Cake #201 - Birthday Cake

A small surprise birthday cake with Minecraft theme for a friend of my son's.

***

Sponges are coloured with different shades of blue food colouring. Filling is vanilla buttercream and topping is rolled sugarpaste cut into squares.

Cake #200 - St. Patrick's Day Sandwich Cake

St Patrick's Day Sandwich Cake.

Compiled of slices of white and brown toast, filled with garlic&herbs cheese, pickled dill cucumber and ham, and decorated with spinach, carrot and Tayto's cheese&onion crisps.

Cake #199 - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

***Happy St. Patrick's Day!***


The recipe I used is for this Rainbow Cake.  Using food colouring I just created different shades of green for the six layers. The filling and topping is vanilla buttercream and the decorations green and orange sprinkles.

Cakes #197 and #198 - Saturday Treats for the Family

Saturday Treats for the Family.

#197 Raspberry, Blueberry & Yogurt Cake.

#198 Apple & Almond Cake.

Again I was googling for recipes and found what I wanted to match the ingredienst in my pantry / fridge.

You can find the recipe for the Raspberry, Blueberry & Yogurt Cake here. (I used 100 raspberries and 100 g blueberries instead of just raspberries)

The Apple and Almond Cake is made using this recipe by Mary Berry.

Both were very yummy and sophisticated cakes. Even The Husband who is not really a friend of almond essence, liked the Apple and Almond Cake!

Cake #196 - Mississippi Mud Cake

Friday with Mississippi Mud Cake. A family favourite.

Mississippi Mud Cake

200 g butter
100 g dark chocolate
150 ml water
300 ml caster sugar
300 ml plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 170C and grease and flour a 22 cm springform cake pan.
2. Melt butter and chocolate together and beat in sugar and water until smooth.
3. Fold in the flour mixed with cocoa powder and slightly beaten eggs.
4. Pour into cake pan and bake in the oven for about 50 minutes so that the middle of the cake is still a little moist.
5. Let cool in the pan before placing the cake on a serving plate.
6. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Fresh fruit and berries go well with mud cake, too.

Cakes #193, #194 and #195 - Midweek Madness!

Midweek Madness!

#193 Chocolate Temptation with White Chocolate Buttercream and White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate

#194 Raspberry&Vanilla Boston Cake

#195 Carrot Cake with Mascarpone Icing


Chocolate Temptation with White Chocolate Buttercream and White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate

Base
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp soda
150g caster sugar
2 large eggs
150 ml sunflower oil
150 ml milk
2 tbsp syrup

1. Mix together all ingredients for base and beat well. 
2. Divide the batter into four bowls and into first batch add 1 tsp cocoa powder and mix well. Into second batch add 2 tsp cocoa powder and mix well and into third batch 3 tsp cocoa powder and mix well. Leave the fourth batch as it is.
3. Grease and flour four 20 cm cake pans and preheat the oven to 200C.
4. Bake bases in the oven for about 15 minutes and cool before removing from pans.

Filling
100 g white chocolate
100 g butter
300 g icing sugar

Melt together chocolate and butter and sieve in icing sugar carefully and mix well. Add more icing sugar if needed to get a good consistency.

To compile and decorate
spread icing on each cake layer. Pipe melted white, milk and dark chocolate on top and sides if you wish. Let cake set for an hour before serving.

***

Raspberry&Vanilla Boston Cake

Dough
See my Boston Cake recipe here. Follow the recipe carefully but instead of filling the cake with cinnamon and butter, spread vanilla creme and raspberries on the rolled base.

Filling

Vanilla Creme

400 ml milk

3 tbsp sugar

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp corn flour

3 tsp vanilla sugar or 2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Mix all ingredients together except vanilla in a saucepan.

2. Heat over medium heat until the mixture thickens but does not boil.

3. Let cool down and add vanilla sugar/extract.

200 g raspberries (fresh or defrosted from frozen)

***

Carrot Cake with Mascarpone Icing

The recipe for this delicious cake is by Mary Berry, you can find it here. To decorate the cake, I shaped some fruit-looking-things of sugar paste.

Cake #192 - Apple, Halva & Yogurt Cake

Monday Own Recipe - Apple Cake with Greek Yogurt and Pistachio Halva.

