Gingerbread Stars

Hi Guys
I made some Gingerbread for the first time ever this week....conclusion....this wont be the last time I bake them.. Seriously even Hanzel & Gretal would happily gorge themselves on these babies........yes I judge my baking success by whether fictional fairytale characters would happily eat them.....doesn't everyone??

I used the BBC Food gingerbread recipe.
I am sure everyone and their mother has made  gingerbread before but this new novice loved everything involved in the process. From the delicious intoxicating scents that wafts  all over the house when they start baking to the lovely lingering cinnamon smell that clings to the biscuits tin afterwards. Mostly importantly the delicious taste. These were soft and chewy in the middle and crisper towards the edges, the only way  any biscuit should be, full of that yummy Gingery Cinnamon  flavour. YUM!

Note:Mine took 11 minutes in the oven don't move them from the baking tray as soon as you take them out as they are delicate let them rest so the softer middle becomes stable. They will firm up after they have sat a while so best to get them out earlier otherwise you will get really hard bics.

I'm entering these lovley things in to lots of challenges as they are yummy and festive which goes with the themes for this month.

Tea Time Treats hosted by Kate from What Kate Baked and co-hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage. The theme this month is Festive Food Gifts

Calendar Cakes hosted by Rachel from Dolly Bakes and co-hosted by Laura from Laura loves Cakes. Their theme  is Jingle Bell Rock.

Treat Petite hosted by  Cakeyboi and  Baking Explorer. The theme this month is Happy Holidays.

. Alphabakes which is being hosted by ros from the more than occasional baker

and lastly the GBBO 

.

New segment: Inspired By.......Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies

I lose a lot of time drooling over lovely delicious blogs, and a lot of these I'll just admire or comment on.....but sometimes I see some bakes that I think....I'm so making me some that! because of this I thought I would start a  Inspired by segments where I make those things that have caught my fancy from fellow baking blogs using their recipe or adapting slightly.

This week I was Inspired by Baking makes things better, I saw some lovely Chocolate and Hazelnut cookies on their blog. I love this flavour combo so Melissa and Courtenay  kinda had me hooked from just the title! As the only chocolate cookies I've made before are Nigella ones I thought I would use that recipe and elements from the girl's recipe.

The only changes to Nigella's recipe  were that I added a handful  of hazelnuts that I toasted, this brings out the flavour of them otherwise you bite into bland hazelnuts. Plus some chocolate spread which is what Melissa and Courtney did.

These  were some seriously nice cookies! Super chocolatey with lovely crunch of Hazelnuts here and there. My only critique was I think I baked these a tad too long, so I didn't the chewy cookie texture I like in a cookie.....but they were still super delicious. Very glad I made them!

Cherry & Almond Viennese Biscuits

Hiya,
just one week left of GBBO!....I'm not sure my achy bakey heart can bear it! This week I've made biscuits because Ruby made savoury biscuits in her canapé signatures...I don't do savoury I'm all about the sweet so I made some sweet biscuits.

As a baker and lover of everything sweet/baked I have a few flavour combos that I LOVE...quite a few actually. I seriously love anything Bakewellesque, I even hear the words almond and I'm THERE....I don't even wait to find out if its with the traditional Raspberry or equally delicious Cherry. Seriously how inviting, cosy, and just plain old delicious are these flavours ppl?! Yes I'm assuming your are ALL fellow Bakewell flavour lovers.As my mind  can't ,shan't  and just stubbornly won't  contemplate the idea that there are people amongst us who may not be fans  (feel free to suspiciously look over your shoulder at those nearby....ARE THEY ONE OF THEM?!)

Right on to the these beautifully biccys, I saw them on The Baking Explorer. Kat changed this Hairy Biker recipe to use delicious Cherry and Almond flavours. So I have Kat to thank for introducing my beloved flavours to me in a lovely new way. These biscuits were awesome! Crumbly buttery Viennese biscuit, lovely Almondy buttercream and sweet Cherry jam. My beloved Bakewell flavours in beautiful biscuit form.

