Gingerbread Teddies

Hey kids,

Satch here. Last December I went to a wedding where they served the most amazing gingerbread I've ever had. When I spoke to the guy who made it, he said he just followed the BBC good food recipe, so I had to give it a try...albeit 10 months later. As this wasn't for any occasion in particular, I figured I'd just whack a bit of icing on. However, my driving instructor suggested I do superhero gingerbread - how could I refuse? 

As you can see, I don't have cookie cutters in the shape of people, but teddies can still be super! To make these gingerbread teddies you will need: 

350g plain flour, plus extra for rolling out

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

125g butter (dairy-free, naturally) 

175g light soft brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp golden syrup 

Cookie cutters

Icing sugar 

Piping bag

Preheat the oven 180c and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Put your flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon into a bowl and stir it altogether. The original recipe said to sieve it but I like to walk on the wild side. 

Add the butter and rub it all between your fingers until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. If you have a food processor, your life will probably be a lot easier than mine! 

Stir in the sugar. 

Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, add this to the other ingredients and form it into a dough. 

Knead your dough briefly until it's smooth, then wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Cover your surface and rolling pin with flour - the mixture is quite sticky so I found I had to knead a bit more flour in, but that may well be because I overdid it with the golden syrup, who can say? Roll out your dough to about 1/2cm thickness. I experimented with different thicknesses, but the chunkier ones lost their shape and the thinner ones were too hard. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly golden-brown. Leave on the tray for 10 minutes and then move to a wire rack to finish cooling. 

Then, ice on whatever delightful character you'd like! Here are a few I did: 

Hulk, Superman and Spiderman

Sort-of Fred Flintstone and a Blues Brother (I was watching Blues Brothers whilst baking)

Robin, Batman and a very loose interpretation of Two-Face!

And, of course, classic teddy. 

You'll notice a few are missing limbs/not-so teddy-like. These were the ones that were too thick and placed too close together so they merged in the oven. Still, arms are overrated, I find. 

At this point I usually think about what I would do differently next time, but these tasted soooooo good I wouldn't change a thing. Just make sure you get the thickness right and you're good to go! Also, it's a good idea to bake when you're going to see other people at some point - I basically had to demolish these bad boys all by myself. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Until next time, 
Satch x

Apple and Cinnamon Cupcakes

Hey kids, 

Satch here. While it's perhaps a little early for christmassy cupcakes, there was a cooking apple just sitting in my kitchen - how could I not throw in a little bit of cinnamon and whack it in a cake? When I normally bake for my church partnership group, I usually have a few cakes left for my breakfast the next day, but these got completely demolished so I think they were particularly good! Almost too good...now I have to eat toast tomorrow.

Again, this blog is sorely lacking in pretty pictures. It was such an experiment that I didn't think it would work, and didn't think to take photos until nearly all the cakes had gone! However, I did manage this one, and I even instagrammed it for you - aren't I nice? 

To make these apple and cinnamon cupcakes the way I did (which, as they were amazing, I would totally recommend) you will need: 

150g Dairy-free butter
150g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
150g Gluten-Free Flour 
Splash of Dairy-Free Milk
4 Tsp Cinnamon
Half a large cooking apple (about 5 tbsp worth!) 
Cupcake cases (the big muffin-y ones)
Icing Sugar 
Apple Juice (I used cloudy)

For those eagle-eyed blog readers among you, you may have noticed I've changed my basic mojito cupcake recipe quite a bit. Just so you know, there's one less egg and a lot less milk as I figured the apple would provide a crap-load of moisture (which is a technical baking term) and so you wouldn't need as much liquid as you would in a regular gluten-free cake. It was a complete guess, but it worked! 

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C

Cream together your butter and sugar, and then mix in your eggs. 

Peel your apple and dice it finely. Throw it in your mix with your flour, milk and 2 or 3 tsp of cinnamon (I just did this by sight). I also put raisins in mine, but I was disappointed with that aspect of the cake - the apple is good on its own so I won't be doing raisins again. 

Fill your cake cases and put them in the oven for 15 minutes, or until you can stick a fork in the middle one and it comes out clean. 

While your cakes are cooling, mix together your icing sugar, apple juice and 1 tsp cinnamon. You're going for a nice drizzle-able consistency, so do it by sight and taste. 

Drizzle your icing on the cakes with a teaspoon or using a piping bag if you're feeling fancy, but I like the random drizzly look. 

