Finished!

This week was my 26th Birthday. As well as being another year older it meant that I am no longer a member of “The Senior Section” and am now just a plain old adult leader in the land of Girlguiding.

However, more excitingly it meant that I had reached my deadline for completing the Queen’s Guide Award and guess what? - I’ve only gone and managed it!

This means that since October 2013 I have:

Baked 56 bakes and spent more than 69 hours baking, researching and blogging…

...Spoken to over 180 people about organ donation, given out nearly 200 leaflets and 40 posters, and written 10 facts sheets about the cause…

...Kept 4 strangers entertained for 3 days while getting my Senior Section Permit despite of the snow...

...Sourced 4 Brownie fancy dress outfits and reviewed 90 bands, artists, shops and foods at Solfest 2013...

...Gained my Leadership Qualification, became a Brown Owl and attended 34 Brownie sessions and 5 Senior Section meetings...

...Spent 5 nights in Berlin in charge of 17 Rangers (giving out countless numbers of plasters and bottles of water)...

...Organised seaside crafts for hundreds of soggy Brownies...

...Dreamt up loads of ideas and suggestions to shape the future of guiding at Innovate...

And done so many other things that aren’t directly related to the award that I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t taken on the challenge.

But most of all I have met some amazing, welcoming people that have helped me in so many ways I can’t even count.

So I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of these people and hope that my Guiding adventure continues to be as rewarding and as fun!

Snowy Winter Fudge

It’s December and that means only one thing – it’s time for Christmas baking. Christmas is the best time of year for cake and this year I am going to have a go at making lots and lots different kinds of them. My first bake (is it a bake if it doesn’t involve an oven?) is this fudge that I think looks super wintery. 

Method 

I got the recipe from a booklet that Tesco sent me and you can find it here. 

This recipe was really easy to make (although all the very unhealthy ingredients were a bit scary). I put the butter, sugar, condensed milk and syrup into a pan then melted everything and brought it to the boil. As the mixture boiled (for about 8 mins) it thickened and turned a darker colour. I had to keep stirring though so that it didn’t stick to the bottom and burn. 

I then mixed in the broken biscuits (just like a cheesecake base) and put the mixture into a greased tin. Mini marshmallows were put on top and pressed into the mix and then everything was covered in a dribble of while chocolate. The fudge then went into the fridge to set. 

Results 

I really liked this fudge, although it was so very sweet that you couldn’t have lots in one go. I thought it tasted yummy and also looked great. I am thinking of adding cranberries or maybe even glitter for a more grown up feel and using it as a Christmas gift.

Score: 9/10

Tropical Fruit Cake

After a break last month (Brownies got in the way) it was time this week to make another cake for Clandestine Cake Club.  The theme this month was “Happy Cakes”. I went for a Tropical Fruit Cake because being in the tropics makes me happy (and so does cake). Fruit cake is also on my list of “basics” to attempt to master, and as I near the end of my QGA, it was time to get back to trying to get these right.

Method

I found the recipe in a Stork advert in a magazine. It’s also available, with a video, here. They call it a Winter Wonderland Cake on the website but since I didn’t decorate it, my cake deserves a simpler name.

The eggs, flour, ground almonds, baking powder and of course Stork were beaten together to make a pretty basic heavy sponge. I did worry a little when the mix wasn’t turning out completely smooth, but then remembered that the ground almonds would make it look a little gritty. I then folded in the fruits which had been soaking in orange juice for 30 mins plus. I couldn’t find the sour cherries required in my local Tesco so I substituted these for yet more cranberries. The tropical fruits took some finding too and I ended up with a mix of mango, pineapple, papaya and apricots; all chopped into cranberry sized pieces.

This mixture then went into a large greased and lined tin and into the oven for the long baking process (1 hour plus). As usual, even with a thermometer, my oven didn’t really play ball. The inside of the cake didn’t cook in the time allowed so the outside was a little darker than I would have wanted.

Results

It’s always nerve wracking when you have no idea what your cake is like until a room full of pretty much strangers cut into it and start eating. Apart from the slightly brown outside the cake itself was pretty yummy. However, I had forgotten about one of the perils of fruit cake baking – sinkage! All the fruit had sunk to the bottom and in this laden down cake this meant that the bottom inch was like a dried fruit salad. The top part was like a lovely madeira cake though. I might have to search the internet for a cure for this, although I fear this is an ongoing issue for many.