. 

Thoughts on bake of finale: I think all the girls are amazingly talented, but I feel Kimberly should win purely on her consistently amazing baking, awesome interesting flavours not to mention some of the reviews she has got off Paul....come on... amazing. I 've read some of the favouritism stuff that's been going around about Ruby....I don't know... she is awesome as well but if they look at it fairly from ep1 to now the only fair decision in my eyes is that Kimberly is crowned. Having said that I can  EASILY see them handing it to Ruby, if she pulled something epic out of the bag. Talented France has made it this far but I think her past style over substance issues will come back to haunt her so I don't think she could steal it from the others. 

What do you guys think? Who deserves it?! Who will win!? 

I'm sending this to the The Great Blogger Bake Off which is hosted by  Crazy Kitchen and  Mummy Mishaps 

White Chocolate & Strawberry Eclairs

.

As each week goes we grow closer to GBBO finishing!...its going so fast. This week was pastry week; the signature bake was Suet Pudding after hearing exactly what is was....I'm felt wondering why ppl Why? How can they eat that?!  The technical was  Religieus, Choux Pastry fashioned in the shape of nuns filled with Crem Pat and topped with Ganache. Last but not least the was a Puff Pastry show stopper. You know your in trouble when Paul questions your methods from the off.....Glen and his SPECIAL puff pastry way....poor Glen.

I've been really bad with trying to bake along but I'm getting this week out on time..(ish) I decided to go with Choux Pastry and make some Eclairs. I chose to try white chocolate and Strawberry...a combo I hadn't tried before believe it or not. I chopped some strawberries and folded it in to the Whipped cream then dunked them in white chocolate!

I didn't know what to expect with these but they were seriously nice. The Choux pastry (Paul style critique coming your way) was lovely and crisp but still had a nice chew to it if that makes sense. The Strawberry Cream was sweet and refreshing it had a really nice strong Strawberry flavour. The white Chocolate was lovely too not too sweet which it sometimes can be.  All in all I was very happy.

I'm sending this to the The Great Blogger Bake Off which is hosted by  Crazy Kitchen and  Mummy Mishaps .

GBBO Petit Four challenge/ Chocolate& Orange Profiteroles

Hey guys, so I, like fellow obsessed baker have been watching GBBO very week since it came back into our baking telly lives. When the series returned I wanted to bake something from one of the challenges but only if they were baking something which tempted me..and sorry but Angel cake, Bread nor Floating Islands got me fingers itching to bake or my taste buds interested. Then I didn't have time attempt any showstoppers/signatures that did interest me.....what can I say sometimes I'm not very organised hence my  week 4 bake coming to you now.

       

So week 4 was dessert week and I decided to bake something in the Petit Fours category, meet my cute little Chocolate +Orange profiteroles. This is a flavour combo I love which has graced my blog before in many a form, you just can't beat lovely Milk Chocolate with a delicious Orange kick...mmm.
I used a Paul Hollywood recipe which I have used before, very straight forward and very painful on my poor arms I waited till my twin was around to help me and we tagged team the mixing part.

My Filling
Small pot of double cream think it was 100 ml ish
Icing sugar
Orange Extract
Milk Chocolate 100g

 I whipped some double cream which I sweetened with icing sugar and flavoured with Orange Extract. I melted the Milk Chocolate drops and added a tablespoon of Orange Extract. Once the profiteroles had cooled I  dunked the top of them in to the melted chocolate,and once they had set filled them with the whipped cream using a piping bag.

Verdict
SOOO delicious.You bite into the lovely crisp choux pastry and then you get a mouthful of  the sweet orange flavoured cream which is finished off nicely with the gorgeous orange chocolate which tasted exactly like Terry's chocolate orange. Definitely worth the tired arms! I was very happy.

