ghosts

Ingredients:
2 egg whites, room temperature
60g golden caster sugar
60g icing sugar
Coloured sugar ball decorations for the eyes

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 1, and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
2. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, then add the caster sugar a little at a time, whisking well between each addition to ensure the sugar has dissolved. By the time you've whisked in all of the caster sugar, you should have a really thick, pillowy and glossy meringue.
3. Gently fold in the icing sugar with a spatula until it's all mixed in, then spoon the meringue into a large piping bag. 
4. Snip of the end of the piping bag and pipe hap-hazard spirals onto the baking sheet, about 2 inches tall. Carefully stick two sugar balls into each meringue pile for eyes.
5. Bake the meringues for 1 hour 30 minutes, then turn off the oven and allow them to come to room temperature with the oven door still closed. This will ensure you have super crisp, super yummy meringues!

Stacey's Mini Pumpkin Pies

I LOVE pumpkin pie! It's quite strange, actually, as I didn't even try pumpkin until October 2010, but it's one of my favourite ever foods. I usually make a big pumpkin pie, but wanted to make individual pies for our club meeting. Unfortunately this meant the I ended up with a fair amount of pumpkin pie mixture leftover, so I've halved the recipe below accordingly. If you do have too much, just place it in an airtight container in the freezer, and use it to make more pumpkin pies at a later date :-)

I used Joy's recipe for pastry (borrowed from her Bakewell Tarts) and I have to say, it's the most successful attempt at baking pastry I've ever made! (Pastry is my weakness!)

Ingredients

For the pastry cases:
200g slightly salted butter, chilled and cubed.
400g plain flour
80g icing sugar
2 medium eggs, beaten

Note: you could always use store bought pastry, if you wanted to. Mary Berry said it was OK. If using store bought pastry, skip to step 3.

For the pumpkin filling:
1 large egg, plus 1 yolk
125ml double cream
200g condensed milk
220g pureed pumpkin
1tsp ground cinnamon

Makes 16 - 18 tarts, depending on the size of you pan (I made mine in a muffin pan)

1. Start by NOT preheating the oven. You want the kitchen to be as cold as possible whilst you're making the pastry. Tip the cold, cubed butter and the flour into a large mixing bowl, and rub in between your fingers until it resembles fine bread crumbs. 
2. Mix in the icing sugar by hand, then cut in the beaten egg with a knife until the mixture starts to come together to form a dough. Press the mixture together into a ball, wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
3. Whilst the pastry is in the fridge, prepare your pie filling. Start by whisking the egg and egg yolk together until light and frothy. Add the cream, condensed milk, pureed pumpkin and cinnamon and continue to whisk for 3-4 minutes, until the ingredients combined to form a custard-like consistency.
4. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4, and grease a deep muffin pan.
5. Turn the pastry out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it lightly, before rolling out as thinly as possible. Cut circles out of the pastry and place this into the muffin pan, using the end of a rolling pin to help you push the pastry into the muffin holes. Prick the pastry cases all over with a fork, then blind bake for 15 minutes.
6. Take the pastry cases from the oven, and carefully remove the foil and baking beans used for the blind bake. Fill each pastry case with 2tbsp of the pie filling, then return to the oven for another 30 minutes, until the pie filling is completely set (you can test with a cocktail stick, if you'd like to.) You'll noticed that the pie filling has risen into a dome shape - this will deflate as the pie cools. Don't worry, this happens to mine all of the time and as far as I can tell it's normal. At the very least - they still taste good!
7. Allow the pies to cool in the muffin pan, then keep refrigerated.

Tom's Molasses Biscuits

165g softened butter
100g white caster sugar
100g soft brown sugar

Beat together until nice and smooth

1 egg

Beat in

3 big dessert spoons of molasses
Splash of water

Beat in

280g plain flour
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp bicarb
1 tsp cinnamon
1tsp ground nutmeg
Pinch salt

Mix in well to form a loverly very sticky brown dough.

Dollop into about twenty dollops on greased baking trays (for proper sized biscuits), then bake for about 15-20 minutes at 180C.

Stacey's Mummified Mini-Pizzas

Here's the recipe for my Mummified Mini-Pizzas. I'd recommend eating these warm straight from the oven, as they are then REALLY tasty. I wouldn't recommend baking them on a Monday afternoon because you have the day off work and then putting them in a tupperware tub in the fridge until Wednesday evening, as that can make them go a bit soggy.

