Snow is falling...

Now that advent is here it really feels like Christmas is soooooo near and that means Christmas baking! Our gorgeous little boy arrived 10 days early 4 weeks ago and time has flown by, but I've finally managed to get back in the kitchen and first on the agenda was a batch of mince pies. Last year was all about adding marzipan to my mince pies:

http://yummymummy2012.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/hidden-delights.html

but this year I have given Mr Hollywood's recipe a try, with added tangerine and apple and scrummy homemade pastry. Here is a link to the recipe I used:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/paul_hollywoods_mince_04604

I found it made enough pastry for 9 mince pies and enough filling for well over 12 (although the recipe says it makes 12 but only gives instructions to cut 6?!- Paul, I'll forgive you as they are so yummy!) so I have a box of frozen filling now for next time I make these. They are made in a muffin tin and are definitely 'mansize' (not that I'm complaining about that) but next time I would probably do them in a fairy cake tin so they aren't quite as big!

Merry baking!

xxx

Christmas Strudel!

Apologies first of all for the lack of photos on this post, camera is packed in my hospital bag ready for when our 'bun in the oven' makes his appearance. Not long to go now!! 

The recipe is from the Christmas issue of Good Food magazine which I don't think is out in the shops yet, but when it is, the gorgeous picture of it is on p.88. This recipe appealed to me straight away as I LOVE all the ingredients in it, and I'm sure you could easily swap them for others if there was one you didn't like, and it definitely evokes the flavours of Christmas to me! I deviated a lot from the original recipe but only in small ways so have added my ramblings, but you may wish to follow the original recipe which I have posted.

I found it made enough filling for 2 strudels, each made with 6 sheets of filo pastry but probably depends which brand of pastry you buy as to how large the sheets are. Perfect as one for tonight and one for the freezer!

Pear, Chocolate and Marzipan Strudel

Serves 6-8 if you make 2 strudels

75g/3oz melted butter, plus a little extra (I actually didn't use this as I never butter my filo, shocking I know!),

5 pears, peeled, cored and chopped (I used tinned as I only decided today to make it and didn't have time to wait for them to ripen!),

4tbsp light muscovado sugar, plus a little extra,

1 tbsp Disaronno (optional) (Missed this out as I'm 'with child' but would definitely add this post birth- lush),

100g/40z ginger biscuits, crushed,

1tsp ground cinnamon,

100g/4oz dark chocolate, broken into chunks,

100g/40z marzipan, chopped into small pieces,

250g pack of filo.

1. Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan and add the pears and 1tbsp of sugar and cook for 5 minutes (I didn't do this step as tinned pears are very soft already). Tip into a bowl and leave to cool.

2. Add the Disaronno, biscuits, chocolate, cinnamon, mazipan and 2tbsp of sugar and mix well.

3. Line a tray with baking parchment and lay down a sheet of filo and butter it and sprinkle with sugar (again I missed this out and put all 6 sheets down in one go). 

4. Put the filling down one of the long sides of pastry then fold over the ends and roll it up to make a sausage, making sure it is seam side down. If you are going to freeze it to cook at another time then roll it in the baking parchment and foil and pop in the freezer for an easy pudding.

5. If you are cooking it to eat now then heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas mark 6. Brush with melted butter, sprinkle with sugar and then bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden and crisp. Leave for cool for 10 minutes, brush with icing sugar and enjoy. We had ours with some Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

Happy eating!

x

Long live the King!

Some of our lovely friends moved house recently so I thought when we visited their new pad we would take a yummy gift with us and I decided on Empire Biscuits.

Traditionally they were based on a German biscuit called the Linzer Biscuit, but they were renamed Empire Biscuits during WWI. They are deliciously sweet and simple biscuits and matched the tin I'd bought for them really well! I made them in two sizes so the little ones could dig in too and they made 12 sandwiched biscuits, 6 bigger and 6 smaller ones (24 individual biscuits).

Empire Biscuits
12oz/300g plain flour,
8oz/200g Stork,
4oz/100g castor sugar,

Several tablespoons of raspberry jam,
1/2 mug icing sugar,
12 halved glace cherries.

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.
2. Mix together the plain flour, Stork and castor sugar until it forms a dough. It is quite a short dough so dust your worktop/board well with some more flour.
3. Roll out/squash out with your hands until the dough is about 1 1/2cm thick. Cut out and place the biscuits onto a greased baking tray. 
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
5. When cool, mix together the icing sugar with a small amount of boiling water to get a thick glace icing. Spread on the top of half of the biscuits and top with halved glace cherries.
6. Spread raspberry jam onto the other half of the biscuits and sandwich neatly together.

Enjoy!

xxx

Coffee and Walnut Cake!

