not so perfectly punctual pies.

well there goes my 'post a week' resolution - but i'm only a few days out so i hope you can forgive me!

for this post we are harking back to a bakesoc social from last term - pie night! this was another of our bake & bring socials, held at a swanky bar in exeter. the requirements were simple - anything vaguely pie related was allowed, sweet or savoury.

i teamed up with my history girls to create a dual pie offering - pecan and apple.

for the pecan pies we adapted a hummingbird recipe (by adapted i think we didn't have treacle as well as golden syrup so just used more of the latter, this explains why they aren't perhaps as dark in colour as expected).

a while ago i bought some individual tart cases in a sale and this was the first chance i've had to use them - it's nice to make individual portions and they can look great when arranged on a plate.

here they are fresh out of the oven

personally i am not  huge fan of pecan pie but i am assured that these were really good (although when given compliments we did have to confess that we had used ready made pastry but let's keep that on the down low!)

our second offering was puff pastry apple pies - from a lorraine pascale recipe (again we cheated with the pastry) but we did make the apple filling ourselves.

unfortunately in the rush of making two types of pie on a short deadline i completely forgot to egg wash them (having even beaten an egg in preparation...!) so they don't have the golden outside as seen on lorraine's. however they tasted really good. i love apple pastries and puff pastry is always such a treat!

note the artistic apple scored into the top!

about to go in the oven (minus the egg wash - whoops!)

on display at the social (student economy of transportation and display device in one tin!)

at the social itself there were so many gorgeous different types of pie that we all felt quite sick at the end from the amount we had eaten!

in this photo you can see the pecan pies but also the grasshopper pie and mince pies made by our presidents.

the grasshopper pie is an american creation and is quite like a cheesecake. i absolutely loved it - it was like mint choc chip ice cream in a creamy pie form (and that is one of my favourite ice cream flavours!)

the mince pies were equally scrummy - they contained cranberries and almonds which added a refreshing twist and everyone who knows me knows i do love a good mince pie!

another of the other offerings was savoury. apologies for the odd looking photo but these were shaped like mini pasties and contained spinach, feta and sun dried tomatoes (if i remember correctly!). they were moreish and i could have easily polished off many of these. (i'm still trying to hunt down the recipe).

well i hope this has made you sufficiently hungry for lunch and perhaps inspires you to make a pie of your own. they are so easy to make, especially if you buy ready made pastry (i certainly won't be judging you!)

love,
nen
x

back to business & butterfly cakes

now i'm sure you were all very panicked that i was going to miss my one blog post a week goal, but never fear i am here! and i can assure you that it feels so nice to be able to sit down and indulge my procrastinatory tendencies. this week has been absolutely hectic and it feels as if my feet have barely touched the ground. so naturally after a 'slightly' heavy one last night today has been a make-up free onsie day where i have been in bed longer that out! so i am feeling refreshed and ready to go...

part of this week's schedule was the new term bakesoc meeting. armed with vegetable crisps and several bottles of wine we sat down for two hours to plan out the term ahead. i can promise you it is looking very exciting and i have a couple of projects that i am rearing to get my teeth in to - but no spoilers! it was so nice to catch up with the girls and hear all the baking delights people made and received over the festive period.

before the week got underway i managed to squeeze in a therapeutic baking session on sunday afternoon. the bake of the day was chocolate butterfly cakes. these are cakes i completely associate with my mum (both the chocolate and vanilla variety) and the best thing was to come home from school on fridays to a freshly baked batch.

while i can't claim for certain that the chocolate twist is entirely my mum's own invention i will! this replaces the usual jam and butter icing filling with nutella and butter icing! it is soooo indulgent and super scrummy - the hazelnut centre adds something really special.

to make butterfly cakes make a batch of fairy cakes as usual (they work best in muffin sized cases so you have enough cake to scoop out).

