christmas chocolate cupcakes and cranberry cookies.

phew, with that extensive example of alliteration out of the way let me begin this last post of 2012 by wishing you all a happy new year. i hope it is your best yet! this year has certainly had its ups and downs for me, but starting this blog and the enthusiastic response i've had has really carried me through so thank you all so much. especially now that the views have surpassed 1000 - thank you, thank you, thank you!

this last post reflects back on the christmas binge we're just emerging through (after one last night before the detoxing and dieting begins - for some at least!). i went to my ever trusted hummingbird Cake Days for the festive season, they have a whole section dedicated to christmas and it was almost impossible for me to decide what to bake!

back to making a mess in the kitchen - i'm sure my mum has missed me really!

my first choice was a cookie classic - white chocolate and cranberry. popular all year around, this flavour combination is a particular hit at christmas when we go crazed for cranberries! the recipe was simple to follow and resulted in some seriously scrummy cookies! when transferring them to the cooling rack one broke up which meant i just had to eat it while it was still hot and gooey - shame!

cranberries and white chocolate weighed out and ready to go

scrummy cookie dough coming together

folding in the cranberries and chocolate before baking

the finished result!





the second choice was guided by one of the popular gifts at christmas - the chocolate orange. these are ridiculously tasty - to get myself through my horrific project last term i scoffed a selection box! so when i saw the chocolate orange cupcake recipe i just had to give it a go. these made the house smell sooooooooo good and with a christmas cd on in the background helped me to get into the festive spirit. a small warning though - they are very rich so i have taken to serving them with a drizzle of cream (hey, tis the season of indulgence!) although as often happens the hummingbird frosting recipe makes a crazy amount so there is now a sizable bowl of chocolate orange frosting sat in my fridge - any takers?!

the mix that actually made it into the cakes ready to go

it looked like i was having a heston style dry ice moment when the icing sugar cloud erupted

my mum was in charge of icing these festive treats

so that's it from me in 2012. i hope you all have a fantastic night and a fabulous new year full of many baked treats!

love,
nen
x







bonkers bananas.

(firstly - does anyone else still use the gwen stefani song to check that they have spelt banana properly?!?!)

but anyway - i hope everyone has had a very merry christmas and been spoilt rotten, particularly on the food front. i hope there's been a lot of baked goods to go around! this christmas i made chocolate orange cupcakes and white chocolate and cranberry cookies but more on that in another post.

for now it's all about the banana cake. this is probably one of THE easiest cakes to make ever - you don't even need an electric whisk. this is great when you have overripe bananas (aka the ones that are going black and shmushy!) as we often do in our student house (hello parents buying us fruit and it not getting eaten... whoopsie!) but this is an excellent way to put them to good use (and to kid yourself that you're getting one of your five a day).

the first time we (my housemate april was in on the act) was a classic late night uni baking session (which also demonstrates that you don't have to be particularly awake to make it!) we followed this recipe (although not sure it really deserves to be called a recipe as it's so simple!)

april's mad mixing skills

once you've poured it into the tin, top with a covering of brown sugar for a nice crunchy top

the finished result - scrummy!

this is best served warm: note warm not hot (much to my housemates' dismay) let it cool in the tin for a bit.

the second time we made this emma and april had the genius idea of adding chopped up rolo! which makes it more naughty but even more delicious!

so if you've got any bananas lying around and you fancy baking something simple this is the one for you!

love,

nen

x



princess procrastination post.

so the last thing i should be doing right now is being on my blog (hello 9,000 word essay that isn't writing itself...) but here i am! this post is dedicated to the birthday of my lovely housemate anna. hers was the first birthday in our student house which we have affectionately nicknamed 'princess palace' (hey we're all girls and the boys' house is called the 'lad shack' so it's perfectly acceptable!). anyway anna is a real girlie girl (she jumped at the idea of us getting disney princess themed walkie talkies for house communication!) so i thought what would be better than making her a princess palace birthday cake? so here are the results...

i baked three vanilla round sponge cakes (the base one being slightly larger but that was more to do with different sized tins) with a little red food dye in to give it a pink tinge. i cemented these together with strawberry jam (her preferred flavour but it doesn't matter what you use) i also baked a tray of sponge to form the towers. next up i whipped up A LOT of pink butter icing.

assembling the cake

i cut the tray bake into four lengths to create the towers and stuck these on the side of the cake. note to self - put icing on the towers when they are lying flat rather than when up the sides of the cake! while this seemed like it was going to hold together one soon collapsed and the others began to follow suit - so i folded over the bits that were sticking up.

it worked for a minute!

next came the REALLY fun bit. we had done a tesco delivery and i basically added every form of pink sweet known to man to the basket in line with the overly ambitious sketch i had! so here is the finished product and then i'll go into the details:

princess palace!

the doorway made from white chocolate buttons, with a strawberry lace frame and handle. then i used strawberry millions to create a path (stuck down with a bit of water and icing sugar)

the towers with strawberry lace ivy and candyfloss bushes

marshmallow flumps for battlements. for the turrets i covered ice cream cones in an icing sugar and water combo before sprinkling them with hundreds and thousands.

the complete birthday tea - we set very high standards for future birthdays in our house!

well this will have to be it for now - i'm off to continue writing about victorian prostitution (gotta love a free choice history project...!).

love,

nen

x