Thoughts on GBBO 4 
I'm really enjoying having bake off back, I have had a soft spot for Ruby and Ali since ep 1 when some of their bakes went VERY wrong...they were so gutted poor things.
I think Kimberly is definitely one to watch out for, she is very consistent and completely wowed Paul in this pie and filo week...getting reactions from paul very baker dreams of I'm sure.
I'm still impressed from the awesome chocolate work Rob did in ep1.
I felt SO bad for the all style and no substance comment poor Frances got, very bakers worse nightmare!.......and he said it twice slap in the face much?!  Could that comment be the writing on the wall for Frances?! who is your fave?  and what do make of all the lovely remaining bakers?

Blueberry Cupcakes

Hiya

How hot has it been?! I haven't baked in a while as I can't be bare the heat of the kitchen. These were made BBH (Before the British Heatwave!)
How pretty is this colour people? As I loved my Lemon +  Blueberry cupcakes I fancied a complete Blueberry one so here are the pics of my Blueberry baking labour.

With these I used my usual cupcakes recipe and just chucked some blueberries in at the end. As I had some Bonne Maman Blueberry jam I decided to use this to flavour my buttercream. A thing to note was that I had to use a lot of the jam to get the Blueberry flavour I wanted, loads actually, but as the jam isn't really sweet it thankfully didn't make the buttercream too sweet. Next time I think shall use fresh Blueberries in the buttercream, as I think that would  be an easier more effective way of getting a lovely Blueberry flavour. 

Recipe for Blueberry Buttercream

100g Unsalted Butter (Lurpack)

200g Icing sugar

3 heaped tablespoon of Blueberry Jam

Method

Beat the butter with half the icing sugar till you get a  sandy consistency, then add the rest of the icing sugar along with the blueberry jam. Beat this all together till everything is incorporated.This is where I stop and check if I'm happy with the flavour and add more Blueberry jam if necessary. Normally I'm carefully to not over beat however I'd heard about beating your buttercream a lot to get a nice light fluffy buttercream. So hoping I wouldn't take it too far.. I gave it ago...and er...I  think I may have beat it too much. It was certainly lighter in consistency but I felt it made it way too soft really, which made piping trickier plus I felt it made it taste buttery which was a bit odd .

On to the flavour, I seriously loved these! The cupcake was lovely with juicy blueberries in and around. The buttercream was a lovely Blueberry flavour. Light consistency + lovely flavour...loved it.  

Stalk me on Bloglovin....if u like :)

Hey,
Yeah I'm a bit slow...but google reader has gone, if you would like to keep up with my baking world then you can follow me on bloglovin. The icon is on the right. According to bloglovin I have to post this in a post

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/5319711/?claim=8fc9tcdyqxt">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Boo..no yummy pics in this post...just admin stuff.

Chocolate & Cherry Brownies

I do solemnly swear that I shall make brownies more often! They are seriously awesome,          
Fudgy-tick
Seriously chocolatey -tick
Divine-tick

I have used another Fold In The Flour recipe,this time it's Susie's Cherry Chocolate Brownies.Now that makes three recipes of Susie's I have tried which I think means I'm officially her stalking her blog now :)  Its her own fault for having too many lovely recipes....so Susie only has herself to blame!

I decided on using cherries because recently I've been buying cherry scones which have been really lovely, so naturally that progressed to wanting to smother them a in chocolate brownie....as you do.

I was really happy with these, I was very careful not to over/under bake them. The result was delicious fudgey textured brownie mmm. The only thing I was annoyed about was I couldn't find the cherries Susie used so I opted for fresh cherries. They were perfectly fine and juicy but not as flavoursome as I bet the other cherries would have been. Although It was nice to bite in to the brownie and get a juicy cherry, I would have loved a stronger cherry flavour .

I shall be entering these in to Teatime Treats which is hosted this month by Lavendar &Lovage as the theme is fresh fruits. As I used fresh cherries I think they qualify.

Yummy Chocolate & Strawberry Cupcakes

Chocolate and Strawberries, two yummy things that I have wanted to join together in baking matrimony for a while now, so of course I have brought them together into a cupcake. My blog is certainly staying true to its name as I have been posting quite a lot of cupcakes recently...I really can't kick this habit......guess its a good thing I really don't want to!   

