Mmmmmm warm and tasty Cherry Pie

Cherry pie is one of the boyfriends favourite desserts (he has a lot of favourites) and it's something I've been meaning to bake for a while.

I actually made this a week or so ago but I've been quite busy and have just come back from a lovely weekend away in the lakes that involved lots of walking, hiking, relaxing and a lot of good food including some amazing homemade cakes.

Any way back to the cherry pie, it's such a simple but tasty desert and is one of those desserts I see as homely proper baking perfect for curling up on the couch with on a cold night. I'm not a massive fan of pies but the pastry was lovely and soft with a crisp top and not to dry and the filling was super tasty, the almond extract and added brandy (optional) give it a lovely taste. Here it is:

Ok so boyfriend couldn't wait till I'd taken a picture to have a warm slice so it's a rushed very bad picture of most of the pie, the filling also was more than it looks on this picture.

Next time I will try to be more uniform and neat with my lattice top but I wasn't very patient this time.

Any way here's how it's made:

Cherry lattice pie:  (via the big book of baking)



For the pastry:

140g Plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1/4 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Mixed spice
pinch Salt
50g Caster sugar
55g Unsalted butter, diced, plus extra for greasing
1 egg Beaten plus extra for glazing.


For the filling:

900g Stoned fresh cherries or canned cherries, drained (and stoned if not already)
150g Caster sugar
1/2 tsp Almond extract
2 tsp Cherry brandy (optional)  - regular brandy can also be used.
1/4 tsp Mixed spice
2 tbsp Cornflour
2tbsp Water
25g Butter

 To make the pastry, sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Stir in the mixed spice salt and sugar then rub in the butter until the mixture has a breadcrumb like consistency. Add the beaten egg and mix into a firm dough, adding a few drops of water if needed. roll into a ball and wrap in clingfilm, Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 220degC and grease a 9 inch round tart tin. Cut the pastry in half and roll out into two rounds, using one to line the tin.

To make the filling, put half the cherries with the sugar into a pan and bring to a simmer over a low heat, stirring until the sugar has melted. stir in the almond extract, brandy and mixed spice. In a separate bowl mix together the cornflour and water. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cornflour paste, then return to the heat and stir until the mixture boils and thickens. Leave to cool a little before stirring in the remaining cherries. Pour this into the pastry case and dot with butter.

Cut the remaining pastry round into strips and lay some across the pie and then the remainder running the other way, folding under every other strip to form a lattice, I found that you need to lift the strips right up to do this without getting covered in filling so make sure you don't stick any ends down until your done. Trim off the edges and seal with water. Crimp around the rim with your fingers or a fork the brush the top with beaten egg.

Cover with foil then bake in the oven for 30 mins then remove the foil and bake for a further 15 minutes or until golden.


And that's all. I have loads of cupcake orders for March, it's a busy month for birthday's and holidays so I'm off to get planning the next batch.

Cupcake Kris
xxx

Chocolate Eclairs and Valentine Cupcakes

I have had a long weekend this week with an extra day off from work, although I have been very busy dealing with buttercream of another nature. I decided to paint my dining room and part of my living room and the colour I chose was called buttercream, proving that definitely almost every part of my thinking is ruled by baking.

but today after all that painting I have been making chocolate eclairs, I first made these a few days ago and they tasted fine however were a little smaller than I wanted and I didn't wait for the chocolate icing to set a little before topping (well I was hungry) so they didn't look as neat as todays lot, they also didn't last long enough for me to take a picture (oops) so today I used that as a good excuse to make some more, of course it just wasn't that I wanted to eat more it was definitely all the name of getting a picture (hehe).

