Sophie makes flapjacks

I love baking with Sophie, she gets so enthusiastic and excited, but it can get very messy, so I was thrilled when the lovely people at elinens sent me this gorgeous Sabichi Best of British apron to try out. It gave me just the excuse I needed to make one of our favourite recipes - flapjacks. Its such a simple recipe that Sophie can do most of it with assistance. I tend to have to hide them when Michael is around though as he's always dipping in! We put them in lunchboxes and take them on picnics - they can be frozen, but they don't often last that long!

I always weigh out the ingredients in advance and have everything I need to hand, as Sophie stands on a chair at the kitchen table to help. This way I can stay with her. I let her add all the ingredients (apart from the hot butter) and give them a good mix. I do have to keep a close eye on her otherwise she would eat everything before it gets to the oven! I also have to watch she doesn't chuck everything everywhere, including over me, so an apron for both of us is a must.

I loved the design of the apron, its quite short, which is perfect for me, and the ties are long enough for it to fit any size. The lightweight 100% cotton material was lovely for a hot kitchen and it kept my clothes nice and clean, I also really like the patriotic red, white and blue design - a great buy for the price!

Recipe

• 250g porridge oats
• 100g butter
• 100g raisins (or any other dried fruit)
• 80g golden syrup

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees, grease or line a swiss roll tin
2. Melt the butter in a pan or the microwave
3. Mix together all the ingredients
4. Add the mixture to the swiss roll tin and press down well
5. Bake in the preheated oven for approx 30 mins
6. Leave in the tin to cool, then cut up in the tin ready to serve 

 Disclaimer - I was sent this apron free of charge for the purpose of this review

Really cheesy cheese scones.

I often find shop, and even bakery, bought cheese scones are very bland. So here's my recipe for really cheesy cheese scones.

These are perfect served warm from the oven with butter. We often take them out with us on picnics too. I tend to make them in large batches and freeze them.

Ingredients

250g self raising flour
55g butter
pinch of salt
good pinch of cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
100g mature cheddar cheese, plus extra for on top
150ml full fat milk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees
2. Sift the flour, salt and cayenne pepper into a bowl
3. Rub in the butter, either by hand, or in a food processor, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs
4. Mix in the cheese, then add the milk slowly and mix until you have a soft dough
5. Tip the dough out onto a floured surface and kneed lightly
6. Roll out the dough to approx 2cm thick, cut out the scones and place onto a lightly greased baking tray. Sprinkle the tops with cheese.
7. Bake for 12-14 mins until the cheese is bubbling on top and the scones are browned. Place on a wire rack to cool

Happy baking! x

Black forest cake

This has to be one of my favourite cakes ever - its a very simplified take on the black forest gateaux. I use a cake recipe from Mary Berry, which makes a lovely light sponge and isn't too sickly or chocolatey, then I fill it with tinned black cherries and double cream.

You can of course vary the filling if you don't like black cherries, just use your favourite filling, the cake itself is so yummy it really doesn't matter!

Ingredients

• 190g/6½oz self-raising flour
• 150g/5oz caster sugar
• 2 level tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 level tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 2 free-range eggs
• 150ml/¼ pint sunflower oil
• 150ml¼ pint milk 

For the filling

• 300ml double cream
• Tin of black cherries 

 Method

1. Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and grease and line with greased greaseproof paper the bases of two 20cm/8in straight-sided loose bottomed sandwich tins.
2. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the syrup, eggs, oil and milk, mix with an electric hand whisk and pour into the tins.
   
3. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the cakes springs back when lightly pressed with your fingertips. Turn out on a wire rack, remove the paper and leave to cool.
   
4. For the filling, spread the cherries and their sauce on the bottom cake, whip the cream and spread it on top, then place the 2nd cake on top. Dust with icing sugar to finish

Happy baking! x

My first attempt at bread - Breakfast rolls.

I'm branching out! So far my baking career has only extended to cakes, muffins, scones etc, so I thought I should try something new.

