Tom's Biscuit Dinosaurs

Some time ago I was given a three-piece biscuit cutter which supposedly could make a 3D dinosaur! I decided it was sufficiently mad to have a go for the Mad March theme.

I had a look around for something which would be structurally sound and taste nice, and came across a recipe for "Pryanik", which apparently is Russian gingerbread. It turned out quite well, out of the cut pieces we made a few stable dinosaurs:

Plus lots of odds and ends - which we managed to make light work of.

Pryanik

200g Sugar
2 eggs
100g unsalted butter
6-7 tbsp of Honey
1½ tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
½ tsp Nutmeg
1tsp baking powder
250g plain flour

Heat honey + butter in a pan over a low heat (stir regularly). Whilst it is heating beat the eggs and sugar together. When the honey & butter are melted and just starting to bubble slightly, add the beaten eggs and sugar. Leave on the heat (still stirring) until it's pretty hot to the touch, but not sizzling. Then remove from the heat and fold in the dry ingredients bit-by-bit.

Now allow the mixture to cool - I left it over night, but an hour is probably plenty. Roll out to about 5mm thickness and bake at 180°C for 10-12 minutes.

The shapes for the dinosaur had to be quite precise (for biscuit shapes!) to get a structurally sound dinosaur. I got best results from cutting the shapes immediately after taking the biscuits out of the oven, but this leaves lots of odds and ends - so if your shapes aren't so demanding then it's probably easier to cut before baking.

Stacey's Beetroot and Goat's Cheese Brownies

For "Mad March", I wanted to bake something a little on the unusual side, so when I saw a photo of "goat's cheese brownies" on buzzfeed, I knew that had to be it. The only problem was that it ended up turning out that goat's cheese brownies were not that mad at all... when I searched for recipes 100's came up! Apparently goat's cheese brownies are pretty big in the USA! So, how could I make my brownies even madder? By adding beetroot. Yummy, lovely beetroot.

This is a brownie of three layers. I used my usual brownie recipe for the chocolate layer, and took inspiration for the goat's cheese layer and the beetroot layer here and here (respectively). I started mine with the chocolate layer, then goat's cheese, and then beetroot. Next time I make them, I'll do the beetroot layer first, as that batter is much thicker than the other two and needed spreading with a spoon, whereas the chocolate and cheese layers could just be poured. I've typed the instructions below as if the beetroot layer went in first, because I think you'll find it much easier to do that way!

I've provided below all of the ingredients you need to make all three layers, so this will work as a sort of shopping list. But, to make it easier to read and to tell what goes where, I've split ingredients by layer in the method below. I hope this makes sense!

Ingredients

175g cooked beetroot

35ml vegetable oil

100g dark chocolate

3 medium eggs

50g caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

100g self raising flour

50g cocoa powder

150g soft goat's cheese

30g honey

55g margarine

110g muscovado sugar

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 40 minutes

Makes: 25 brownies

• Preheat the oven to 180 and line a brownie tin with baking paper
• Start with the beetroot layer: 

For the beetroot layer:

175g cooked beetroot

35ml vegetable oil

100g dark chocolate

1 egg

50g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

45g self raising flour

25g cocoa powder

• Put the beetroot and the oil into a blender and blend to a fine paste. Add the chocolate and blend until the chocolate is in very small chunks. Put this mixture to one side.
• Pop the egg, sugar and vanilla extract into a mixing bowl and whisk until pale and foamy. Add the beetroot mixture, flour and cocoa powder to the bowl and fold into the eggs until all combined.
• Pour the mixture into your prepared tin and spread level with the back of a spoon. Pop the brownie tin to one side whilst you prepare the cheese layer:

For the cheese layer:

150g soft goat's cheese

1 egg

30g honey

20g self raising flour

• Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and whisk until smooth. Carefully pour the mixture over the beetroot layer and put to one side.
• Prepare your chocolate layer:

For the chocolate layer:

