Caramel Egg Filled Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I have recently started a commission for Essence Magazine, which is distributed to homes in Surrey and can be found online. Its a great magazine….well, why else would they commission recipes from The Daisy Cake Company?!!

Every month I provide Essence with a brand new, unseen Daisy Cake recipe, and I can now let you, my loyal blog readers, share March’s recipe.

If you click on the photo above, you can read the whole magazine (which is really very very good!!). Turn to page 32 and you can see The Daisy Cake Diet’s Caramel Egg Filled Chocolate Crinkle Cookies in full.

Because, what else would you do with all those extra Caramel eggs you’ll be getting in the next couple of weeks?!!

Its been a while……

Weeeeell, hello there stranger!

How are you?

I know, I know, it’s been a while, but you wouldn’t believe how busy I’ve been. Let me give you a quick run-down of what’s been happening since I spoke to you last.

My dream of owning my own tea-room and cake shop was screaming louder and louder at me, so on December 4th I handed in my notice from a full-time career, to take a part-time job, which would allow me to spend more time making and selling cakes. I had a month before starting the new job, so as it was coming up to Christmas I thought I’d get some shopping and planning done.

Hmmmm, well that plan quickly went out of the window, when within hours of handing in my notice I had been offered a commission by Good To Know to write 100 recipes!!! How fab is that?!!!!! But the deadline was just 3 weeks away  - not so fab – Christmas was cancelled as the baking began.

With a little help from my Mum, I got in the kitchen and wrote, baked and photographed 100 unique recipes, many of which can now be found on the Good to Know website, and some of which you will find links too below. Everyone that came within 100 metres of the house left with a baked good of some description, as one point I was baking 10 different recipes a day…..it was tough, but someone had to do it!!

I then started my new job in the New Year, which although part time is still amazing. It involves Shoes, Dancing, Shoes, Strictly Come Dancing, Sparkly Dresses….did I mention shoes? Oh, how I looooove shoes!!!

I’ve also been baking every week! So what with shoes and baking I am now what you call a very very busy girl!!

I’m sorry if I’ve neglected you, but I hope the links below make up for it a little bit, and then next week we’ll get back to being proper friends again eh?

Have a catch up, maybe a cake or biscuit or two?…

Looking forward to it already!!!

If you want a list of all my recipes, click here, but here are a few I’ve selected to share with you:

Granary Flatbreads

 

Rosewater Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

Homemade Twix

Cranberry and Orange Upside Down Cake

Cream Cheese Sweetie Biscuits

Chocolate Crackle Cookies

 

Waitrose Raspberry Cupcakes

Inspiration for baking comes in many forms. This week I got a text from my Mum. It read ‘Did you get the recipe from waitrose for cupcakes to enter their competition to win a cookery course. Thought you should enter that!! xxx’

Well no I didn’t, and yes I should. So in the age of technology, she photographed the recipe card she got through the post and texted it over to me……my Mum may be retired but she is a bit of a techie, and the main form of communication between us is either text or messaging on our iPads. So armed with my 2 text messages (one for the recipe and one for the method) I set about trying the win a cookery course.

I followed the ingredients to the letter, but as I’m an old fashioned kind of baker I rebelled when it came to the order of placing the ingredients into the food processor……..yes you did read that right……food processor!!!! The recipe said put everything in at once. But the old fashioned side of me meant I did the butter and sugar first and added the egg and flour alternately, one egg and spoon of flour at a time.

The whole food processor thing confused me a bit. I mean, surely a food mixer should be used, but the method said ‘blitz until smooth’, so there was no mistake a ‘processor’ was what was needed. The batter came out quite creamy, like thick pouring cream and actually baked really nicely.

The recipe was for 12 cakes, but I got 15. The method said bake at 220c, gas mark 6 for 20 minutes, but after only 5 minutes the tops were turning brown, so I’m afraid I rebelled again and turned the oven down a bit.

The cake photos will now be emailed to the correct address, and fingers crossed I may win myself a cookery course. Even if I don’t, I now have 15 cupcakes to eat, so it’s basically a win win situation!!