If I were to do it again, I might try adding a bit of ginger just to see what that's like, but I don't think it needs it (and I knew my friend Piero would be eating the cakes and he's allergic to ginger so that would have been mean). The cupcakes turned out really well, especially for such an experimental bake! They were light, moist and christmassy - what more could you want? 

Until next time, 

Satch x

Mojito Cupcakes (Gluten and Dairy Free!)

Hello Children,

Satch here. Last week it was our friend Reb's birthday and so I felt she deserved a nice birthday treat, particularly considering the fact that she's gluten-intolerant and so rarely gets to eat cake - what a terrible, terrible thing. As a dairy-free kid myself, I know you can still make great cakes without half the stuff you usually put in, so I decided to make my first foray into gluten-free. 

One thing Reb and I have in common is that we both like a cocktail or six, so I decided to go all out and do something a bit special: mojito cupcakes! 

Unfortunately, I have a distinct lack of photos for this blog post as a) I still have no camera and b) I was making these with a five-year-old so we didn't have the patience to stop and take pictures (for those of you about to report me to the NSPCC, I didn't let her have any rum!) 

For these AMAZING cupcakes, you will need: 

For the cakes
150g Caster Sugar
150g Dairy-Free Butter 
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
150g Gluten-Free Flour 
5 tbsp Milk 
(If you don't want to go gluten-free and dairy-free then you can just use whatever fairy cake recipe you normally use.) 
Cupcake cases

For the icing
70ml Rum
3 Limes
Soft Brown Sugar 
Butter Icing (I tend to just mix it up by taste - you need butter and icing sugar!) 
Mint Leaves

Start by preheating your oven at 200 degrees C.

Cream together your butter and sugar and then whack in the eggs (beating eggs is for chumps!) 

Add your vanilla essence, flour and milk and stir it all together. The good thing about gluten-free flour is that you don't have to sift it (not that I would bother anyway, but just in case you're into that kind of thing.) The mixture will look a bit more wet than if you'd used gluteny flour, but the nice lady in the health food shop told me that's how it's meant to look.) 

Fill the cake cases with the mixture, and pop in the oven for roughly 15 minutes. Get them out and let them cool. 

Poke little holes in the cakes with a fork and brush the tops with rum. Let it soak in for a minute, and then go for another brush of rum. 

Juice two of your limes and brush the juice on the cake twice, just like you've done with the rum. 

Sprinkle on the brown sugar, it should dissolve into the cake. If you're not a big icing fan, you can probably stop here and still have a delicious mojito experience. However, the icing is pretty amazing, so you'll be missing out. 

For the icing, add the rest of the rum and lime juice to your buttercream. I have no idea how much buttercream I made, but I didn't use all the rum and lime because it would have been too much. Just keep going by taste and consistency until you get what you want - have an experiment, be an individual! 

Once you've iced your cakes (I went for the slap-it-on-with-a-spoon approach as dairy-free buttercream never holds a pretty piping shape anyway), slice up your third lime and place a slice on each cake, along with a mint leaf, and you're done! 

The cakes went down a treat and I was mega pleased my first gluten-free bake went so well! If I did them again, I might experiment with adding lime zest, rum and mint to the actual cake mixture, but you still get plenty of mojito flavour doing it this way so crack on! Anyone got any other cocktail cake ideas? 

Until next time, 

Satch x

Piano Cake

Hey Kids, 

Satch here. On friday, it was Mummy Satch's birthday and I was in charge of the organising/food etc. (I would say Daddy Satch was also in charge, but as he spent the majority of Friday afternoon in the pub, I'm gonna go ahead and say Cobb and I take full credit!) 

Obviously, a birthday is a fantastic reason to get creative with cake, and as my Mum is a pianist, I gave myself a bit of a structural challenge and decided to make a piano cake.

Apologies for the camerawork, I'm taking photos on my phone until I can get a nice new camera!

It's a little smaller than I would have liked - I think if I used 4 eggs and 8oz of everything it would have stood up on its own without the box, so you may want to change the quantities of ingredients. However, I'm not sure about this, so I'll write it how I made it. 

To make this cake you will need:

6oz Caster Sugar 
6oz Butter (I used dairy-free) 
3 Eggs 
1-2oz Cocoa Powder
4-5oz Self-Raising Flower (With these last two ingredients you need to make it up to 6oz, so it depends how chocolatey you want it. I think I just did 1oz cocoa and the rest flour). 
A Lined Square Cake Tin 

To decorate:
Butter
Icing Sugar
Cocoa Powder 
Dark Chocolate
Marshmallows
Chocolate Fingers
Toothpicks
Possibly a cardboard box covered in greaseproof paper to stand it against!