Apple Cake with Greek Yogurt and Pistachio Halva

Base
100 g soft butter
100 ml granulated sugar
1 egg
250 ml plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Filling
3 medium-sized apples, sliced
100 g pistachio halva, crumbed
250 g Greek yogurt
2 eggs
50 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 200C and grease and flour a 22 cm springform cake pan.
2. Beat together butter and sugar.
3. Add egg and mix well, then add flour together with baking powder.
4. Spread batter on the bottom and the sides of the cake pan.
5. Place sliced apples on base.
6. Mix together all ingredients for filling and pour on top of apples.
7. Bake at 200C for about 30 minutes.
8. Let cool before removing from pan.

Sugar Donuts

Saturday Night Sugar Donuts.

Can you eat one without licking sugar off your lips until you are finished...?

Sugar Donuts  (makes about 30)

5 dl lukewarm milk
50 g fresh yeast (or 2 bags / 15 g fast action dry yeast)
100 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 egg
150 g melted butter
about 1 kg plain flour

2 litres oil for deep frying
sugar for coating

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.
2. Add sugar, cardamom and egg and mix well.
3. Start adding flour gradually.
4. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add melted butter.
5. Knead in more flour until your dough is not sticky any more but still soft. It is better to leave the dough a little too soft than make it too dense so the donuts will be fluffier.
6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.
7. Divide the dough into 25-30 little balls.
8. To get ring donuts, make a hole in the middle of each ball by stretching the sides
9. Leave the rings to raise for about half an hour.
10. Heat oil in a thick pan (unless you have a deep-fryer) until it is 170-180 C. (I do not have a thermometer so I just check the temperature with a piece of toast - when it takes about a minute for the bread to become golden brown, the temperature is fine).
11. Deep-fry your donuts in oil about 2-3 minutes per side and put on plate covered with kitchen tissue so any extra oil will come off.
12. When the donuts have cooled down, dip them in sugar so that they become fully coated. I usually put sugar in a paper bag (an empty flour bag works great - I always save them for this purpose), then put two or three donuts in the bag together with the sugar and shake well.
13. If you do not eat your donuts the same day, do not coat them with sugar but freeze them right away and coat only after defrosting.

Cake #191 - Alexander Cakes

Sunday Family Favourite - Alexander Cakes, shortbread tray bake with raspberry jam and almond meringue filling.

I have made these before starting my cake challenge and written about them in this blog, too. See recipe and story here.

Cake #190 - Tomato Tarte Tatin

Savoury Saturday Cake - Tarte Tatin with tomatoes, caramelised onion and balsamico.

I have to admit, I used ready-made puff pastry. How disgraceful.

I melted some butter on my *still-fairly-new* cast-iron pan, and caramelised 2 medium-sized onions with the butter. Then I placed 4 thickly sliced tomatoes on top of the onions, sprinkled some balsamico vinegar evenly on the tomatoes and added salt and pepper. On top of the tomatoes I placed a round piece of puff pastry and baked the tarte in 200C for about 20 minutes (until the pastry was golden brown). Up-side-down, some rocket leaves and olive oil and - voilà!

Goes as dinner, evening snack, with afternoon coffee.

Cake #189 - Brookie

Friends First Friday Cake - Brookie.

Brownie + Cookie = Brookie.

It was "Dress in blue day". As blue is the new golden brown, or golden brown the new blue or whatever (remember the story about the dress - which people saw either black&blue or white&gold). Let's just eat chocolate with our friends and forget about dresses [which we won't fit in anyways after enjoying a brookie].

The recipe I used is from here. Instead of using small pans,  I baked the brookie as a cake in a 22cmx22cm square pan in 175C for 30 minutes.

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream. 

A dangerous treat. You cannot eat only one piece.

Cake #188 - Mini Lemon Cakes

Thursday Inspiration - Mini Lemon Cakes.

I found the cute spring-like yellow polka dot cardboard cake tins at Tiger and they are actually oven-proof (up to 200C). The colour inspired me to bake something - lemony!

I used a basic Lemon Drizzle Cake recipe and topped the cakes with a mixture of lemon juice and icing sugar (with a drop of yellow food colouring) and Lemon Meringue Sprinkles.

Nice and fresh little miniature treats.

Cake #187 - Meringue Overload

Wednesday Experiment - Meringue "Overload", spring and St Patrick's Day in my mind.

Meringue baked on thin sponges, filled and decorated with whipped cream, fruit and milk chocolate.