WAIT for them to cool before attempting the assembly (we were far too impatient and so they were too crumbly and the results were not all that dainty!)

there are two methods depending on how your cakes have risen. if they have a defined peak then cut this off and then in half to form the wings. however most of the time you need to use a knife (or teaspoon) to cut a well in the centre of the cake, which you then cut in half for the wings.

april and i had a production line going - she was in charge of shaping and i did the filling (excuse the pile of cutlery!)

using a teaspoon place firstly a small amount of nutella in the well and then cover with a layer of butter icing.

one of the most heavenly substances...

finally rest the wings on top. if you have the patience (and there is not a crowd of hungry students gathered, dust the cakes with icing sugar for the ultimate finishing touch).

an example of the finished result (they didn't stay around long enough for me to get a final photo!)

these cakes are a perfect sunday afternoon treat if you are looking for some baking inspiration this weekend!

enjoy your week

love,

nen

x

ps. to keep up with blog posts and for other baking happenings follow this blog on twitter at @NensBakery or like it on facebook www.facebook.com/NensBakery

scrummy snickerdoodles.

one of my new discoveries from last term was snickerdoodle cookies. discovered in (you guessed it) hummingbird's cake days these are an absolute delight. i was drawn to them for their cinnamony sugar coating and upon further reading the recipe was really easy to follow. these are perfect when you don't have a lot of time (the dough does need to rest in the fridge for half an hour, but you can go off and do something in that time) but want a baked treat. the cinnamon flavour is perfect for warming your cockles on a cold winter afternoon.

i'm not sure where the name comes from (hello research project...) and they are not at all like cookies. perhaps somewhere between a biscuit and a macaroon? regardless they are super tasty!

they are also therapeutic to make. you shape the dough into walnut sized balls and then roll them in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. i find this really relaxing and helps take my mind off stressful thoughts!

in the oven they go (yes it needs a clean!)

the finished result!

leave them to cool slightly (you don't want to burn your tongue and ruin the taste) but not for long as these taste best still warm, with a cup of tea or hot chocolate.

to make them even more delicious dip the warm snickerdoodles in the left over sugar for a crunchy coating!

love,

nen

x





muffin madness!

well here it is - 2013 (still keep typing 12...) and i'm feeling productive and inspired so here is another post! my new year's resolution is to make sure i post on this blog at least once a week - degree be damned! happy new year!

the second birthday in our house last term was the lovely emma who has a penchant for muffins. therefore her birthday bake was simple in conception if not necessarily in execution!

her birthday came in the middle of exeter's monsoon season and so i had to brave the noah-inspired floods to stock up on ingredients for the multitude of muffins that i had planned. it was also a time where i was really busy which meant that the baking did not occur until the night before her birthday when i returned from a history cocktail social somewhat inebriated...! with april as my sous chef we set about establishing a muffin production line that carried on into the small hours of the morning. the things you do for love! (actually it was quite fun!)

so perhaps we were lucky that the muffins came out as well as they did - but they went down a treat and made a beautiful centre piece for emma's birthday tea. and gave me a chance to crack a few of my (possibly too) large collection of cake stands which i carted down to uni with me!

i already knew emma had certain favourite flavours so i set about finding recipes for these - the first was white chocolate and raspberry (one of my favourites too!). finding raspberries in the middle of november is not the easiest task so i made do with raspberry coulis but i think the result was passable. i also made an error in picking up a bar of white chocolate 'crunch' (which was basically a thin white chocolate kitkat) but i'd like to think this added texture!

april doing a pro job of mixing

we saved some of the coulis and chocolate to sprinkle on top before baking

our bradley wiggins muffin - complete with sideburns!



another variety i chose was the classic blueberry as these are nice and moist and can be a bit lighter than other muffin varieties.

sticking with an unintentional fruit theme another type was banana and chocolate chip (again there were overripe bananas in the kitchen) - what began as using up ingredients actually turned into my favourite type!

lastly we also made lemon drizzle muffins which were not all that successful as the drizzle leaked all the way through the muffins and their cases! but were still scrummy.

part of the beauty of muffins is their simplicity to make - you don't need an electric whisk, just a wooden spoon as they only want a minimal amount of mixing. they are also lower in sugar than cakes so are slightly better for you - especially with the fruity additions! however this does mean they don't keep as long - but when you make things this yummy they don't tend to hang around for long!

love,

nen

x

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