Wednesday 14 May 2014

Birthday cakes

It was my husband's birthday at the beginning of May and I wanted to create him a cake that was going to be a challenge for me.

Over the years I have made him different cakes, here are a couple.


My husband LOVES peanut butter, it has got to the stage where we can not really have it in the house very often as it does not last more than a couple of days. He does eat it straight from the jar! When I saw this amazing looking Double Chocolate-Peanut Butter Layer Cake with Caramel Popcorn cake from topwithcinnamon.com I knew I had to make something like it.

I changed the main cake recipe as I have a tried and tested chocolate cake recipe that I always use so I used that but used her recipe for the peanut butter filling and the chocolate glaze. If like me you are slightly addicted to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups then you will be pleased to know that the peanut butter filling tastes the same as the middle of these so I now know how to make my own!

As I said I wanted to make a cake that was going to be a challenge to me and I have never made a tiered cake before, having played it safe all these years with cupcakes and basic large cakes. I decided to be a bit different and have a square bottom tier and then a found top tier (mainly because of my collection of cake tins) 
It was much easier than I thought it would be and I was very pleased with how it turned out.

 
We spent bank holiday Monday with the family and we all brought some food for lunch, the deal was to bring something sweet and something savoury, which we all did. 

  


Thursday 3 April 2014

National Trust Challenge part 4 - Dorset Apple Cake


I live on the boarder of Somerset and Dorset which an amazing part of the world. So I felt like I had to make this recipe, it had nothing to do with the fact that our fruit bowl was over run by apples for some reason this week.

I was very lucky as my parents were visiting us this weekend and my mum bought me a bundt tin for mothers day


So I had to use this to make the cake, I decided to make this slightly at the last minuet as we had someone leaving at work so I did not have the cider that it called for or even apple juice which I think would have worked just as well. I used water which did not have any negative effects on the taste or the consistency.

Again this was a very easy cake to make, I think it took me more time to peal and chop the apples than it do to make the rest of the cake. I used mainly wholemeal flour with a small amount of plain flour and more apples than it said (as we had loads) but it did work. 

Here is my version of the recipe which comes from The National Trust Complete Traditional Cook Book by Sarah Eddington.

3 apples peeled and chopped
50g of mixed dried fruit
1/4 pint water, apple juice or cider (whatever you fancy or have to hand) 
110g butter
110g brown sugar
2 eggs
150g wholemeal flour
75g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Soak the apple and dried fruit in the water/apple juice/cider while you cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs one at a time then sift in the dry ingredients. Fold in the apples, dried fruit and the liquid then spoon into a baking tin. 


Bake at 180 for 30 - 40 minutes. until golden brown. 


It is very tasty with a cup of tea, and I wasn't the only one with a thought of cake in the office on Tuesday 


But these were three very healthy cakes, we had carrot cake, lemon drizzle and apple cake. Think they must be at least some of our 7 a day!

For more National Trust recipes look here







Working Mummy

I have an amazing little boy who has just turned 3, I loved being pregnant and had a relatively easy birth but I hated being on maternity leave. I am not the sort of person who can sit around day after day and only talk about babies and unfortunately when I was on maternity leave we only had one car (which my husband used for work each day) and there was only mummy and me classes or coffee shops in walking distance. By the end of my maternity leave I was ready to go back to work, I was craving adult conversation about anything but babies and comparing other babies to my little man. 

We were very lucky and found a fantastic childminders to look after our bundle of joy as I went back to work full time. I chose to go back full time partly because I wanted to and partly because if I didn't we would not be able to pay our bills and eat each month. We then moved and I found another full time job and another fantastic nursery which really pushed him and created this amazing little person. By the time he was 2 1/2 I started to feel guilty that I had not been a stay at home mum or even worked part time but I knew that we could not afford for me not to work and I knew that I could not be at home with him all day every day. 
I had a really bad day at work and looked online at jobs and saw my perfect job, 4 days a week at a lower salary than I was on but I applied and got the job. We were able to reduce Nathan's hours at nursery from 10 hours a day to 7.5 hours and I got to spend a bit more time with him at home which I loved. We realised that he was forming some really strong friendships at nursery but we knew he would not be going to school with these children as we lived in a different catchment area to them so had to make quite a hard decision to move him from where he was to a pre school closer to home. This caused a problem as he could only do 15 hours a week there as it was a non fee paying school. I work 30 hours a week and my husband is a primary teacher so works every hour under the sun. We were able to find a lovely childminder for the extra hours and things were great. Nathan seems to be excelling again and loving the fact they are doing dinosaurs as their topic this term. 

