I thought that after exams I would have tons of time to bake but I seem to have found a million and one other things to fill up my time with and I still have lots to tick off my list! I’m pretty happy right now, for those of you that don’t know, I recently found out I passed medical school and I am finally a doctor! It is finally time for me to join the real world and stop being an eternal student. To celebrate this and then end of a long 6 years at University my lovely sister sent me an absolutely huge bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, and to make it even better it was personalised too! I have included a picture of it at the end of this post. This also means that everything I am baking at the moment involves Dairy Milk, this shortbread being one such example. This shortbread actually includes 3 of my favourite ingredients, hence why I created this recipe, if anyone else loves chocolate, can eat glacé cherries like sweets and loves anything almond flavoured, then this is the recipe for you!

To make this chocolate, cherry and almond shortbread you will need (this will make about 15 biscuits):

125g icing sugar
220g plain flour
125g cornflour
225g unsalted butter
100g milk chocolate
100g glace cherries
1tsp Almond Extract
Flaked almonds

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease a large baking tray. Sift the icing sugar, flour and cornflour into a bowl. Add the cubed butter to this and use your fingers to mix it all together, creating something that looks like a crumble topping. Alternatively you can use a food processor for this. Break or cut the chocolate into small chunks and halve the glace cherries. Add the chocolate, cherries and almond extract to the shortbread mix and incorporate well. Now bring the mixture into a dough, it will be crumbly but will come together. Wet your fingers to help you do this if you need to. Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead it gently to bring it together. Carefully roll out the do to about 5mm thickness and use a round cutter to cut out discs of shortbread.

Place these onto the greased baking tray. The biscuits will spread slightly as they cook so make sure there is space in between each of the discs. Sprinkle the biscuits with the flaked almonds. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes, keep an eye on them and take them out as soon as they start to turn golden brown. Leave them on the baking tray to cool and firm up. Sprinkle the biscuits with caster sugar before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Then you can enjoy!

Lottie xx

And here is the amazing bar of chocolate I was talking about!

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To make the cupcakes you will need:

170g butter or margarine (I use Stork)
170g golden caster sugar
170g self raising flour
3 eggs
splash of milk
1tsp vanilla extract
raspberry jam

Start by preheating the oven to 180C and lining a muffin tray with cupcake cases. In a bowl beat together the butter and the sugar until creamy then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the milk and vanilla and mix well. Add the flour to the cake mixture and gently fold in using a metal spoon or a spatula until it is all combined. In a small saucepan gently eat a few tablespoons of the raspberry jam until it is runny. Now spoon the cake mix into the cases until they are half full. Drizzle a spoonful of jam over each cake and top with the rest of the cake mix so that each case is about 3/4 full. Now use a skewer to give each one a swirl. Bake at 180C for about 20 minutes or until they are golden and springy to touch. Take out of the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

To make the cream cheese frosting you will need:

200g unsalted butter (softened)
200g cream cheese (I used Philidelphia)
500g icing sugar (sifted)
1 tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla extract

Beat together the butter and icing sugar in a bowl until well combined, trying not to get icing sugar everywhere like I do! Now add the cream cheese and vanilla and beat in well. Add the milk if you need to loosen up the mixture a bit. Beat the frosting so that it is light and creamy and keep in the fridge to set until needed.

To ice my cupcakes I used a Wilton 1M nozzle (my favourite!). To do the two tone icing you need to paint a stripe of food colouring down the inside of the nozzle and piping bag, I like to use the food colouring pastes as I find they work much better than liquid food colourings. I used Sugarflair pastes in pink and tangerine, putting a stripe of each inside the bag. Once you have added the colour put the icing into your piping bag, squeezing it down to the end and pipe straight onto your cupcakes. To get this effect I have used pipe from the outside in. Piping from inside out will give you a pretty rose effect. You will find that the first few cupcakes have a very bright colour with diminishes the more you pipe, so to keep your colour bright you might want to use a couple of piping bags and do half of your cupcakes with each.

Hope you all enjoyed some bank holiday baking this weekend!

Lottie xx

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These are 3 of my absolute favourite flavours and I think they work really well together, I used them before for these lovely chewy cookies. This cake is a white chocolate and lemon sponge, filled with a blueberry and lemon curd (homemade!), coated in a whipped white chocolate and blueberry buttercream and decorated with fresh blueberries and a dusting of icing sugar. I used a stencil from this pack, I love the effect cake stencils give, so simple yet so impressive and this bird one is my favourite in the set.