Any way, they are really yummy and the pastry cream is very moorish, i usually always bake cake rather than pastry but i will definitely be making these more for friends and family (or maybe just me!) here they are:

And filled with yummy pastry cream,

and here's how they are made:

Chocolate Eclairs

For the choux pastry:

150ml Water
70g Butter, diced
100g Plain Flour, sifted
2 eggs

For the pastry cream:

2 Eggs
4tbsp Caster Sugar
2tbsp Cornflour
300ml Milk
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract

For the icing:

2tbsp Butter
1tbsp Milk
1tbsp Cocoa
55g Icing Sugar

Pre heat oven to 200degC and lightly grease a couple of baking trays.
Place the water in a saucepan with the butter and heat gently until the butter melts, bring to a rolling boil. remove the saucepan from the heat and add the flour all at once beating well until the mixture leave the sides of the saucepan and forms a ball. Leave to cool slightly, then gradually beat in the eggs until you have a smooth, glossy mixture. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a large round nozzle, I found a disposable piping bag with the end cut off worked fine.

Sprinkle the baking trays with a little water and pipe the eclairs well spaced apart with room to rise. Bake in the oven for around 30 minutes or until crisp and golden in colour. Make a small slit in the side of each eclair then cool on a wire rack.

For the pastry cream. Whisk the eggs and caster sugar until thick and creamy then whisk in the cornflour. Heat the milk until almost boiling and pour onto the egg mixture whilst beating. Transfer these to a saucepan and cook over a low heat stirring until thick. (This part is really important as the first time i stopped stirring and turned my back for a second and the mixture had thickened, so for a smooth mixture, stick with stirring) Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Leave to cool.

To make the icing, melt the butter with the milk, remove from the heat and then stir in the sugar and cocoa. Leave to chill and set slightly.

Split the eclairs lengthways and pipe in the cooled cream. Spread the icing over the top of the eclairs. This time I made the icing in advance and waited until it had almost set and piped on top in ribbons.

The eclairs can then be decorated with a mix of icing sugar and water piped on (as I have here) or some melted white chocolate drizzled over.

and that's it!

Also as last week was valentines I also had some orders for valentines cupcakes, some were decorated with rolos (last rolos) and sprayed with edible silver and the others with cream cheese frosting and sugar hearts, and they were very well received. here they are:

 

Well that's all for today, now to plan what to bake next... after I eat this last eclair. 

xxx

 

Light and Fluffy Chocolate Mocha Cake and After Eight Cupcakes

One of my best friends is on  what she calls the wedding dress diet so when me and a few others were visiting her house last week and bringing all sorts of treats to eat round I couldn't leave her out but wanted to give her a lower fat option so she didn't feel to guilty when having a treat.

Of course I couldn't possibly bring myself to only make and eat low fat cake so I also made some sinful cupcakes too to make up for all that light airy but not so guilty baking.

For the lower fat cake I used my trusty good food cakes app on my Ipod touch as I knew they had a specific section for low fat cakes. I'd already decided (as I had most of the ingredients) that it was going to involve chocolate in some way so I decided on the Light and Fluffy Chocolate Mocha Cake. It's only 180kcal a slice with only 3g of saturated fat per slice, mainly due to the lack of butter and oil. and here it is:

My cake is a little thinner as I didn't have the right size tin and I have to admit the cake in their picture looked far darker in colour, I have a sneaky suspicion they cheated and added more cocoa (or maybe it's just their photography)I was also meant to take a picture of the cake once cut but I forgot as I often to when there's cake to be eaten.

The base of the cake itself is made in a way I have never tried before (you need a table top mixer or an electric hand whisk) and it does indeed make the cake very airy and light, It's not intensely chocolaty and the filling and topping is made using fat free Greek yogurt, I'd say it's not a very indulgent cake but hey, what do you want for low fat, and considering the amount of calories per slice it's definitely worth a go if you want a treat but are trying to be good.

Any way, here's how it's made:

Light and Fluffy Chocolate Mocha Cake, via Good food cake app. 

