Flourless Chocolate Cake

I thought it was about time I made something gluten free and this was the perfect dessert to start with.

If you love chocolate (like I do) then this is the dessert for you.

Rich and decadent, I served it with a white chocolate and raspberry cream from tesco, but you can serve it with whatever you like!

Ingredients-

• 200g milk chocolate
• 120g unsalted butter
• 150g caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• white chocolate, melted

Firstly preheat your oven to 150c and grease a cake tin with butter and dust with cocoa powder.

In a bowl over simmering water, place the chocolate and butter until melted, leave to cool slightly.
In a separate bowl whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla until light in colour.

Pour a small about of the chocolate mixture in and stir, so as to not curdle the eggs.

Once combined add the rest of the chocolate mixture.
Pour into your tin and place into the oven for 40 minutes.

When baked, leave to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

I drizzled over the white chocolate and then dusted with icing sugar and served with the white chocolate and raspberry cream.

Snowman Cupcakes

This really is my favourite time of the year, specially because you can bake things like this!  I actually cant help myself.

I doubt here in Kent we will be making real snowman any time soon, as it's pouring it down as I write this,so I decided to make cupcake ones instead! (No getting cold and falling over in the snow, instead stuffing my face with cake, which is always the winner ;).

Ingredients:

Cupcakes-

• 150g unsalted butter, softened
• 150g caster sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 150g self- raising flour

Buttercream-

• 150g unsalted butter softened
• 300g icing sugar
• 1 tbsp milk

Decoration-

• Marshmallows
• Cadbury chocolate fingers
• Coloured fondant icing

Preheat your oven to 180c and line a muffin tin with 12 cases.

In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy.

Gradually add the eggs and vanilla and beat well.

Sift in the flour and fold in gently with a large wooden spoon until incorporated.

Divide between the muffin cases and place into the oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick

inserted comes out clean.

Once baked, leave to cool completely on a cooling rack before decorating.

For the butter cream, beat the butter until really light and fluffy (this is the key to great butter cream.)

Gradually mix in the icing sugar, and milk until a thick consistency.

Spread a mound of butter cream onto each cupcake.

Place a marshmallow on top, and break a chocolate finger in two for the arms.

Then decorate how you like with the fondant icing! 

Reindeer Cookies

After decorating the Christmas cake I had a ton of white fondant icing left, as I wanted to bake some Christmas cookies anyway, this is what I did. How cute are they?!

Almost too good to eat. I say almost as they went very quickly.

These are the type of thing everyone likes, so don't expect them to last long! They're soft sugar cookies so, even my little niece could enjoy them.

Ingredients:

• 225g unsalted butter, softened
• 150g caster caster
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 320g vanilla plain flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda

Decorations:

• white fondant icing
• milk chocolate, melted
• red sweets

Preheat your oven to 180c, and line two baking trays with baking paper.

In a large bowl beat together the butter and sugar until light and creamy, then beat in the egg and vanilla.

Gradually add the flour and baking soda until a dough forms.

Leave the dough in the fridge for at least an hour to chill.

Once chilled, scoop out spoonfuls onto your baking tray, I managed to roll them into balls then flatten them but the dough is very sticky.

Bake them for 10 minutes until light golden in colour.
Once baked leave to cool on a cooling rack before decorating.

For the decorations, roll one bigger ball of fondant for the mouth, and two small balls for the eyes, then lightly flatten onto the cookies. Then add the chocolate eyes, antlers and sweetie nose! (I used a piping bag with a small round tip for the chocolate.)

Cherry Chocolate Truffle Cupcakes

After having hardly any time to bake the past couple of months, I am back with a new recipe and will have many more over the Christmas period, yay!

These are my cherry filled cupcakes with a chocolate truffle topping, they didn't last long in my household so they must of been good.

The topping is actually a chocolate truffle mixture that I made, which may or may not have gone wrong and ended up too soft to make actual truffles... buuuut it was perfect for cupcakes!

Ingredients:

Truffle Topping-

• .120g milk chocolate
• 30g butter, chopped
• 100ml double cream
• 25g caster sugar

Cupcakes-

• 100g unsalted butter, softened
• 100g caster sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g self raising flour
• 100g glace cherries, rinsed and dried

Optional-

• chopped pistachios
• white chocolate chips

First of all make your truffle topping.

Break up the chocolate in a bowl with the butter and set aside.

In a small saucepan, heat the cream and sugar until the sugar has melted and until just boiling.

Pour over the chocolate and butter, and mix well.

Cover and place into the freezer for an hour to set.