The cake itself is lovely, moist and chocolatey, it is almost like a blondie. To make the white chocolate and lemon sponge (based on Peggy Porschen’s White Chocolate Passion Cake from Boutique Baking):

This will make a 3 layer 8 inch cake.

180g white chocolate
250ml milk
90g soft light brown sugar
330g golden caster sugar
3 large eggs
320g plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
zest of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 160C and grease and line 3 sandwich tins (you could also make it in 1 tin and divide into 3 once cooled). Put the chocolate in a saucepan with the milk, brown sugar and 130g of the caster sugar. Heat the mixture and stir so that all the chocolate is melted and bring the mixture to the boil. Take off the heat. In a bowl cream together the butter and the rest of the caster sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well. Add the flour, baking powder, lemon zest and salt and mix in with a spatula. Now add the chocolate mixture to the cake mix (the hot chocolate mixture tastes delicious – try it before you mix it in!) a splash at a time, mixing in well until it is all well combined. Divide the cake mix between the tins and bake at 160C, if you are using individual sandwich tins this will take about 30 minutes. Once cooked the cake should be golden and coming away from the side of the tin. Leave them to cool in the tins before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Do not try to ice a still warm cake, it just goes wrong and with these cakes they will firm up if you leave them for a while, making them easier to trim and ice.

The Blueberry and Lemon Curd is best made first or even better would be to make it the day before so it has time to firm up. The addition of blueberries to lemon curd gives it a fantastic purple colour that I love. You will need:

200g frozen blueberries
2 unwaxed lemons
200g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk

Start with the blueberries, put them in a pan and gently heat them, breaking them up as you stir them. You want them to release there juices and to break up, once this is done then pour the blueberries through a sieve, pushing as much through as you can. You should get a gorgeous deep purple juice/puree. Discard what remains in the sieve. Use a fine grater to zest the lemons and put the blueberry puree, lemon zest and the juice of the lemons in a heatproof bowl with the butter and sugar. Put the bowl over a pan of simmering water, as though you were melting chocolate. Stir and heat until the butter has melted. Whisk the eggs together and then add them to the mixture, whisking well until it has all combined. This now needs about 10 minutes to cook, but keep stirring every now and then. The mixture should be creamy and thick after 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. Keep in the fridge until you need this.

The White Chocolate and Blueberry frosting is make using blueberries to give the lovely colour, you will need:

200g frozen blueberries
250g unsalted butter (softened)
250g icing sugar
50g melted white chocolate

Start with the blueberries by making a blueberry puree like you did for the curd. Heat the blueberries in a pan so that they break up and release their juice and then push them through a sieve. In another bowl beat together the butter and sieved icing sugar, whipping it until it is nice and light. Add the chocolate and mix well. Now add the blueberry juice a bit at a time until you get the colour that you want.

You can now assemble the cake.

Stack the 3 layers on top of each other with a layer of blueberry and lemon curd in between each of them. Use a palette knife to spread the frosting over the cake. The best way to do this is to first spread a very thin layer over the cake to catch the crumbs and give you a neat shape to work with. Leave this in the fridge to firm up before using the rest of the icing to completely cover the cake. Use a cake scraper to get a neat finish on the side of the cake. Decorate with fresh blueberries and a dusting of icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Lottie xx

I am also now entering this into June’s Tea Time Treats hosted by What Kate Baked and Lavender and Lovage. The theme is layer cakes!

I am entering this into the Simple and in Season Food Blog Challenge for May.

I am also entering this into Calender Cakes hosted by Lauralovescake and Dolly Bakes. This month’s theme is all about World Baking Day.

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To make this cake you will need:

Chocolate cake:
2 large eggs
125g caster sugar
100ml milk
130ml sunflower oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
220g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
30g cocoa powder

Orange cake:
2 large eggs
125g caster sugar
100ml milk
130ml sunflower oil
1 to 2 tsp orange extract
finely grated zest of 1/2 an orange
250g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
orange food colouring (I used sugarflair paste in tangerine)

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line an 8 inch cake tin. You will need 2 mixing bowls, one for the chocolate cake, one for the orange. Start with the chocolate cake. Mix together the eggs, sugar, milk, oil and vanilla until combined. Add the flour, baking powder and sieved cocoa powder and stir in. Now make the orange cake, mix together the eggs, sugar, milk, oil and orange extract in another bowl. Add the flour and baking powder to this and mix in. Add the orange colour a bit at a time until you have the desired colour.

Now for the fun part….making the stripes!

