" width="477" height="261" border="0">Treats
Boozy Fruit for your Christmas Cake
Those of you that were already with me this time last year will know that now is the time to start on your Christmas Cake (yes, really!).
Cake in a Mug – Just for Fun!
Baking doesn’t always have to be serious – sometimes it’s good to have a bit of a lark – you can certainly get that with a cake in a mug!
Black Forest Fruits Puff Pies
Buttery, Puffety Pastry mini fruit pies (yes I know that’s not a real word….)
Eat them warm, eat them cold, pour with cream, with custard, just don’t eat them all yourself!
Makes 12.
Ingredients:
1 x Block of Puff Pastry (recipe here)
450g Black Forest Berries, frozen
100g caster sugar
A little milk and caster sugar for glazing.
Palmiers – using up Puff Pastry Trimmings
Palmiers – the cooks treat, perfect for using up Puff Pastry Trimmings!
Traditionally you shouldn’t re-roll puff pastry trimmings. It disturbs the buttery layers within the pastry which you’ve worked so hard to create. However, you can. In these times throwing away pastry trimmings is wasteful and I just can’t do it.
Ultimate Pizza Dough
or ‘the boys make pizza’
Ingredients:
450g strong white plain flour
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion salt
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp sunflower oil
1 ½ tsp dried active yeast
300ml warm water
Makes two medium pizza bases or garlic bread.
Blueberry Crumble Muffins
This time of year blueberries are sweeeeeeet and juicy, if you can resist eating them straight from the punnet these muffins will go down a treat
Ingredients:
180g self raising flour
55g soft light brown sugar
150ml milk
1 egg, large
25g melted butter
100g blueberries
Crumble Topping
2 tbsps flour (self raising is fine and you’ve already got it out of the cupboard)
10g butter, softened
2 tbsps oats
1 tbsp soft light brown sugar
1 tbsp chopped mixed nuts
If you don’t like nuts or oats just leave these out.
Mum’s Ginger Muffins
You can always rely on Mums! Mums mind children when you’re flat out, Mums give you a hug when you’re adamant you can’t possibly do one more thing….and Mums make great Ginger Muffins coated in sticky lemon icing! They also write it up for all The Pink Whiskers too!
Blueberry and Hazelnut Chocolate Florentines
Florentines are notoriously tricky blighters, seemingly simple but accurate measurements are needed (Ruth are you paying attention, no really paying attention? Okay out come the digital scales).
Florentines also need to go on the tray well spaced apart, another instruction in recipes I fail to ‘get’ and frequently end up chiselling a sheet of florentines from a baking tray, add to that the messy affair of coating the monkeys in chocolate and we’re talking baking disaster tantrums.
Golden Syrup Loaf Cake
Whilst playing around with egg-free recipes I made this cake, quite by accident. It wasn’t what I was intending it to be but it’s fast become a firm family favourite here, it’s egg-free too!
(If you’re looking for egg-free recipes be sure to try my best ever ginger cake)
You may well be wondering why I’m giving you quantities for two loaf cakes here but trust me, even two isn’t enough.
Are you ready for these…? Smoky Choc Cherry Cupcakes
I developed these last year as an option for the final of The Great British Bake Off. In the end I went with Mint, Ginger and Blackberry (recipe here) so before the weather gets truly summery here’s my recipe for Smoky Chocolate and Cherry Cake.