Now for the cakes, preheat the oven to 180c and fill a muffin tin with 8 cases.

In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Gradually add the eggs, then the vanilla and beat well.

Sift in the flour and gently fold in with a metal spoon until incorporated.

Chop up the cherries and mix into the cake batter.

Divide between the cases, and place into the oven for 18-20 minutes, until a knife inserted

comes out clean.

Leave to cool completely on a cooling rack, before decorating.

When your ready to decorate, whip the truffle mixture lightly to soften, and place into a piping bag.
Pipe a blob onto each cake, and sprinkle on your choice of topping, then enjoy!

Caramel Blackberry Cake

Since its been nearly 4 weeks (where has the time gone!?) since my last blog post, I really thought I must bake something blog worthy to feast your eyes on.

Bit of a strange combo, but they go oh so well.

I wanted to use some autumn ingredients and I had no apples, so this was it!
The blackberries give a sharp tang against the sweet caramel, which makes the perfect combination.

Ingredients:
For the cake-

• 180g unsalted butter
• 100g caster sugar
• 80g brown sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 180g self raising flour

Icing-

• 200g unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons caramel
• 100g icing sugar
• 150ml double/whipping cream

Blackberry coulis-

• 200g fresh blackberries
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar

Extras-

• chocolate shavings
• crushed amaretti biscuits.

Preheat your oven to 180c then grease and line two sandwich tins.

In a large bowl beat together the butter and sugars until creamy.

Slowly add in the beaten eggs.

Sift in the flour and gently fold in with a large metal spoon until incorporated.

Divide between the tins and place into the oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a knife poked into the centre comes out clean.

While they're baking make the icing and coulis 

Place a saucepan on a low heat and add half the blackberries and the sugar, mix until the sugar has dissolved.

Put into a bowl to cool.

Beat the butter until light and creamy then add in the caramel and icing sugar.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks and fold in the buttercream.

Once the cakes are baked, leave to cool completely on a cooling rack before decorating.

Spread the coulis on one half of the cake and pop on the leftover blackberries.

Sandwich the other cake on top and cover the whole cake with the buttercream, I just used a spatula to do this.

Sprinkle over the chocolate shavings and crushed amaretti biscuits to finish. I also warmed up some extra caramel to drizzle on top, as, you can never have enough caramel.

Rolo Oat Bars

Tubes of rolos were on offer in Tesco, so obviously this is what happened.

Also I feel like I havnt baked something in agessss, or blogged about it, so I of course I had too.
We could pretend this is a healthy bake as its almost like a flapjack with the oats, but with the addition of the rolos and chocolate chips I think we can safely say its not!

Ingredients:

• 200g flour
• 90g rolled oats
• 170g brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 170g butter, melted
• 80g rolos
• 80g milk chocolate chips
• 80g white chocolate chips
• handful of chopped hazelnuts (optional)

Preheat your oven to 200c and and line a 20 x 20cm square tin.

In a large bowl add everything before the butter and mix together well.

Pour in the melted butter and mix to combine everything.

Place half of the mixture in the base of your tin and press down so its flat with your fingers.

Bake in the oven for 12 minutes.

Once done, take back out of the oven and scatter over the rolos and chocolate chips.

Then crumble the leftover half of your oat mixture on top. Now sprinkle over the chopped hazelnuts if using.

Turn the oven down to 180c and place back into the oven for about 30 minutes.

You want the top to go a nice golden colour.

Once baked, leave to cool completely, before taking out of the tin and cutting into squares.

Cashew Nut and White Chocolate Cookies

Another rainy, miserable day in Kent, proceeds to another bake. This time, it was cookie time!
I knew I wanted to make thick, chewy cookies but what flavour...

My family don't really like anything too chocolatey or rich in cookies so, with them in mind, I searched around in my cupboards and came across salted cashews and a bar of white chocolate. Perfect.

Ingredients:
Makes 8-

• 55g unsalted butter
• 90g caster sugar
• 90g light brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 180g plain flour
• 60g salted cashew nuts, roughly chopped
• 8 squares of white chocolate

Preheat your oven to 180c and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Melt your butter in the microwave and add to a large bowl.

To the butter, add your sugars and egg, mix well.

Next add the baking powder and flour, mix to combine.

Fold in your cashews.

Take 8 teaspoons of the dough, roll into balls and place onto the baking sheet.

Push a square of white chocolate into each.

Take another teaspoon of dough, flatten and place over the top of the white chocolate.

Place into the oven for about 10-12 minutes.

They may not look done when you remove them but they will continue to cook outside of the oven.

Leave on a cooling rack to cool, or enjoy warm!