You need to put a bit of orange and then a bit of chocolate mix into the pan alternately, pouring each bit on top the the last. So start with orange and pour or spoon 2 tablespoons of mix into the centre of the pan, straight away put 2 tablespoons of the chocolate mix on top of this, then 2 tablespoons of orange on top of this, then 2 tablespoons of chocolate on top of this and keep going. As you put each mix on it pushes the others out and they form rings around each other so you should have a cake mix in the pan that looks something like this (don’t worry if it isn’t neat, it doesn’t have to be exact, as you can see mine isn’t!):

Bake in the preheated oven at 180C for about 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

If you want to ice the cake then you need to level off the top. Once the cake is baked leave it to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out and leave to cool on a wire rack. Once it is cool slice of the top to create a nice, flat level surface. This also gives you a chance to see the rings inside!

To ice mine I used a whipped chocolate ganache. Gently heat 300ml double cream in a saucepan and break 200g dark chocolate into it. Keep stirring until all the chocolate is melted. Leave the ganache in the fridge to set for a pit. Once it is cold take it out of the fridge and use and electric whisk to whip the cream. Spread the ganache evenly over the cake and finish with a dusting of cocoa powder. Now it will be a surprise for your guests when you slice into the cake!

Enjoy! I think that by using a more liquid cake mix you could create even narrower stripes and an even prettier cake, I might have a go.

Lottie xx

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I created my sourdough starter last year using the the River Cottage instructions. This uses just flour and water and the starter is fed regularly for the 7-10 days until it has a yeasty smell, then it can be used to make a loaf. I have seen recipes for starters that use pineapple juice in them and in Paul Hollywood’s book ‘How To Bake‘ his instructions involve a grated apple. My flour and water starter works just fine and is nice and bubbly but I might make one using pineapple or apple soon and compare the two starters to see which is best. Once your starter is ready then it needs very little care. If I am using mine then it stays at room temperature and gets fed but if I am not using it then it just lives in the fridge. I kept it in the fridge for a couple of months while I was away, when I got back I took it out and after a few feeds it was yeasty, bubbly and ready to use. It is so simple, I still find it fascinating that I can make an actual loaf of bread from this jar of fermenting sloppy flour and water.

Previously when I have made sourdough I used the widely used method, also described on River Cottage of using some of the starter to create a ‘sponge’ and then using this as the basis for the dough. Paul Hollywood on the other hand seems to skip the sponge step and uses a larger amount of starter to make his sourdough. I thought I would give this method a go. His recipe in ‘How to Bake‘ uses 500g sourdough starter to make 2 loaves. I didn’t have this much starter and needed to keep some so made 1 loaf with 250g starter, I may need to create a bigger starter if I want to keep using this method! I also added some cranberries and pistachios to my loaf.

To make this Cranberry and Pistachio Sourdough you will need:

375g strong white bread flour
250g sourdough starter
7g salt
180ml tepid water
olive oil for kneading
small handful of dried cranberries
small handful of unsalted pistachios

Put the flour, starter and salt into a mixing bowl with the water. Mix together using your hands and add more water if you need it. Once you have formed a dough tip it out onto a lightly oiled work surface. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes to form a soft, smooth dough. Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowel, cover with cling film or a tead towel and leave to rise for 5 hours (Mr Hollywood suggests a temperature of 22-24C if you can be that accurate!). Avoid the temptation to sit and watch your dough, it won’t rise that quickly, sourdough is slow!

After 5 hours tip the dough out a floured work surface and knead in the cranberries and pistachios until evenly dispersed. Shape the dough into whatever shape you want it, leave it to rise on a floured cloth/greaseproof paper/prooving basket and cover with a tea towel. This time you need to leave it for 10-13 hours, I left mine overnight so it was ready to bake in the morning.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200C on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Cut a pattern or lines in the top of the dough if you wish. To create a crusty outside put a tray of boiling water in the bottom of the oven to create steam when you put the bread in. Bake the loaf for 30-40 minutes until golden. Leave to cool on a wire rack and then enjoy!

While I am pleased with the taste and appearance of my sourdough using both methods, I still haven’t achieved the rise I want. I know this might come with practice and I wonder if a proving basket might help (on my list of things to get) but if anyone has any words of wisdom on sourdough then please do share them with me!

Happy National Bread Week!

Lottie xx

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So next time you are near Victoria and have a fancy for tea and cake, I can recommend Peggy Porschen! You can find it on the corner at 116 Ebury Street, Belgravia. Enjoy!

Lottie xx

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