Red velvet cupcakes

 

Friendship is Sharing a Sweet Cupcake.

Marie Williams Johnstone

An American friend of mine gave me this recipe about 9 years ago and only last year did I manage to get round to baking it. It's quite popular that side of the pond and once you've baked this, had the aroma fill your kitchen and dipped your finger in the wonderful cream cheese frosting you'll realise why!

Ingredients:

310g plain flour
45g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
225g butter (or margarine), softened
400g caster sugar
4 eggs
230g sour cream
120ml milk
28g red food colouring
2 tsps Vanilla Extract

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
224g cream cheese, softened
55g butter, softened
30g sour cream
2 tsps Vanilla Extract
450g icing sugar

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

2. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Set aside.

3. Beat the butter/margarine and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy.

4. Beat in your eggs, one at a time.

5. Now mix in the sour cream, vanilla, milk, and the food colouring.

6. Gradually add to the flour mixture, beating until just mixed together, make sure not to over do it!

7. Spoon batter into 30 paper-lined cupcake cups, filling each cup 2/3 full.

8. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until springy and a toothpick comes out clean.

9. Leave to cool in the pan for a couple of minutes, then remove (leaving them in their paper cases) to a wire rack for about 5 minutes.

10. Now remove from their cases to cool completely.

11. For the frosting: Beat the cream cheese, butter, sour cream and the vanilla extract in large bowl until light and fluffy. Slowly and gradually beat in the icing sugar until smooth.

12. Top with the cream cheese frosting.

Enjoy and I hope to see your versions of these soon

Happy baking!

 

Gorgeous Custard Creams recipe!

 

I don't think anyone can say no to these little naughty treats once they've tried them, I know I'm a total addict!

This is exactly why I had to hunt for a recipe to make them at home. Let's face it, if you love to bake and love any certain baked product then of course you're going to have to find out how they're made!!!!

So here's the recipe I used (from the BBC Good Food website with some tweaking by myself)

Ingredients:

For the biscuit:
100g margarine/butter
100g flour
50g caster sugar
50g custard powder
few drops of vanilla essence
For the filling:
150g icing sugar
75g margarine/butter
20g custard powder

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c-200c

2. Cream sugar and margarine, then fold in your flour, custard powder and vanilla essence until the dough is firm and roll-able.

3. Lightly flour a clean surface and roll out the dough to roughly 1/2 cm thickness. Then cut out with a cookie cutter, making sure to have an equal amount of cut outs.

4. Place shapes on a baking tray covered in grease proof paper (or lightly greased and floured), ensuring that one of each pair is put on upside down (i.e. flipped over, rather than rotated).

5. Bake for 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

6. Remove from the oven, don't remove from the tray for a few minutes as they'll be very soft. Then cool on a wire rack.

7. Now mix the icing sugar and margarine until smooth, then add the custard powder.

8. Fill the custard creams once they are cool. Place a bit on the bottom (i.e. non-smooth side) of one biscuit, then put the bottom of the first biscuit's pair onto this. Don't force together as this'll just make the filling spill out.

Let me know how this works for you

Happy baking!

Related articles

• Custard Biscuits (gwenacaster.wordpress.com)


• Karpatka: Polish Vanilla Custard Slice (wholesomecook.wordpress.com)


• caramel fig cake (cakenationaus.blogspot.com)

 

Basic biscuit dough recipe

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300"] (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

This is a great little recipe to keep handy as you can adapt it completely to whatever type or flavor of biscuit you'd like.

Ingredients

250g butter, softened
140g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
300g plain flour

Method

1. Mix the softened butter and caster sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon.

2. Add the egg yolk and the vanilla extract and briefly beat to combine.

3. Sift your plain flour and stir until the mixture is well combined, if it's not coming together, this is your chance to get all sticky and dirty just like when you were a kid! Put your hands in there and give it all a good mix and press the dough together firmly.

Note: Now, you'll notice I didn't give an oven temperature or time, this is because it all depends on what you add onto this basic recipe...for that your imagination is the limit! I usually say about 150c-170c is a good basis for about 10-15 minutes.

Let me see and know about your concoctions :)

Happy baking!

Related articles

• Yesterday's invention - Vanilla & Chocolate Piscuits (no that's not a typo) (carucakes.wordpress.com)


• My version of digestive biscuits (carucakes.wordpress.com)


• Walnut And Pecan Biscuits-Galletas De Nueces Y Pacanas (mariposaoro.wordpress.com)

Peanut butter gluten free cookies - yum!