I'd been thinking about this combo for a while now...making something dark and chocolaty accompanied with a nice yummy strawberry buttercream. I decided to try Fold in the Flour's devils food cupcakes  as I wanted rich chocolatey cupcakes. The only changes I made to the recipe was I lessened the sugar, I went with 100g of golden caster and 100g of Demerara sugar. As with most of mudcake/DFcakes they always taste better the day after, once they have had time to really absorb all of the lovely ingredients.

The cupcake had a lovely,chocolaty, moist sponge due to the buttermilk. This was complimented byt the lovey,strong strawberry buttercream. Basically Delish!  My only slight criticism was that I would have loved a stronger chocolaty KICK, the cupcake had a lighter chocolate flavour then I would have liked. I imagine its due to the recipe only using cocoa powder and no melted chocolate. Apart from that it was gorgeous, loved it! 

 For the strawberry buttercream I just added a 2 teaspoons of strawberry jam to a regular buttercream recipe.  The pink with dark chocolate looked SO pretty! 

On another matter, does anyone know where I can get good paper cupcake cases I mainly use foil ones as they are reliable and won't come away from the cupcakes the next day...but would like some nice patterned paper ones. What have you guys found to be good+dependable?

Chocolate & Hazelnut Cupcakes

Hey Bakers,

From my blog you may have gleaned that I'm a little bit nutty about Chocolate +Hazelnut. By little I naturally mean obsessed with the flavour....I 'll try and chuck hazelnuts at anything that looks/smells/sounds like chocolate.
As my blog is called My Cupcake Habit, a chocolate hazelnut cupcake was inevitable. That is exactly what I have for you today, I kept the sponge normal and went nutty on the frosting. I decided to use a chocolate Ganache as I hadn't used that as a topping for my cupcakes before so I wanted to give that ago.I made these a while ago so bear with me as I try to remember what i did!

Recipe
200g of Milk Chocolate
150g of Double Cream
1 huge table spoon of Chocolate Hazelnut spread
Chopped Hazelnut to decorate

I heated the double cream, took  it of the heat to add the Chocolate & Hazelnut spread. I stirred till everything was combined and then let it cool. I piped with my Wilton 1M star nozzle when it had firmed up, I think I could have done better with my piping though.

This ganache gave me lots to think about, I shouldn't have used Milk Chocolate as it gave a very light chocolatey taste. Which was disappointing when I was after a smack around the taste buds of chocolatey Hazelnuttyness.
It was a silky, smooth chocolate ganache with a delicate Hazelnut taste.The lightness of the vital flavours was a bit annoying! Now I know what a ganache is like with cupcakes I  probably won't bother with it again as I think I could get a better stronger flavour with a chocolate buttercream .
All that written, it was nice it just didn't hit the Hazelnut spot for me.



                             

Lemon & Blueberry Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

I have a lemony delight for you guys today as last week I made some Lemon and Blueberry cupcakes which I paired with a Lemon cream cheese frosting (lush!). I love lemony bakes their just so yummy and refreshing, I'd seen them paired with blueberries and thought what an awesome combo.

To my usual cupcake recipe I added the zest of two un-waxed lemon plus a bit of the juice as well as a handful of blueberries. I thought it would be nice to try a lemon cream cheese frosting with this as I wanted a light topping for this lemony cupcake. I used the Pink Whisk's cream cheese frosting recipe, initially i was just going to add lemon zest to flavour it. However after tasting it felt that zest alone wasn't giving me the strong lemon flavour I wanted so my twin suggested  I add a tablespoon of lemon curd to it..... definitely a good call.

I was so happy with the way it all turned out. I took them to work and I got such amazing feedback I went home a very happy baker! It was a deliciously, lemony cupcake surrounded by juicy blueberries. The cream cheese frosting was a beautiful compliment, silky and refreshingly light. The lemon curd that was added last minute gave it a gorgeous lemony kick. Simply delicious.

