Kit Kat Birthday Cake

Hi Cake Snobs! Have you missed me? Yes I know sorry I’ve been away for ages. But I will make it up to you. Promise! How? With this:

Kit Kat Birthday Cake

Why yes, that is a victoria sponge cake, sandwich together with raspberry jam and buttercream, covered in white chocolate buttercream, studded with maltesers and peanut m&m’s, finished with a border of kit kats. Phew! Even saying that makes my mouth water! Let’s take another look…

From the top

I made it for the boyfriend’s birthday, and I think he really liked it…

Just for me!

In fact everyone couldn’t wait to gobble it down!

Lets just take one more look shall we?

So – I made this cake using the victoria sponge recipe from Lily Vanilli’s book Sweet Tooth – a great recipe!

I used raspberry jam and standard buttercream to make the filling. I then coated it in a batch of white chocolate buttercream:

Ingredients:

• 220g unsalted butter
• 500g icing sugar
• 300g white chocolate
• 2 tablespoon milk

Method:

• Whisk the butter and icing sugar together until smooth
• Melt the white chocolate, and when cool, add to the buttercream
• If mixture is too stiff, add in amount of  milk (I used skimmed) until it softens

I did a crumb coating first, leaving the cake in the freezer for 10 mins before applying a second coat of buttercream.

I then lined the outside with 2 finger kit kats (warning – buy 3 packets or you will run out and have to find a supermarket that is open at midnight!)

Then i decorated the top and used a ribbon to finish. And voila! The birthday cake is ready! The whole thing took me an evening to make, about 4-5 hours including cake cooling time!

I suggest you make this for your next party, it was a huge crowd pleaser and it was gone within the day!

Chocolate Masterclass

Morning Bakers, Makers and foodie in-takers! Hope you’re well on this lovely sunny morning. I’ve had a bit of a break the past few weeks due to some family stuff, but i’m back now (well at least until I jet off on holiday at the end of the week!)

I am part of the Lurpak #BakeClub and won last month’s chocolate challenge with my Speculoos Brownies, so my prize was to attend a chocolate masterclass with the lovely Lily Vanilli.

Me @ Lily’s

We started off the day with a demo from Lily herself, how to make the filling to her delectable chocolate truffles.

Lily giving us a demo

We could choose to flavour the filling any way we wanted, with flavours ranging from boozy absinthe to delicate lavender. I went with a relatively simple filling, since I loved the array of toppings and wanted a filling that would go well with everything, so I ended up making a salted brown butter ganache. Whilst the ganache refrigerated  we sampled some toppings and asked Lily lots of questions as she baked us some of her fabulous chocolate cookies!

So many toppings!

After waiting for what seemed like an age, it was finally time to coat and top our truffles! We scooped the truffles into little balls, and after a second batch of refrigeration, they were ready to coat and top with whatever we wanted!

Truffle madness!

We tried with some of Lily’s “I made it earlier” truffle balls first, then dived into our own. Whilst most people went for a uniform look for their truffles, I went slightly crazy and developed my own “Monster Truffles” as I named them! Large in size and covered in an array of glitters and toppings, I went for a mad eclectic look!

Monster truffles!

Edible silver

Mine… all mine!

These were a resounding success and thoroughly enjoyed by all my family! A huge thanks to Lurpak and Lily for a brilliant afternoon and one I will remember for ages!

 

Tate and Lyle Tasting House

Last night felt like a dream, wandering through corridors of edible goodies, picking Macarons off banisters and eating pillows, taking bites out of a popcorn bath and picking apart a meringue rug….

But I wasn’t in a dream, I was in the Tate and Lyle Tasting House!

Enter into the tasting house

We were greeted with an array of macarons, covering the bannisters and every windowsill in sight!

Macaron Bannisters

 

Macarons displays ripe for the tasting!

The British golden syrup room was a wondrous display of golden syrup, one of my favourite baking ingredients.

Its the Golden Syrup lion!

Doughnut Tower

 

Very British Baking

 

The second room we entered was the Pirates of the Carribean room, with a huge treasure chest made out of gingerbread! We spray painted our own gold doubloons, sampled the chocolate rum and raisin delights, and feasted on mountains of jewelled sweets!

An edible treasure chest of goodies

An edible sword!

Next we entered into the Mediterranean bedroom of delights, which might have been my favourite room!

