Stacey's Bailey's Blondies

These Blondies are also known as "Monica Geller's" because they came to be due to my uncontrollable need to please people.

Basically, on the day of our December meeting we had a few last minute cancellations, which under normal circumstances wouldn't pose a problem, but because of the Secret Santa theme this month it meant that some bakers would not receive their "gift" (i.e. have their word baked) and that simply couldn't do.

I finish work at 5pm, and on club nights aim to get to the Friends Meeting House by 7pm to start setting up. Usually I take my bake club things to work with me in the morning, stay at work until 6:30pm and go straight from there, as work is about halfway between my house and the meeting house. This time, however, to ensure that everyone got their words baked, I left work bang on 5pm, ran to the supermarket to buy some ingredients, ran home, and started baking like a mad-woman! Anyway, I ended up getting a taxi up to the meeting house, and the brownies were still lovely and warm by the time I got there. Thankfully, Ruth had arrived before I did and started setting up shop :-) We then sat and ate some of the gooier brownies with spoons. It was a good day.

Anyway, the words that needed to be baked were Bailey's, Stars and Red. so below is my recipe for Bailey's Blondies with white chocolate stars and red edible glitter to decorate!


Ingredients:
200g slightly salted butter
100g white chocolate
2 medium eggs
135g caster sugar
100ml Bailey's Irish Cream
300g plain flour
Edible glitter and white chocolate stars to decorate (optional)

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 35 - 40 minutes
Makes 16 blondies

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a square tin with baking paper.
2. Put the butter into a small microwavable bowl and melt in the microwave. Place this to one side to cool.
3. Melt the white chocolate, either in the microwave in 20 second blasts, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once melted, place to one side to cool.
4. Put the eggs and caster sugar into a large mixing bowl and beat until frothy. Beat in the cooled melted butter, Baileys and white chocolate. Finally add the flour to the mixture and fold in until just combined.
5. Pour the batter into the prepare cake tin, then sprinkle on the edible glitter and white chocolate stars, if using, to decorate.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown in colour, and springy but still moist to touch. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan before turning out and cutting into 16 gorgeous, gooey brownies!

Tom's Piggies in Blankets

This month I went for something classic and simple: sausages wrapped in bacon.
Pick your sausages and buy lots of them; I went with full sized sausages from the local butchers. You'll also need a couple of rashers of back bacon per sausage (or one rasher for small sausages). I made some with smoked and some with unsmoked bacon. Preheat your oven to about 200°C. Oil enough baking trays to hold your sausages. Wrap each sausage in one or two rashers of bacon and skewer them in place. I used a couple of long metal skewers to make a sort of long double kebab for each tray, but anything which will hold the bacon on should work. Put in the oven for about an hour (less for smaller sausages), observing and turning every 15-20 minutes.
Eat! Enjoy!

Stacey's Ginger and White Chocolate Cheesecake

So, the word I drew out of the hat this Christmas was ginger (THE flavour of Christmas last year!!) Originally I was planning to bake a gingerbread house that we could assemble together at the meeting, but as I did the draw I knew that another member had gingerbread, so I decided to go for something a little bit different. As it turned out - Steph made a cheesecake too!! There's no such thing as too much cheesecake, though, and Steph's was baked and tasted just like gingerbread, whereas mine was of the chilled variety. 

Ingredients:
200g gingernut biscuits
100g margarine
30g crystallised ginger, plus extra to decorate
150g white chocolate
300ml double cream
300g cream cheese
150g icing sugar
A little bronze lustre dust
Gold edible shimmer spray

