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!

Chocolate Adventures

So here it is, finally, my first ever recipe! Its adapted from the famous chocolate cake recipe that you can find here.


This recipe is for one 6-inch cake baked in one pan 3 inches tall.

3/4 cup & 1 tablespoon Flour (I use self-raising)
2/3 + 1/4 cup Sugar
3/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon Cocoa Powder
1/6 cup Egg (whisk one egg in a cup then measure it into a 1/6th cup)
1/8 cup Vegetable Oil
1/4 + 1/8 cup Buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/4 + 1/8 cup freshly made Coffee


Step 1:
Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder in a large bowl on medium speed until combined.

Step 2:

In a smaller bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, vegetable oil, egg and vanilla extract until fully combined.

Step 3: 

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients slowly, mix them until full combined, then add in the hot coffee and mix until combined. 

Step 4:
Line your 6-inch wide, 3-inch high cake tin and pour in your mixture. Bake in a pre-heated oven on 350 degrees/gas mark 4 for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

With this cake, you can pretty much do whatever you like when it comes to serving and decorating. It is absolute perfection when served hot, with some whipped cream or some sour cream warmed with some granulated sugar. The other day however, I decided to give it a little more and make some light chocolate buttercream to ice my cake. Take your pick, and enjoy!

Have a go, let me know how it goes and enjoy!