Flour, Cake and Pastry

Get in touch with your Scottish side with this yummy recipe for Highlanders. Shortbread was an expensive luxury and for ordinary people, it was a special treat reserved just for special occasions such as weddings, Christmas and New Year. In Shetland it was traditional to break a decorated shortbread cake over the head of a new bride on the threshold of her new home. Shortbread has been attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots, who in the mid-16th century was said to be very fond of Petticoat Tails, a thin, crisp, buttery shortbread originally flavoured with caraway seeds. There are many different recipes and regional variations for shortbread. Shortbread is traditionally formed into one of three shapes: one large circle divided into segments (Petticoat Tails); individual round biscuits (Shortbread Rounds); or a thick rectangular slab cut into fingers. Ingredients: 100g butter 50g caster sugar 100g plain flour 50g ground rice Demerara sugar The rice flour used in this recip...

So today was a family friend's 60th birthday and my mum asked to make a cake, of any type I wanted, as long as it contained chocolate (because who doesn't love chocolate??). I decided to go for a normal rich chocolate sponge cake filled with a gooey chocolate fudge buttercream. And for someone who hates buttercream, I found it quite delicious (even if I do say so myself). I hope you guys like this just as much as we all do, and always, let me know what you think. Ingredients: 6oz (150g) Self Raising Flour 8oz (200g) Caster Sugar 8oz (200g) Butter, Softened 2oz (50g) Cocoa Powder 4 Eggs Method: Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line and grease two 8-inch cake tins. Beat together the butter and sugar until light, creamy and fluffy. Add the eggs gradually, adding a tbsp of flour at the same time to prevent the mix from curdling. Next, add in the rest of the flour and the cocoa powder and beat the batter well until all the ingredients are comb...

Sometime I get a little bored when I'm baking. Especially if I'm making something I've made hundreds of times before and takes little brain effort. So I always have my playlist in the background to keep myself from zoning out to much. Usually this ends up with me singing out loud by accident, much to my parents annoyance, but I think we all love a bit of karaoke right? Plus it makes your bake so much more fun. I thought I would share with you lovely people my top 10 artists to check out and to add to your next playlist. They're pretty awesome! 1) Mumford and Sons These guys have really excelled in the last few years, I've been a fan since the first album and oh my goodness, they're incredible live! As I'm writing this, I'm listening to them! Unlike a lot of today's popular music, every song sounds so different, so you never know what to expect when they release some new material, other than that it will have their trademark Mumford and Sons sound...

It's been a while! Life has been pretty full on this last week!  So this weeks recipe is a chocolate muffin with Betty Crocker vanilla icing and chocolate powder on top! Nom!  Ingredients: 5oz Self Raising Flour  6oz Butter  6oz Caster Sugar 1oz Cocoa Powder  3 Eggs  1tsp Vanilla Essence  1 tub Betty Crocker Vanilla Essence  Cocoa Powder, to decorate Method: Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Line a cupcake tray with paper cases.  Beat together the butter and sugar until thick and creamy, and light in colour. Beat in the eggs one at a time, before adding in the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder and beating well until all ingredients are combined.  Spoon the mix into your cupcake cases, approximately 1.5 tbsp per case (depending on how big you want your cupcakes of course!).  Bake for 22-25 minutes until well risen, soft to touch and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out cl...

Sunday is here again! Crazy crazy! So if you've liked my Facebook page, or follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you'll have seen I now have my own official website! I'm very excited!! (If you don't follow me on FaceyB, Instagram or Twitter, where have you been?) Search Flour Cake and Pastry!! You're missing out! So here is the link to my BRAND NEW website!! Click on the link, I dare you, and be amazed! Check out my gallery, social updates, or subscribe to my mailing list for weekly recipes and funny stories. http://charlieallison.wix.com/flourcakeandpastry Happy baking! Charley x

Roulade and Gateau sponges have one of the quickest cooking and cooling times in terms of sponge cakes. Roulade is made by rolling a thin sponge cake spread with your chosen filling into a log shape. Usually served in slices, the result is a spiral of cake layered with filling. Variations can include jam, whipped cream fillings, sometimes mixed with chopped fresh or dried fruit; the sponge itself can also be flavoured with ingredients such as chocolate or berries. This weeks recipe is a lemon roulade with a lemon cream filling, topped with lemon cream. A perfect summery alternative to a heavy lemon cake. Ingredients (for the sponge): 6 medium free-range eggs 6oz caster sugar 6oz self raising flour 2 lemon zests (keep the juice for flavouring the cream later) Method: Heat your oven to 190 degrees celsius. Line a swiss roll tin (ideally 23x33cm) with baking parchment. Place the eggs and sugar into a large mixing bowl and whisk until ...

There are hundreds of icings out there which can all be used for different purposes. Some cover cakes, some sandwich cakes together, some are solely for decorating, some are hard, some are soft. The list is endless! So here is a definitive guide to what icings are out there, when to use them and hopefully some icing inspiration for you guys! Butter Cream Made with butter and icing sugar, this icing can be flavoured with chocolate, orange, vanilla, the list can go on. The world is your oyster when it comes to flavouring butter cream. It is perfect for filling your cakes and for coating a cake. It's incredibly useful when covering your cake in ready-to-roll icing, just a thin layer will help the icing to stick to the cake, and to stop those pesky crumbs from sticking to your decoration! You can either make your own cream, as mentioned earlier, or you can buy ones that are ready made. If you're going to purchase your butter cream, I would suggest purchasing Betty Crocker...

At work this week I was asked to make some Halloween themed cupcakes for Halloween (obviously). Working in a bakery, it's always difficult to come up with interesting flavours that no where else in the area offers, but also flavours that people will actually like. It always sounds yummy in your head, but in theory, some flavours just don't work.  So my flavourings for these cupcakes were vanilla and poppyseed. Now, lemon and poppyseed has been a pretty popular combination in our bakery, but vanilla and poppyseed? Who knew if it would work. But thankfully, it was a success (yay). They went down like a storm, sometimes the risk is worth taking! I mean, who thought chilli and chocolate would have worked together? But they did, and here we are with a pretty random but tasty combination.  These cupcakes were topped with a vanilla buttercream, edible orange and black glitter and some Halloween decs to give it that spooky spin.  As always, here's the recipe! And definitel...

Everyone loves chocolate. Even if you say you don't, you're lying. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, flavoured chocolate, sculptured chocolate, you name it, and someone in the world will love it. Double chocolate chip cookies are a chocoholic's heaven. Gooey middles, two different types of chocolate chips, chocolate biscuits, and why not go one step further and have it with hot chocolate?            The first ever chocolate chip cookie was created in 1937 by Ruth Wakefield who ran the Toll House Inn . In fact the term Toll House is now even a legally generic word for chocolate chip cookie. These cookies are now the most popular across the globe and is the official cookie of Massachusetts. People love a good chocolate chip cookie. This recipe for scrummy double chocolate chip cookies is one of those mysterious recipes where I cannot remember where I found it at all! I just wrote it down one day and forgot to leave a ...