Hey everyone! I hope you're all well! The last couple of weeks have been quite busy and tiring with work and experiments and life, I've finally finished writing my transfer thesis, so tomorrow I will print and bind it.. Now I just need to pass my viva so I can progress with my PhD! *Fingers crossed!*
Hey everyone! Hope you're all well! Today I wanted to share a baking recipe with you. I shared this cupcake recipe around Christmas however I wanted to change it a little bit and do something graduation themed. I decided to keep the cupcake base the same but I decided to go for a vanilla buttercream frosting on top with a little graduation cap. I had plenty of icing left over so you could make less or you could go crazy and add more icing :)
Hey everyone! Hope you're all well! The sun has finally come out in England this past week which has been really nice! So I've been relaxing outside this weekend, although I think it's back to rain tomorrow which I'm not looking forward to!
Today I wanted to share with you a recipe that I've already done before just in the shape of a heart haha! But I liked it and I wanted to do it in the shape of a flower, I hope you don't mind! :)
Hey everyone! Hope you're all well! I had a lovely weekend and saw quite a few of my friends which was nice! Today, my best friends and I went to Windsor for Afternoon Tea which was good fun and we chatted for hours with our full bellies :) Lab work is going well although I'm quite tired now so I'm looking forward to my week off over Easter!
Hey everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day weekend! Mine was very relaxed and seemed to revolve around food a lot.. We made cookies, went to Nando's, and also made heart shaped mini pizzas XD
Hey everyone! This weekend one of my close friends came round and we decided to do some Christmas baking, After spending forever on Pinterest I thought we could just make some cupcakes that I knew were good and then decorate them all christmassy ish XD Obviously everything had to go wrong haha! First one of my eggs was off so it spoiled the other one and I had to borrow 2 eggs from the neighbours, I didn't have a muffin tin, so it was too shallow and the cupcakes spread open. Then when I was taking the cupcakes out of the oven I squished 2 with the oven gloves :') Then my electric mixer broke.. and then when I was trying to pipe the bag split so we did it with a knife :') They still turned out really tasty in the end though XD
Ingredients: Makes 12
For the Cupcakes:
125g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
125g self raising flour
2tbsp cocoa powder
100g white chocolate chips
2tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
For the Icing:
225g icing sugar
3tbsp cocoa powder
25g butter, melted
4-5tbsp milk
Method:
Preheat oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4 and line a muffin tin with cupcake cases.
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy then gradually whisk in the eggs.
Sift the flour and cocoa together and fold into the butter mixture with white chocolate chips, milk and vanilla essence.
Spoon the mixture evenly into the cases and bake for 12-15 minutes or until the cakes are firm to the touch.
Leave to cool completely before icing.
For the icing: sift the icing sugar and cocoa into a bowl, stir in the butter and enough milk to make a creamy consistency.
Ice and decorate and then enjoy! :)
Whisk together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add the eggs
We added the vanilla essense and milk now
Sift together the flour and cocoa powder
Combine everything together
Add the white chocolate chips and mix with a spoon
Spoon the mixture evenly into 12 cases
Bake for 12-15 mins or until firm to touch (we did 25 as my oven is stupid XD)
Make the icing
Enjoy! :)
I hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend and let me know if you give these a try! :)
Hey everyone! Hope you're all well! I've had quite a busy week in labs so it was really nice to relax this weekend. At work every week someone's been baking something as sort of a Great British Bake Off thing and every week has had a theme. I had mine on Wednesday and my theme was Christmas so I decided to make these Mince Pies as mum's made them before and they were really good so I thought I would share them with you! :)
Makes 12 mince pies (we usually make double as we're a family of piggies XD)
Ingredients:
275g self raising flour
150g butter, diced
25g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp milk, to glaze
Icing sugar for dusting
Filling: 275g Mincemeat
Method.
Rub the flour and butter together with your fingers to resemble fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and enough egg to form a firm dough and knead until smooth. Wrap in oiled cling film and then chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 190C, Gas Mark 5. Grease 12 patty tins. Roll out the dough until it's 3mm (1/8in) thin on a lightly floured surface. Cut out 12 pastry cases using a 7.5cm (3in) fluted cutter and line the 12 patty tins.
Fill the cases 3/4 full with mincemeat (I put roughly a full teaspoon in each one). Re-roll the remaining dough and make the lids.
Dampen the edge of each pastry case with water, put the lids on top and press the edges together to seal. Pierce a hole into the top of each lid with a skewer to allow steam to escape.
Brush each lid with milk and bake for 15 minutes or until light golden brown. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm with cream/custard/ice cream etc :)
Rub the butter and flour with your fingertips until they resemble fine breadcrumbs
Add the sugar and egg and knead until it forms a firm dough
Chill for 30 minutes then roll out on a lightly floured surface
Cut 12 shapes using a 7.5cm fluted cutter and line the tin
Add roughly a teaspoon of mincemeat
Cut out the lids and place them on top
Bake for 15 minutes at 190C or until light golden brown
Dust with icing sugar and enjoy! :)
So that was my finished product! My second attempt came out much better than the first but they were both yummy! I also managed to make 15 instead of 12 which is always a bonus. I hope you enjoy this recipe and let me know if you've tried them!
Hey everyone! Seeing as it's nearing towards Halloween I thought I would do a little baking recipe. I spent days scouring the internet and Pinterest and I even made a pinterest board with ideas but I didn't really fancy any of them. I don't know why but I've been fussy XD I didn't fancy anything with cream cheese and I didn't really want to use artificial colouring etc so I thought I would make a recipe similar to something I've done before but use orange instead of lemon. Also who even makes half of the stuff on Pinterest.. professionals.. how is anyone meant to recreate them! :') I did want to do skeletons but I didn't have anything small enough to pipe the icing so I drizzled it instead and I'm loosely passing them off as mummies haha! :)
Ingredients:
175g butter
75g caster sugar
175g plain flour
75g cornflour
Orange (rind and juice)
Icing sugar
Method:
Preheat the oven to gas mark 4.
Whisk the butter and sugar together. Sift in both flours, add orange zest and mix together with a wooden spoon.
Roll out onto a lightly floured surface and cut out your desired shapes.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden and firm to touch.
Take out of the oven and leave to cool down before moving them or they fall apart (whoopsy!)
Mix icing sugar and orange to make the icing. I did it roughly until I got a consistency I was happy with.
Decorate your biscuits and enjoy! :)
So that was my slightly failed attempt at Halloween biscuits haha! They're still really yummy though and so easy to make! Which is why I keep going back to this recipe. Have you made any halloween things? I'd love to see them, they're probably much better than mine haha! :)