Meringue rug of the sweetest, most delicious meringues I have ever tasted!

 

Bath of caramel popcorn

 

Lustrous popcorn cupcakes

From there, we entered into room of different edible delights, including a huge edible turtle, with real eggs filled with cake!

Turtle and eggs, all edible!

 

One of my favourite pieces was the 5 foot long Mardi Gras rainbow cake, so delicious I couldn’t tear myself away!

Taste the rainbow

And the Easter Island mud cake statue!

Take a bite…

Probably tying for my favourite room was the Mayan room, with a temple of fudge and delicious chocolate goodies, including a white chocolate heart filled with the gooiest salted caramel.

I worship your Sweetness!

I genuinely had one of the best evenings of my life, and cant thank enough my buddies over at Tate and Lyle, Mischief PR and my lovely friend Gemma at GG Closet for getting me in to this wonderland!

I only wish I had some of the recipes for these amazing creations!

Intensely Chocolatey Raspberry Brownies

Sometimes in life you just need a blowout. Especially before one embarks on a pre-holiday diet! So these are my rich, blowout brownies!

Dark chocolatey, intense, raspberry filled bites of goodness. Oh, with some sweet white chocolate drizzled on top. Drooling? You better be!

Chunky brownies

Recipe:

• 115g unsalted butter, melted
• 100g caster sugar
• 110g light brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 2 large eggs
• 65g cocoa powder
• 100g flour
• 90g chopped dark chocolate (I used Bournville)
• Punnet of fresh raspberries
• 100g approx melted white chocolate for drizzling

Method:

• Cream together butter and both sugars in your stand or hand mixer
• Add in eggs and vanilla paste and mix until well combined
• Sift in flour and cocoa powder until your batter takes on a thick constistency
• Stir in your chocolate chips and raspberries
• Pour into a brownie tin and bake on 175oC for 25-30 mins, until a stick inserted into the middle comes out clean
• Cool completely and then drizzle melted white chocolate on top
• SERVE!

James can’t resist!

Chocolate chunkiness

Close up!

Recipe adapted from Sugarcrafter

Bundt in the Oven

Morning Cake Snobs… I’ve got a BUNDT in the oven for you today! I baked a blueberry cream cheese pound cake for a volunteers meeting for the food festival Gefiltefest (in May.)

Here I am debuting my new apron, a birthday present with my sister “posing” behind me!

Queen of the kitchen and the Jester!

And here is the real star of the show, Blueberry Bundt cake with a white chocolate topping:

My Bundt Baby

This is a fairly simple recipe, and the reward is just great!

How can you resist a slice?

Recipe:

• 340g unsalted butter
• 8 oz cream cheese (one normal sized packet of Philadelphia)
• 600g sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 390g plain flour
• Pinch of salt
• Blueberries, about a bowlful
• 250g white chocolate (optional – for the topping)

Method:

• Cream together butter and cream cheese until fluffy.
• Add in sugar and mix until well incorporated.
• Add in eggs one at a time until all are incorporated fully.
• Add in vanilla and salt.
• Sift in flour and mix well.
• Coat your blueberries in some flour and stir them into the batter.
• Butter and flour your Bundt pan, or use cake release spray (I used the latter.)
• Pour mixture into your pan and bake on 160oC for approximately 1 hr and 15 mins.
• Check cake is done by inserting a skewer.
• Leave to cool on a drying rack, leaving the Bundt in the pan.
• Once cooled, flip on your drying rack.
• Melt white chocolate in bain marie and pour liberally over the top. Once this has hardened, SERVE!

Leave to cool in the pan

Drizzled chocolate

This is perfect paired with a cup of tea, and served after dinner or as part of a tea!

*Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart.

Rice Krispy addiction

You know those little chocolate krispy cakes of goodness that you used to much when you were little? Made with dark chocolate when you were told to be healthy, and milk or white as a treat?

Yeah… addictive RIGHT?! Also one of the easiest things to make when you need a quick chocolate fix!

I’ve made 2 of these beauties recently, one a classic milk chocolate with white chocolate drizzled on top:

Classic milk chocolate

So scrummy and brought me straight back to my childhood! I also made a second batch which was slightly more gourmet: White chocolate and peanut butter with salted caramel topping…

These were totally addictive and went down extremely well. All I did was add a dollop of natural peanut butter to melted white chocolate and mixed well, then poured some of my homemade caramel sauce (recipe here) on top and put in the fridge to set. I will definitely be making these again when I need a quick choccy fix!

