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My in-laws are throwing a new year's eve party tonight, and I offered to bake something sweet for their guests. I decided on making a chocolate marshmallow cake because it's sweet, chocolatey and doesn't contain anything that fussy eaters will turn their noses up at. I baked two chocolate sponges, using an incredibly easy recipe I found online (see below), and I sandwiched them together using a mixture of melted marshmallow and cream.
I've seen lots of marshmallow frosting recipes that I could've used to frost the outside of the cake, but I feared that this would be too sickly for some guests and I opted for a candy pink butter icing instead. I finished the cake with an assortment of marshmallows, and lots and lots of edible glitter! In fact, the cutesy girliness of this cake has caused my friend to dub it "Melted Barbie Cake."
Happy new year! x
Incredibly Easy Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 1 + 1/4 cup self raising flour
- 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 pinches salt
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla essence
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup flavourless vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 deg F (Gas mark 4 or 180 deg C). Grease a 9 inch (23 cm) cake tin.
- Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, sugar and vanilla essence in a bowl.
- Add milk/water, vegetable oil and eggs. Mix everything together until smooth, either by hand or by using an electric mixer at slow speed. If the batter is too runny you may add slightly more flour.
- Transfer to bake tin and bake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, approximately 35 to 45 minutes.
The weather has turned cold and it's really put me in the mood for warm, comforting food. However the long, dark evenings have rendered me far too lazy to want to fiddle around in the kitchen for hours, preparing complicated dishes.
I thought of this recipe one Sunday breakfast time. By mid-morning they were baking, and by lunchtime we were enjoying them with a nice cup of tea. Simple!
Please forgive the laziness of this recipe.
Ingredients
- One pack of Jus-Rol ready made puff pastry.
- One pack of good quality sausage meat.
- One jar of caramelised red onion marmalade.
- Dried thyme.
Directions
- Roll out the puff pastry sheet.
- Spread thickly with the marmalade.
- Press an even layer of the sausage meat over the onion layer. Roll the puff pastry horizontally, until you have a long pastry 'sausage' (see below). Egg wash the pastry flap to the pastry roll so that it sticks.
- Refrigerate for 15 minutes, then cut into around 20 swirlies with a sharp knife.
- Lay each swirly on a greased baking tray and egg wash. Sprinkle with dried thyme.
- Bake a 180 degrees celcius for around 20 minutes.
Today is Father's Day, and to celebrate I made my Dad some sausage rolls. I've made these for him before, and he seems to really like them. I think it's sweeter to give a homemade gift, so I knocked up a batch of these sausage rolls last night and gift wrapped them in a cellophane bag with ribbon early this morning. Unfortunately, I received a message from my Dad a couple of hours ago saying that the whole of his household are suffering from a sickness bug and that he therefore won't be able to see me today. I feel really bad for him, and will be sure to bake him a fresh batch of sausage rolls, ready for when we next meet. This of course meant that my husband had to eat the batch I baked last night - but he didn't need much persuading!
Hope you feel better soon Dad. x
Recipe:
http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1277102698297
I use a sweet tomato chutney instead of mango chutney.
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After months of anticipation and excitement, the World Cup has finally arrived. For their first match, England had been drawn to play against the USA, and with football.....or soccer...being the most popular sport in the England, and the fastest growing sport in the US, this had all the makings of a great match. To mark the occasion, my in-laws invited everyone over to watch the game, which was a perfect excuse for me to break out the cake pan!
I decided to make an England flag cake. I've never used royal icing before so it was a bit of a challenge. I made two rectangle sponges and sandwiched them together using buttercream and jam. I rolled out shop bought royal icing to decorate the cake. The finished cake was a little messy, but not bad for my first attempt. And whilst we couldn't say that victory was sweet, at least the cake was!
And here's a snap of myself in all my festive glory:
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I've always struggled with shortbread and found it can be a temperamental thing to bake. Sometimes it's too hard, sometimes it's too soft, and when the texture's perfect - it's not pretty! Shortbread tends to bubble on the surface while it's cooking and the only real way to stop this, is to prick the unbaked hearts with a fork. This doesn't look so pretty either, so I always resort to dipping mine in chocolate!
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 3/4 sifted icing sugar (Confectioners Sugar)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cup all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 100g of chocolate - white, milk, dark - whatever you like!
Directions
- Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla until combined
- Beat in flour and salt. Wrap dough in plastic wrap; chill until firm, at least 2 hours, or overnight.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough until 1/16-to-1/8 inch thick. Cut out hearts with a heart cookie cutter. Transfer cookies to an ungreased baking sheet, chill for 30 minutes.
- Heat oven to 300 degrees fahrenheit /180 degrees celcius with a rack in the center. Press the pricks of a fork into each cookie to make designs. Bake until just beginning to brown around the edges, about 18 minutes.
- Once the cookies have cooled, melt the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl set over simmering water. Then the fun part! Decorate the cookies however you like - dip them, drizzle the chocolate over, add sprinkles! Transfer cookies to a sheet of baking paper to dry.
Makes about 15 Shortbread Hearts - depending on the size of the cutter you use.
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