Ginger and chocolate oat cookies

As you know I've recently moved into a new place. More than half of my kitchen is still in boxes but it does not stop me from baking! I asked a friend and her dad to come over to help my build some furniture and thought it was only fair that I provide tea and treats. I chose to bake treats that would fit into my regular blogging challenges as I've missed participating in them. 

These cookies are for We Should Cocoa - a monthly blogging challenge run by Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog and Chele from Chocolate Teapot. This month, it's guest hosted by Jen from Blue Kitchen Bakes and she chose ginger as the ingredient to pair with chocolate. I decided to make cookies as it would be an easy treat to nibble on whilst working so I did a quick google search and got a recipe from BBC food. The cookies were really quick and easy to make. I tried one and actually quite liked it as it was not very gingery at all! It tasted more like a spiced oat biscuit which reminded me of Christmas. 

If I were to make these again, I'd add more ginger (for my ginger loving friends) and maybe some nuts to give it a bit of crunch. I'd also make half the recipe as the recipe says it makes 24 biscuits but I got more than double that amount!

 melt butter and golden syrup (left), lightly beat eggs (right), mix flour, oats, spices and sugar (centre) 

 The cookies look a little wet but don't worry...

... fresh, crisp cookies

 dipped in chocolate

Recipe from BBC Food website

I used 225g chocolate as I ended up with a lot of cookies! 

Raspberry and white chocolate muffins

I love the combination of raspberries and white chocolate. I remember making these muffins many years ago pre-blog but realised I've never made them for my blog so here they are. It's not quite the same recipe as I can't remember where I placed that one (it was handwritten on a piece of paper from a friend) so I used a recipe I found online. The muffins were moist and the tart raspberries paired well with the white chocolate.

I'm sending this to Calendar cakes hosted by Rachel from Dolly Bakes and Laura from Laura Loves Cakes. The theme this month is Achy Cakey Heart and these muffins would be perfect for a Valentine's treat or for an everyday treat!

 mix the wet and dry ingredients together 

 stir in the raspberries 

 dot a few raspberries on top 

 yum!

Recipe from BBC Good Food online

Makes 12 muffins of size shown 

300g self raising flour

100g caster sugar

100g unsalted butter, melted

2 eggs

200ml milk

150g fresh raspberries

100g white chocolate, roughly chopped 

• Preheat oven to 200C.
• Mix the flour and sugar together.
• In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and milk.
• Pour the melted butter and egg and milk mixture into the flour/sugar mixture. 
• Stir to combine but do not over mix. 
• Stir in half of the raspberries.
• Add in the chopped white chocolate.
• Spoon the mixture into muffin cases and dot with the remaining raspberries.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes or until well risen, golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• Allow to cool completely. 

Pistachio, Yoghurt and Elderflower Cake

I can't believe the end of Feb is fast approaching and I've not made anything for AlphaBakes yet. If  you haven't then you still have time as the deadline is Feb 25th. The letter this month is E which had me scratching my head for ideas.  One of them was elderflower and when I googled elderflower cake, a Jamie Oliver recipe came up which sounded great so I decided to give it a go. Unfortunately I burnt the cake as I'm still getting used to my new oven! Luckily icing hides all manner of sins and the cake still tasted great. It's really moist with a nutty flavour and it paired well with the yoghurt icing. I'm definitely making this again! 

As mentioned I'm entering this to AlphaBakes, a monthly blogging challenge that I am hosting this month and will be hosted next month by Caroline from Caroline Makes. There's a lovely prize up for grabs this month so do send in your entries if you haven't already done so.

 elderflower cordial, honey, greek yoghurt, pistachips, lemon, butter and ground almonds 

 adding in the pistachios - such a lovely colour! 

 ready to go in the oven

 slightly burnt...opps!

 cover with icing! 

 yum! 

Recipe from Jamie Oliver Magazine online 

Giant Vanilla Blueberry Cupcake

Hi everyone, sorry for the long absence. It's been quite hectic getting used to a new place and a new job.  It's also hard to bake when most of my stuff is still in boxes! I was asked by a friend to make a special cupcake for a colleague who just had a baby boy. Of course I couldn't say no and it gave me an incentive to unpack some of my kitchen boxes. The request was for a giant vanilla raspberry cupcake but as it's for a baby boy, I suggested blueberries. I also decided to try out using white chocolate fingers to decorate the base which worked really well. I hope the recipients enjoyed the cake - congratulations on the new arrival! 