After changing my cover photo on my Facebook page Let Them Eat Cake (https://www.facebook.com/yummymummyletthemeatcake), I've had lots of messages asking me for my recipe for Coffee and Walnut Cake so here it is:

Yummy Mummy's Coffee and Walnut Cake

Cake:
8oz/200g self raising flour,
8oz/200g Stork,
8oz/200g castor sugar,
4 large eggs.
100-200g chopped walnuts (I personally don't like to skimp on the nuts but some people prefer a lot less),
4-6 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee (depends on your brand/how strong you like it to be).

Buttercream:
6oz/150g icing sugar,
2oz/50g Stork,
3-5 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee (depends on your brand/how strong you like it to be).

Icing:
3/4 mug icing sugar,
2 heaped teaspoons of instant coffee (depends on your brand/how strong you like it to be),
Chopped/halved walnuts.

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.
2. Mix together the self raising flour, Stork, castor sugar and eggs. Add the walnuts and mix thoroughly.
3. Boil the kettle and make up a short measure of strong instant coffee and beat quickly into the cake mix. I usually put the coffee granules into a mug then add about 1 1/2-2inch of boiling water. You can make the coffee earlier and leave to cool, I never remember to do this. If you add hot coffee the cake mixture can look like it's split but I promise you it's fine as long as you then work quickly to get it in the oven. 
4. Quickly put the mixture into lined cake tins and bake for 18-22 minutes until golden on top and cooked through. Cool on a wire rack.
5. Whilst the cakes are cooking make the buttercream. Mix together the icing sugar, the short measure of strong, instant coffee and Stork. If it is too runny then add more icing sugar to get the desire consistency. Put into the fridge to use later.
6. When the cakes are completely cool, sandwich them together with a generous amount of buttercream. If you have any left over if can be kept in the freezer and defrosts quickly.
7. To make the glace icing, combine another measure of strong, instant coffee with the icing sugar until you have a spreadable consistency. Quickly spread over the top of the cake and top with walnuts. 
8. Leave to set (if you can) and then dig in!!

Happy baking!

xxx

Easy peasy choccy biccies!

Decided to make some 'easy peasy choccy biccies' with my little man today. This recipe I've posted before is so simple to adapt for different flavours:

http://yummymummy2012.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/1-2-3-super-easy-biscuits.html

I added 1oz Green and Black's cocoa to the recipe, then got to business rolling and cutting with my little man. We made them into sandwich biscuits (a bit like a bourbon) with chocolate buttercream that I had in the freezer (my freezer is full of little pots of different flavours of leftover buttercream so this is an easy way to use them up as you don't need much). Looking forward to one later on!

Ready to mix...

 Dough...

 Rolling and cutting time!

Hot from the oven! 

 Sandwiched and ready for nomming!

Some suggestions you could add to the original recipe are:

• 2oz/50g of chocolate chips, coconut, raisins, glace cherries or chopped nuts,
• 1oz/25g cocoa powder or hundreds and thousands.
• 1 tsp cinnamon or other spices,
• 1 tbsp peanut butter,
• Smarties,
• Few drops of almond essence.

Happy easy baking!

xxx

Devil's food cake...sinful!!

I had a delicious piece of chocolate and orange Devil's food cake with some friends at the weekend so when my little man said he wanted to 'bake Daddy choc cake' I knew we would have to give a Devil's food cake a go.

Devil's food cake is the chocolate companion of angel food cake and red velvet cake, and is a light, moist, airy cake that uses cocoa and hot water as opposed to chocolate and milk. It also uses bicabonate of soda which (ready for the science part) raises the pH level making the cake a darker colour than normal chocolate cake. I used Nigella's recipe which can be found on her website here:

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/DEVILS-FOOD-CAKE-5310

Instead of making a chocolate ganache though (due to the lack of 300g of dark chocolate in our house) we made chocolate buttercream with icing sugar, Stork and cocoa which was delicious and topped it with chocolate covered pretzels.

 Cocoa, sugar and boiling water.

 Creaming the Stork and sugar.

Adding the flour etc.

 Adding the cocoa mixture (I love my spatula!)

 Fresh from the oven.

Ready to eat!

I have to say it didn't last very long in our house!!

xxx

Sugarcraft Figures!

Just spent a lovely evening with Nickie from Cakes by Nicola (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cakes-by-Nicola/148705945245272?ref=ts&fref=ts and http://cakesbynic.weebly.com/) at Make - Horsham Craft Project learning to make sugarcraft figures, and here are my first efforts! I'm really pleased with them and have learned loads from Nickie. She's a fab teacher and took us step by step how to make them, explaining all the tools, pastes and techniques clearly. Watch this space for more fondant friends in the future...!