A special thanks to my talented friend she has outdone herself with these photos let drooling comence  lol x

I'm entering these to Kick at the pantry Door's Feel Good Food challenge as June's feel good food is  Blueberries.

I'm also going to enter Simple and in Seasonal for the first time also as Blueberries are in season.

Profiteroles with Strawberry Cream

 

Hey, so one evening  a baking idea floated in to my head, strawberry cream hidden inside a chocolate topped profiterole. Sounded like a yummy idea which I had to give ago, hence this post.
Making these was unfortunately not as easy as its inception, frankly it was a pain in the butt. Choux pastry is really hard work, my poor little arms...... they hurt so much and I got a blister!

I used this recipe by Paul Hollywood, I can't stress how painfully exhausting this was on my arms!!! An unwanted workout and a half. Then the shape went all funny when I was piping and I forgot to press down the pointy bits, so some looked ridiculous when they came out. After all the hard work they weren't crispy because I didn't leave them to crisp up in the oven long enough. Lastly I discovered an angry little blister on my hand thanks to all the crazy mixing with the wooden spoon.

For those of you wondering about the strawberry filling I squashed some strawberries in to the double creamed. Whipped that up with some icing sugar,piped that through the bottom with an icing bag.This was yummy and refreshing with a lovely strawberry flavour. Dipped the profiteroles in melted chocolate and left that to set. The pastry was ok, chewy not the crispy pastry I wanted.

Managed to snap a couple of pics on my phone while it was still light out. Feeling lots of hostility towards Choux pastry at the minute because after all that pain and hard work, they weren't quite what I was after.

 

 

.

Strawberry Cupcakes

Hiya, so I made cupcakes with a strawberry buttercream ...these may seem like regular strawberry cupcakes but they signify so much more for me as a baker! Behold my first ever successful non chocolate buttercream gasp. It sounds mental I know, but honestly i haven't been able to make a buttercream that wasn't chocolate before....it has seriously been the bane of my baking life.
The cause of many baking disappointments. Shattering all my cupcake hopes and attempts, naively thinking maybe THIS is the day I succeed...It WASN'T.  I just wanted to make a beautiful cupcake adorned  with an elegant swirl of buttercream ....was that so much to ask for (cue the sympathetic NOs!)

I finally figured out what I was doing wrong, why my attempts resulted in a runny mess. I was stupidly using normal butter instead of the unsalted butter you were meant to use. Yep, not something incredibly difficult or scientific. I was just not following the recipe exactly, thinking it'll be fine It wont making that much difference!

So after this baking epiphany, I attempted buttercream again.....and it WORKED! go me! A good baker doesn't blame their tools/ingredients, but I can it was the Flora messing it up not ME!!! Yes I'm ignoring that fact that It was me who decide to use flora in the first place.... denial is a beautiful thing people, a beautiful thing.

Right, enough of me and on to the cupcakes. I was actually making them for a friend of mine who requested strawberry buttercream on top of her cupcakes.  I promised her I would do my best as she was well aware of my track record with butter cream.  I decided to use fresh strawberries to flavour my buttercream: chopped them small and ran them through a sieve to get a fresh strawberry juice.

I used this cupcake recipe and below is the buttercream recipe

140 unsalted butter  (Lurpack)
280 Icing sugar
5 strawberries
Dollop of strawberry Conserve.

I cream the room temp butter first, then add half the icing sugar and mix. Then I added the rest of the icing sugar along with the  strawberry juice/purée along with a dollop of strawberry conserve.I mixed till everything was combined and smooth.

The cupcake was lovely, but it was ALL about the strawberry buttercream it was really delicious. As I was careful to not to make it too sweet  it was perfect. Lovely and smooth with such a delicious strong strawberry flavour! Loved it.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Conquered

            Choc Chip Cookie 0 - Cupcake Girl 1

Hey, so as you may know my last attempt at Chocolate Chip Cookies didn't work out the way I wanted them to. They were half cake half cookies,.....what's wrong with that? I hear you shout eat your two desserts in one girl and be happy! Well um...I was just after a whole cookie...what can I say i'm a traditionalist I just want my bakes to come out the way the recipe says it should.