It's your basic chocolate sponge recipe so I won't go into too fine a detail. Cream together the butter and sugar, mix in the eggs (I don't bother whisking them first) and add in the flour and cocoa powder. Then, pour your mixutre into your cake tin and place it in a 180 degree oven for 18-20 minutes. 

When your cake is done, leave it to cool on a wire rack while you make your chocolate buttercream. I don't really have a recipe for this, I just mix together butter, cocoa powder and icing sugar and keep adding different components in until it tastes good! Also, I used dairy free butter which is why the icing looks a bit speckled, as soya butter doesn't mix in as thoroughly. Meh, it still tastes the same! 

You basically want to divide your cake into thirds, and trim a little off the top of one of them so that it's thinner than the other two (Hence the random extra bit of cake in the photo) This section will form the bit with the keys on, so you don't want it so thick that it makes the cake topple over. 

Cover your sections with the icing, making sure to cover the sections where the cake will connect. On the keys section, you're obviously going to need keys so add a line of marshmallows along the bottom edge. To make the black keys I melted dark chocolate and piped it on using a really thin nozzle, and I also piped "Squire Ealing" on the top section, as this is what it says on my Mum's piano.

Then it's time to assemble your piano! You may need an extra pair of hands for this (Cobb came in very handy at this moment!) Stand the bottom section against the back of your box (or on its own if you're feeling confident!) and stick four toothpicks into the top, spread out evenly. I tried to do this without toothpicks and it all just fell over, so don't try to be a hero. 

Then, pick up your middle section - the one with the keys - and push it down so the back joins on at the toothpicks. Here's where you need a second pair of hands: while someone holds the middle section in place, slide two chocolate fingers underneath either end of the keys, to make the piano legs. I found that the fingers were slightly too high, so I chopped the ends off. 

With the other person still holding the middle section, slide two toothpicks up underneath the middle of the piano, making sure they cross at the centre. This stops the cake from collapsing in the middle. Then, insert four toothpicks along the back of this section - in a slightly different place to where the bottom toothpicks are - and slide on the top part. 

Here it is close up.

It's a little messy when you examine it closely, but it's so delicate I didn't want to touch it once it was together! Plus, this isn't the Great British Bake Off or anything, so I'll take that. I chose buttercream because it tastes better, and makes it look more like my mum's piano, but using fondant icing might give you a better finish, especially if you did a grand piano version. Just remember to warn everyone about the toothpicks before they eat it! 

Until next time, 
Satch x


 

Lemon Drizzle Birthday Cake

Hello one and all, Salt here!

Thought it was about time I got baking again, and what better excuse than my other half's birthday?
I gave Beams free choice of cake, and he requested a Lemon Drizzle, but I'm a firm believer that you should be able to tell a birthday cake from your average cake, so I went all out on the decorations and created this...

I must have had a lot of good karma that day, because I baked in a limited time scale, and everything went to plan. Miraculously, neither half got stuck to the bottom of the tin and I managed to not drop the mixture, while trying to put it in the oven (that has happened before - humiliating!).

It was very well received by the boy, as were the presents you can see in the background. But more on his birthday festivities another time. Here's how I made this spongey lemony goodness!

INGREDIENTS:
For the cake:
 - 250g unsalted butter
 - 300g caster sugar
 - 4 large eggs
 - 300g self-raising flour
 - 2tbsp lemon curd

Making the sponge is fairly straight forward, and would definitely be easier with an electric whisk. Sadly, I don't have one of those, so it took a fair amount of time!

Firstly, cream the butter and sugar together.
Beat the eggs, and gradually mix them in with the butter and sugar.
Sift in the selfraising flour, and finally, stir in the lemon curd. Simple!

Pop the mixtures in two greased cake tins and pop in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

Once baked, and a cocktail stick comes out clean, remove the tins from the oven.
Keeping the cakes in the tins, pop them on a cooling rack.

For the glaze:
 - Juice of one lemon
 - 4tbsp granulated sugar

Mix the lemon juice and the sugar together.
Take a cocktail stick and make several smalll shallow holes in the cakes. While they are still warm, pour over the lemony, sugary glaze.
As the cake cools, this will seep through the cake, as well as settling on top.