55g margarine

25g cocoa powder

1 egg

110g muscovado sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

35g self raising flour

• Melt the margarine, either in the microwave or in a pan over a low heat. Stir in the cocoa powder, and put this to one side to cool for a few minutes.
• Put the egg, sugar and vanilla extract into a mixing bowl and whisk until pale and foamy. You'd be surprised - even brown sugar goes pale when whisked!
• Fold in the cocoa mixture and the flour until this combines to a smooth, runny batter.
• Pour the batter very carefully over the goats cheese layer in the brownie tin, making sure to cover all of the goats cheese mixture.
• Pop the brownies into the over for 40 minutes. The brownies should feel "set" when you press them likely - that's how you know they will be cooked but still fudgey.
• Allow the brownies to cool in the tin before turning out onto a chopping board and cutting into 25 squares.
• Eat one, and be amazed at the marvellous combination of taste and texture!

March - Mad as a March Hare!

For this month's meeting, we decided to embrace all things MAD. Baker's were invited to come up with something a little bit topsy turvey - and they delivered!

We had a savoury layer cake from Gemma, and sweet sushi from Joy. Sally brought some inside-out carrot cake muffins, Laura S offered up some cookies made with chickpeas, I baked beetroot and goat's cheese brownies, Tom made us some dinosaur cookies which we had to construct ourselves, and Aileen's peppermint cupcakes were mad as a box of frogs!

We're all mad here...

Stacey's Gluten Free Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

These are absolutely the chewiest cookies I ever made. Seriously good stuff. For our "free-from" month my main "bake" was to make a gluten free veggie lasagne, but I didn't like the way it turned out so I went ahead and knocked up these vegan and gluten free cookies instead. The recipe below started it's life over on this blog here, but as usually I messed with the quantities and stuff. Seriously - I think I have a problem where I'm not actually able to follow a recipe.

I think next time I make these, I may leave 50g of my oats whole to give the cookies a little more structure. I'll post pics/update to let you know how it goes!

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 8-10 minutes
Makes 18 cookies

Ingredients:
150g rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder

250g crunchy peanut butter

150g dark muscovado sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp water (if needed)

1. Preheat your oven to 180 and line a couple of baking sheets with grease proof paper
2. Pop you oats into a blender, and whizz to a fine powder. Don't worry if there are a couple of rough bit. Stir in the baking powder and put to one side.
3. Beat together the peanut butter, sugar and vanilla extract until well combined. Stir in the oat flour until a crumbly dough starts to form, then knead this gently with your hands until the mixture comes together. If you find the mixture is too crumbly, add a little water until you get smooth dough.
4. Roll the dough into balls and pop on the baking sheets, making sure to leave ample space between as the cookies will spread! 
5. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown and starting to get crisp on top. Don't worry if they are still gooey when you take them out of the oven, they will firm up slightly as they cool. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking tray for 5 minutes, until transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Enjoy!

February - The One I Love

For February we decided to have a little walk down memory lane by baking our favourite cake or bake from a previous meeting... and it was lovely! Sadly, not many of us could make it so it was a small meeting, but we still ended up running over our time and being kicked out by the wardens!

Joy baked Sally's Venezualan Pan de Jamon from our Around the World month, Mary-Anne baked my Princesse Torta from our Eurovision Bake Contest, I baked Lorna's Pecan Cake from our Fairytale Picnic, and Tom baked Sally's Chocolate Orange Spiced Cookies from our first Christmas together. Since Ollie hadn't been for a while, and Gemma is a new member, they decided to bake some of their personal favourite recipes - for Ollie this was a triple layer Red Velvet Cake, and Gemma made her infamous Chocolate Brownies. Needless to say, we all loved them!

Tom's Autumn Apple Cake

I copied this recipe down a long time ago, and I think I forgot to halve the apples along with the rest of the ingredients.  If you like apples a lot use the full amount (I did for my bake, and it works), but it turns out very apple-y!

It's gluten free, but probably also works fine with normal plain flour. But then obviously wouldn't be gluten-free.