For the cake 

3 Large Eggs
85g Caster Sugar
70g Plain Flour
1tbsp Cornflour
2tbsp Cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder

For the Icing / Filling

25g Dark Chocolate chopped (Don't use 75% or the icing will be to bitter)
1tbsp Strong Black Coffee
100g Light Soft Cheese
100g 0% Greek Yogurt
2tbsp Icing Sugar

To decorate

15g Dark Chocolate chopped

Pre heat the oven to 180dgC. Lightly butter 2 x18cm Sandwich tins and then line the bases with baking paper.
Whisk the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 mins in a tabletop mixer of 10 mins with an electric hand whisk. The mix will have increased greatly in volume and be thick enough to leave a trail and the surface when the blades are lifted. 
Sift the flour, cornflour, cocoa and baking powder over the surface of the egg mix and fold in gently using a large metal spoon. Divide between the tins, gentry spreading to the edges, then bake for 15-20 mins until the cakes are well risen, have begun to shrink away from the sides of the tins and spring back when gently pressed. Leave to cool in the tins for 5 mins then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

To decorate, microwave the chocolate and coffee together for about 20-30 seconds until the chocolate has melted. Gently stir until smooth, then cool slightly. Beat the soft cheese with the yogurt and and icing sugar until smooth, spoon half this mixture into a bowl stir in the melted chocolate and set aside.
Place one cake on a serving plate and spread with the yogurt mixture, cover with the other cake, then spread the chocolate yogurt mixture on top.

To finish, melt the 15g of chocolate, stir until smooth, cool slightly then drizzle over the cake. 

And that's it!

As I said before I also made some full fat chocolate cakes too, I made a batch of After eight cupcakes. A chocolate peppermint cupcake topped with mint frosting and a mint chocolate. Here they are:

 

The recipe is the same as my Mint chocolate candy cane recipe except using a bit of Green food colour in the icing and topping with a mint chocolate instead of crushed candy cane. I preferred these far more than the low fat cake, but they do come with an extra serving of guilt. Oh well if I have both that evens it out right?

Any way that's all for today, I'm off to eat a failed batch of macaroons all in one go and pretend they never existed.

Bye for now

Cupcake Kris

Cinnamon Rolls

Hello, yet again I feel I have abandoned my blog of late and I haven't updated in a while. I've still been keeping up with all the wonderful blogs I follow and copying lots and lots of recipes down for baking in the future. I haven't had much chance to bake myself though which has made me very sad. But I have been happily busy with lots of exciting things!

One of my best friends is getting married next January and I was delighted that she has asked me to be a bridesmaid! she has also asked me to bake all the cupcakes for the wedding so there has been a lot of planning and looking at pictures of cupcakes and cases that she would like. I have also been a dutiful bridesmaid and we all went along to a wedding fair to look at all the pretty things and organise some of the most important aspects of the wedding (Chocolate fountain!)

I've also had an important cocktail meeting with friends, went to the cinema to see The Artist (Brilliant and I'm just in love with Uggie the little dog) and then this weekend I've been enjoying the Chinese new year festivities watching the dragon dance and then out to dinner at my favourite restaurant. 

I have found a little time to bake though, and on Saturday morning I was craving Cinnamon rolls. I love these as they are so sweet and tasty but somehow, and I'm not quite sure why (Maybe it's the cinnamon) I still feel like it's acceptable to eat them for breakfast (Not that that usually stops me eating cake for breakfast)

Any way here they are: 

And here's how they are made:

Cinnamon Rolls

Makes 8

350g Self raising Flour
Pinch of Salt
3 tbsp Caster Sugar
1 1/2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
100g Butter, melted
2 egg yolks
200ml Milk

For the filling 

1 heaped tsp Ground Cinnamon
55g Soft light brown Sugar
2 tbsp Caster Sugar
1 tbsp Butter, Melted

Topping

2 tbsp icing sugar
water

Pre heat the oven to 180deg C and grease an 8 inch round cake tin and line the base with baking paper.

Mix the flour, salt caster sugar and cinnamon together in a large bowl. Beat together the butter, milk and egg yolks and add these to the dry ingredients. Combine until a soft dough is formed. 

Turn out onto a floured surface (or floured baking paper for ease of rolling up) and roll out a rectangle of 10inches by 12 inches, approx.

Mix the filling ingredients together in a bowl and spread this mixture evenly over the dough. Roll the dough up like a Swiss roll to form a log and cut this into 8 slices. Arrange these around the tin and brush with a little milk to glaze.

Bake in the oven for 30 - 35 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool slight;y and then remove from the tin.