Waitrose Raspberry Cupcakes

Cakes:
250g Self-raising Flour
250g Caster Sugar
250g Unsalted butter softened
4 medium eggs
3tbsp whole milk
Zest of 1 lemon
12 Raspberries (I actually needed 15, as my mix made 15 cakes)

Frosting:
125g Butter, softened
250g Icing Sugar
150g Seedless Raspberry Jam

Preheat your oven to 220c, 200c fan, gas mark 6.

Prepare a cupcake tray with 12 muffin cases (although beware, my mixture made 15 good size cakes)

Put all the cake mix (except for the raspberries) in a food processor and ‘blitz until smooth’.

Or as I did, place the butter and sugar in the processor and blitz. Add the milk and lemon zest, and blitz. Lastly add an egg and a quarter of the flour and blitz. Repeat until you have no eggs or flour left.

Spoon the mix into a piping bag and pipe the mix into the cases until two thirds full. Then push a raspberry into the middle of each cupcake, making sure the top is covered so it doesn’t burn when it bakes.

Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. As I said, I found the oven temperature quite hot, so turned it down after 5 minutes when I noticed the tops were browning too quickly.

Once baked, remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins.

While they’re cooling, you can make the frosting.

Beat the butter in a mixer for a couple of minutes. Turn the mixer (not a processor) to its lowest setting and gradually add the icing sugar, and when it’s fully incorporated turn you mixer to full speed and mix for at least 5 minutes.

Then add the jam and mix for a further 2 minutes. It may depend on the brand of jam, but I found the quantity stated made the frosting quite runny, and I will, therefore have to eat my 15 cupcakes with a fork.

Pipe your frosting over you cakes and decorate however you wish.

Now don’t they look pretty?!!

National Cupcake Week

Did you know this week is National Cupcake Week?

Have you rolled up your sleeves and baked anything, or are you more a cupcake purchaser? Whatever your preference, this is the week to indulge in little sponge cake parcels.

Cupcakes are great. They are your own personal cake that you don’t have to share, because there is only ever enough for one.

They’re easy to make and great to make with your children. In fact they’re great to make with your Mum too, and I think the best times I have in the kitchen has been when me and Mum are baking together.

The cupcakes on this post were made for a Wedding Fair last week. I’ve had loads of lovely comments about them, and they’re probably some of my favourites I’ve made.

So don’t let this week just pass by. Turn you oven on, mix up some batter and within 30 minutes you can be enjoying your own sweet, soft sponge cake.

And one of the best things about baking cupcakes? Stealing one fresh from the oven….make one extra and no-one will ever know!!

Happy National Cupcake Week!!

Disney Cake Weekend

Sometimes there are cakes you are just waiting for someone to ask you to make, and sometimes there are cakes you’re actually terrified someone will ask you to make.

This past weekend, I had both, and they were both Disney themed. I’ve been hoping someone would ask me to make a cute Minnie Mouse cake, and this weekend I got it with cupcakes too……cute bow, big black ears, pink with spots, pretty buttercream swirls…it had the lot and I loved how it turned out!!

Then came the fear – a full on structural character cake. Simply put, it terrified me!! But never one to shy away from a challenge I got stuck in! Although Duff Goldman from the TV show Ace of Cakes is my hero, I don’t always agree with his excessive use of non-edible and polystyrene cake components. So sticking to my beliefs I made my Muppet out of Rice Krispie Treats, which meant that apart from a couple of dowels the cake was fully edible.

It may have scared me witless, but I am super proud of this one!!!! AND Animal is my all time favourite Muppet!!!!!!!

Strawberry Blondes

Summer appears to have arrived in Surrey…..not sure for how long, but we’re being positive and saying it is NOW summer!

I’m ignoring the small blip of the torrential rain and thundestorm earlier, which I’m calling a ‘summer shower’, as the sun is again shining, the dogs are panting and we’re slowly melting (but not complaining….honest!!)

So, with the arrival of summer the supermarkets are now full of bright and colourful soft fruits. Punnets of strawberries, raspberries, peaches and nectarines, blueberries and cherries greet you as you walk into the fruit and veg aisle and invite you to eat healthily.