Ingredients

1lb peeled, cored and sliced apples
1½ cups GF flour (or Polenta)
½ tbsp GF baking powder
Pinch salt
1¼ cups granulated sugar (I used brown)
½ cup oil
2 large eggs
1½ tsp Vanilla
Zest and juice of 1 small orange

Method

Put the everything except the apples in a bowl and mix it together well.
Line a 8" square tin and pour in half the batter.
Layer on half the apples.
Pour on remaining batter.
Layer on remaining apples.
Sprinkle some brown sugar and little pinch of cinnamon over the apples.
Bake for around 1½ hours at 180°C/GM4.

Aileen's Vegetarian Beanstack

Jack and the 'Beanstack'

I had made a beanstack for the July Cake and Bake meet, but unfortunately was unable to be there on the day.  I did bring my bake into work with me and managed to raise some money for Marie Curie Cancer Care in the process!

1 1/2 tsp olive oil
1 Spanish onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
1 red pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
1 green pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 ¼ kg cooked kidney beans
5 large tortillas (make sure they're big enough for the dish you use!)
2 tbsp of Greek yogurt (I use way more than that, the more the better in my book)
50g grated Cheddar
Handful fresh coriander to serve
Salsa Verde to serve
31.5 cm round spring form tin, greased and lined

1.  Preheat oven to 200ºC
2.  Heat oil, sauté onions

3.  Add garlic and chillies and sauté for 1 more minute
4.  Add peppers, carrots and cover.  Leave on low heat for 10 minutes.
5.  When cooked place in large bowl.  Add beans and blend roughly, we don't want beans totally blended.
6.  Season a little more than normal as beans absorb flavour
7.  Place tortilla on base of tin, then 1/3 bean mix, then yogurt
8.  Repeat ending with yogurt
9.  Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes

10.  Remove, sprinkle with cheese and return to oven uncovered for a final 5-10 minutes

11.  Allow to cool before removing from tin (I may not have waited for it to cool, hence the partial collapse in the photo below, still super tasty though!)

Aileen's potato style bites

Potato style bites

Makes 60

55g butter, softened

110g cream cheese

1 tsp vanilla extract

480g icing sugar

185g flaked coconut

7g cinnamon (or as required)

1. In a medium bowl, beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add the vanilla and icing sugar; beat until smooth.
2. Using your hands if necessary, mix in the coconut. Roll into balls or potato shapes, and roll in the cinnamon.
3. Place onto a cookie sheet and chill to set. If desired, roll potatoes in cinnamon again for darker colour.

Aileen's Irish potato and peanut butter roll

Irish potato and peanut butter roll

1 potato, peeled and chopped

910g icing sugar

65g peanut butter

1.      Place potato into a saucepan with enough water to cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook potato until very tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and allow to steam dry for a minute or two.

2.      Transfer potato to a large bowl and mash with a fork until smooth.

3.      Gradually stir icing sugar into mashed potato a little at a time until the mixture forms a stiff dough. The dough will be runny until all the powdered sugar is used.

4.      Place a large square of waxed paper onto a work surface. Roll or press dough into a 12-inch square rectangle on the waxed paper.

5.      Spread peanut butter over top of dough, covering it entirely.

6.      Pick up one edge of waxed paper and start rolling the dough to make a 12-inch-long log. Wrap log tightly with waxed paper.

7.      Refrigerate for 1 hour. Unwrap log and slice candy into cross-sectional pieces about 3/4-inch thick to serve.

Note:  A nice floury potato works best for this recipe, I didn’t have any in at the time and attempted the recipe with a less floury variety.  The result was a very soft dough which prevented me from slicing it nicely despite it having spent longer in the fridge.

  

Aileen's Apricot Tartlets

Apricot tartlets

Makes 10

Pastry

1 large egg

30g sugar

20g ground almond

130g flour

50g butter

2 pinches salt

Curd

300g fresh apricots, pitted

80g sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp cornflour

1 tbsp lemon juice

Meringue

3 egg whites

180g sugar

60ml water

1 pinch of salt

Making the pastry

1. In a large bowl mix together the egg, the sugar, the ground almond and the salt.
2. Fold in the flour then add the butter. When properly blended, make into a ball and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
3. Preheat your oven at 190°C.
4. Dust some flour on your tabletop and roll out your dough until you obtain 3mm of thickness. Cut out dough circles so that they are slightly larger than your moulds. This way the dough will fall over the edge. Place the dough onto each mould and put in the freezer for 10 minutes.
5. Place some baking beans on the bottom of your moulds and put in the oven for 10 minutes at 190°C.
6. Get rid of the beans and cut off the extra dough at the top. Doing so will give you a perfectly shaped tart. Put back in the oven for some more minutes then put aside to cool down.
   
