Iced hearts

Last weekend, I went back to Durham to have one last visit with my sister before she came back for the summer. Being a guest, I couldn't just turn up empty handed so of course, some baking was in order. 

Mulling over the numerous baking books that we have in the cupboard, I eventually settled on a simple but always appreciated option, biscuits. 

Ah the good old biscuit. Quick to make and sure to be a safe option when you know that there are people who have certain dietary requirements (well, safe for most people anyway). As I was travelling on the train, something that wasn't too delicate and would travel well I knew was a big factor too.

So yes, here they are as you can see, taken late at night before my journey hence the bad photo quality. Simply decorated, I think that they don't look to bad at all considering that I made them the night before almost on the spur of the moment.

I'll make a confession. The icing is actually an icing mix but this was only purchased due to the lack of icing sugar in the shop. Still, I'm not ashamed and the mix actually produced some nice icing that didn't taste funny (as it can sometimes do) at all.

Along with the stars, my younger sister and I spent a nice evening together pasting on either the chocolate or lemon icing whilst watching a film on Netflix which is a service that I'm testing out with one of those free trials at the moment. Just quickly, I'll say that I'm not really that impressed with it as it is definitely a case of watching what is there rather than you just popping something up on demand. I think I'll try the free trial on Lovefilm next!

Leaving a few biscuits with the family here, the remaining biscuits went down a storm in Durham. They tasted pretty good even if I say so myself and by the end of my visit, had been almost entirely consumed.

I have to say, I'm really enjoying being a more constant blogger on Bekah's Corner again. Even if no one really reads this, it has and is giving me great satisfaction to see all the little achievements of my life gathered in such a way as this.

I think the other reason why I'm blogging now so much on here is due to the fact that my college blog has now finished. I blogged so much there and now I think the withdrawal symptoms of that are displaying themselves in the transfer of writing on this blog instead. It seems that I just have to blog!

The icing on the cake!

Well I've just seen the last time I posted on here and saw that it was way back in November, so bad! That can't be right I thought but it's there in black and white! So guess I should start off this post by saying happy new year even though that seems ridiculous also as we are now well into 2012!

With the half term now well underway, I've had some free time on my hands which has been great after a very busy but brilliant half term at college where I did photography working with film and developing in the darkroom as just one of the things I got up to!

But anyway, back to half term. With my sister having a very late birthday party today, she and I were busy at work yesterday making a birthday cake. She is having a henna party with a lady coming in to create henna on the girls and hopefully me too!

So what better way to bring in this theme than to do henna of an edible kind on the cake!

Pretty yummy if I do say so myself! It's a Victoria sponge cake decorated iced beautifully by my sister, Megan. She was a bit reluctant at first to ice as she was afraid that she would ruin it bless her. To help her start, I traced the flower onto the cake for her to ice over. After that, she was away and there was no stopping her! The side of the cake is all her own making and the love heart shapes on the top make perfect holders for the candles to go on later!

As I said before, she did a beautiful job and I'm really quite proud of her!

Heart biscuits

         Just a quick post here. I'm off for a weekend away to visit a friend in a short while!

I got up early-ish this morning to make some biscuits for a Christening that's happening on Sunday. I'm getting a dab hand at making the biscuit dough now but it was the rolling and cutting out that took the most time. Still, I enjoy the whole process so I don't really notice if it is time consuming or now.

                                                  Just nipping out now to deliver them!

Birthday cake surprise

It was my Mum's birthday the other day so I decided to make her a cake as a surprise. We went to a nice restaurant for a meal where the waiter very tentatively gave her the cake being careful not to singe his eyebrows off. The fountain I bought to put on it was very impressive! As you can see in the photo, the flame was so high it went out of shot! The cake was a real labour of love. It took me a couple of hours to bake the cake itself and then all night for the decoration.

Luckily, Mum was out at a party so I didn't have to worry about her walking in. I started decorating at 7pm and just literally didn't stop till just gone midnight! As you can imagine I was very tired. But as much of a cliche as it sounds, it was worth it. I actually had to point out to Mum that I had made it because she thought that it was a restaurant cake! An what does the cake itself taste like...well, as my Dad put it, fabulous! Yay!!!