Of course, after filling the trolly with fruit, you get home and realise you’ve actually got only a couple of days to eat it before it turns to mush…..that’s the problem with these buy 3 punnets for £4 deals, you buy 6 different punnets (because you really only wanted 4, but it’s on offer so you have to get 6) and then realise with only 2 people in the house its a lot of fruit to eat in a small space of time. So, not being a girl to let food go to waste I baked it in a cake.

Quick aside…..What are Blondies? I always thought they were Brownies made with white chocolate. However, whilst doing a bit of research on the interweb I read some people thought they don’t need to have white chocolate, as the caramalisation comes from brown sugar. However, just to be safe, and because I like the white chocolate idea, I made mine with brown sugar AND white chocolate!

Strawberry Blondes

100gms White Chocolate
40gms Butter
60gms Light Brown Sugar
1 Egg
75gms Plain Flour
.5 tspn Vanilla Essence
.25tspn Baking Powder
.25tspn Salt
75gms Strawberries (hulled and chopped)

Prepare a baking tray (I used a deep 6″x4″ but you could go slightly bigger and thinner) by lining it with greased baking parchment. This makes it easier to lift out the blondies later.

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees (150 fan) or gas mark 3.

In a double boiler (a bowl resting over a saucepan of boiling water, but not allowing it to touch the water) slowly melt the chocolate and butter.

Once its all melted and smooth, take off the heat and add the sugar. Beat in and leave to cool for several minutes until it reaches room temparature.

Next beat in the egg and vanilla. If you don’t allow the mix to cool before adding the egg it will cook the egg before you want it too.

Next sieve all the dry ingredients (flour, salt, and baking powder) together and fold into the mixture.

Lastly stir through the chopped strawberries and pour into the prepared baking tray.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, depending on how chewy and gooey you like your blondies. The longer you bake it, the less gooey it’ll be.

Once baked remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool. Although eating it warm with a big dollop of ice-cream makes for a really scrummy summer dessert.

Red Velvet Cookies

WOW!!!

London you were amazing, Team GB you were completely awesome.

I’m all Olympiced out. What an amazing couple of weeks, and today it somehow seems wrong to not be watching another sport on the television.

I have well and truly become an armchair expert in loads of different sports, and have gone through a wealth of emotions whilst watching the games. I’ve been moved to tears watching horses dance to music, have sat on the edge of my seat watching the rowing and cycling, have almost been too scared to watch Peter Wilson shoot his last 2 shots in the Men’s Double Trap, have screamed at Mo Farah to get a wriggle on and turned into a scary lout shouting ‘Just ‘it ‘im son’, watching the boxing. There were low times, but thankfully there were some amazing high points. I honestly can’t pinpoint one highlight as ‘THE’ moment, because from the Opening Ceremony to the Closing Fireworks, there were just too many.

I have lived in London for over 20 years and love this city, and this year I’m even more proud than ever to call it home.

I now feel bereft that its all over and we’re back to watching The One Show and Eastenders on BBC1 again. It feels like when Chrtistmas TV is over and you have to go back to work.

We have tickets for the Paralympics and will be going to the stadium to see the athletics…..bring it on! Can’t wait!!!!!

This is my cookie homage to Our Greatest Team, and the amazing London 2012.

Red Velvet Cookies

125gms Butter
100gms Light Brown Sugar
75gms Dark Brown Sugar
150gms Plain Flour
1 egg
1tspn Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tspn Salt
10gms
20ml Red Food Colouring
100gms White Chocolate Chips

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Add the egg and red colouring and beat together.

Sieve the flour, cocoa, Bicarbonate of Soda and salt and add to the mixture. Mix to a thick dough.

Lastly mix through the white chocolate chips.

You now have 2 choices – put the dough in the fridge to chill for an hour, and then form into balls about the size of a golf ball ready for the oven. However, because you’ve chilled the dough it will be hard. Alternatively, why not form the dough into balls BEFORE you chill it? So much easier!!