Then one Wednesday afternoon our happy lives got turned upside down as my childminder was unable to carry on looking after him with immediate affect. This meant that I had to change my hours at work to fit around school runs and stay at home more until the Easter holidays when my husband could look after him full time. Just before this happened I had agreed to do an order of cupcakes for  corporate event and have a stall at a pre-school fundraiser morning. This meant that for 2 mornings last week instead of doing fun things with Nathan I sat him in front of the TV and spent my mornings baking. Normally I would have Nathan helping me when I bake and he loves it but I knew that would not be possible this time. 

I produced the 4 dozen cupcakes for the corporate event and they looked good. It was the first time I had used rice paper discs that were printed especially for me. Next time I will be spending the extra money and getting them pre cut as cutting out 48 discs was not much fun!


I then worked a 13 hour day to try and make up some of the hours I was missing at work so I did not have to use up my holiday and the next morning Nathan wanted to do some baking before school so we made so Easter Nests which is another National Trust recipe. 

 

It was very easy to make and very yummy - here is the link 

Then on the Friday I had to bake another 60 cupcakes so again spent the morning baking while Nathan watched TV. But all he wanted to do was be with me which made me feel like the worst mum in the world as I knew I had to get these cakes made and decorated in a very limited time. They were done and I spent Saturday morning watching people walk my my stall often commenting on how lovely the cakes looked but not buying anything! This made me feel even worse as I knew that I had more or less ignored my son for a whole morning while making them and then I had left him with my parents while I was doing this. It happened to be a lovely day on Saturday so we could have been doing something as a family for the day and having a great time but instead I was sitting in a cold room watching people not buy my cakes!




















I wish there was a way that I could work, bake and look after my little man all at the same time without feeling that I am not doing a good job in one of them! 

Thursday 20 March 2014

National Trust Challenge part 3 - The classic Victoria Sponge

The first cake I can remember making was a Victoria Sponge. I think it is most peoples first cake, mine was from my mum's recipe book that I think comes from the 1970's but it worked and tasted great. When I started Little Sprinkles I spent time looking at the different sponge recipes out there and tried several before deciding on the one from the Hummingbird Bakery  cookbook. I like it because it is really light and fluffy and it doesn't use a lot of butter. So when I saw a very different recipe in the National Trust Cookbook I thought I would give it a go. 

The first thing that struck me as odd was the fact I had to weigh my eggs, something I have never done before in any kind of baking. But I did it.



Then I had to use the same weight of butter, sugar and flour and make sure I was beating them for a long time, I say I, but what I mean is my kMix. 
Any good cake maker know that the longer you beat the sugar and the butter the lighter the cake, I do beat them for quite a long time but as this recipe told me to beat them for at least 5 minuets I decided to time it, this is something that I will keep doing as I think it does make a difference. 

The resulting batter was much thicker than the one I am used to and it took double the cooking time. It cake out looking very nice but seems really heavy weigh wise and when it was cooled it had a crispy outside. 


I know that the traditional filling for a Victoria sponge is jam but I LOVE fruit curds and the National Trust do such an amazing range of them, I have not dared try some of them especially the Raspberry curd as I know that if I did, I would not be able to go a day without eating it! I have been known to go to a National Trust property just to buy another pot of curd! If you can't get to a National Trust property, I have just found out that you can buy them online here this is very dangerous information to me. 

Unfortunately I was not able to get to my local National Trust property (Montacute House) so I had to make do with the lemon curd I could find in the supermarket. Added to that a nice layer of buttercream.


A simple dusting of icing sugar and it was finished. 


I must say that even though this was a nice recipe to make, I do not like the cake. It is too heavy and buttery for me. 





Monday 17 March 2014

National Trust challenge part 2 - Scones

I must confess I do enjoy eating a cream tea whenever the opportunity presents itself but I do not often make scones. The last batch I remember baking was some cheese scones for my husband as a valentines present 2 or 3 years ago so I thought that they would be a good challenge for me. After deciding I was going to do a sweet recipe rather than a savoury one I decided on the Ulster Scones recipe (I would like to say that was a nod to St Patrick's day, but I did not realise that when I chose it) 

Again I was able to use the wholemeal flour from Anglesey Abbey but I decided to halve the recipe which meant I had to do some creative working as I have never attempted to halve an egg and I never will. It was a nice easy recipe to follow and I put my ever trusty kMix to good use.
I had a little helper who wanted to cut out the shapes for me, I decided to break away from tradition and use other cutters as well as my round one to cut out the scone. Mainly because I have such a large selection of cutter I have to make sure I use them at every possible event.
























Here is my version of the recipe, the original one is from The National Trust Complete Traditional Recipe Book by Sarah Edington


140g wholemeal flour
110g strong white flour
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 
35g caster sugar
30g glace cherries chopped
40g butter
140ml buttermilk
1 egg. 