   

Making the curd

1.  Blend the apricots with the lemon juice and 2 tbsp of water until you obtain a purée.  Pop this mixture through a sieve to get rid of the fruit bits and fibres.
2. Heat up the apricot purée on medium heat. 
3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, the sugar and the cornflour together.
4. Pour the heated apricot over the egg mix and return to the heat.
5. Keep mixing until you have a smooth texture.
6. Pop this mixture into each tartlet case, once they have cooled.

Making the meringue topping

1. Make syrup by heating up the sugar and water. Meanwhile, beat the egg whites with the salt. When the syrup reaches 118°C, pour it slowly over the egg meringue while mixing.  If you don’t have a thermometer like me, the soft ball test worked fine.
2. With a piping bag, cover the top of your tarts.  I tried a couple of different piping patterns to mix it up a bit.  Finally put under the grill to give it a golden finish.

Aileen's 'Sangria' jelly with wheaten biscuits

Beetroot jelly ‘Sangria’ with carrot, orange and cardamom jelly ‘slices’, served with wheaten ‘straws’ (and additional wheaten biscuits!)

Beetroot jelly

4 whole beetroot, roughly chopped.

100ml red wine vinegar

25g sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Agar agar (1g per 100ml of mix)

1. Blend beetroot with vinegar and sugar.
2. Season to taste.
3. You can strain it through muslin at this point if you want a nice clear jelly.  I thought it would just result in too much waste of the lovely beetroot so I skipped this stage
4. Heat the mixture over a steady heat and sprinkle in the agar agar. 
5. Stir to dissolve.
6. Spoon the jelly into moulds or glasses depending on the desired affect and pop in the fridge overnight.

Carrot, orange and cardamom jelly

300g carrots roughly chopped

300ml orange juice

3g agar agar

5x black peppercorns

2x cardamom pods

2 tsp gin

1. Put the chopped carrots in a pan and fill with orange juice.  Add the peppercorns, cardamom and gin and bring to the boil.
2. Leave this mixture to boil until the carrots are mushy.
3. Pop it all in the blender and blitz until smooth.
4. Pour through a sieve to remove any lumps and the spices.
5. Cool down the mixture in the fridge.
6. Put the mixture in a saucepan, sprinkle with agar agar and bring to the boil until dissolved.
7. Pour mixture into moulds to create the desired effect.  I used a muffin tray and halved the set jelly to make them look like orange slices to garnish my ‘sangria’. 

Wheaten biscuits

Makes about 30

155g whole wheat flour

20g sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon paprika

55g unsalted butter, cut into small bits

1. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, paprika and butter in a medium bowl. 
2. Work the buter into the mixture until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Add 60ml of cold water and stir with a spoon until combined.
4. Knead once or twice on counter.
5. Heat oven to 200ºC.  Lightly grease the baking trays or line with baking paper.
6. Roll out the dough, half at a time to a large very, very, very thing rectangle shape.  Make sure the dough is not sticking, but make sure it is as thin as you can.  Cut a number of strips and curl (for the ‘straws’) and cut the remainder into 4cm squares.  Dot these with cocktail stick.
7. Transfer biscuits to the baking trays.  There is no need to space them, they won’t spread.
8. Bake biscuits until crisp and bronzed. It will only take 5-7 minutes so stay with them!
9. Transfer onto wire rack to cool. 
10. The recipe tells me that the biscuits will last for a week in an airtight tin. From my experience, they normally get eaten the very same evening!