Meringue Overload

Base

250 g butter

200 ml caster sugar

2 tsp vanilla sugar

4 egg yolks

200 ml milk

300 ml plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

Meringue

6 egg whites

400 ml caster sugar

Food colouring(s) of your choice

Filling

300 ml double cream, whipped

2 bananas

Physalis

A can of mixed fruit

Milk chocolate, melted

1. Preheat oven to 175C/350F and line 3 oven trays with baking parchment. 

2. Cream together butter and sugars.

3. Add egg yolks and mix well.

4. Add dry ingredients and milk.

5. Spread dough into three circles about 20cm in diameter on baking parchments.

6. Whip egg whites together with sugar until stiff. Divide meringue mixture into three bowls and add food colouring if you want a multi-coloured cake.

7. Spread egg white mix evenly on top of each base. 

8. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. 

9. Remove from baking trays and let cool before filling.

10. Fill with whipped cream and fruit and decorate with more fruit and piped milk chocolate. 

Cinnamon Buns

Cinnamon Bun baking mood!

Every now and then I bake them 'fool proof' - in cupcake cases, that is, so they don't expand too much, collapse or explode.

Best when still warm, fresh from the oven!

Cinnamon buns (makes 12-14)

Dough
300 ml / 1 1/4 cup lukewarm milk
25 g fresh yeast (or 1 bag / 7 g fast action dried yeast)
100 ml / 1/2 cup sugar
½ tsp ground cardamom
1 egg
100 g melted butter
about 1 litre / 4 cups plain flour

Filling 
100 g butter
2 tbsp cinnamon
1 dl / 1/3 cup sugar

Glazing
1 egg

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.
2. Add sugar, cardamom and egg and mix well.
3. Start adding flour gradually.
4. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add melted butter.
5. Knead in more flour until your dough is not sticky any more but still soft. It is better to leave the dough a little too soft than make it too dense as the buns will be too dry and hard after baking.
6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.
7. Roll your dough into a rectangle, about 0,5 cm thick.
8. Spread the butter on top and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
9. Roll the dough into a cylinder and then cut it into 12 pieces. Place the buns in (large) cupcake cases.
10. Let the buns rise for about half an hour, then glaze with egg and sprinkle with pearl sugar.
11. Bake in the oven at 220C for 10-12 minutes.

Cake #186 - Pacman

Tuesday Humour Cake - Pacman.

I had been planning to bake this cake a while. The plan was to have The Husband's Pacman coffee mug in the picture, too, but he always forgot to bring it home from the office where he uses it, when I asked for it. And the times he did bring it home, I had already baked something else. The Husband finally suggested I could photograph his Pacman socks, instead, but... Oh, well.

The cake itself is a basic sponge, filled with whipped cream and raspberry jam and the icing is made of white chocolate and butter, with a few drops of yellow food colouring.

Cake #185 - Käsekuchen

Monday Mood Cake - Käsekuchen, German style cheesecake made of quark.

Quark is one of my favourite dairy products. In Ireland you can find it at least in Tesco and Dunnes Stores. It can be used the way you would use cream cheese or you can use it in batters or you can make delicious desserts of eat. Or it it plain with fruit and berries. It is nearly fat free if you are careful with your calories intake...

There are various recipes for this German style cheesecake, Käsekuchen. For this cake I used this recipe except I did not separate the eggs, nor did I put any berries into the filling.

I decorated the cake with fresh raspberries and piped milk chocolate. More raspberries to be served with and oh so good it was! 

Cake #183 - French Chocolate Cake

Saturday Surprise - French Chocolate Cake.

Continuing with my (not deliberate) French theme, after Tarte Tatin and Petites Madeleines, I made a French Chocolate Cake. French Mud Cake, I would say.

You can find the delicious recipe here.

Cake #182 - Petites Madeleines

Thursday Experiment - Madeleine Cakes, aka Petites Madeleines.

À la recherche du temps perdu. - In Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time book series they often enjoy Petites Madeleines. I saw Madeleine pans at TK Maxx and could not resist. Based on the delicacy of my first cakes, the pans will definitely be used every now and then!

There are various recipes for Madeleines - I wanted to start with lemony ones, and oh so good they were indeed!

This recipe I used is on BBC Good Food and it is by Michel Roux.

Cake #181 - Tarte Tatin

Wednesday Experiment - Tarte Tatin.

I bought a proper cast iron frying pan today and wanted to test it. Worked out nicely!