Prep time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook time: 25 - 30 minutes
Makes 16 mini pizzas

Ingredients:

For the pizza base:
3g (1/2 packet) dried yeast
1tbsp sugar (any kind)
2 tbsp olive oil
150ml warm water

175g white bread flour
75g wholemeal bread flour
Pinch of salt

For the topping:
50g tomato puree
One red pepper
Half a bag of grated mozzarella (can also use cheese strings, but I find that grated mozzarella tastes nicer!)

1. Start by making your pizza dough. tip the yeast, sugar and olive oil into a jug with the warm water and stir well. Put this to one side for a few minutes to allow the yeast to start working.
2. Tip both kinds of flour and the salt into a large mixing bowl, and mix together with your hands. Make a well in the centre of the bowl of flour and pour in your liquid mixture. Stir the flour from the sides of the bowl into the wet mixture with a fork until a rough dough forms. Tip this out onto a lightly floured surface a knead for a good 10 minutes before returning to the mixing bowl and covering with clingfilm. Leave in a warm place for an hour to prove.
3. After an hour the bread should have double in size. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. 
4. Tip the bread dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly for a minute or so to knock out the air. Roll the dough out to around 0.5cm, then cut circles out of it with a cookie cutter. Place these circular pizza bases onto the baking tray and bake for 10 minutes before removing from the oven to cool slightly before adding the toppings.
5. Meanwhile, cut small "eyes" out of the red pepper. Was the pizza bases are cool enough to handle, spread a little tomato puree on each one. Give each pizza two red pepper eyes, and then arrange the grated cheese around the eyes, leaving gaps in between to look like bandages.
6. Bake for a further 15 - 20 minutes until the cheese has melted and started to brown, and the underside of the pizza is completely cooked. Serve immediately - we don't want those Mummies to escape!

Joy's Toffee Apple Gingerbread Skeleton Cupcakes

So shamefully it's been absolutey months since I last posted on here, but here goes:

I halved the original recipe & it still made 30 mini cupcakes. I used to loathe recipes that called for cups but all the best muffin & cupcake recipes are American!

You will need:

• 1 cup of plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 cup butter/marg
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup applesauce 

The recipe also called for the following, which I didn't have. I intended to replace them with toffee chunks, but I forgot to include them in the mix so used them to top the cakes instead!

• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts 
• Pinch of nutmeg 

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Line mini muffin tin with cupcake cases.
2. Whisk together dry ingredients.
3. In a large bowl, cream together sugars butter.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.
5. Add applesauce, then flour mixture. Mix just until combined after each addition.
6. Spoon into cases & bake for about 8-10 minutes.

I used vanilla buttercream coloured purple, green & orange for that extra halloweeny feel, then topped with gingerbread skeletons & toffee chunks.

There's already a gingerbread recipe on the blog as Charlie made them for Christmas, or you use own family one (I can't remember which book the recipe I used was in, sorry!) But I quartered the recipe as I knew I wouldn't use much. I rolled them thinly, & used a mini gingerbread cutter to make the shapes. They only took about 4 mins in the oven so don't forget about them! I used writing icing to decorate, then assembled. I would suggest not sticking them on until just before you want to eat them as they did go very soft the next day.

October - Trick or Treat

We decided that since it was October, and since the supermarkets were filling up with all kinds of orange, purple and green treats, we'd have a Halloween theme for this month's meeting.

We had a whole heap of treats (without the tricks!) this month, and even had a good number of NBGs (non-baking guests) to help us eat them all! Angel baked some Pumpkin Baklava, Catharine baked a Blackberry Egg Custard Tart, Joy baked some Toffee Apple cupcakes topped with Gingerbread Skeletons, Katrina made some Spiced Cake Balls with and Apple Sauce dip, Ruth made a Sugar-Spun Spider's Web, Sally baked some Trick or Treat Buns, I baked some Mini Pumpkin Pies, Meringue Ghosts and Mummified Mini-Pizzas, and Tom baked some Molasses Cookies.

Tom also very kindly modelled his AWESOME new Cake'n'Bake Hoody for us! We thought it looking very fetching indeed!