Aileen's Neapolitan Ice Cream Macarons

Neapolitan Ice Cream Macarons

Makes 10-15 macarons

Macarons

100g icing sugar

100g ground almonds

2 medium egg whites

Small pinch salt

55g castor sugar

Filling

150g unsalted butter

75g icing sugar

Quarter teaspoon vanilla essence

Strawberry jam

1. Preheat oven to 160ºC
2. Sieve icing sugar into a large mixing bowl.  Then sieve ground almonds into same bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and salt until they form soft peaks.   Add castor sugar, a little at a time, until the egg is thick and glossy.
4. Gently stir the dry mix into the egg mix.   The mix will loose some air and become loose.
5. Spoon this mixture into a piping bag with 1cm nozzle (See note at end).  The recipe recommended a plain nozzle, which I don’t own so while the end product doesn’t look like a traditional macaron, I quite like effect created by the star nozzle I used.
6. Using a macaron template (they can be bought-I made my own by drawing on baking parchment) on a baking tray, pipe small blobs onto the sheet.  Do not pipe right up until the edge of the template, the mixture will settle.
7. Tap the baking tray a number of times to remove any trapped air.
8. Leave to dry for twenty minutes.  The surface of the macarons should be smooth and shiny and not stick to your finger.
9. Bake for 7-8 minutes.  Open door to release steam, close and bake for a further 7-8 minutes.
10. The macarons are cooked when they feel firm and are slightly risen.
11. Cool completely before removing from the parchment.  If they are not completely cooled, they are more likely to stick to the parchment and break as you lift them.  Resist the urge!
12. Make up a butter icing using the butter, sugar and essence.  It’s a less sugary version of butter icing, but necessary when working with the sweetness of the macarons. 
13. To assemble, take one chocolate shell and pipe a line of butter icing around the edge.  Pop a small amount of jam in the centre and join the chocolate shell with a pink shell.

Note: As this recipe is for making Neapolitan ice cream style macarons, the mixture should be halved before piping, and the necessary colourings and flavourings added.

As I was adapting this recipe from a standard macaron recipe and was unsure of amounts I made two batches of mixture.  I coloured one batch pink using red food colouring paste and I added cocoa powder to the other mixture.  As you can guess the extra dry in my chocolate part of the Neapolitan made a thicker mixture and I didn’t achieve the trademark ‘pied’ as I did on the pink batch.  I’ll know better for next time!

Aileen's mini walnut and date brownies

Mini walnut and date brownies

Makes approx. 25

110g walnuts

6 tablespoons cocoa powder

200-250g pitted dates (depending how ‘fudgy’ you want them)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

100g dark chocolate (optional for covering)

1.      Put the nuts and cocoa in food processor and blitz until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

2.      Add the vanilla extract and the dates and blitz until the mix starts to stick together.

3.      Divide the mixture into uniform sizes of whatever shape you want (I stuck to the standard bite size ball)

4.      Place onto greaseproof paper and pop into the freezer for ten minutes while you prepare the chocolate for covering.

5.      Melt chocolate and cover each bite. Allow to set. 

6.      Store in airtight container in fridge.

Note: Covering these bites in chocolate is an optional step.  I decided they were sweet enough, but each to their own I suppose!

Stacey's Cheese Scones

I'm following the example set by other members, and posting my recipes from previous meetings... starting with these cheese scones from our Fairytale Tea Party in July! I had used the "Sword in the Scone" pun previously for my other blog, but it went down well so I figured it would be a good way to get some savoury bakes into our fairytale offering. I accidentally made these vegan, since I try to avoid dairy and used sunflower spread, soy milk and soy cheese. I don't particularly like the taste of soy cheese normally, but it tasted fine in these scones. The scones can be served warm or allowed to cool before serving, and are best eaten on the day of baking.