So I was determined to have another go and achieve the cookies I was dreaming about not literally I wasn't that obsessed....not yet anyway.
I gave Jo's wheatley's Cookies another go, this time sticking to the recipe completely! You'll never guess.... but that actually helps (shocker I know) so behold my successful cookies.


















Verdict:  Crunchy edge, chewy middle and chips hiding here there and everywhere.Yum but a tad too sweet if I'm honest.
I can now tick choc chip cookies off my imaginary to do list.....and yes I will be using my trusty imaginary pen to do that  :)

Apple and Blueberry Loaf

A yummy Apple and Blueberry Loaf is what I have for you today. It was meant to be the  Blackberry and Apple loaf  from Jo Wheatley's A Passion for Baking, but I didn't fancy blackberries and my crumble top didn't work out (I don't want to talk about it!) 

                                    

So we (my twin + I) decided to turn it into a Apple and Blueberry Loaf minus the crumble top. We were so happy with the way this turned out, it was so yummy! We sprinkled cinnamon on the top and on the apples we chucked in, so now and again you could catch wafts of yummy cinnamon. The cake was lovely, light and moist, it was an all in one method and we love an easy all in one method! It tasted of the lovely juicy blueberries...just like a big Blueberry muffin.

Only thing I would change is to cut the apples up bigger next time as they got a bit lost because they were small.

Smiles all round, this went down really well it was scrummy! Excuse the wobbly decoration I decided to put some White chocolate on for decoration.

Packed with yummy blueberries and apples.

.

A Mountain Cake Masquerading as a Choc Chip Cookie

 Hiya, I want to introduce you to my little mountain cakes masquerading as choc chip cookies!yeah you read right. Since my Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies worked out great I wanted to try my hand at chocolate chip ones. I recently purchased Jo wheatley's  A Passion for Baking and heard good things about her cookies. So I thought I would give them a go.

Only I didn't stick exactly to her recipe I didn't use the amount of sugar stated in the recipe. It seemed so much I couldn't bring myself to do it thinking they would come out too sweet.  (325g of sugar to 400g of flour) 

As we all know if you don't stick to the recipe....things don't quite work out and surprise surprise my cookies didn't work out. Did you see that coming? well you're clever cus I didn't! 

What is wrong with them I hear you ask? They look okay...ish. They came out like fat little cakes as opposed to the flat chewy Cookies I was after. You might be able to see from the above pic do you see the vast cake-like middle?

It tasted nice and lots of chocolate inside....what more do you want.....err maybe the chewy cookie I envisaged  when I started baking!

Verdict: pleasant but unsuccessful bake (I only have my self to blame).....shall be attempting another time to get the proper cookie I was after. x 

Laduree Convent Gardens

Hiya, so I was lesiurely walking around a cold but sunny Convent Gardens on friday and  I popped in to Laduree the famous French Macaroon shop, as you do. .....Okay so maybe it didn't happen
  that effortlessly...I was there for a different reason .....and it took a lady walking by me with their bag to remind me this little treat was nearby.

So I thought it would be nice to blog about it...but in order to do that I HAD to go in buy and taste some for you guys It would just be rude if I didn't..... especially when I have a baking blog right??

This was my first time trying a Macaroon!.....shocking I know lol. I bought lemon and All
Berry Delight. I liked the crunchy top then marshmallowy inside of the Macaroon. The filling of the lemon was nice and tangy I think there was some lemon curd in the middle there.
The All berry delight I think that was what it was called was alright...too many seeds.

Premises: The shop was small + cute...very Parisian Chic..pretty light Mint Green.  All the yummy treats they had inside was beautifully decorated. One section for the Macs another for all manner or exquisite delicate fancy delights eg Eclairs,Cakes,Tarts
The Macaroons were in rows of gorgeous pretty and bright pastel shades. They don't let you take pictures which was annoying, I shouldn't have asked...should have snapped and ran!!!