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, sift together the flours, bicarbonate of soda and sugar, mix in cherries. Rub in butter and add buttermilk and egg. Kneed until it comes together. Do not over work the dough (I did and  you can taste it in the finished scone) Roll out to about 2.5cm thick and cut out scones. Put on baking tray and bake for between 10 - 15 minutes until risen and golden brown.  


For more National Trust recipes click here

These scones were very tasty and to prove it, I made them yesterday morning and there are none left today!











Wednesday 12 March 2014

Bundt love

Over the past couple of months I have noticed that bundt cakes have become more predominate on social media and more people have been posting new recipes for them. I have therefore spent the last few months looking at all the different bundt pans and wishing I had one! 
Now for those of you who have no clue what a bundt cake is then here is the Wikipedia description: "A cake that is baked in a Bundt pan, shaping it into a distinctive ring shape. The shape is inspired by a traditional European fruitcake known as Gugelhupf, but Bundt cakes are not generally associated with any single recipe. The style of mold in North America was popularised in the 1950s and 60s, after cookware manufacturer Nordic Ware trademarked the name "Bundt" and began producing Bundt pans from cast aluminum"  

Now I have also spent many hours looking at the Nordic Ware website trying to pick one pan so I can find out how much the shipping is over to the UK but failing, there are so many fantastic shapes that picking one is proving too hard to do. At the moment I have got it down to 2, the Heritage and the Jubilee
 
But this does change on a daily basis!

I have found in my extensive collection of cake tins a mini bundt pan which is the size of a cupcake tray and have 6 mini bundt holes in it so I have been using this to try out some of the recipes I have seen. 

Last week I made chocolate bundts and added micro eggs and decorated them in a Cadbury's Cream egg style 
Tonight I came home and was going to make banana bundt cakes I had put a bunch of very ripe bananas in the freezer a few weeks ago to try and save them rather than throwing them away but when I got home having got them out of the freezer this morning they were pretty much liquid so I had to change my plans and decided on an apple and cinnamon recipe from the Martha Stewart website   
I halved the recipe after I had converted all the measurements into grams to make my easier, again it was a very easy recipe. I think it took me more time to peal and chop the apples than it did to mix everything together. My greasing the tin was not very good this time (must buy myself some Cake Release) so they did not come out as easily as the last lot but I'm sure it will not spoil the taste. 
And my biggest critic was happy as he polished one off for his pudding tonight. 
I have promised myself that I will treat myself to a bundt pan as soon as I can decide which one I want!




Sunday 9 March 2014

Ginger and Orange cake

As I was getting the ingredients out of the cupboard ready to start baking, I realised that the wholemeal flour that I have is milled at Lode Mill which is at Anglesey Abbey a National Trust property in Cambridge near my parents. So this is very much a National Trust cake. 

I my option any cake recipe that starts melt the butter, brown sugar and treacle in a saucepan is a winner. This has to be one of the easiest cakes I have made, it took no time at all and the batter was ready for the oven 


I spent the hour it took to bake potting seeds with Nathan in the beautiful spring sunshine. The smells coming out of my kitchen were amazing, really deep and treacly. 


I had to create my own buttercream recipe as I wanted to add the orange to it, I added the zest of one orange and the juiced half of it and added it to the buttercream a small bit at a time to make sure it was not too runny. The piping is always fun for me as it do enjoy it. 


Here is the recipe for you if you want to try it, the main cake recipe came from The National Trust's Complete Traditional Recipe Book by Sarah Eddington. I did make an adjustment as I removed the mixed fruit from the recipe.

110g butter
110g brown sugar
125ml black treacle
1 egg, beaten 
150ml warm milk
110g plain flour
110g wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon 
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
50g dried fruit (I did not include these) 

Melt the butter, sugar and treacle in a saucepan, cool and add egg and warm milk. 
Sift flours, spices and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl, make a well in the middle and pour in the treacle mixture (add the dried fruit here if you are using it) beat very throughly and pour into a greased 8 inch (20 cm) cake tin. Place in oven preheated to 150C (300F or gas mark 2) and bake for about an hour. Cool in tin for a few minuets then transfer to cooling rack. 

I baked mine for 55 minuets and that was just right in my fan oven. 

For the buttercream 
80g butter
300g icing sugar
zest of 1 orange 
1 tablespoon of orange juice. 

Cream butter and icing sugar until they are starting to come together, add zest and then add the juice a small bit at a time until the buttercream comes together. Place in piping bag, cut cake in half and pipe half the buttercream onto the bottom section and place the top half on top and pipe the rest of the buttercream on top.  

Having now tasted it, it is a lovely moist cake a little bit on yhe heavy side but the buttercreambreaks it up. The over riding flavour is treacle so if I was to bake it again I think I would use less treacle and maybe a bit mire ginger. 

There are lots of other National Trust recipes here

I have to start looking at what I will do next as I fight off certain people to make sure I get more than one piece of cake!