I used the same recipe as my giant vanilla raspberry cupcake but substituted the raspberries with blueberries. There was some extra batter left so I baked it and got to try some of the cake. It was light, moist and full of berries. I'll definitely be making this cake again in a regular cake tin! I was really pleased with how the giant cupcake turned out - my best effort so far at decorating them :) I have been busy baking ever since so will try to post daily or every two days this week.... the bakingaddict is back! 

adding gorgeous blueberries to the mix

 ready to go in the oven 

 I trimmed the top and bottom of the cake to make them level 

 I also sliced the bottom half in two and spread some buttercream in the middle

 I used more buttercream to stick the white chocolate fingers to the base

 This is what it looks like with a crumb coating on top. 

 I coloured the buttercream blue and piped swirls and stars on top of the cupcake and finished it with some coloured sugar pearls 

 The finishing touch - a bright blue ribbon!

For the cake
375g butter
375g sugar
6 eggs
375g self raising flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
150g fresh blueberries

For the icing
500g icing sugar
120g butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4-6 tablespoons of milk
blue gel paste 

coloured sugar pearls to decorate
Preheat the oven to 180C.

• Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Add the eggs one at a time and mix well between each addition.
• Mix in the flour and vanilla extract.
• Finally stir in the fresh blueberries.
• Fill the cupcake mould until 2/3 full - do not overfill!
• Bake for approximately 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely.
• Make the icing by beating all the ingredients together until smooth. 
• Decorate as shown above

Alphabakes February 2013

Thanks to everyone who entered AlphaBakes last month - D was a slightly tricky letter and I do apologise for not visiting everyone's blogs as internet access has been very limited. I should be back online within a week or so if everything goes smoothly :) Do check out the excellent round up on Caroline's blog. 

So what's in store for us this month? Well our trusty random letter generator has churned out ... E! Please note that eggs would not be an acceptable 'E' for this challenge unless it's an egg based dish or it's the name of a bake ie not just because eggs are in the ingredient list!  Examples that are acceptable are Eggs benedict, Easter cookies, Eggless sponge.  As usual, I look forward to your creative entries. 

We have another lovely prize for you this month sponsored by PGUK publishers who have generously sponsored Booze Cakes in December, On A Stick in January and Pure Vanilla for this month! I have written a review of Pure Vanilla on my blog - check it out here if you are interested. The prize is only available for UK and Ireland participants and as usual a winner will be selected at random. Please remember to email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com by 25th Feb 2013 otherwise it won't be included in the round up or the prize draw!

A quick reminder of the rules....

1. Post your recipe on your blog and link it to The More than Occasional Baker and Caroline Makes, stating the relevant month's host. If you do not have a blog, email us a picture and a brief description of your entry which we will include in the round-up at the end of the month.

2. You can use your own recipe or someone else's recipe. The recipe can be sweet, savoury or a mixture! Anything goes as long as the random letter is predominantly featured in the recipe as one of the main ingredients or flavours or in the name of the bake itself (i .e . not as a garnish , or using 'flour' for the letter F!) You can also republish old posts/recipes but you must include the information for this challenge as stated in these rules.

3. Add the logo to your post and add 'alphabakes' as a label to your post.

4. Email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com by midnight (GMT) 25th of each month. Please include:

• Your name (that you want included in the round up or we will use the name of your blog)
• Your blog post URL
• Recipe title
• Photo of recipe (to be included in the round up)

5. You can submit as many entries as you like.

6. You do not have to participate every month to join in.

7. You may submit your entry to other challenges as long as it complies with their rules.

8. If you use twitter, please use the tag #alphabakes and mention @bakingaddict and @Caroline_Makes. We will retweet all those that we see.

9. Have fun! :)

Dog Birthday Cake

Hi everyone! I'm back in London safe and sound. I have been meaning to update my blog for days now but have not gotten round to it. Sorry! It's been quite hectic since my return - catching up with friends, dealing with admin and more importantly looking for a new place to stay. I found a lovely new place and will be moving in this weekend so will be offline until I can get myself set up. Normal blogging services will resume after a few weeks. 

