christmas concoctions part two: white chocolate and cranberry cakies

so this post may be a little out of season, but we'll roll with it!

life has been a little crazy recently: the post christmas/new year period is always a bit of a blur and then on monday i started my new job. it's going really well so far and the people in the office are really nice and welcoming! but it does mean i have been coming home, having dinner, working out and crashing!! hopefully i'll get back in to the swing of things soon - three weeks off means i am a little rusty!

so this week's post is a hangover from the festive season, but these will taste good all year round - especially now when it's still dark and cold. however, as the title might suggest, these did not go 100% to plan! i'll reveal all as we go along but i have definitely created a new bake!

this was a hummingbird recipe, i think i have made them before (with greater success!). i made them for my christmas party (which went really well).

ingredients ready to go

 the recipe is nice and simple, building up a cookie dough in stages

 

at this point there was a very narrowly avoided disaster! our spices have big letters on the top of the jars and i had (stupidly) reached in and grabbed the first 'C' that i could find.

thankfully i was waiting on my mum to get back from the shop with the flour so i put the 'cinnamon' in a separate bowl ready to mix in, at which point i thought, this looks rather dark! double checking the jar confirmed that i had picked up coriander rather than cinnamon!! i was so close to making, what would probably have been, some of the worst cookies ever!

 a very close call! 

 coriander free dough coming together

 love, love the contrast of the cranberries!

 

pretty hard to resist eating it at this stage!

 so we get to this stage with my cookies all ready to go. the dough felt right, it's normally stiffer and stickier than a cake mix and then it spreads out as it cooks to form the round, flat cookie shape. however, as you can see from the oven picture below, this process did not happen! i'm not entirely sure why this happened, a little googling suggests something to do with the flour or raising agent.

the resulting bake was a new creation (or at least so i am claiming), ladies and gentlemen i present to you: the cakie

 a strange bake the exists somewhere between the realms of cake and cookie - probably most closely related to a rock cake!

of course the important thing (as always) is taste over appearance and these still tasted scrummy - i mean white chocolate and cranberries! obviously the texture was not the gooey, chewy cookie goodness i was hoping for, but it was novel! and they still went down well, so no complaints!

next time i'll give you an option for what to do with the post-christmas selection boxes you probably have lying around!

until then, have a good week!

love,

nen

x

white chocolate and raspberry cake

i made this cake two weeks ago now, but unfortunately i was struck down with flu last weekend which meant there has been an absence of activity (aside from battling through feverish delirium to try and get some sleep, flu is not the one). but it does mean that i get the chance to remember this cake all over again - because it was really delicious. raspberries have to be up there with my favourite fruits and they are just so good in bakes.

the recipe is also really simple, which is always good. you start with a basic sponge mix. i've been mixing my bakes by hand recently - something i used to avoid at all costs but i now find it quite satisfying (it also means i don't have to faff around getting the whisk out, laziness always wins out).

the recipe i used is from the clandestine cake club book - another book that i bought a while ago and had yet to use (beyond drooling over the pictures, naturally).

such a beautiful cover - i love the blue

 

  a moment's appreciation for how glossy this mixture is!

 at this point you deviate from a normal sponge by stirring in the raspberries. as the recipe states, it's important to be gentle when folding them in - otherwise they will break up and you won't get a full burst of raspberry goodness.

 look at the incredible colour contrast

 

now comes the exciting part - covering the cake in chocolate!

i deviated fractionally from the recipe here, by using the full 150g bar of chocolate rather than the 125g the recipe called from (because, chocolate). however i do not think there is any way they used anywhere near that much, because the picture in the book had a tiny dribble of chocolate! but more chocolate is always better.

i learnt an important lesson in decorating this cake: allow chocolate to cool before piping it! i put the chocolate straight from the bain marie into the piping bag and picked it up. SUCH a mistake. my hand was throbbing for hours afterwards! and it also meant my piping was sloppier than usual as i was struggling to hold it. so there's an important lesson for us all there.

another baking tip: put your piping bag in a glass so it is supported while you fill it - especially useful when both hands are needed to hold a pyrex dish full of hot chocolate!

 

 

 who doesn't enjoy a good piping action shot? 

 here is the finished cake in all of it's smothered in chocolate glory; but of course the best bit is cutting it to reveal the raspberries...

this cake was really fun to make and another hit in the office (although very crumbly so the carpet was a bit worse off!). what are your favourite recipes featuring raspberries? i'd love to know!

as i'm writing this, i have a golden syrup cake in the oven - so look out for that making an appearance soon!

love,
nen
x

sister act: cupcakes and butterfly cakes

although there are four of us in this house, it's very rare that we are all in at the same time. we all have different work schedules and social commitments, so when i get to spend some time with my siblings it has become precious (especially as now we see each other less, there is less fighting!)

therefore it was really great to spend some time with my sister the other weekend and have a catch up (mostly moaning about being working girls).

we kept things simple with a basic sponge mix. this is such a good thing to have memorised - you want to work in 2oz measurements and for every 2oz of ingredients you need one egg. i think i made 8oz because i wanted two batches of cakes so it went something like this:

8oz of self raising flour
8oz caster sugar
8oz butter or baking spread (softened)
2 tsps baking powder
4 eggs
splash of vanilla essence

once you've grasped this basic recipe you can work wonders with it. for example if you are making it into a chocolate cake, sub out some of the flour for cocoa powder and add a little more baking powder.

it can be flavoured in different ways too, although vanilla provides a good base for staple sponge.

i always go all in one with this, literally throw it all in a bowl and whisk together! add a splash of milk if it's a little dry. it always comes out moist and spongy, a fail safe result!

 in it all goes, you're looking for the consistency below: nice and smooth, leaving the trails of the whisk

the other great thing about cup/fairy cakes is how quickly they cook (although not that great when you get distracted playing games on your phone and have to run to the oven...) so you can whip up a few batches in no time. the fun part is what you do after this

 pretty cases are a must for cupcakes, these are from tesco

so i had two things i wanted to try out here:

firstly was a beautiful piping set that my friend louise got me for my birthday and i hadn't actually got around to using. i forgot to take a photo so i will put one up when i remember! it's a really professional set and gave great results.

 my piping skills are definitely something i want to work on (as well as my photography, apologies for the out of focus images!) - in particular starting at the edge of the cake, rather than trying to backfill this in!

 

 so much concentration!

 

cheeky baking selfie!

and with that photo i introduce my sister, the widge to my nen (just roll with the weird nicknames). we paired up to make that british tea time classic - butterfly cakes.

instead of using a berry jam, i wanted to use the passionfruit curd i had bought at a national trust property (history nerd forever). this added a zing to the cakes that would have been missing otherwise, and contrasted well with the sweet buttercream. it was a simple yet effective way to update a classic combo.

i'm a sucker for that packaging too

 scooping out the insides to make the wings

 my glamorous assistant whipping up the buttercream

 production line assembled: i was in charge of cutting and wing placement, widge provided the fillings

 just look at the colour on that curd!

 

 and the finished result

these went down a treat in the office. everyone loved the zing from the passionfruit and they were a perfect little mid morning or afternoon pick me up!

i'd love to see what you guys do with your basic sponge recipes! share your pictures on facebook or twitter

love,

nen