Michael bought me a copy of Paul Hollywoods How to Bake for Christmas, and up to now I hadn't used it. I had a flick through and this recipe caught my eye. Michael loves his cooked breakfasts, and as neither of us are good in the morning I thought these would be ideal to grab on the way out, especially when I have to be at work for 8am on a weekend.

Ok so they aren't the healthiest breakfast, but then neither are the cakes I love making so much!

I must admit to being a bit worried about how these would turn out, but I needn't have, even Sophie, who isn't a huge fan of bread and often turns her nose up at a sandwich, eating the filling and bringing me the bread, loved them! She ate 2 for her lunch.

I used the fillings suggested in the book, but you could put pretty much anything in the middle and they would be ideal for picnics too. Maybe try a pizza filling? I imagine Sophie would love that :)

 

 

 

Happy baking! x

A chocoholics dream!

This was another really easy, but very effective cake I made recently. I took it to a friends house for Easter lunch and it went down very well - I was actually really shocked how simple and quick it was.

Starting off with 2 chocolate sponges (any recipe, or if you really aren't into baking you could buy them) I simply sandwiched them together with chocolate buttercream (you can also buy this ready made) - no need to be neat and tidy, you won't see it once its decorated, then I placed Cadburys Chocolate Fingers round the side (you could use kitkats) and covered the top with Maltesers.

And thats it! Everyone who saw it thought it looked great and didn't believe me when I said how easy it was.

Enjoy! x

Somewhere over the rainbow....

I spent a long time trying to decide on a theme for Sophie's birthday cake this year. Shes at an age where she loves everything, but there's no one particular thing that stands out for her. I would say her favourite thing right now is all things princess (or drindess as Sophie would say!) but I wanted to save that for when shes older. So, after coming across a gorgeous looking rainbow cake in a magazine I decided to give it a go. And here are the results :)

I found that this cake was great fun, yet relatively easy to make and looked really stunning when I cut into it. Suprisingly it didn't even take that long either. Everyone loved it so it was well worth the effort.


The cake recipe I used comes from the Good Food website and creates quite a dense cake, which doesn't rise much at all - leaving the layers thin and flat, so ideal for stacking. I did 7 layers altogether, but you can do less if you want.

The following recipe is enough for 2 layers, for subsequent layers, just repeat;

• 125g butter , softened
• 225g plain flour
• 150g caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together using an electric whisk, then separate equally into 2 bowls and add your food colouring. Put in 2 greased and lined 20in round sandwich tins and bake in a preheated oven 180C/160C fan/gas 4 for 12 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Repeat for additional layers.

For the frosting I wanted to use a cream cheese frosting, as with the Good Food recipe, but found the one they suggested came out way too runny, so I used one with butter.

• 200g unsalted butter
• 1200g icing sugar
• 500g full fat cream cheese

Mix together the butter and icing sugar, until it resembles fine breadcrumbs, then add the cream cheese and mix in. I actually found it easier to split the ingredients in 2 and make 2 separate lots of icing.

When all your cakes have cooled sandwich them together with the icing and then coat. I found it best to do a thin crumb coat first, then a thicker coat afterwards.


Hints and Tips

•  Avoid using supermarket food colourings - to get the depth of colour to make this cake look stunning you really do need professional food colouring gels or pastes. Even the gels you can buy in the supermarket aren't strong enough, by the time you have added enough to get the vibrant colours you will have altered the taste and consistency of the cake. I used the Sugarflair range of colours and while not the cheapest you only need to use a small amount. I also mixed the orange and purple myself from the other colours
•  If your cakes rise and dome too much they will need trimming. The easiest way to do that is to freeze the cake first, use a sharp knife and trim the top, then while still frozen spread a thin crumb layer of icing onto your cake
• To ensure the top of your cake is flat turn over the top later of cake so the bottom is on top
• Theres no need for lots of decoration on the outside of this cake - it looks so impressive when you cut into it.
• There are a variety of different icings you could use on this cake. Buttercream, white, dark or milk chocolate grenache, cream cheese frosting are just a few