Tarte Tatin

Pastry

400 ml plain flour

200 g butter

200 ml icing sugar

3 egg yolks

Filling

5 big apples, I used Bramley cooking apples

50 ml lemon juice

150 ml sugar

100 g butter

1. Preheat the oven to 250 C/ 500 F.

2. Mix flour, cold butter and icing sugar until crumbs. 

3. Add egg yolks and mix well.

4. Form a ball of the dough, wrap it in clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least an hour.

5. Peel and cut the apples into slices and squeeze the lemon juice over.

6. Caramelise 100 ml of the sugar on a hot pan.

7. Place the apple slices on top of the caramelised sugar, sprinkle the rest of the sugar and the butter on top. 

8. Bake in the oven until the apples have softened a bit, about 10 minutes.

9. Take the pastry out of the fridge and roll into a circle of the size of your pan. 

10. Place the pastry on top of the apples and put back into the oven.

11. Turn the heat down to 220 C /425 F and bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

12. Let cool a few minutes.

13. Take a serving plate and carefully flip the cake pan and the plate so that the pan is on top, then lift off the pan. 

14. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Cake #180 - Oscar Gala Dress

Monday Mood Cake - Oscar Gala in my mind. Cake inspired by dresses in last night's Oscar Gala.

Bake a Naughty Chocolate Fudge Cake , pipe some whipped cream on sides and on top and add colour by cutting a few pieces of fruit and place them nicely. There are days you badly need a cake like this. Whether you want to eat it after all, or not.

Cake #179 - Galatopita

Sunday Classic  - Galatopita, Greek Semolina Pancake, served with whipped cream, pistachio halva and physalis.

This traditional Greek pancake is very similar to the traditional Åland Island pancake both using semolina as the main ingredient!

You can find the recipe for Semolina here.

Check out this Åland Pancake recipe, too!

Cake #178 - Tie Dye Cake

Saturday Surprise Cake - Tie Dye Cake with shortbread base and almond and raspberry filling.

One night I was dreaming of a tie dye cake so I had to try out and make one...

Tie Dye Cake

250 g butter

125 ml granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract or 2 tsp vanilla sugar

1 egg yolk

500 ml plain flour

Filling

1 egg white

120 g ground almonds

1 tbsp granulated sugar

200 g raspberry jam

Yellow Icing

500 ml icing sugar

3 tbsp lemon juice (add more if too thick)

some yellow food colour to get the shade you like

Tie Dye

100 ml icing sugar

a few drops of water

black food colour

1. Cream butter and sugar together.

2. Add egg yolk and vanilla extract and mix well.

3. Add flour and mix just enough so the batter is smooth.

4. Put the batter in the fridge to rest for ½-1 h.

5. Preheat the oven into 200 degrees C (390 F)

6. After the batter has rested, divide it into two balls. Roll both into 24 cm in diameter round cakes and place one in a cake pan lined with baking parchment.

7. Whip the egg white with sugar until stiff and carefully fold in the ground almond.

8. Spread the raspberry jam on top of the cake base and on top of that the egg white-almond mixture.

9. Carefully lift the other rolled layer on top of the first one.

10. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

11. Let cool completely, remove from the pan on a serving plate and then mix the icings.

12. First spread the yellow icing evenly on top of the cake, then pipe the black icing in circles  and by using a cocktail stick make the tie dye patterns.

13. Let set for a few moments before serving.

Cake #177 - Funfetti Cake

Friends First Friday Cake - Funfetti Cake (except where did all the colourful sprinkles disappear??)

For the school mid-term break giving us all a much needed break from the daily routines!

You can find the recipe here. Add plenty of sprinkles and try to find really colourful ones for them to show well...

Cake #176 - Chinese Cat

Thursday Cat Theme Cat - Chinese Cat.

Happy Chinese New Year!

The cake is a sponge filled with vanilla and raspberry and covered with red icing. My daughter made the Chinese cat of sugar paste and finalised it with shimmer spray and food colours.

Cake #184 - Dobos Torta

Sunday Classic - Dobos Torta.

A traditional Hungarian multi-layer (7 in this) cake filled with chocolate buttercream and topped with caramel.

This a Dobos Torta made simple. You can find more original and time-consuming recipes, I found this effortless and quicker, and therefore matching with my baking philosophy.