If desired the buns can then be iced with a little icing drizzled over, Just combine 2 tbsp icing sugar with a few drops of water and drizzle this over the buns. 

Then pull apart and eat as desired, nom!

I made these on Saturday and there is only one left and I am ashamed to say that I ate all but one of the eaten rolls, ooops. Oh well I'll start the healthy eating / exercise plan again tomorrow.

Any way that's it for now, hope you all had a lovely weekend.  

Cupcake Kris

Mincemeat Spice Muffins.

Well I hope you all had a lovely holiday, I haven't posted in a couple of weeks as I've just been getting back into the swing of things, taking the decorations down, going back to work and already breaking my resolutions. The holidays are officially over, oh boo :( lets all have some cake to cheer ourselves up hey? 

Any way I hope you all had a great New Year, I spent mine eating yummy food with fabulous friends and then drinking a lot of wine, It was very much enjoyed. 

So after all the copious amounts of cake I made over Christmas were eaten, I somehow still had some surplus ingredients, including most of a big jar of mincemeat left over from making mince pies. So I looked for a new recipe that would use this up as I think I've eaten enough mince pies for a year. I fancied something a bit lighter than a mince pie but that could still be made quickly and with relatively few ingredients.

I came across a recipe for Christmas Snowflake muffins in The Big Book of Baking, However I have changed the name as because I don't have a snowflake cutter to cut out the icing to top the cakes with the name seemed a little silly. Any way here they are :

 I topped some with a disc of fondant and left some plain.

They came out really nice, the smell just after they come out of the oven is wonderful and the muffins themselves are really light with a good hint of spice and warming fruit. I added some chopped cherries to my batch as my mincemeat wasn't as packed with as much of a variety of fruit as I'd like, this recipe is quite flexible so all different fruit / nuts could be added.

On making my second batch of these I decided to use more mincemeat for that extra kick of flavour and filling. But apart from that the cakes were definitely yummy and a perfect use of any leftover mincemeat or a good excuse to take advantage of the half price offers on it in the shops. 

Here's how they are made:

Mincemeat Spice Muffins (Christmas Snowflake Muffins)

Makes 12:

280g Plain Flour 
1 tbsp Baking powder
1 1/2 tsp Mixed Spice
Pinch of Salt
115g Soft dark brown sugar
2 Eggs 
100ml Milk
6 tbsp Sunflower oil
200g Luxury mincemeat (I would use nearer 300g)
about 8-10 Glace cherries, chopped

To top

1 tbsp Apricot jam
Ready to roll white icing.

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg C and line a 12 hole muffin tray with cases.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, Mixed spice, and salt into a large bowl , stir in the sugar.

Beat the eggs together and then beat in the milk and oil. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid ingredients, mincemeat and cherries and stir until just combined. 

Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for around 20 minutes until well risen and golden brown.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

To top, knead the icing until pliable and roll out, cut out 12 snowflake shapes, however I just cut circles. 
Warm the Apricot jam until runny and brush over the cakes, the top with the icing snowflakes.

And that's it!  The recipe does call to decorate with those little silver edible balls, however I cannot bear these, and why anyone would want to risk cracking their teeth on their rock hard shell I do not know, I did top a few of my cakes with half a cherry though as you can see: 

Any way that's all from me today I hope you are all all having more success with your new years resolutions than I am. Bye for now,

Cupcake Kris xxx

Christmas Pudding Truffles - A Christmas eve treat.

So last night I had a few friends round for a little Christmas party, Food was ate, secret Santa's were exchanged, Christmas songs were played and mulled wine was drunk, and I'm feeling a little delicate this morning (well, afternoon) But I'm happy as I had a lovely time and I'm feeling very festive.

Any way after all the savoury food was eaten I brought out all the sweet treats I had made and their was a lot of cake to be had! 