This is a special cake that I made for my brother's birthday a few weeks ago. He loves dogs so the obvious choice was a dog cake. The family pet dog is a silky terrier but my cake decorating skills won't stretch that far so this is what I came up with. Glad he loved the cake! 

 family pet dog

I have to thank Daisy from Never Too Sweet who suggested I look at Not Quite Nigella's blog for inspiration. I  had actually bookmarked the recipe but forgot about it when I was deciding how to make a dog cake. If you used a bit of imagination you could say there is a resemblance between the dog and the cake :) 

I'm submitting this to AlphaBakes a monthly blogging challenge hosted on alternate months by Caroline from Caroline Makes and myself.  The letter this month is "D" for Dog cake. 

 easy swiss roll recipe from my aunt - thank you 

 perfect roll - phew! :)

 adding cupcakes for the head, tail and ears. 

 cover in frosting 

 use a grass tip to pipe "fur" over the dog 

For the face you will need 2 giant chocolate buttons, 3 M&M's and a piece of strawberry rollup cut to shape.   I made some additional decorations using a candy mould I found - bone, food bowl, dog house and  puppy. I also coloured dessicated coconut green to resemble grass. 

 cross section of the swiss roll 

For the swiss roll

4 large eggs, separated

60g self raising flour

55g caster sugar 

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup sunflower oil 

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff.
• In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks, sugar, milk, oil and flour until smooth. 
• Fold into the egg white mixture and spread onto a swiss roll tin. 
• Bake for 14 minutes.
• Spread jam or cream and roll into a swiss roll. 

For the peanut butter cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

75g butter
130g smooth peanut butter
190g dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120g plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
60ml semi-skimmed milk

• Preheat the oven to 160C.
• Line a 12-hole muffin tray with cupcake cases. 
• Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugar until well blended. 
• Add the eggs, one at a time and then stir in the vanilla extract. 
• Combine the flour, salt and baking powder in a separate bowl.
• Add 1/3 of the flour to the creamed mixture and beat well.
• Pour 1/3 of the milk and beat again.
• Repeat until all the flour and milk have been added. 
• Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases - I used a large ice cream scoop. 
• Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 

Happy 3rd Birthday and a Coffee & Walnut Cake

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year! It's my blog's 3rd birthday today so I had to make something to mark the occasion. Apologies in advance for the quality of the photos - the lighting was very poor and there were a lot of shadows! I can't believe that my blog is entering it's 3rd year - when I started it, I wasn't even sure if it would last for a few months! I had a look back at my baking/blogging resolutions from last year and am pleased to announce that I stuck to all of them.  2012 was a great year for my blog. The highlights have been:

• Co-hosting AlphaBakes with Caroline from Caroline Makes - it has been a resounding success and we are very grateful to all our AlphaBakers. 
• Joining in a record number of blog challenges for 2012 which I hope to continue in 2013. 
• Writing a record number of 166 posts for the year (compared to 107 in 2011 and 106 in 2010

I'm not sure what lies ahead for 2013 but I know I definitely want to continue baking and blogging.  However, the pace will be slower as I have other priorities for 2013 and maintaining my blog plus hosting AlphaBakes on alternate months is like a second full time job! 

On to the cake - this is a coffee and walnut cake using fresh walnuts from my recent trip to Australia.  The cake was moist and delicious with a lovely coffee aroma.  I wanted to try a new decorating technique which didn't quite work so if anyone has any advice, I'd be very grateful! 

  fresh walnuts from Australia 

 cakes ready to go in the oven 

 brush with coffee syrup once cooked 

 my new textured rolling pin - you probably can't see it clearly from the photos but it says happy birthday and has a lovely design with it 

 I rolled out a piece of yellow fondant then rolled the textured pin on top. I then sprinkled some icing sugar to bring out the pattern which you can make out if you look closely. 

 I covered the cake with coffee buttercream and then placed the embossed fondant on top  

  delicious cake! 

I've never used a textured rolling pin before - does anyone know how to make the patterns stand out more? I tried dusting some glitter powder on top but that didn't work. Is it best to use it for details rather then covering the whole cake? 

Recipe for cake and buttercream can be found here