Dobos Torta

Base
6 eggs
150 ml granulated sugar
300 ml plain flour
75 g butter
1 tsp baking powder

Buttercream Filling
50 ml milk
150 ml granulated sugar
100 g dark chocolate
200 g butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla sugar

For caramelised sugar on top
150 ml granulated sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Grease and flour 7 cake pans, 22cm in diameter or simply use baking parchment on trays to bake 7 round cakes.
3. Beat eggs and sugar until white and fluffy.
4. Melt butter.
5. Add butter and flour mixed with baking powder to the egg mix.
6. Pour batter into pans or spread on baking sheets. You can draw circles on the backside of the baking parchments to get equally sized cakes.
7. Bake in the oven for about 10-12 minutes and let cool.
8. For the buttercream, melt sugar and chocolate in milk and mix well. Let cool and mix in vanilla sugar and soft butter.
9. For the caramelised sugar, melt sugar in a pan and spread quickly on one of the cake bases. Cut it in 8 slices if you like.
10. Compile the cake by spreading buttercream on one layer and placing a new layer on top and repeat that until all layers are in place. Last, place the slices with caramelised sugar on top.
11. Let the cake set in the fridge for an hour or more before serving.

Cake #175 - Date, Honey and Cinnamon Cake

Wednesday Natural Ingredient / Healthy Cake - Date, Honey and Cinnamon Cake.

Date, Honey and Cinnamon Cake

225g self-raising flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
175g soft butter
100g brown sugar
3 tbsp honey
2 large eggs
200 ml buttermilk
100g stoned dates

1. Preheat the oven to 175C.
2. Grease and flour a 2-litre bundt cake pan.
3. Measure all ingredients into a mixing bowl and beat until well blended.
4. Pour into the pan and level the top.
5. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a stick comes out clean
6. Let cool before removing from pan and cut into thick slices.
7. Enjoy plain or with vanilla ice cream.

Cake #174 - Giant Shrove Bun

Small bun and large coffee or large bun and small coffee...?

Tuesday Humour Cake - Giant Shrove Bun with Marzipan, Strawberry Jam and Whipped Cream.

Happy Shrove Tuesday!

Shrove Buns (makes 1 giant bun or 12 small buns)

Dough
300 ml  lukewarm milk
25 g fresh yeast (or 1 bag / 7 g fast action dried yeast)
100 ml sugar
½ tsp ground cardamom
1 egg
100 g melted butter
about 1 litre plain flour

1 egg for glazing
almond flakes or pearl sugar

Filling
whipped cream
marzipan
raspberry/strawberry jam

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.
2. Add sugar, cardamom and egg and mix well.
3. Start adding flour gradually.
4. After you have kneaded in about half of the flour, add melted butter.
5. Knead in more flour until your dough is not sticky any more but still soft. It is better to leave the dough a little too soft than make it too dense as the buns will be too dry and hard after baking.
6. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until double in size, for about half an hour.
7. Make one giant bun or 12 small, equally sized buns.
8. Let rise for half an hour.
9. Preheat the oven to 175C for a giant bun or 225C for small buns.
10. Glaze with egg, sprinkle wih almond flakes or pearl sugar and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes/giant bun or 15 minutes/small buns.
11. Let cool completely before filling with marzipan, jam and whipped cream.

Cake #173 - Avocado and Lime Cheesecake

Monday Mood Cake - Avocado and Lime Cheesecake.

Spring!! Sunshine!

Avocado and Lime Cheesecake

Crust:
150g Digestive cookies, crumbed
75g butter, melted

Filling:
3 avocados, mashed
300g  cream cheese 
150 ml granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
8 gelatine leaves
juice of 2 limes
3 egg whites
green food colouring

1. Mix the digestive cookie crumbs and melted butter.  Press the mixture into the bottom of a spring form cake pan, base covered with baking parchment. Let the crust cool and rest in the fridge while you make the filling.
2. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes.
3. Mix the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla sugar.
4. Heat up the lime juice and melt the soaked gelatine leaves in the hot juice and pour the smooth liquid into the cheese mixture. Mix well.
5. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them very gently into the cheese mixture trying to keep it ‘airy’.
6. Divide the cheese mixture equally into three bowls.
7. Take the first bowl and add half of the mashed avocado and mix well.
8. Take the second bowl and add the other half of the mashed avocado and a few drops of green food colouring and mix well.
9. Pour the darker green filling on the crust and spread evenly.
10. Spread the lighter green filling on the darker layer very carefully and evenly.
11. Last, spread the white filling on top very carefully and evenly.
12. Chill the cake in the fridge for at least four hours until firm.
7. Remove the firm cake from the pan very, very carefully on a serving plate and decorate it with grated lime zest, small avocado cubes or green sprinkles.
8. Enjoy!

