Mint Madness

My beloved cupcakes are back on my blog! all is well the world....and they've gone all minty. It been ages since I've posted cupcakes,Mint and Chocolate have been on my mind since my twin bought home some peppermint essence. I've been waiting to make them because...errr.....I wanted to purchase some nice dark brown cupcake cases to put them in .......don't judge me! If I'm gonna make something I want it to look amazing, so my head colour co-ordinates my bakes and that is the ONLY way they can look......admit it they would have just looked silly with blue cases right? Just don't ask how long I  actually waited!

Moving on from my baking vanity, to these minty lovelies which have a rich Dark Chocolate base.They are topped with a Peppermint Buttercream and some have been flourished with chocolate chips.I used The More Than Occasional Baker's chocolate cupcake recipe which was amazing! A lovely moist chocolaty sponge with some serious chocolate flavour, they were even better the next day. I used 70% Lindt Dark Chocolate which has a really high cocoa content, so you if ate one on its own it was a tad bitter but they balanced out once paired with the sweet Peppermint Buttercream. They complimented each other beautifully making one hell of a cupcake! The choc chips added a nice crunch which added a different texture.

I'm always looking for great rich Chocolate cupcake and find it interesting how different they can taste depending on whether the recipe calls for Buttermilk,Yogurt or Sour Cream. Ros's recipe called for Sour Cream which was a first for me, I think it added a  lot to the texture of the cupcake. I think that's something I might dedicate some posts to.... my search for the best chocolate cake/cupcake recipe which will require tasting a lot of Chocolate cupcakes....it will be hard.....but I'll manage..... SOME HOW.

For the Buttercream  I creamed 150g of Lurpak with 250g of Icing Sugar to which I added  just a teaspoon of the Peppermint Essence. This amount gave it a lovely Peppermint flavor any more would have been overpowering, lastly a splash of milk which made the Buttcream nice and creamy. I used a tiny bit of the Wilton Lime food colour gels.

Commitment!...I going to put it in writing now... I really want to get regular on my blog so I've decided that Monday evenings are going to be my official post night, I'm gonna try my very best to post something every  Monday (InshaAllah) so do please keep an eye out.

PS Would love it if you could point me in the direction of your fave chocolate cake/cupcake recipe...I'd love to give them a try!

Almond + Cherry Couronne

Hi

Guess who had her first ever go at making bread? ooo me!  me!  
I'm sticking to my blog resolutions  to try and bake different things...so this week  I had a go at bread!! Its me so it was a sweet bread of course...I made a Couronne which was the week 6 technical challenge in GBBO.
I really wanted this to work for me I can't bear it if my time and ingredients  avail to nothing plus I hate wasting food. So I turned in to a right little Herminone and did my research.... youtubed  the masterclass-watched Paul do his magic plus read lots of posts about other bloggers having ago.

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So the how was the actual Couronne? It was delicious!....lovely soft sweet bread sandwiched with a delicious Almond+ Cherry filling. That filling was divine, lovley sweet almondyness... biting in those parts were by far the best bit. .
My first attempt at sweet bread was relativley straightforward....having said that it wasn't all a breeze. Just little issues like my dough not rising much after the first proving. My filling was rather wet so twisting the two ends of the dough got tricky and VERY messy. The rather wet filling resulted in my Couronne taking a lot longer to bake as bread  touching the filling got wet and took longer to actually bake properly. I have a thing about making sure things are baked all the way through. I didn't really relax until I was certain  all of the bread was baked all the way through....to achieve this I sliced the Couronne up to get better exposure for the middle layers and popped it back in the oven for about 10 mins.

 I used a Paul hollywood recipe for the Couronne and after scouring the net used this filling recipe by Cookies Cakes and Bakes.  All in all I was immensely pleased with my first attempt it was well yummy..the icing on the top made it even nicer....I'm still annoyed I forgot to buy apricot jam which meant I couldn't do the glaze on top and is was my lovely Couronne is lacking the usual shine. I'm certainly spurred on to try other sweet breads+ rolls...I see cinnamon rolls in future!  x

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1st blogoversary! Chocolate & Orange Fondant

Happy New Year everyone!! So it my blogs birthday....I started it on the first of January 2013....I've been blogging a whole year! Before I get to anything else I would like to say thank you to everyone who has read, commented on my little blog I really enjoying reading your thoughts. I love it..... my mind is always thinking about what my next post could be and I'm forever wandering the home sections of every store looking for something pretty to put in my pictures.

So to celebrate I have made a chocolate &Orange  fondant, I wanted something a bit fancy and new so I decide to give these babies  ago. Oh boy am I glad a did,they were actually rather straight forward to make and as long as you stick to the timings all will be well. I used this Channel 4 food recipe by Ramsay but I used a different Ramsay cooker temp+time. I preheated my oven to gas mark 6 and had them in for 11 minutes exact and yes is it could have been runnier but I can live with it.  To flavor them I used some orange zest and orange extract as I was using  a very Dark Chocolate and I wanted to make sure you could taste the orange flavor. They were soooo nice, you get lovely chocolaty sponge from the base and top, then sandwiched between them is the silky smooth chocolate center...divine.  Not too sweet not too chocolaty...(like that even exists) just perfect, I devoured this with a bit of sweetened whipped double cream..

To kick start 2014 for my blog I wanted to make some resolution for My Cupcake Habit.

• I want to challenge my self and bake/post some complicated trickier bakes ....must try and be brave!
• I also want to try some different flavor combinations and different ingredients as I find my self just sticking to my favorites....believe it or not their some relatively normal fruits and things that are yet to pass these lips....so I aim to bake with them.

Back soon Bye :) 

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 

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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.

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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

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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 .