Mint Marble

So first lets address the elephant in the room, I've been neglecting you. It's been a while since I posted, but I'm creating a schedule for myself which means that hopefully posts on here will be a lot more regular.

Today's offering is a creation of my own, a lovely mint chocolate cake, covered in mint flavoured buttercream and a chocolate ganache, topped with crumbled and quartered Oreos and mint buttercream covered toffee popcorn.

The popcorn was a late but ultimately welcome addition as I was walking through Tescos deciding what to bake and wanting to put a twist on things. I was unsure whether to play it safe with sweet popcorn or it push the boat out a little and combine to seemingly unrelated flavours. The verdict? Perfection...

This little flavour jaunt has inspired me to be a little more adventurous when creating and adapting recipes, so I'm excited (and nervous) for what else I can come up with.


Make sure you listen to this lovely young lady's album, her voice is pure silk:

Until next time!
xx

Cocoa Cuts

Sometimes, words are not always needed.

Sometimes, you just need to get straight to the point, and gawk at pictures of this beautifully rustic-looking carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and thousands of hand grated white chocolate shavings to elegantly decorate.

Sometimes, cake. 

This was slightly trying to make, due to the humid conditions and very viscose cream cheese frosting. As a result, the rustic-looking icing (which the perfectionist in me has embraced) was merely the product of a hurried attempt to get it iced and in the fridge to set before it all melted away!

However, the heat was good for one thing, the chocolate shavings. Top tip: in order to get fuller longer chocolate shavings, leave the chocolate out of the fridge for 30-45 minutes before use so it can soften, then grate. This gives them more of a curl that looks perfect as a garnish or decoration on any cake!


Below is one of those interludes from an album that you wish was a full length song - the delicate piano melody is beautiful - enjoy!

Til' next time...
O xx

Cookie Dough

Everybody loves Oreos. Or at least, all the people that I've ever discussed this delicious, crunchy, dreamy, can-do-no-wrong delight with, have loved it.

So it was inevitable that at some point, I was going to bake something that involved the most majestic biscuit (is it biscuit? or a cookie? or just a fantastic entity that can only be called an Oreo?) that man has ever seen.

NB - Oreo buttercream frosting is certifiably the greatest thing I have ever tasted; and yes, I have tasted  pizza, but this frosting is better. It's the creamy centre of the Oreo mixed with the crushed biscuit, sprinkled with extra biscuit - oh, and there's a lil' slice of Oreo tucked in too.

Enjoy...

Musically, I've been all over the shop, with Adele's glorious return to our ears, and Bieber's epic comeback, there's been a lot of great new music - but there's one song out there, that perfectly described how I feel about these cupcakes, that has to be shared...

Til' next time O xx

Smooth Classics

I like nice things.

When things are organised, tidy, aesthetically pleasing - that kind of thing. Which is why I love a perfectly smooth buttercream finish on a cake. It just looks delicious, and when you cut that slice, and it's faultlessly creamy and...you get my drift. A buttercream finish is everything.

So when my Dad requested a full sized classic chocolate cake (he thought the 6-inch was cute, but politely said he wanted a bigger one) I figured I had the time to get that perfect finish on it, and add a little fun with some sprinkles. Cause who doesn't love sprinkles?

Of course, doing what you know is nice, but switching up the tempo is even more fun, which is why recently I've been switching out the vanilla essence in this cake for peppermint extract, and we all know that mint chocolate is pretty much a match made in taste bud heaven - and I'm pretty sure it's my Dad's new favourite.

Here's a song I  currently can't, and don't want to, get out of my head, enjoy:

Til' next time

Forever & Always

Happy belated Father's Day to all the Dads, Grandads, Father figures, single Mum's, Single Dads, big Brothers and Mentors - and to those without Fathers, stand tall, you possess strength we could only dream of, and we admire you so much.

xx

Old Favourites

There are a lot of things that are my favourite. Like my favourite shoes, or my favourite dinner recipe, or my favourite poem, or my favourite book, or my favourite cupcakes.

I've used this recipe combination for a while, (the cupcake recipe is from here and the icing recipe is from here) but I haven't made it in a looooong time. However recently, with my degree done and hungry housemates, I felt obliged (lol jk I would've made and eaten them all anyway) to make one of my favourite cupcake recipes, with the best icing of all time.

I give you, banana bread cupcakes with peanut butter cream cheese frosting. Yes, that is a thing, and heck yes, it is the best thing since melted cheese (and yes, I'm now making that a thing because the whole sliced bread saying is just not revolutionary anymore). 

Enjoy. 

They are perfect. All the beautiful banana flavour inside, and then a nice healthy dose of peanut butter on top - and even if you truly believe you don't like peanut butter, try the icing, I've had a few converts.



Just like the recipe, here's an old favourite:

Ore xx

Details.

Sometimes, things are better off simple.

...and sometimes, simple means a classic chocolate cake, with a little piping detail. You know, just for fun.

You know how Bisto has 'Ahhhh Bisto' and the people who make Actimel Yogurts have 'Mmm Denon!', what does cake have? We need one of those.


Here's a lil tribute to Stevie, whose birthday is was recently:

Til' next time (which will be very soon cause I totally baked today)

Ore 

M.I.A

Apologies, I've been out of the blogging loop recently, check out my instagram to catch up with me, and don't worry, deadlines will soon be over and we'll be back to our regular programming. Til' then!

O xx

Pasta.