For the filling:
 - 300g full fat cream cheese
 - 2tbsp lemon curd

Once the cakes are completely cool, remove them from the tins.
To create your filling, mix together the cream cheese and lemon curd, and spread it onto to the top pf one of the cakes with a pallet knife. Place the remaining cake on top.

The glaze would have left a nice shiny topping, but as it was a birthday cake, I felt the need to go all out on the decoration, so I saved half of the filling to go on top too, and finished it off with lemon sugar crunch, which I found in Morrissons, and some colourful birthday candles!

If you try it out, please do let me know how it works for you!
This is one of the simplest cakes I've made, which still has a definite wow factor. Enjoy and bon apetit!

Gooey Chocolate Brownies

So I think it's clear by now, that I'm (Salt) the fatty with the sweet tooth. Its an honest miracle that I don't need to be rolled down the road.

But here it is - another baking recipe.

This time, Brownies. Yummy, scrummy, couldn't be worse for you, gooey in the middle chocolate brownies.

I baked this batch as a request from the boyfriends housemates. They've all just moved into this lovely London flat, and have been kind enough to let me stay and shower. I fully intend to be there quite a lot and so told them I'd bring baked goodies by way of rent. They seemed happy with this arrangement, and this time, requested brownies.

I didn't get a chance to take any photos of them (foolish - I know. I can only apologise.). You'll have to take my word for it when I say that they looked like this, but without the nuts:



You can add as many bells and whistles as you like to these brownies, but in this instance I didn't as I didn't know if Lewis or Dan had nut allergies, and we all know that fruit in desserts is a controversial topic.
I was a bit worried it would make them a bit hefty, but it didn't. Win.

What you need:
250g Unsalted Butter
200g Dark Chocolate
80g Cocoa Powder
65g Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
360g Caster Sugar
4 large egss

I did warn you it was an unhealthy one....

Right, and now the method:
1. Pop on your oven to pre-heat to 180oC/Gas Mark 4
2. Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper. I spent ages trying to get all the crinkles out, and I'm really not sure its possible, so learn from my error and don't stress over it!
3. Melt the butter and the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water. If you want to add cherries/raisins/nuts etc - now is the time to committ.
4. Mix together all the dry ingredients, and then add the chocolatey, buttery goo. Mix together well.
5. Beat the eggs together, and then add into the rest of the mixture. Stir together until all nicely blended.
6. It should be really liquidy still, so pour straight into the baking tray and flatten it out so all corners are covered and its nice and level.
7. Pop them in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes. You can check they're cooked by popping a skewer in the centre of the brownie. Unlike a cake, you don't want it to come out clean. Goo is good!
8. Let them cool in the baking tray, and then lift them out on the baking paper. Cut them into individual squares (or rectangles, if you're feeling crazy), and your yummy gooey brownies are ready to be munched. Delish.

·

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Hello one and all, Salt here.

I don't know about you, but I love a good bake (as does Satch!) and although I won't pretend to be fantastic at it, there's nothing more calming and therapeutic than spending a quiet Sunday afternoon whipping up a batch of brownies.

And honestly, I need to get snapped up soon, because I cannot imagine anything I'd like more than to be a housewife, who spends half her time going on nice lunches with the girls, and the other half baking while the baby sleeps and the puppy bounces about around my feet, waiting for my rich and beautiful husband to arrive home from work (preferably with a bunch of flowers). In my eyes, that is utter perfection. And that makes me Wife Material. Yes. I said it.

So here's a little creation to tempt any potential suitors out there. Chocolate Crinkle Cookies!

What you need:

175g Plain chocolate, chopped

4 tbsp unsalted butter
175g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 medium eggs, at room temperature
150g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
60g icing sugar

The method for these is simple, and also gives lots of excuese to 'clean' the mixing bowl. Instantly a brilliant recipe!

First, melt the chocolate and butter over a saucepan of simmering water (Bowl licking opportunity #1)
While melting and then letting it cool for a little bit, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Next, beat the eggs and sugar with an electric whisk for 2 mins, until they turn pale. Then lower the speed, and pour in the chocolate mix, and add the vanilla extract. Finally, add the ready-mixed dry ingredients until all nicely mixed together.
I was a bit worried at first that it was so liquid-y, but do not fear. Have faith in your baking skills, cover the bowl in cling film, and pop it in the fridge for an hour and a half.

Come back to it once its all nicely set and cooled, and pre-heat the oven to 160oC.
Line a baking sheet with baking paper, and pour the 60g icing suger into a bowl.