Prep time: 20 minutes
Chill time: 3 hours (minimum)
Serves 8-10

1. Crush the gingernut biscuits into fine crumbs, either by putting in a blender, or by bashing with a rolling pin the old fashioned way.
2. Melt the margarine and mix into the biscuit crumbs. Pour the biscuit mixture into the cake tin you are using (I used a 7 inch springform pan) and press down with the back of a spoon to flatten. Pop the tin in the fridge to allow the biscuit base to set whilst you make the cheesecake filling.
3. Start by chopping the crystallised ginger into teeny tiny small pieces, and put these to one side. Melt the white chocolate - either in the microwave or in a bowl over hot water - and put this to one side to cool.
4. In a large bowl, whisk the double cream to soft peaks, then whisk in the cream cheese and icing sugar. Separate 250g (approximately 1/3) of the filling into a smaller bowl, and stir in the chopped ginger and bronze lustre dust. Put this to one side.
5. Whisk the cooled white chocolate into the remaining cheesecake mixture.
6. Remove the biscuit base from the fridge and start to layer the cheesecake fillings on top of this, making sure to level the top of the cheesecake between each layer. Start with half of the white chocolate filling, then all of the ginger filling, then the remaining white chocolate filling.  
7. Spray the top of the cheesecake with the gold shimmer spray, then place one or two pieces of ginger in the centre to decorate. Pop the cheesecake in the fridge for at least 3 hours to set before serving. (It's best to leave it overnight, if you can!)

 

December - Secret Santa

Ho Ho Ho!

We decided a little while ago that we'll try not to repeat themes from last year, but we also decided that we couldn't NOT do Christmas in December, so we decided to put a Secret Santa spin on it. Each member had to put a word or phrase which made them think of Christmas into a hat, and then the words were drawn out at random for another member to use as baking inspiration.

Here are the words everyone put in:

Me - Christmas films
Sally - Tinsel
Charlie - Baileys
Steph - Mulled Wine
Joy - Red
Katrina - Praline
Laura S - Stars
Ruth - Pine smell
Angel - Bacon
Jen - sweet mincemeat
Catherine - gingerbread
Kate - candy canes
Tom - Ginger

So what did we come up with? Well, unfortunately Angel, Catherine, Charlie, Jen and Kate couldn't make it, but the rest of us were very pleased with our Secret Santa Bakes! Joy baked some Pine-infused Caramel Shortbread Tartlets for Ruth, Katrina baked some Vanilla Cupcakes topped with images from some Christmas films for me, Laura baked a big  Chocolate Cake which was iced with a Christmas Tree and edible glitter tinsel for Sally, Ruth baked a Mulled Wine Bread and Butter Pudding for Steph, Sally baked some wonderfully interesting Praline Bacon for Katrina, Steph baked a Gingerbread Cheesecake for Catherine, Tom baked some big and very tasty Pigs in Blankets for Angel, and I made a Ginger and White Chocolate Cheesecake and some Ginger Cordial for Tom, and also some Bailey's Blondies topped with red glitter and white chocolate stars for Charlie, Joy and Laura!

We had a great time, with Christmas songs, cracker jokes and paper crowns, and we all ate our fill of sweet, savoury, and sweet and savoury combined goodies - I'm sure a few belt buttons were undone when we all got home, just like the real thing!

Stacey's Rainbow Birthday Cake (of doom!!)

I was tempted not to post this recipe, simply because I can think of no reason why any sane person would want to recreate the monster I created for our first birthday party. But then I thought about it, and there are a lot of crazy people out there who might want to bake a 9lb birthday cake, so here's the recipe!

Yes, it really did weigh 9lbs. I weighed it and everything!

This one slice fed 5 people. I'm not even kidding.

I never actually intended to make a cake of this size. You see it was all an error of judgement. You see, I had planned to bake this in my 6" cake tin, meaning it would have been a smaller cake. However, I (stupidly) ordered the wrong size cake topper, and so the topper was too big for a 6 inch cake and I couldn't trim it down without losing too much of the design, so there was only one thing for it - I had to bake a 9 inch cake. The problem there being that I also couldn't reduce the number of layers... all colours of the rainbow should be present in a rainbow cake, and I'm already cheating a bit by merging "indigo" and "violet" into "purple".
 
Anyway, if for whatever reason you find yourself with way too much time of your hands, a kitchen full of baking ingredients, and a hankering for a cake of giant proportions, the recipe is below! Just to give you an idea of the quantities if you'd like to make a less gargantuan cake: I was going to use a 100g/1 egg mixture per layer for the 6" cake.