Whilst the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 140c (120c Fan) or Gas Mark 2. Prepare 2 or 3 baking sheets by covering in baking parchment.

Lay out the dough balls onto the baking sheets, remembering to leave a good distance between them as the cookies will spread.

Bake for 20 – 25 mins, depending on how chewy or crunchy you like your cookies.

When baked remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before transfering to a wire rack to cool completely.

To get in the olympic spirit I decorated mine with piped Royal Icing, mixed up from shop bought Royal Icing Sugar.

Lemon Crumble Bars

If you live in the UK, There are 2 things you can’t have failed to have noticed this summer:

1. The Olympics are nearly upon us – yep, London 2012 will be opening in just a weeks time.
2. It hasn’t stopped raining for what seems like forever!!

Firstly the Olympics. Personally I’m very excited. We get TV Olympic coverage at a time of day I’m not in bed, sleeping. But then I don’t live near the Olympic Village. I do however, have a ‘proper’ job at a big Dance Shoe Company, and the factory and offices are based in Hackney.

Oh…. My…. Life…..how much things have changed in the area!!

Most of the staff live in the local vicinity and have had varying degrees of inconvenience with a few added bonuses. But I think the most interesting story I heard this week was how all the helicopters carrying the security troops make the TV satellite dishes shake so much the local residents keep loosing reception.

The company I work for are proud to be involved in the Olympics, but as we’re not ‘official’ sponsors I can’t tell you exactly how we are involved….which as the Marketing Manager is UBER annoying!!

Anyway, onto my second point…..RAIN!!!! Seriously, how much water does the sky hold? On April 5th a hosepipe ban came into force in our area, and, you guessed it, it hasn’t stopped raining since!

I’m not kidding!!

Whilst America is sweltering in ridiculous heat, the UK has drowned!!!!!!

There is one thing you can rely on with the British weather at the moment, and that is that you’re going to get wet at some point during the day! Do not leave the house without an umbrella or waterproof jacket, and preferably a pair of wellies, and in some areas canoes come in handy too!

As a nation we have the collective look of the proverbial ‘drowned rat!’.

But are we down about it? No, we have the Olympics next week, and the pesky Jet Stream that is bringing all this falling water is, apparently, moving North, so the forecast and TV viewing looks positive.

(oh and our hosepipe ban was lifted early, 2 weeks ago. Something to do with the fact that we’ve had the wettest summer EVER)

As there are all sorts of restrictions about using the Olympic rings, I didn’t want to incur the wrath of the IOC by baking something that looked liked them. Therefore, I have rather tenuously devised a baking and blogging schedule that fits with the colours of the five rings.

First up – yellow.

These are what I consider to be comfort food. Exactly what you need on a wet, miserable, cold July day!

Lemon Crumble Bars

Base and Crumble:
160gms plain flour, sifted
80gms granulated sugar
100gms butter

Filling:
110gms sugar
1 tbspn plain flour
.25 tspn baking powder
1 egg
Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon

Grease a baking tray. I used a 6″ x 4″ foil tray.

Preheat you oven to 130 c, 150c fan, gas mark 3

Place all the base and crumble ingredients into a bowl and mix with an electric mixer until it has the consistency of thick crumbs.

Take one third of the crumbs and squish it into the tray to form a base.

Place all the filling ingredients into a clean bowl and mix until fully combined.

Tip: place the tray onto a baking sheet, as when it’s filled it’s a bit tricky to carry without spilling it.

Pour the filling over the base.

Sprinkle the remaining crumble over the filling. Some will sink in, some will stay on top.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is slightly spongy to touch.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool. (At this point you could, as I did, dig into the crumble and have it as you would any other fruit crumble with ice-cream or custard. However, in order to get bars, you have to resist this temptation)

Once fully cooled its best to pop the crumble into the fridge for at least 30 minutes to set.

Once set cut into bars and devour!

The Cake Walk – Isle of Wight Part 5

The doggies at Firestone Copse

Today wasn’t so much of walking to a tearoom, more of a walk AND a tearoom (or two).