Scoop out the mixture, and roll it in your hands into balls that are approx. 4cm in diameter. Roll the ball in the icing sugar, and pop onto the baking sheet. Then gently press down until flat, but make sure they're still quite thick. Mine were about 1cm in depth.

Once you've done this, pop them in the oven.
Now, the danger is in overcooking them. For me, one batch came out beautiful, and the second came out a little bit over done, with about a minute difference in time. The recipe says 12-15 minutes, and I've now worked out that mine take 13minutes exactly.
The great thing about cookies though, is that unlike cakes, there's no problem in opening the oven door to check on them, so keep checking!

Et voila!
I was pretty impressed with them - they're certainly the most successfull cookies I've ever made.
If you feel inspired to try them - let me know how it goes, or if you have any other cookie recipes that you think I need to try then get in touch too!

Big love,
Salt

Cinnamon and Ginger Christmas Cookies

Hello Friends :) 

Satch here. Salt's been a bit zealous with the ol' blog posting so I thought I'd better keep up my end of the bargain! 

Over the last few years I've been a bit obsessed with baking, (I make a pretty excellent cupcake, it must be said) and since I spent 6 months being unemployed with Nathy Nath and Sophie Davis (who must always be fully named) that baking bug has only grown! Those kids certainly know their way around a good bake, so thanks to a lot of Baking Thursdays (and Nath's unhealthy obsession with Catherine from Great British Bake Off) I've managed extend my repetoire beyond cupcakes and branched out into all sorts of lovely treats! 

This certainly came in handy over Christmas, as I was only employed from the beginning of December and had to find some way of showing love to people without actually spending any money on them! Luckily, I found this cinnamon cookie recipe online, but I gave it a bit of a twist and ended up inventing amazing icing in the process! 

What you need for the cookies: 

150g/5oz Self-Raising Flour
150g/50z Plain Flour
2 Teaspoons of Ground Cinnamon
125g/4.5oz Butter
100g/3.75oz Caster Sugar
1 Egg 
1 Blog-Writing Buddy to do all the mixing for you! 

What you need for the icing: 

Water
Icing Sugar (the amount varies depending on how many cookies you have/how much you colossally mess up the simple process of adding water to sugar!) 
(Roughly) Half a teaspoon of Cinnamon
(Roughly) Half a teaspoon of Ginger
Food Colouring

To make the cookies, mix together the butter and sugar and then add the egg (the recipe says to beat it first but I never bother and it turns out just the same!) 

Then add in both types of flour and the cinnamon together (again, the recipe says to sieve it together separately in a bowl but who can be bothered with that either?!) 

Mix it all together until it forms a ball of dough (you might have to get your hands involved!) 

Sprinkle some flour on the surface and knead the dough a little bit just to make sure it all comes together. 

Roll out your dough so that it's roughly half a centimetre thick (these cookies are meant to be soft rather than snappable so they're a bit rubbish if they're too thin) 

Cut out your shapes with some fun cookie cutters (I tend to wiggle them about in the flour first so the cookie doesn't stick to the cutter) 

Pop them on a baking tray and put them in the oven at 160oC for 10 minutes. (It's better to underdo it than over do it!) Leave them to cool while you do your icing! 

For the icing, mix roughly 100g of icing sugar, a sprinkle of water and the ginger and cinnamon. I do this by experimentation so I'm afraid it's not an exact science!

Add in as much food colouring as you want, but you want a decent colour because ginger makes icing look a bit pooey...I picked red because it's Christmassy, and I'm not sure how I feel about green icing.

Then keep tasting the mixture and adding water/sugar/cinnamon/ginger as required until it all comes together nicely, but don't overdo it on the spices because it can come with a real kick! 

Then hold a tea spoon of the icing above the cookies and move it back and forth, letting the icing fall in a zig zag onto the cookies.

Let it dry and voila! 

Depending on the size of your cutter, one lot of dough goes a long way - However, when Salt joined me for cookie-making fun, a lot of the dough mysteriously disappeared...

Over Christmas I wrapped a few up in a bundle of greaseproof paper with a nice ribbon round the top, which looked pretty cool!

Cinnamon and ginger are pretty Christmassy flavours, but change the cookie cutter to something less festive and they're great cookies to make all year round. For my birthday party (which was disney princessy) I used pink icing and a heart-shaped cutter. On a random occassion I also experimented with bright blue icing on stars and dalek-shaped cookies, but my cousin Naomi found that too shocking as an icing hue!