Ingredients:

for the cake:
900g margarine (no joke)
900g caster sugar
9 medium sized eggs
150ml milk
900g self raising flour
3 tbsp vanilla extract
Food colouring in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple

for the icing:
500g vegetable shortening (Trex)
1kg icing sugar (still not joking!!)
2 tbsp vanilla extract

to decorate:
hundreds and thousands of hundred and thousands
an edible cake topper of your choice (optional)

1.  Preheat the oven to gas mark 5, and grease and line two baking tins. 
2. Unless you're using your kitchen sink as a mixing bowl, you're probably going to want to make this in batches. I made my batter in three batches, splitting each batch into two layers of cake. 
3. Start off by beating 300g margarine with 300g caster sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and creamy. Beat in three of the eggs, one at a time, followed by 50mls of the milk and 1tbsp of the vanilla extract. By the time you've beat all that in, your mixture should be light and fluffy.
4. Measure out 300g of the flour, then fold this into the cake batter a little at a time, until the ingredients combine to form a smooth batter. Scoop half of the batter into a separate bowl, and use the food colourings to create a red batter and an orange batter. I always start with red as it's the worst colour to mix. If you don't use enough blue or green colouring, you just end up with light blue or light green. If you don't use enough red food colouring, you don't get light red. Oh no, my friend. You get pink. So you need to use a fair amount of red food colouring to get a red sponge. Don't forget though, that the colours will be more vibrant and a little darker once baked.
5. Pour the batters into the prepared cake tins, and bake for 25-30 minutes until firm but spongy to touch. Allow the cakes to cool in their tins for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to create your yellow, green, blue and purple layers. (Optional extra: make yourself a cup of tea and try to figure out how you're going to get this massive hunk of cakey goodness from your kitchen to the venue!!)
7. Once all the layers are baked and cooled, mix up your frosting by beating the shortening and icing sugar together. I used an electric mixer for this to save time.
8. Place your purple layer onto your serving plate, and spread a thin layer (roughly 1 tbsp) of the frosting over the top of this. Place your blue layer on top of this and repeat. Repeat also with the green, yellow, orange and red layers.
9. Once all of your layers are stacked, crumb coat the cake. A crumb coat is a thin layer of icing that goes onto your cake and is left to set before you put your actual icing on. It's like cake underpants. Crumb coating is a very good idea when making rainbow cake, as one of the purposes of a crumb coat is to stick the crumbs to the cake so they don't get into your outer layer of frosting. Rainbow cake crumbs stand out against white icing, so crumb coating is good. Plus it's fun to say: crumb coat. Anyways... once you've covered your cake in a thin layer of frosting, pop it into the fridge for an hour or so to allow the crumb coat to set completely.
10. Once the crumb coat has set, ice your cake with the remaining white icing. Top your cake with the edible topper, and use sprinkles to hide the seam between the cake topper and your frosting. I also poked sprinkles into the side of my cake to look like polka dots. I'm not really sure why I did that, it was just a whim. I thought it looked pretty at any rate.
11. Invite that guy from Man VS Food over, promising him a t-shirt and eternal glory if he can eat the whole thing in 45 minutes. Alternatively, share the cake with lots of friends and family, and lots of tea!       

Jen's 1st Birthday Butterfly Cakes

Possibly the easiest cakes you can make. I chose these not for that reason, but because at my childhood birthday parties butterfly cakes always made an appearance. Of course, I failed to get them to taste as good as Mum did, but I did use a different recipe, which I thought would be better. Wrong.

The recipe I used is Mary Berry's. No offence to Mary, but I think I do prefer the one from Mum's copy of the old-school Be-Ro cookbook...

Makes about 12 small cakes.

100g (4oz) butter at room temp, 100g (4oz) caster sugar, 2 large free-range eggs,  100g (4oz) self-raising flour, 1 level tsp baking powder.

for the icing:  175g (6oz) butter at room temp, 350g (12oz) sifted icing sugar plus extra for dusting.
(I thought this was a lot, so I reduced quantities...)