   Price: £1.60 for one.

So I took some snaps before I gobbled them up.
Tried to take other shots...but apparently my camera hates  me so....

    

.

My Greggs Eat Your Heart Out Triple Chocolate Cookies

 Hey guys, my laptop was broken hence the no posts recently, but all is fixed now so I can show my amazing cookies .I have always wanted to make those delicious giant cookies you get in the Greggs. However after failing my attempts at chocolate chip cookies I let my dreams of ever baking theses babies fade.....locked away in a box & pushed in to a corner of my brain.

Until a while ago when I saw Kat from Life of A Cupcake Baker make her killer cookies using  Nigella's recipe.I thought maybe, just maybe like Kat could make those triple chocolate cookies....maybe. 

After while I bit the bullet and thought I'm gonna go for it! You have no idea how happy I was that these worked out for me...I would have been gutted if they hadn't. I followed  Kat's suggestion of using Dark Brown sugar instead of Nigella's suggested Light Brown sugar apart from that I followed the recipe exactly. 

These cookie aren't dainty or pretty according to my sister (thanks).... but they will not apologise for that.....they are chunky and DELICIOUS! 

I put milk and white chocolate chips inside the both whole bags! They had a lovely rich chocolatey taste not too sweet. A nice little crunch on the top which concealed a soft chocolatey centre. Now and again you would bite in to lovely little milk and white chocolate drops. YUM . I had them warm. I had them cold. I had them with milk the next day and on all counts they were guilty of being yum, yum and yum :) 

My Baker's Notes

• It says to use cake taster to see if the cookies are done.....I found this helpful as I worry about under cooking cookies trying to achieve the soft cookie texture I love so much.As soon as the the tester came out clean...they came out.
• Nigella says to not to flatten the cookies....which you really want to do as u scoop a fat ball of cookie dough on to your tray. You look at it thinking I can't just leave this big ball sitting there but It flattens perfectly all by its self. I found the bigger the dough ball the bigger, more even and better looking the cookie .
• Warning the cookie dough is seriously delicious!! it was hard to not to just sit down with a spoon and dive in.

I seriously can't explain how happy I am with these cookies...my friend said they were like millies!  X

The Versatile Blogger Award

I'm really happy to say that my little blog has been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award!! By the lovely Victoria from kick at the pantry door .
This was really sweet of Victoria and I'm really flattered thank you very much V I really enjoy doing this blog and its really nice to receive this from a fellow blogger who has a cool blog her self .




This a chain reaction award and when someone is nominated they need  to thank who nominated you.
Nominate 15 blogs; favs+ new finds.
Share 7 things about them self so their readers can get to know them a little better.
You also need to inform your nominees...there doesn't seem to be anything wrong nominating anyone who was nominated a while back....Its still a compliment :)

So the blogs I have nominated are

Raining Cake and Cookies.
Sweetharts Cakes and Bakes
What do you make of my cake
Life of a Cupcake Baker
A Cup Of Tea Solves Everything
Fold In The Flour
Lotties World of Cakes and Bakes
The Very Hungry Baker
The Cake Hunter
Bake For Happy Kids
A Baked Thesis
Brown Eyed Baker
Sophie Loves Food
Laura Loves Food
Meek-n-Mild

To get to know me a little better here are my 7 things.

1.I was born in Somalia and came here when I was 3.                                                                        

2. I'm a huge dr who fan, I'm quite obsessed with that mad man and his blue box....Eccleston, Tennant and Smith MY Drs!

3.  I work In Education.


4. One of the un-stated reasons behind this blog of mine is to perfect recipes that I could perhaps use for orders as I would love to turn this hobby of mine in to something more.




5.  I love anything with a  Dystopian theme;where society has gone to pot and everyone has to start over and survive in a usually messed society. I'm find how ppl survive and adapt to what has happend fascinating..books,TV 

6. I'm an Identical Twin.

7. As well as baking I'm lover of all things fashion too!