Prep time: 5-10 mins        

Cook time: 10-12 mins       

Makes 6 large scones

Ingredients:

135ml milk
1 tsp lemon juice

275g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
tsp baking powder
65g margarine
1tbsp caster sugar

100g grated cheese

To glaze:

2tbsp milk
Salt and cracked black pepper

1. Heat the oven to gas mark 7 and place the baking tray you plan to use into the oven to heat up.
2. Heat the milk in the microwave for around 30 seconds until warm, but not hot. Add the lemon juice to the milk and set this to one side for a few minutes whilst you prepare the dry ingredients.
3. Tip the flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl, and then tip in the margarine. Rub the ingredients together with your fingers until they resemble fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and grated cheese to the crumb-like mixture, and mix in with your hands.
4. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the cooled milk. Mix these together using a cutlery knife until they combine to make a wet dough, being careful not to overwork.
5. Scatter flour over the work surface and tip the dough out onto it. Sprinkle a little more flour on top of the dough. Fold the dough over itself 2-3 times until it becomes smooth, again being careful not to overwork. Pat the dough out (it's better to pat than to use a rolling pin) to around 3cm thick.
6. Using a cutter of your choice, cut scones out of the dough. Tip - do not twist your cutter as this seals the sides of the dough and may prevent your scones from rising.
7. Brush the scones with a little milk, and then sprinkle on some salt and black pepper before popping them in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.
8. Enjoy!

Happy Baking!

Joy's Vegan Sausage Rolls

These "sausage" rolls kept me sane for a few months of semi-inforced veganism as my boyfriend at the time suddenly went dairy free! They're ridiculous easy to make but I didn't have much time or money last week to be more creative.

1 pack of Jus Roll puff pastry (This is the only which is actually vegan. Do NOT get the low fat one, the Tesco one, the all butter one etc)
1 pack of stuffing mix, I used Co-op sage and onion. In my experience, most stuffing mixs are vegan
Soya milk/rice milk etc

Cut pastry lengthways. Mix up stuffing mix and place down middle of pastry strips. Lightly roll one of the edges of the pastry, brush with a little soya milk/water and roll the pastry around the stuffing mix. Cut into bite size chunks, add a few slashes with a sharp knife and brush with a little soya milk.
Bake at 200°C for about 30mins or until golden brown. Looking at the photo I don't think I did mine quite long enough!

And THAT is me up to date - phew! What a productive Sunday evening.

Joy's Unicorn Poop - Birthday NUMBER TWO

As I spent most of the previous month's meeting making bad jokes about number 2, I was absolutely thrilled when I stumbled across this whilst googling kid's birthday party baking ideas:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Unicorn-Poop/

I used my standard shortbread biscuit recipe though (see previous post), but added cola flavouring, vanilla extract and a good slosh of caramel flavouring as this is clearly what unicorn poops would taste like. I divided it into 6, and spent far too long blending red/orange/yellow/green/blue/purple colour pastes into the cookie dough. As a side note, for those who are still using liquid food colourings, I cannot recommend these highly enough:

Get them from eBay/Amazon etc. They're a little more expensive, but they last for ages, a little goes a long way and you really do get a much bolder colour without altering the texture of the cake/biscuit/icing. Anyway...

I rolled each of the 6 colours into long strands, then piled them up and kept rolling to make one really long multicoloured sausage. I chopped this up and had fun rolling each poop into a unique swirl shape. This is definitely the weirdest thing I've ever baked, and I've baked a cookie with ketchup in...

I baked them (probably at 200°C for about 15mins), and when cool, I used icing to stick multicoloured shimmer balls, white chocolate stars and sprinkles. I then sprayed with Dr Oetker gold shimmer spray and added a further sprinkling of cake glitter, for good measure. Voila! (Unfortunately I don't think the picture does the colour justice):

Joy's Cosmopolitan Rolls

August:
August was No Bake month, and I was one of 2 or 3 who made Rocky Road so I won't bother posting the recipe for that as everyone knows how to make it!

September:
I didn't go - sorry!

October:
October was cocktail month, and as I was beginning to get into the Christmas spirit, I fancied making some cranberry sauce, but I added orange and vodka as a nod to the Cosmopolitan! However nowhere was selling fresh cranberries yet and so I settled for dried and used this recipe, but used vodka instead of Grand Marnier:

http://frenchfood.about.com/od/dressingpreservessauces/r/Cranberry-Orange-Relish-Recipe.htm

I spread this over bought puff pastry (I know, I know, I'm a terrible lazy person, especially as it's about the 3rd time I've used it!), then added some turkey slices to keep with the Christmas theme! I rolled this up, chopped it into bite-size chunks and baked. Probably at 200°C for about 20mins but I can't really remember, sorry. I vaguely recall that the pastry didn't rise particularly well, so not my best idea yet!