Cake #172 - Lemon Drizzle Cake

Sunday Classic Cake - Lemon Drizzle Cake.

Lemon Drizzle Cake is one of the most fool-proof cakes to bake. Lemon is always a sophisticated choice for a cake and for me, personally, it even beats a chocolate cake.

For a fool-proof cake, use this recipe.

Valentine's Day - Avocado Pound Cake

Valentine's Day, Cake #170 - Avocado Pound Cake with Lemon Icing, Physalis and Blueberries.

Valentine's Day baking does not need to be all pink and hearts, it can be an ordinary cake made more festive.

Avocado Pound Cake

400 ml plain flour
100 ml medium cornmeal
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
50 g butter, softened
400 ml sugar
4 ripe mashed avocados
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
100 ml buttermilk

Icing
300 ml icing sugar
a few drops of lemon juice
a few drops of yellow food colouring (optional)

Berries and fruit of your choice

1. Preheat oven to 175 C.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.
3. In another bowl beat butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add avocado and beat until mixed.
4. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well.
5. Add half of the flour mixture, then the buttermilk and the remaining flour mixture.
6. Pour the batter into a greased and floured 1 kg loaf tin and bake in the oven for about 45 minutes. Let cool in tin for 20 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack. Let cool completely.
7. Make icing and spread on the cake.
8. Decorate with berries or fruit of your choice.

Valentine's Day - Lemon Meringue Cake goes Valentine

Valentine's Day 2015, Cake #171 - Valentine's Lemon Meringue Cake.

I love this Mary Berry Lemon Meringue Pie recipe. To make it go Valentine, I added a few drops of red food colouring into the filling to make it pink. When spreading the meringue on top of the filling, I placed a heart-shaped cookie cutter on the filling and spread the meringue around. After baking the meringue, I carefully removed the cookie cutter hoping that the sides would not collapse... and they did not! Just before serving I decorated the cake with red heart sprinkles.

Grandpa Alex's Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies (makes 6 dozen)

250 g butter
250 ml brown sugar
250 ml granulated sugar
2 eggs
250 ml smooth peanut butter
750 ml plain flour
2 tsp baking soda
½ ts salt

1. Cream butter and both sugars together.
2. Beat in eggs.
3. Mix in peanut butter.
4. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt.
5. Let batter rest in fridge for half an hour.
6. Preheat the oven to 190 C.
7. Shape the batter into small balls. Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper and press with fork. Leave room for expansion (see *tip below). Dip fork in flour as needed to prevent stickiness.
8. Bake cookies in the oven for 10-12 minutes.

For peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, add 300 ml chocolate chips.

*Tip: Bake a test cookie to see how much it expands and see if you are happy with the texture. If the cookie expands too much, add some more flour to the batter. Usually the amount of flour in the recipe is perfect but as different flour brands may act differently, it is worth while baking a test cookie.

Valentine's Day - Red Velvet Cupcakes

Valentine's Day 2015, Cake #169 - Giant Red Velvet Cupcake and Small Red Velvet Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream and Dark Chocolate and Strawberry Hearts.

Red Velvet Cupcakes 
makes 12 cupcakes and 1 giant cupcake ( Ø 15cm)

350 g self-raising flour
250 g granulated sugar
300 g soft butter
4 eggs
2 tbsp drinking chocolate
2 tbsp dark cocoa powder
100 ml water
2 tbsp red food colouring

1. Pre-heat the oven to 175C.
2. Beat butter and sugar until creamy.
3. Beat in eggs.
4. Mix together all dry ingredients and add to the batter together with water and food colouring. 
5. Spoon half of the batter into a greased and floured Ø 15 cm cake pan and divide the other half equally into 12 paper cups placed in a muffin tin.
6. Bake the cupcakes for about 20 minutes and the giant cupcake about 30 minutes.

7. Let cool before icing and decorating the cakes.

Chocolate Hearts
Melt 100 g dark chocolate and pipe hearts on a silicone mat. Let set in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.

Strawberry Hearts
Cut strawberries in half and using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out hearts. You need either huge strawberries or a tiny cookie cutter! I was lucky to have both.

Vanilla Icing

150 g butter

300 g icing sugar

1-2 tbsp cream 

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Beat butter and icing sugar in a bowl until soft and creamy. 

2. Add vanilla extract and then cream drop by drop to make sure the mixture does not become too loose.