You can just whisk everything together if you want to, but I always cream butter and sugar first, add the egg gradually - whisking well until everything is smooth - and then sift in the flour and baking powder. Divide evenly between cake cases and bake for between 10 and 20 mins depending on size of case used at 200 C/Fan 180 C/gas 6. I always rely on my cake tester to judge when cakes are ready, and also if they feel firm to touch.

When cool, cut a circle from the top of each cake, and cut in half to form the 'wings'.
For the buttercream, mix the icing sugar and butter until smooth. I attempted to pipe the buttercream in to the hollow space, but it didn't stick to the cake, so I ended up using a spoon. Position the wings on top, dust with icing sugar, and that's it! 

Lorna's Sprinkles Cupcakes!

For our first birthday, i decided to go with a good ol' classic of sprinkles cupcakes, and to make it even more "1st birthday" i put dinosaurs on the top ^_^

Ingredients:

100g margarine
150g plain flour
1.5tsp baking powder
150g caster sugar
3tbsp milk
2 medium eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup sprinkles (equiv. 62ml volume)

Icing sugar
Lemon juice
Orange chocolate

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.

Measure all ingredients except the sprinkles into a bowl, and mix with an electric mixer (i used a hand held one, although a big mixer would be equally as good). Stir in the sprinkles until well distributed, and divide the mix between each case.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until well risen and slightly golden on top. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

I made my decorations by melting orange coloured orange-flavoured chocolate and pouring into a dinosaur shaped silicone mould (so cute!!). Leave to cool in the fridge for about half an hour and the chocolates pop right out.

Mix icing sugar with a little water and lemon juice, pop a little on top of each cake, and attach a dinosaur.

November - We Are One!

This month we decided to celebrate our first birthday with a Birthday Party themed meeting - and it was fantastic!

There was a LOT of sweet stuff, and we put all that sugar-energy into playing pass-the-parcel, pin the candle on the cake, and hot potato-cakes! Catherine made some Cake Pops, Charlie baked a Chocolate and Banana Loaf, Jen baked some Butterfly Cakes, Joy baked some Fondant Fancy Cupcakes, Kate baked some Chocolate Cupcakes (iced in club teal!), Katrina baked some deconstructed Trifle Cupcakes, Lorna baked some Sprinkles Cupcakes with hand-made chocolate dinosaurs, Sally baked a Sun-dried Banana Bread, I baked a HUGE Rainbow Cake, Steph made an Onion and Bacon tart, and Tom baked some Pinata Sugar Cookies!

Keep an eye out for a few of the recipes on the blog over the next few weeks :-)

Happy Birthday to Us!

Can you believe that we are 1 already? This year has gone really quickly, but we've had a lot of fun along the way...

The Cake'n'Bake Club came into existence out of a passion for baking (and eating) all manner of goodies, the desire to share that passion, to learn more about baking and improve our current talents, and to meet like-minded people in a relaxed and friendly environment.

Around mid-October 2011, I sat at home looking for a baking club in Cambridge to join, but couldn't find one that suited me. I'm an obsessively organised person, so the thought crossed my mind to just start my own club. I sent a little Facebook message out to gauge interest amongst my friends, and Craig, Joy and Sarah all seemed keen, so that's how the ball got rolling...

The Cake'n'Bake Club Facebook group was created shortly after that, and our first ever meeting set for Wednesday 2nd November. That first meeting was our smallest, with only four of us in attendance, but since then we have grown considerably: we now have 41 members of our Facebook group, 12 blog authors, and usually have 8-10 people turn up to each meeting.

We've also achieved a considerable amount in the wider baking community during out first year. In February our blog was selected as one of 15 to receive a bundle of baking goodies from Baking Mad, with which we had to bake something Valentine's themed. Five of our members got together for an epic day of baking and we created our Valentine's Cheesecake, which won 3rd prize in the competition!

In March we were invited to take part in another one of Baking Mad's competitions - for the best Easter bake. Five of our members submitted their Easter recipes and we voted for our favourite to put forward into Baking Mad's Easter Competition: Jaymes' Polish Mazurek. Jaymes won the first prize - a half days' workshop with Eric Lanlard in July.