I love cheese. If you are lactose intolerant, I am legitimately sorry. Cheese is love, cheese is life. Its beautiful, its reasonably priced, its great grated on baked potatoes, it melts on other delicious things...essentially, cheese is perfect. All the mean things that Doctors say about cheese are lies. They just want to stop you from eating cheese so they can have it all for themselves. That is a joke, I just really like cheese.

So, I also like pasta. If no one has ever told you, cheese and pasta were pretty much created to be eaten together, like in the same mouthful. Its a match made in food heaven, which of course is just regular heaven. Anyway, I put two and two together, found a schweeeet recipe that combined the two, added some chicken, HELLO GORGEOUS. Happiness was all up in my mouth. Enjoy. Recipe from the fabulous Ree, check it out here.

You can thank me for sending you to Ree later.

FYI, those pasta shells, they have a real name, its called Conchiglie, its great.




Song of the day:






Til' next time!

Chocolate Cravings

My Dad really likes my chocolate cake. No but really, he really really likes it. Everytime I visit home its one of the first things he asks me, "where's my cake?". He's joking, but he's also not. So of course, after not making a chocolate cake for christmas, I was obliged to make one for him just before I left.

Normally, when I make a chocolate cake I make chocolate buttercream to go with it. Why? Because its just the done thing. Decadent chocolate cake just demands to be covered with equally decadent chocolate buttercream. However this time, it being a new year and all, I decided to break away from the mould and have a little fun with the caramel sauce I had in the house.

Lo' and behold, the infamous chocolate cake with caramel buttercream icing...oh, and sprinkles on top. You know, for new year and all!

I don't know why, but sometimes I just find that cakes look classier in black and white, is this just me?

Til' next time!

Weird, White & Wonderful

I don't think I've ever had a bad Christmas. Even as I've gotten older and the whole presents thing has lost its appeal I've still loved Christmas. The food is obviously one of the best parts of it, but the best part for me (queue rolling eyes and/or 'aww's) is being with my family. They are by far the most hilarious, intriguing and incredibly diverse group of people I know, and they are just as weird as I am, and I love it.

Our Christmas plans are pretty much the same every year, my dad's cousin and her family come round on Christmas day and then for New Year's Day we go to her house. This arrangement has been in place for the last 25 years. I maintain that my mother really pulled the short straw on that one. That being said, for the last three years my sister and I have tried to make sure that our mother stays out of the kitchen as we do as much of the Christmas cooking that we can without her assistance. When I say we 'tried', its not because we can't cook. Its because our mother just doesn't stay out of the kitchen...

Enough gushy rambling and onto what you came here for, the cake. 

This year, I did the unthinkable - I used a recipe I'd never made before and made it on Christmas Eve with very little time for cake resurrecting or re-making. It was a risky move; but hey, what can I say? I'm an adrenaline junkie. Or some toned down baking version of that. 

Making last year's cake was a breeeeeeeze. This year, not so much. I pretty much had to do the recipe twice because it turned out I used the wrong type of flour and that was a big no-no. READ INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY PEOPLE. Do naaaaaht follow my awful example and just assume you can interchange certain ingredients as you please - you definitely cannot. 

Anyway, after much fist clenching, grunting, eye-rolling, deep sighing, time-outs and pep talks from my mum and sister, I had a cake. A vanilla cake with caramel buttercream in between the layers and then a light and fluffy vanilla buttercream to cover the cake. 

Oh and a little surprise on the front...

I won't lie - its not my best work. It could have been a lot better - but hey, at least I had a cake that was edible and that my family enjoyed!

Speaking of family, here are a few snaps I took on the day.

Also, got my sister Ruby Woo lipstick from MAC for Christmas - how GREAT does it look on her?!

I hope you all had a beautiful Christmas and if not, hey, there's always next year! Or just eat some cake, works for me!



Enjoy this timeless tune, oh and have a great New Year!

Hiatus

I know. Its been a while. Theres a very good reason - university. Over the last eleven weeks I have baked four times. Thats right, four times in eleven weeks. I know - its unacceptable, I can't apologise enough; but hey - I've been living life, which is the most important thing...right?

Anyway, apologies! Hopefully when I get back in January I'll be a little better...I hope.

In the meantime enjoy this gem of a Christmas song, and expect a post soon afterwards about the cake I make for Christmas!

Jammy Dodger

I love classic recipes. Simple easy recipes that are delicious and hassle-free to make, as well as catering to the super-refined palettes of those picky eaters we all know. One of my favourites is the Victoria Sandwich Cake. Its so easy, sweet and perfect for any occasion, as well as being super easy to decorate. So when my mum asked me to make some cupcakes for herself and a friend, who was coming over for a coffee, I thought about what would be quick to make but at the same time truly delicious.

So I found a really easy and super fast vanilla cupcake recipe from Natasha's Kitchen, and added a little something extra...

After the cupcakes had fully cooled, (which by the way takes so much less time than regular cakes and is one of the reasons I love cupcakes so much) I used a teaspoon (not the measuring kind, but the normal one), to make a teaspoon sized hole in the middle of the cake, just less than an inch deep and filled it with my favourite, strawberry jam. Then I whipped up a little whipped cream (pun totally intended) and piped it on top. The result, absolutely divine...

I give you, the Victoria Sandwich Cupcake!

Just look at all that delicious strawberry filling!

I should also confess that after making these cupcakes, I proceeded to pipe the remaining whipped cream into my mouth. Now I'm not proud of it, but I definitely don't regret it. That cream was goooooood.

Enjoy the song :)

Next post is another classic, you'll enjoy it!