Score: 7/10

Chocolate Chip Shortbread

Another bake on my list of basics is shortbread. I decided to make them a little more interesting by adding some chocolate chips.

Method

I used this recipe by Dr Oetker that used just butter, sugar, flour and chocolate chips.

Results

This bake was a bit of a disaster from the very start. I didn’t have enough plain flour so had to use half self-raising. Then my mixture was VERY short. It was so crumbly that I gave up on ever being able to roll it out and instead squished it into a square tin. I left it to firm up a bit in the fridge before putting it in to bake. Because I had free styled it a bit with the form (tin vs rounds) I had no idea how long it needed. I think I left it in too long as the shortbread was looking on the brown side of golden when I took it out. The shortbread tasted ok, if a little over done but was very dry and crumbly still. I didn’t really enjoy eating my biscuits.

Next time I’ll make sure I have all the ingredients before setting off and I will make more effort to get a nice dough at the start.

Score: 3/10

Soundtrack: The 20/20 Experience, Justin Timberlake

Turtle Cupcakes

After my workshop last weekend, a colleague at work asked if I could have a go at making some cupcakes for a friend’s birthday. I took on the challenge to make some that had Squirt, the turtle from Finding Nemo on top. I followed the advice that I was given at the workshop, searched the web for inspiration and broke him down into parts – one big circle head, one round disk for a shell, two little teardrops for back legs and two long sausages for front flippers. They worked out well and the butter icing was great too. I don’t know how they tasted but they looked good!

Cupcakes

Last weekend I attended a day's cupcake decorating workshop in Ulverston. I didn't really know what to expect or whether I'd be any good at it. But it turned out that I had lots of fun and the time flew by. We tried out all sorts of techniques for turning a lump of white fondant icing into a topper. I was really pleased with what I made and everyone at work was also impressed. I feel confident that I could do this again at home and I've been inspired to try out some more piping - especially now I have a butter cream recipie that I know works

Thanks Dorothy! (You can find her website here.)

Fruit Scones - Take Two :)

After last month’s scone disaster I was determined to get these right. After all you can’t be a proper home baker without being able to make a batch of scones on demand.

Method

This time I went with a recipe from Mary Berry that I found in a Comic Relief baking book. I rubbed in the butter by hand and the recipe called for it to look like small rubble rather than fine breadcrumbs. Instead of milk it used a milk/yoghurt/egg mixture but no baking powder. I also pressed out the dough to much greater 3 cm thickness.

Results

These turned out much, much better. I kept an eagle eye on the oven temperature and they rose to about twice their height. The dough was much softer too and the whole thing actually felt easier to make. However, I only managed to get 7 scones out of the supposedly 8 scone mix. The scones tasted pretty good and texture wasn’t too heavy. I think that they would have been even better if they were slightly lighter but I will definitely be sticking with this recipe. I would however like to experiment with flavours and additions now I have this simple taste sorted.

Score: 8/10

Big Birthday Cake!

This month was Lancaster Clandestine Cake Club’s 1^st birthday and like all birthday parties this one needed lots of birthday cakes. The cake I decided to make is the one that my mum has made me for many birthdays. Chocolate and vanilla marble cake, in a ring shape, covered in chocolate with marshmallows in the middle.

Method

This is another standard sponge; one half with some vanilla essence and the other half with cocoa powder. My new tin was huge so after making two lots of 2 egg batter, I had to add another vanilla 2 egg batter on top. I greased the tin well with margarine because I really didn’t want the cake to stick. The batter went into the tin in stripes and was swirled around a bit to get the marble effect. The cake took about 30 mins to cook in the oven and I then left it to cool over night.

The next morning I used dark cooking chocolate (4 whole bars) to totally cover the cake. I then decorated with chocolate curls and pink sprinkles. Finally I filled the hole with twisty marshmallows. The cake just about got in the fridge so it would set in time for the party.

Results

My overall impression of this cake was that it was HUGE. It was just as well that I was taking it to a party!

For the chocolate bit of the cake I had substituted ¼ of the flour for cocoa powder. This gave it a really dark colour and rich flavour but I think it did affect the texture and made the cake crumblier. Although usually you can never have too much chocolate in this case I there was. The chocolate covering was so thick it was hard to cut the cake. But all in all I think it went down well.

Score: 8/10 (but not as good as my Mum’s)