Chocolate truffles

And now it's time for a mouthwatering post. My twin sister and I made some chocolate truffles this evening. We drove over to Asda to buy some chocolate and ground almonds first though. I real sign of the times there actually. Ellen can drive now so there is no more having to wait till a parent is free to take us; if we want chocolate this evening then I'll be darn it, we will get chocolate! Oh what freedom...that is until we have to pay for the petrol. Speaking of driving, I'm now learning. I've had a few lessons now which are so far going quite well. Although having said that, I did have a lesson today after not being behind the wheel for a couple of weeks so I was a bit...rusty. Lets just say I found it rather amusing when panic crept into the voice of my instructor today! Anyway, back to the truffle making. They were really quick and easy to do and taste GoooD with a capital 'g' and 'd'. Ellen has warned me that when she's a student with no money, this will be what I get for a Christmas present which is fine by me! I love white chocolate so I've requested some of those. They really do make the best presents. If you put them in a pretty little box with packaging, it will look like a high class gift with little effort. What I really loved about truffle making though is that it's messy! Or that might just be because we made it unnecessarily so. I'm still finding choco powder on me even now!

Battenburg cake!!

If any of you just happened to be wondering what I've been up to today then here it is! I made a battenburg cake.

Of course, it didn't take me all day. I've been up to other stuff too like guitar lessons and cycling.

Thank you very much to my aunt who gave me the recipe for this. It came out really well as you can see.

I did have a few hiccups though and one rather blonde moment! For some reason the cake just wouldn't cook so I ended up having to whack up the heat. The cake was in for a total of 40 minutes as oppose to the suggested 25-30 mins. Don't know what happened there but eventually it cooked.

I wanted to make my own marzipan too but the ingredients were so expensive for that. I worked out that I would need to buy £5 worth of almonds! 5 quid for a few bags of nuts???!!!! I love almonds but still! For that reason, I opted for the ready made stuff!

My blonde moment in the baking process came at the end when I had to heat up the jam. Ok then, I thought. So on went a saucepan on the hob and I plopped a spoonful of jam in. BIG mistake! The noise and smoke that came from this pan was insane. I'm really surprised it didn't set of the smoke alarm.

I quickly got the jam out and slowly started to pour water in as it was spitting out little bits of boiling sugar everywhere.

Not clever!

If saucepans were to convey emotions, this one would be very angry indeed!

But it all worked out and I've got a big thumbs up from people who have got their chops around a bit.

My baking extravaganza!

I've been doing lots of baking recently. Allow me to show you around some of my edible creations.

This here is a mosaic chocolate button cheesecake. I made it with my little sister Megan the other week. It was her last day of the summer holidays so I thought that we would have a nice time baking together. She adores giant buttons so I came up with the idea of putting a mosaic design of them on top.

Last week, I got given a bag of apples that were picked from my friends garden so I've spent the week cooking them up into varies recipes.

I made this apple and ginger cake with a hazelnut crumble topping...

And then on your right an apple and raisen crumble.

Gotta make a crumble if you have apples don't you?!!

Then last night we made a coco pops strawberry custard cream flan. We had some coco pop mix left over so I made some sandcastles out of them!

So there we are. Everythinng that I've cooked in the last couple of weeks. Have I made you drool on your computer keyboard yet??

Biscuits galore!

I've been baking today!!

I got a icing kit from my auntie for christmas. You can make biscuit shapes by using the specially shaped discs that come with it too. It's so much fun!! They make so many biscuits too. I used the recipe that my aunt gave me which was I think half of the recommended recipe and found it made no less than 75 cookies! It took me ages but fortunately they only take 6 minutes to cook so I was soon churning them out.

I can see that they would be great if you wanted a quick batch to make for someone. The recipe I got worked brilliantly too and Mum said that they were literally melt in mouth!

So thank you for the great present Elizabeth!!

Cookie Bouquets!

For most of the day yesterday, whilst everyone was at the Great North Run, I was very busy baking with my Nana acting as assistant chef!

It took a lot longer than I was expecting but in the end I was happy with the result considering the novice I am at baking! Making the gingerbread went fairly well except it was a bit dry so we had to splash a bit of milk in. Even today, when you enter the kitchen, you can still smell the ginger emanating from the cooker!

Icing was... eventful! FOUR piping bags later and all the icing was done. The first one broke so I made some rather unsuccessful homemade one out of greaseproof paper. In the end we nipped around the corner and borrowed one from a friend. It was SO messy too! I swear that more went on the table and my hands than the actual cookies.

Dad and Ellen completed the GNR in a good time of 2 hours 29 minutes! So as you can imagine, I presented the bouquets over to some rather tired people! My Dad gives the cookies a thumbs up! Not to hard or too soft which I was really pleased about!

What do you think of them?!