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)

Exploration - Solfest 2013

For yet another part of my Queen's Guide Award I had to go on an Exploration with a group of my peers. Thinking outside the box I decided that we would go to a music festival I had never been to before and go out of my way to get truly stuck into everything on offer. Solfest was the destination and we had a great time! I would fully recommend anyone, of any age and any music taste, to go an experience this festival.

Fruit Scones - Take One!

The other weekend I thought it was time to attempt another of the baked goods on my “basics” list. I decided that I would try to make some scones.

Recipe

I went for the simplest recipe I could find. Just flour, butter, milk, sugar, baking powder and dried fruit. It came from a book called “British Food Bible”.

Method

I used my food processor to mix the butter and flour to fine breadcrumbs. It worked really quickly and was far easier than my previous attempts by hand. I added the sugar and fruit then added the milk until I got a stiff ball of dough. I then patted out the dough until it was about 1cm deep and cut out the scones. 

These went onto a baking tray and got a final milk wash before going into a hot oven for 12 minutes.

Results

My scones tasted pretty good however, they did not rise. They came out almost the same height as they went in and I’m not sure why. Maybe I mixed the butter and flour too hard, maybe I worked to dough too much. However, I am not put off – I’m going to try a different recipe from Mary Berry next!

Score: 4/10