We were also invited to submit a recipe into another competition in March - this time to win a space in Macmillan Cancer Care's Little Book of Treats. The club voted for our favourite recipe once more, and my own Valentine's Cake Pops were put forward. A few weeks later we found out that our recipe had been selected to appear in the book, which went on sale in M&S stores in September - our chocolate cake pops appear on page 41!

We decided to convert our August meeting into a Blooming Great Tea party in order to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer care, and raised a whopping £105.22 for the charity!

At the start of September, our chocolate cake pop recipe popped up again, this time in the Good to Know magazine's top 10 recipes of the month (we were number 3, if the photo isn't obvious enough!)

And at the end of September, we had our very first family outing, to the Cake&Bake show at Earl's Court in London! It was not exactly what we expected, but we still had a great day. (And it was a great excuse to order in some club t-shirts!)

We'll be celebrating our amazing first year with our very own Birthday Party on Wednesday but I wanted to take the opportunity, one year on from our very first meeting, to say a massive thanks to everyone who has helped to make the Cambridge Cake'n'Bake Club truly amazing. THANK YOU!

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!

Stacey's Honey and Apricot Scones

I entered my Champagne Victoria Sponge recipe into a competition run by Natural Selection Foods and I won a whole bunch of their dried fruits, so I wanted to use some in my baking for fruit and veg month. I chose the apricots as they were lovely and sweet, and substituted the sugar for honey in this recipe.

225g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

50g butter or margarine

50g chopped apricots

2tbsp clear “runny” honey

100ml buttermilk

Beaten egg, to glaze

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 15-20 minutes

Makes 12 small scones

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Tip the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and mix together by hand. Add the butter and rub this into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add the chopped apricot, honey and buttermilk to the mixture and stir with a spoon until the mixture comes together to form a dough. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead lightly for a few minutes, until the dough is soft and smooth.
4. Roll the dough out to around an inch thick, cut out small scones using a round cutter, then place these on the prepared baking tray, leaving a space between each. Brush with the beaten egg to glaze, then bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown on top.
5. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack to cool – although scones are always best eaten slightly warm!
6. Eat as they are, or serve with jam and cream.

Sally's spinach, mozzarella and tomato wholegrain loaf

I used Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Wholegrain seeded flour, which is described as a "Rich malted bread flour with wholegrain wheat, sunflower, pumpkin and linseeds".

I used the directions on the side as a guide and added/adjusted/switched a few ingredients. My baking tends to use recipes made up in my head. This is probably how it went.

Probable ingredients:
500g of wholegrain seeded flour.
125g of mozzarella
Sachet of fast action yeast.
25g of olive oil (instead of butter).
Lukewarm water, much less than written on side of flour packet. I think I used about 250ml, but use up to 350ml as necessary.
Salt, approx 1.5tsps.
2 small blocks of frozen spinach. 50-60g ish.
Some semi dried tomatoes. I think about 50-60g again at a guess.

Method:
1. Microwave the spinach to defrost. Put in a sieve to allow any excess water to drip out. 
2. Use directions on side of bread packet to make bread. I think it went a bit like...
3. Flour in bowl. Mix in yeast and salt.
4. Put olive oil in and mix with fingertips until resembles breadcrumbs.
5. Add and mix in the lukewarm water until the dough comes together but is not sticky. Leave it slightly on the dry side as later added ingredients are wet.
6. Knead for about 10 mins.
7. Chop mozzarella, spinach and semi dried tomatoes to your preference. Add to mix and stir through.
8. Put in a bowl and cover with cling film or a plastic bag.
9. Put in a warm place for at least an hour.
10. Take dough out, knock down and put in a loaf tin.
11. Cover again and put back in the warm place for at least 30 mins to rise again.
12. Pre-heat oven to gas mark 7 (220c, 200c for fan assisted or 425f for you retro kids).
13. Cook for about half an hour in the middle of the oven until golden brown.

To enjoy:
It is a little heavy, so I would recommend slicing and toasting it, with lashings of butter. Yum!