Of to the left in the little cases are my Christmas pudding truffles The original recipe is a Nigella one for her Christmas Puddini Bon Bons however I altered the recipe slightly omitting some things and using milk chocolate and Brandy and then coating my truffles in Chocolate.
Any way here's how they're made:

Christmas Pudding Truffles 

 125g Milk Chocolate, melted in a bowl over a pan of boiling water.
 350g leftover, or freshly cooked and cooled, Christmas pudding
 60ml Brandy
 1 tablespoon golden syrup

To decorate: 150g Milk Chocolate, melted
Icing sugar (or alternatively melted white chocolate)


First crumble the pudding into a bowl and pour over the brandy. once the Brandy has mostly soaked into the pudding blend together. Add the meted chocolate and syrup and mix together. Then the messy part is rolling the truffles, I found dusting my hands with a little icing sugar or using cling film to roll them helped.

Once all the truffles are rolled coat each one in melted chocolate and place on a tray covered in cling film and place in the fridge to set.

Once set the truffles can be decorated to look like mini Christmas puddings using a little icing sugar blended with water to a thick paste or using melted white chocolate and then to top i used a little coloured sugar paste or you can used chopped glace cherries and angelica.

And that's it! I will upload a better picture once I get hold of the photos from last night. 

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and new year. I'm off to play Santa and give some pressies out!

Merry Christmas

Cupcake Kris xxx

Christmas Pudding Ice Cream and lots of Christmas baking.

I can't believe I haven't posted in 2 weeks! Well actually I can as I have been so busy with Christmas preparations, present buying, wrapping, present making (mainly jewelry) and even though I haven't blogged there has been a lot of baking.

I've had a few orders for cupcakes and last Monday I had 3 orders for one day that included Chocolate orange cupcakes Special toffee cupcakes  (however this time I stirred a little Dulche de leche into the batter) and as it's nearly Christmas Christmas spice cupcakes with mini gingerbread men  and here they all are :

 I also finished my Christmas cake! I'm not very good at making models out of sugar paste and I don't have many cutters so I just had to work with what I had which was a mini holly cookie cutter, so I went with the holly and berries theme and here it is:

But that's not all! I am having a Christmas party tomorrow for a few close friends so I've been a busy bunny in the kitchen baking savoury treats, sausage rolls, pigs in blankets, bacon twists as well as many more. and lots and lots of sweet treats, more Christmas spice cupcakes, Gingerbread men, mince pies, Chocolate candy cane cupcakes a gingerbread house and Christmas pudding truffles (to be posted here Christmas eve) and also a great quick dessert idea I saw the other day in Christmas Pudding Ice Cream.

Christmas Pudding Ice Cream is a great way to use up any extra or left over Christmas pud or just to have as an alternative dessert. I can't wait to have a scoop with a hot mince pie.
It's a really quick and easy recipe that can be thrown together in 5 minutes and left in the freezer to set while you get on with other things. I saw the idea on television the other day and I can't for the life of me remember which show but it was an Anthony Worral Thompson idea. They used different Cherries to me but I already had Glace cherries in the cupboard so opted to use them. Any way here it is:

You can't really get the idea from the picture but I will take a better picture once I take it out the tub and serve.

I used the tub that the Christmas pudding came in to store the ice cream so depending on what size pudding you are using depends on the amount of ice cream you need. but it's all down to preference with the pudding and cherry to ice cream ratio

Any way you will need

approx 1/2 left over and cooled Christmas pudding, crumbled. 
Few big scoops of ice cream, I used about 400ml
approx 30 g glace cherries, chopped 

In a bowl simply blend together all ingredients until the cherries and pudding are evenly dispersed and the ice cream has turned to liquid, beat together.
Then simply line your left over pudding dish, or any other bowl with cling film and pour the mixture in and wrap the top in cling film (or a lid if you have one) before returning to the freezer to re-freeze the ice cream.

Once frozen lift out of the bowl using the cling film and serve. 

And that's it a really simple idea for anyone in need of a last minute fix for a alternative Christmas dessert.If you are using a whole Christmas pudding make sure to save the remains and you can make another quick dessert and perfect last minute gift in Christmas pudding truffles (coming soon)

Any way back to the kitchen for me! I'll be sure to take pictures of the rest of the treats I make for the party and post them before Christmas.

Bye for now and be good (Santa's watching)

Cupcake Kris xxx