Joy's Cheese Scones and Lemon Rose Shortbread

We held a fairy tale themed picnic to raise money for Marie Curie. I picked two of my tried and tested favourite recipes: cheese scones and lemon rose shortbread.

Cheese Scones:

This is my Mum's recipe and it's the one I've always used; it's super easy and they always taste great!

8oz SR flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
1oz butter/marg
4oz cheese (I usually use mature or smoked cheddar)
1/4 pint milk

Chuck it all in a food processor and blend until it forms a ball.
Roll out to 2cm thick and cut into desired shapes - don't twist the cutters in the dough as they won't rise as well.
Brush with a little milk, and sprinkle a bit of exra cheese/herbs/ground black pepper if desired.
Bake at 200°C for 15mins.

Lemon Rose Shortbread:

Again, the shortbread recipe is my Mum's (I learnt from the best!) I've probably listed the exact same recipe previously on the blog but here it is again for good measure!

4oz butter/marg
3oz caster sugar
6oz plain flour
2-3 drops lemon essence

Once again, I've afraid this is a lazy food processor recipe! Chuck it all in and blend until it comes together.
Tip onto a floured surface and roll out to about 0.5cm thick. I used a round cutter, and then cut a mini star out of half of the biscuits.
Bake at 190°C for 7-8 mins, then allow to cool.

I never use a recipe for buttercream and just keep mixing and adding until it seems the right consistency, but I also added a couple of drops of rose essence and pink food colouring to this batch.

Use a Wilton 2D rose nozzle to pipe onto the biscuits without holes, then press one with a hole on top - voila! Simple but rather effective, I like to think.

Cake'n'Bake Update

Hello!

It's been a while *coughsixmonthscough* since I've done one of these, and for that I hang my head in shame... Sorry!

But, Cake'n'Bake is still going strong, so here's a brief run-down of what we've been up to in the last six months!

In July we held a fairytale Picnic and raised £86.35 for Marie Curie Cancer Care:

In the August heat we decided to give our ovens a rest and go for a "No Bake" theme:

September's challenge was to bake something that shared your initials...

In October we decided to use cocktails as the inspirations for our bakes:

November was our 2nd Birthday, so we had our 2nd Birthday Party!

In December we helped Santa on his trip by baking Christmas recipes from around the world:

And for January's meeting last week we set ourselves the challenge of baking something "free-from" - here's what we came up with:

The recipes for these bakes will be making their way onto the blog soon - so watch this space!!

Mary-Anne's Portuguese Custard Tarts

• butter, for greasing
• 3 free-range egg yolks
• 125g/4½ oz caster sugar
• 30g/1oz cornflour
• 1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped out
• 175ml/6fl oz full-fat milk
• 225ml/8fl oz double cream
• 300g/10½ oz ready-rolled puff pastry
• plain flour, for dusting
• icing sugar, for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease the wells of a 12-hole muffin tray with butter.
2. In a pan, heat the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour over a low to medium heat, whisking continuously until thickened and well combined.
3. Add the vanilla seeds, then add the milk and cream in a thin stream, whisking continuously, until the mixture is thick, smooth and well combined.
4. Continue to stir the custard mixture until it comes to the boil, then remove from the heat.
5. Roll out the puff pastry onto a clean work surface lightly dusted with flour and icing sugar. Cut the pastry in half and place one sheet on top of the other. Roll the pastry sheets up like a Swiss roll and cut the roll into twelve slices.
6. Lay each of the rolled pastry slices flat onto the work surface and roll out into 10cm/4in discs using a rolling pin.
7. Press a pastry disc into each of the wells of the prepared muffin tray. Divide the cooled custard equally among the pastry cases.
8. Transfer the muffin tray to the oven and bake the tarts for 18-20 minutes, or until the custard has set and is pale golden-brown and the pastry is crisp and golden-brown. Allow to cool in the tin.