Man cannot live by bread alone; he must have peanut butter.

James A. Garfield

My lovely fiancé is seeming to get worse with his (what was a slight) gluten intolerance and of course this bothers me...who else do I subject to testing new inventions?!

Now I have to invent new gluten-free versions of recipes! Woohoo a genuine excuse to bake? I'm all over it.

So my first go at this is peanut butter cookies.

I hope you enjoy these as much as he seemed to!

Ingredients:

2 cups of peanut butter (smooth or crunchy - your choice)
1 cup of dark brown sugar
1 cup of caster sugar
1/2 chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to about 150c

2. Beat the peanut butter with a wooden spoon until it softens up some more and gets a bit creamier

3. Add the dark brown sugar and cream it with the peanut butter

4. Now add the caster sugar in bits, creaming as you go.

5. Finally, add your chocolate chips and you're done!

6. Bake on a grease proof paper lined baking tray for about 10 minutes or until golden brown

7. Let the cookies cool a bit on the grease proof paper and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely

8. Store in an air tight container and (if they're not all eaten at once) they should last 5 days

Note: They will spread quite a bit during baking so give a lot of space around them!



Enjoy and let me see your versions of these.

Happy baking!

Mamgu cookies

My grandmother was one of the greatest inspirations in my life. She taught me how to be a real woman, to have strength and self-respect, and to never give those things away.

Reese Witherspoon

I became inspired today to invent and bake some cookies that I think my mamgu (grandmother in Welsh) would have liked. She's been on my mind a lot recently and it's now reached a peak (she passed away a year ago today) so off to my kitchen I went.

Here's what I came up with -

Ingredients:

300g Whole wheat flour
Chocolate chips (as many as you think is right)
2 eggs
1tsp Vanilla extract
50g cocoa powder
120g caster sugar
Canola Oil ( to add moisture)
100g margarine
Milk (enough to make a firm dough)
Ground ginger (just a dash)

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 190c and line a baking tray with grease proof paper.

2. Cream the margarine and sugar together.

3. Add the eggs, one at a time and half the flour between each egg.

4. Add the remaining flour with the cocoa powder and some canola oil to bind it all together.

5. Add the chocolate chips and vanilla extract. Add some milk if it's not quite coming together.

6. Add the ground ginger, just about 1 teaspoon and knead in.

7. Form small balls and flatten them with the palm of your hand to make flat.

8. Bake in the centre of your oven for 10 minutes.

This has become a recipe I know will always have a sentimental value for me.

[caption id="attachment_322" align="aligncenter" width="210"] My lovely Nan[/caption]

Enjoy and as always let me know what you think of this recipe.

Happy baking!

My new creation for today - Granola bars

My granola bars before cutting

So I'm one of these people who absolutely loves oats in pretty much any form you can serve them to me - cookies, bread, porridge, savoury dishes and of course, breakfast bars.

I think this endless love comes from my Grandad, who used to, without fail, eat a bowl of porridge every morning. My favourite memories of him are mostly of me dutifully bringing up his bowl of porridge to him in bed and sitting there talking (more than likely complete rubbish) to him until he was finished.

It was thus inevitable that I'd create my own recipe for all the above (still a work in progress to do the whole list so stay tuned).

Here is my granola bar recipe :)

Ingredients:

160g butter, softened
160g packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons caster sugar dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water
About 400g rolled oats

(Optional but oh so good)
1 mashed banana
Bittersweet/dark chocolate chips
Any other fruit and/or nuts you wish

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c.

2. Lightly grease a square tin (about 8x8 or 9x9,no bigger) as you can see in the photo, I had to use my loaf tin which made them too dense and a bit too soft so they were more like flapjacks.

3. Cream your butter and sugar together, mix in the sugar/water combination.

4. Add in your oats (and banana and chocolate if you want too, plus any other fruit or nuts you want). Mix well.

5. Bake for about 20 minutes.

6. Cut into pieces of desired size while still semi warm and leave in the tin to cool completely.

As always let me know what your experiments with this come out like.

Happy baking!

My favourite GLUTEN FREE brownie recipe

As I promised earlier this week, here is my favourite gluten free brownie recipe. It's also lovely and quick and tastes just as good as any other brownie recipe I think.

