Flour, Cake and Pastry

It's Christmas! Truffles Truffles Truffles. Perfect for a chocoholic, or in fact anyone with a sweet tooth. *Makes 60 truffles* Ingredients: 340g chocolate 60g butter 200ml double cream 50g caster sugar 2 tablespoons cocoa powder 2 tablespoons icing sugar Method: Break up the chocolate, chop up finely and put into a mixing bowl with the butter. Place the cream and sugar in a saucepan, bring just to the boil and remove from heat. Pour the cream onto the chocolate and butter and beat until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth and shiny. Freeze for a few hours, until firm enough to shape. Mix the cocoa and icing sugar together, dust hands with mixture and roll mixture into truffle shapes. Chill until serving, or keep in an air tight container for up to a week. A cute serving suggestion for these are to purchase some mini cupcake cases and pop them in. It keeps your hands clean, and also makes them a lot ea...

Happy Christmas Eve! Fondant Fancy Time! Now I know these aren't exactly festive, you can get them all year round. But for some reason we only eat them at Christmas in our household. Weird I know.  This recipe is one of Mary Berry's, it's probably the one recipe that's easiest to follow, and doesn't include loads of confusing steps, which can be a problem in long recipes. I'll include the link at the bottom of the post so you guys can check out some of her other lush recipes. Ingredients: For the sponge. 225g/8oz self-raising flour 225g softened butter 225g caster sugar 1 lemon rind 4 eggs For the buttercream. 250g softened butter 200g icing sugar For the marzipan topping. 3 tbsp apricot jam 200g marzipan For the icing and decorations. 1kg white fondant icing 150ml water Food colouring (any colour you'd like) Method: Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius. Grease and line a 20cm square tin with two strips of parchment paper. ...

Pork and Cranberry Sausage Rolls are today's festive fancy. I first found this recipe on the  Baking Mad website (link is at the bottom of the page) and my goodness is it tasty!  Ingredients: For the Pastry. 450g plain white flour Pinch of salt 375g butter (unsalted), cut into 2cm cubes 250ml cold water 1tbsp lemon juice 1 egg-to glaze For the Filling. 500g sausage meat 100g cranberry sauce Method: Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl, add the butter and stir with a metal spoon to coat the butter with flour. Mix the water and lemon juice together in a jug and pour into the flour/butter mixture. Using a round ended knife cut across the mixture several times, turning the bowl until the dough comes together. Tip onto a lightly floured surface and shape into a thick slab about the same size as a house brick. Flour the surface well and roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 40x20cm. Fold 1/3 into the centre, then fold over the other 1/3...

Here's round two of my festive favourites for this year, today is Christmas cake!  Now many bakers across the globe will have already picked up their spatulas and completed the annual task of the almighty Christmas cake. But I thought I'd share these recipes with you again, because it's Christmas, which means CAKE! I thought I'd share with you guys the different recipes I've used this year-there's just so many out there, but these two recipes are very my favourites. 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  fruit/ Christmas cake. What I mean by that is, it's got a lot more ingredients in which people usually associate with a fruit/Christmas cake, su...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  Christmas is 4 DAYS away, and I've still got presents to wrap, cards to write and baking to do. It's a crazy time of year. I thought I'd share with you guys some of my festive favourites over the next couple of days, starting with a good old roulade.  There are hundreds of variations of a roulade, both sweet and savoury. This version is a chocolate roulade with a layer  of whipped cream in the centre. Yum right? So as always, here's the recipe and a step by step guide to festive fun this year.  Ingredients: 6oz sugar 6 eggs 5oz plain flour  1oz Cocoa powder  300ml double cream, whipped until stiff Icing sugar, to dust Method: Preheat your oven to 180 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 light, fluffy and thickened. The mix should reach ribbon stage,...

This weeks bake was for a 70th birthday-garden theme. There's a lot you can do with a garden theme, so it was quite fun to brainstorm ideas and to get the ball rolling. So here's the recipe and the method and some top tips of where to get your decorations that are just to fiddly and time consuming to make, especially when your under time pressure! Ingredients: 8oz Butter 8oz Caster Sugar 4 Eggs 8oz Self Raising Flour 1tsp Vanilla Essence Jam (to fill) Appropriate Icings (1kg pack of white ready to roll icing should be sufficient). Method: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a 9inch square tin.  Beat together the butter and the sugar until they become light and fluffy and creamy in colour. Add the eggs one at a time. Then carefully fold in the flour until all the mixture is combined, it should be a pale yellow colour at this point. A dd the vanilla essence into the bowl and mix again. The next thing you need to d...

I've been ill over the last few days, so it's been quite on the baking front I'm afraid! I'm currently baking a cake for a 70th birthday, with a gardening theme, so check back here over the weekend for hints and tips, and the recipe I've been using to make this scrummy sponge! Happy baking! Charley x

Everyone loves a sweet treat. And these Vanilla Cupcakes hit the spot. With a creamy vanilla filling, and a hidden malteser surprise, you'll be making these day in day out. Ingredients: 8oz self-raising flour 8oz softened butter 8oz sugar 4 eggs For the icing: 1 tub of Betty Crocker's vanilla icing Maltesers Method: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Line a cupcake tray with cupcake cases.  Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Fold in the flour. Once mixed thoroughly, spoon the cake batter into your cupcake cases, until they're approximately three-quarters full. Place in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.   Leave to cool. To decorate, cut out a circle of sponge from the cupcake and cut in half to create butterfly wings. Fill the whole in the cupcake with your buttercream and press i...

In August 2016, myself and a friend will be embarking on a volunteering trip to South Africa in order to work with the local community to target issues of poaching as well as to support the work of the local school. However, we need your help. The goal of this particular project is to work within the South African community to target wildlife conservation and issues of poaching.  Sadly, within South Africa, poaching has reached a point of extreme crisis, resulting in Rhinos being categorised as an endangered species with approximate deaths outnumbering births. Research statistics identified by the South African Department of Environmental Affairs indicate the severity of the situation, highlighting a dramatic escalation of poaching in recent years. Shockingly, these statistics inform us that during 2014, 1,215 Rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa, this equates to 1 every 8 hours.   This consequently indicates the need for projects such as this, to wor...