Tell me, do you still make rice krispy cakes as a guilty pleasure?!

 

Brunch Baking

Morning all, I think 10am calls for a spot of brunch… what do you think?! This is the brunch I made for New Years Day:

New Years Day Brunch!

Enough to feed 15? More like 50! I laid on a huge spread, starting off with bagels, crumpets, spreads and dips, working our way onto cheese and crackers and crisps, then onto dessert… Fresh from the oven cinnamon rolls, fruit pastries, triple chocolate brownies, blueberry muffins, white chocolate pretzels, and rice crispy cakes, as well as chocolate and biscuits! I also added in some chocolate spoons which stirred into hot milk to create the BEST hot chocolate!

Triple chocolate brownies

Cinnamon rolls

Lots of cinnamon rolls!

Hot chocolate spoons

Berry pastry

Blueberry cinnamon crunch muffins and oreo rice crispy cakes

White chocolate covered pretzels

Slutty brownies and triple chunk cookies

Hi CakeSnobs! Have I got a post for you… a double whammy of brownies AND cookies! So my little brother came home from university and requested some baked treats. I made him Slutty Brownies – a decadent triple layer of cookie, oreo and brownies.

Slutty Brownies

These are melt in your mouth goodness bites. Just put together a layer of cookie dough, layer oreos on top, then pour your favourite brownie recipe over the whole thing. They ain’t pretty but they sure do taste good! Next up, triple chunk cookies. I love a cakey, ooey gooey cookie and this is what these were. Soft cookie dough filled with white, milk and peanut butter chunks make these cookies addictive!

Triple chunk cookies

Thanks Martha Stewart – even though I adapted your recipe it still tasted AMAZING! So there’s my weekend baking… in one evening! Bye bye December Diet!

Diamonds… and chocolate are a girl’s best friends!

On Wednesday night I was the lucky recipient of 2 tickets to the Gu Puds and Nicholas James chocolate & diamonds evening.

I was promised a masterclass in both these subject, and that is definitely what I got! We arrived at Nicholas James, a beautiful contemporary jewellery store on Hatton Gardens.

Here we were greeted  by a sweet array of smoked salmon and CHOCOLATE (yes you heard right!) blinis.

However weird they might sound, they tasted delish!

We were also treated to a strong but delectable chocolate martini which we sipped until we felt rather tipsy!

We were then treated to a diamond masterclass by the founder of Nicholas James. I also fell in love with a stunning pair of diamond earrings – similar to those below (a casual £2.5k and 2 months salary for me!)

Then Gu head chef Fred talked to us about chocolate and his time at Gu, whilst we sampled gorgeous chocolate canapes that included chocolate raspberry tarts and raspberry choux pastry buns.

The sea-salt caramel edible diamonds were my favourite sweet of the evening.

We were even presented with a huge goodie bag at the end of the evening! (PS the best goodie bag i’ve ever received!)

I want to say a massive thank you to Gu and Nicholas James for selecting me to be a part of this evening, and just want to let them know i’m always free for another fabulous evening!

Passover Smores

I got this idea from Pinterest (which is my new fave site!) Passover is the Jewish holiday which celebrates the Jews leaving Egypt and slavery behind. This is the festival where matzah (a type of flat cracker/bread is consumed) and nothing leavened can be consumed as when fleeing, the Jews didn’t have time to allow their bread to rise, and so it baked on their backs as they left Egypt. I don’t know about you, but I would have definitely prepared some bagels and cakes in advance!

So, back to smores! Traditionally an american food, I was looking for a quick and easy snack. For those of you that know me, this usually means something sweet!

You’ll need 3 ingredients:

- Matzah (of course)

- Chocolate of your choice (I went with white choc)

- Marshamallows

Place the chocolate on top of the matzah and then place marshmallow on top of the chocolate. Bake in the over at 180 for about 3 mins.

Make sure the chocolate and marshmallow is melted before you take a big, gooey bite!

WARNING: One is definitely NOT enough! I’ve definitely found my new favourite Passover snack!

Enjoy

*Above picture is not me. I am female. This is my brother, Edd!