Flour, Cake and Pastry

Today's bake is a Carioca Flan. Full of walnuts and coffee. It's kinda like coffee and walnut cake, flan mode. If you're feeling it, then take a whack at making your own pastry, or for an alternative, easier option, simply buy it ready made! The choice is yours!  Here's my step by step guide on making this yummy flan and also a butterscotch sauce to accompany it. Yum! Ingredients (flan): 2oz butter  4.5oz plain flour 1/2 tsp salt 3oz grated walnuts 2oz caster sugar 1 egg yolk 2tbsp milk 2 eggs  4oz sugar 7fl.oz strong black coffee  4oz grated walnuts 1tbsp plain flour Method (flan): To prepare the pastry, rub the butter into the flour. Add the salt, grated walnuts, and sugar. Bind the pastry with the egg yolk and milk if necessary to give it a rolling consistency.  Roll the pastry to 5mm thick and line a 8inch flan tin with it. Bake blind for 10 minutes (to do this, place a circle of silicone paper on the bottom of the...

Sometimes you just want a little bite to get you through the day, and I know for most of us that's usually a sweet treat! These jam and coconut squares hit the spot just right! They're full of flavour and each bite has texture upon texture-it's a flavour explosion! Next time you fancy a sweet treat to keep you going, take a whack at these yummy snacks! Simple and scrummy! Ingredients: 6oz self raising flour 6oz butter 6oz caster sugar 3 eggs 1 pot of jam (choose which ever flavour you like! I'm a big fan of black currant so I used that for this recipe) 500g dedicated coconut Method: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line and grease a square cake tin-it doesn't matter too much about the size! You'll be cutting the cake up later anyway.  Beat together the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy. It should be cream in colour. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little flour with each addition-this helps to prevent the mix from curdl...

Although summer is over, Key Lime Pie is one of those dishes that makes you feel summery all year round. Its a real crowd pleaser too! Ingredients: 300g biscuits-ideally digestives 150g butter, melted 1 tin condensed milk 3 egg yolks Finely grated zest and juice of 4 limes 300ml double cream 1 tbsp icing sugar 1 extra lime zest, to decorate Method: Heat the oven to 160 degrees celsius. Put the biscuits in a strong plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin until they are crumbs. Mix the in with the melted butter and press into the base and up the sides of a 22cm loose-based tart tin. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and leave to cool. Put the egg yolks in a large bowl and whisk together. Add the condensed milk and whisk for 3 or 4 minutes; add the zest and juice of the limes and whisk again for a couple of minutes. Pour the filling into the cooled base then put back in the oven for 15 minutes. Cool then chill for at least 3 ho...

Life.  It's one crazy ride right? You never know what the next 30 seconds will bring never mind the next 30 years. When you're little everyone always asks "what do you want to be?" Or "where do you see yourself in 10 years?" Yeah you get the obvious career answers or vets, doctors, teachers, football players. But the truth is? No one has a clue. I mean don't get me wrong, everyone has dreams and aspirations and an idea of where they see themselves, but not one person on this entire planet can actually say for sure. I wanted to be a vet when I was in primary school, and now I hate the idea! Life just happens, and you're suddenly in a job that you either love or hate, with different dreams and different aspirations than you had when you were 5. But I think that's the beauty of life. You never actually know what's going to happen in 30 seconds or 30 years. It's just so unpredictable. And sometimes we forget how truly amazing this opportuni...

I started to write this recipe on Monday but wow it has been a crazy week! Bakes after bakes, cake after cake.  But here it is! Better late than never!  Birthday cakes are one of my favourite things to make, I just love how every one is going to be different and you never know what you're going to be asked to bake. I recently had an order of a chocolate and vanilla marble cake with owl decoration, I was pretty excited about this one cos it meant sculpting some form of owl related model. It's so fun just being able to go to town with the decoration and actually using your hands to physically create something. So here's the recipe and a guide to all things icing!  Ingredients: 8oz self raising flour  8oz butter 8oz caster sugar  4 eggs  1 tsp vanilla essence  1oz cocoa powder  Method:   Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line two 8 inch circular tins.  Beat together the butter and the sugar until th...

In our house there's always that situation when we have loads of ripe bananas left in our kitchen-we just buy to many and never get round to eating them. A monkey could survive quite happily in there. So I decided to take action and pick up my wooden spoon, and create some baked goodness. This week's recipe is banana bread. Its a fool proof recipe, you don't even need a set of scales! So here's a step by step guide on creating the perfect way to use up your leftover bananas, instead of throwing them in the bin! Ingredients: 2-3 very ripe bananas 1/3 cup melted butter 1 cup sugar (you can use less if you want, just depends on how big your sweet tooth is!) 1 beaten egg 1tsp vanilla essence 1tsp bicarbonate of soda 1 pinch of salt 1.5 cups self-raising flour Method: Pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Mash the bananas with a fork. Stir in the melted butter.  Add the sugar, egg and vanilla essence and beat together. Mix in the flour and bicarb....

Autumn has arrived.  The leaves are starting to turn brown and the weather is turning rather chilly.  That also means the arrival of Autumn berries and the scrummy bakes that comes with them-from crumble and pies to roulades and cakes. Berries can pretty much go in anything and everything. Or you can just sprinkle them on top of your favourite dessert! Plus they're uber healthy and tasty, so it's a win win situation!  One of my favourite cakes to make with berries has to be blueberry cupcakes with blueberry icing. They are absolutely delicious, and it looks pretty awesome when you bite into one and the juice comes oozing out!  Ingredients: 8oz self-raising flour 8oz softened butter 8oz sugar 8 eggs 1 punnet of blueberries For the icing: 100g sieved icing sugar 1tbsp water  Method: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Line a cupcake tray with cupcake cases.  Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fl...

Christmas is almost upon us (what?!) which means many bakers across the globe are taking up their spatulas and preparing the annual task of the almighty Christmas cake. Any good cake is prepared well in advance-my mum usually bakes hers during October half-term here in the UK, which is usually the last week in October. And oh my goodness, does it make you feel Christmassy! So this year I've been given a few cake orders which are fruit cakes, just like that favourite Christmas dessert. So I thought I'd share with you guys the different recipes I've used-there's just so many out there, but these two recipes are very different. One is my mum's recipe, its extremely simple and if you're on a budget of any kind for the Christmas season, this is the one to go for-it doesn't have as many expensive ingredients, and there isn't many of them either, but its still packed with flavour and is delicious! The second recipe I chose to use was more of the traditional ...