I had a minor disaster when the memory card in my Blackberry decided to have a hissy fit and I lost some of my pictures, but Hubster came to the rescue as he took lots on his phone AND managed to save some of mine via the power of being a cleverdick techno bod.

We started at Firestone Copse with a picnic. The weather actually felt like summer as we ventured down into the forest to Wooton Creek, where the doggies found some muddy water to jump around in.

Can’t keep a good Lab out of a muddy river – look how happy she looks!

Firestone Copse has a number easy walks, all well signposted……however, none go towards Wooton Creek, so off we went, away from the easy gravel tracks, through a few sludgy muddy bits, and out to the river. After the dogs had destroyed a few sticks in the water we had to make our way back to the carpark and off to find a tearoom.

Bluebells Farm Shop and Cafe is literally on a farm – and I mean with farm smells and calfs mooing in the barn next to the cafe.

This is where I lost my photos, and therefore don’t have any cake photos but I do have a photo of my Mother in Law and the doggies sitting outside waiting for cake to arrive. The Hubster and I shared a slice of lemon cake, and my Mother in Law had a Florentine. These were probably some of the most expensive cakes we’d had all week, but they were good.

After patting the very cute calfs, we again headed off. This time to be tourists at the Godshill Model Village. I’m not usually into the tourist places in English towns but this was good. Seriously, I know you thinking, but it’s a model village!! It was good!! The miniature Godshill Church was amazing, and the landscaping and miniature gardening was worth the small entrance fee in itself!

Monster Barney peering over the Model Village

Mahoosive Daisy outside the (model) Godshill Vicarage

Just next door to the Model Village is an amazing Tea Garden, where the tables are stone, many of them with big planted pedestals in the middle, and some with fountains.

One of the fountain tables

We sat ourselves around a stone table, on stone benches and ordered our late afternoon homemade tea and cakes. Again the Hubster plumped for Victoria Sandwich (he’s so British!), my Mother in Law had chocolate cake and I had a cream tea (although I had to save one of the scones as, believe it or not, I was too full for anymore cake). The cakes were good, very good, but even if they weren’t the surrounding would have been good enough to make up for it.

The Cake Walk – Isle of Wight Part 4

Today’s walk led us to what is possibly one of the best cakes I’ve had for ages, via a scrummy bacon sandwich. All in all it was a very good food day!!

We started in Freshwater at the ‘End of the Line’ garden centre and headed north to Yarmouth. It’s a relatively easy round walk, over farm fields, to Yarmouth and back along the estuary path.

Out first stop was at the Kings Manor Farm Shop and Cafe. It had just started to pour down, so the very accommodating owners let us take the dogs inside (as long as they promised to behave!). Inside is a small shop selling fresh produce at one end, and a cafe at the other. We knew it was all going to be fresh when we were told, that because the fresh fish delivery hadn’t arrived yet, all the fish items on the menu were unavailable. Not to worry, the bacon sandwich in rustic bread did me just fine!!

The Hubster and my Mother in Law both had the home made Tomato, Beetroot, and red pepper soup, which was as equally yummy as my sandwich.

After the rain stopped we headed over the fields to Yarmouth. Yarmouth is probably one of the prettiest towns on the north of the Island. It is where the ferry from Lymington lands, which is one of the shortest journeys from the mainland at just 20 minutes. It has loads of lovely shops – gifty but not tacky tourist, some nice pubs, tea shops and cafe’s. My Mother in Law steered us towards Butterflies…….and what a good steer it was!!

 

It’s in a small backstreet of Yarmouth, and is a real little gem. As well as a tea room it has a small selection of gifts, and some amazing artisan chocolates. We all ordered cake to go with our very tasty Tea Pigs. I had blueberry and white chocolate sponge, the Hubster had Victoria Sandwich and my Mother in Law a Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookie.

They weren’t the biggest of slices, but boy were they good. The buttercream frosting was sweet and fluffy and the cakes a were lovely light sponge. I know Butterflies didn’t have the seaview of some of the Yarmouth Tearooms, but the friendly service and delicious homemade food certainly made up for it. Seriously, if you ever go to Yarmouth, Butterflies is pretty unmissable!