Tom's Tropical Crumblish

This bake started out as a version of the Tassajara fresh fruit cake, and then veered wildly off course into a crumble.  Beware: these measurements are extremely approximate, and produce a large quantity of crumble.  This is one of those recipes which is will provide a nice surprise from what you have to hand, rather than rewarding careful planning and measurement. So substitute away to form your own version.

For the topping I zimmed about half a large pineapple, a few big handfuls of grapes, and a medium orange in a smoothy maker until they were reasonably pulped but not completely smooshed.  Then throw that in a bowl and add about a cup of oil, a cup of chopped nuts (I just used some mixed chopped nuts I had to hand), a cup of desiccated coconut, two cups of rolled oats, a few drops of vanilla essence, and enough flour to bring the mixture together into a slightly crumbly dough.  (If I was doing it again I would probably substitute at least some of the oil with warm butter).

I then baked this mixture at about 180C for about 30 minutes, and kept it for two days before doing the next part, but the wait is probably optional!

To construct the crumble I chopped up the remaining half of a pineapple, and a couple of large pears into reasonably small pieces, and spread them over the base of a large baking dish.  Sprinkle with a decent handful of brown sugar (and add a little water if the fruit isn't very juicy), and then cover with the baked crumble topping mixture.  Now bake it again for about 30 minutes at 180C.  Hopefully it will turn out as something interesting!

Stacey's Raspberry Meringues

This is one of my favourite EVER recipes. They take a long time to cook, but it is SO worth the wait. You can use either fresh or frozen raspberries.

4 large egg-whites (room temperature)

1tsp cream of tartar

115g caster sugar

115g icing sugar

50g raspberries

Prep time: 15-20 minutes

Cook time: 1hour 45 minutes

Makes 18 meringues

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 1 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Chop the raspberries into small pieces.
2. Whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar together until the egg whites are thick, opaque, and stand in stiff peaks.
3. Whisk the caster sugar into the egg whites one tbsp at a time, being sure to whisk well between each addition. If your sugar doesn’t dissolve into the egg whites properly at this stage you will end up with weepy meringues later! When all of the caster sugar has been added you should be left with a mixture that is stiff, smooth and glossy.
4. Gently fold half of the icing sugar into the meringue mixture until combined, but be careful not to beat out too much of the air you’ve whipped in! Add the remaining icing sugar and the raspberries to the meringue bowl, and fold these in gently.
5. Scoop the meringue mixture onto the baking tray using two tablespoons to shape into rough ovals, then bake for around 1 hour 45 minutes until golden brown and crispy on top.  Turn off the oven, but allow the meringues to cool inside the oven – this will create meringues which have a really crispy outer-layer, and a really gooey inside! Once completely cool, store in an airtight container until ready to serve.

September - 5-a-day

We had been talking about using “fruit and veg” as a theme for a while, and September seemed like a seasonally appropriate month to do so, so that’s what we went with! The “rule” was that anything our bakers baked should have at least one item of fruit or veg on the ingredients list – what they did with it was up to them!

Interestingly, we ended up with a lot more sweet bakes than savoury, but all were delicious! This was also the first time a member has brought in their own small kitchen appliance to one of our meetings – but I must say the toaster worked VERY well! So, without further adieu, the roll call:

Catherine bought some more of her delicious Blackberry Bakewell Tarts, along with an equally delicious Blackberry Egg Custard Tart; Charlie baked some ultra-gooey Beetroot Brownies; Katrina baked some very interesting Carrot and Cheese Flapjacks, along with some not-too-bad-for-you Blueberry Oat Muffins; Sally baked an absolutely amazing (and even better when toasted) Spinach, Sun-dried Tomato and Mozzarella Loaf; Tom baked a very tasty, still-warm-from-the-oven Tropical Fruit Crumble; and I baked some Honey and Apricot Scones and some crunchy on the outside, gooey in the middle Raspberry Meringues – it may not be a dietitians dream, but nobody could deny that we each got our 5-a-day!

Happy Baking

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