Ingredients:
100g Butter
150g Dark Chocolate
100g Gluten Free Plain Flour
200g Sugar
3 Eggs
1 tsp Baking Powder

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c

2. Gently melt together the butter and chocolate

3. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder and sugar

4. Beat in the eggs followed by the melted butter and chocolate mixture
(if you want to add something like nuts or extra chocolate, nows the time people)

5. Pour into 150 x 200mm/6"x8" oiled and lined baking dish

6. Bake in a pre heated oven for 35/40 minutes.

Now enjoy and as always let me know how it turns out for you plus any wonderful substitutes you may have used.

Happy baking!

Chocolate Chai Snickerdoodles

I found this recipe a while ago on a website (I think it was recipes.com) and thought it sounded so interesting and tasty that I had to recreate it!

(the snickdoodles are the ones at the front on the left)

Ingredients:

Should make about 42.

2 1/4 cups (411g approx) sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 cup (30g approx) cocoa powder
1 cup butter (226g approx),room temperature
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups (293g approx) all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c

2. In large mixing bowl, stir together sugar and spices; set 1/2 cup of the mixture aside.

3. Add butter to mixing bowl and cream with sugar until light and fluffy.

4. Beat in cocoa powder, followed by the eggs and vanilla.

5. Stir in flour and baking powder by hand or at low speed.

6. Form dough into 1-inch balls and roll in reserved sugar mixture.

Note: I like leaving these more as little truffle ball looking things but if you like, flatten them at this point.

7. Bake at 180c for 12-15 minutes or until edges are firm.

8. Cool on wire rack and enjoy!

Let me know what you think.

Happy baking!

My favourite brownie recipe

Let's face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me.

Audrey Hepburn

Who doesn't love a big, gooey (yep, I use this word a lot - I love it), chocolatey piece of brownie?
I'm certainly not one who can refuse it and one of my favourite things about brownies is if you cook it for slightly too long you still get a wonderful chocolate cake! Perfect.

I've written down here my favourite brownie recipe. Now this is sadly not one I created but unfortunately I don't remember where I found it so can't give credit. Also with this recipe it's easy to tinker with some of the ingredients, you can easily add more chocolate chips, add nuts or even fruit so you can really personalise it.

Ingredients:
185g butter/margarine
185g dark chocolate
85g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
50g white chocolate chips
50g milk chocolate chip
3 large eggs
275g caster sugar

Method:

1. Position your shelf to the middle of your oven. Preheat to 160c (fan assisted or 180c no fan).

2. Cut your butter/margarine into smallish cubes and put into a medium microwave safe bowl. Break your dark chocolate into small pieces and drop into the bowl with the butter.

3. Cover loosely with cling film and put in the microwave for 2 minutes on full power.

4. Leave mix to cool to room temperature.

5. Prepare your brownie tin with lining it with grease proof paper.

6. Break eggs into a large bowl and add the sugar. Whisk (on high-speed if using an electric whisk) until its thick and creamy. It should double in size.

7. Gently fold in the cooled chocolate butter mixture but go slow.

8. Now add the cocoa powder and flour (at the same time) by sieving and folding in.

9. Stir gently in the white and milk chocolate chips.

10. Pour into your prepared tin and cook for approx. 25 minutes or until the top has a shiny crust and the sides are pulling away.

Let me know how this turns out for you and what new yummy additions you make!

I'll be posting a gluten-free version in the next few days so stay tuned.

Happy baking!

My well loved oatmeal chocolate chip cookies recipe

;

Number one, I absolutely love making chocolate chip cookies. I mean, it's fun. It's exciting. Beyond the fact that I love making them, I love eating them.

Debbi Fields

These gorgeous little chewy cookies melt in your mouth and are so fun to make too (hence that particular quote) so I thought I wouldn't be greedy and share the recipe with you all.

Note: I strongly advise you NOT to double this recipe, even if you could get a bowl big enough you wouldn't be able to mix it and it doesn't fit in any standing mixers bowl - believe me.

Ingredients:

225g butter or margarine
200g granulated sugar (important not to use caster sugar)
220g brown sugar (preferably light brown packed)
250g plain flour
245g oats
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda (baking powder works just fine)
1 tsp salt

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 190c

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the granulated and brown sugar with the butter/margarine.

3. Best in your eggs, one at a time and stir in the vanilla extract.

4. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt then sift into the creamed mixture. Stir to combine with a wooden spoon.

5. Mix in the oats (yep this'll give your forearm muscles a workout! Now you understand my note right?)

6. Cover and chill the dough for at least an hour.

7. Form walnut size balls on a baking tray, 2 inches or so apart and flatten with a fork lightly.

8. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Once cooked removed from tray immediately otherwise they'll stick. Cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy and Happy baking!