Catch Up!

Hello! So, many apologies for our absence - Rosaline's been living the crazy life of a Bristol fresher (which you can read about here) and I've been living in the depths of hell that is A Levels. Lets just pretend I don't still have one tomorrow which I should really be revising for instead of blogging...

 Although I've been living in A Level induced misery for the past few months, I have managed to do quite a lot of baking as it turns out baking complicated and interesting things is excellent procrastination. I also made some form of brownie on an almost weekly basis to 'get me through my revision' which definitely improved my days at the library, although not necessarily my 'get fit for summer' plan...

So yes, here is a brief picture summary of the last 7 months in my kitchen:

Christmas Baking

Today is Christmas Adam, or Christmas Eve Eve if you're boring. Which for me is a very exciting day as you get all the excitement for christmas without the wrapping/cooking/last minute panic shopping (happens to the best of us) stress of Christmas Eve. And every year we have drinks/dinner/some kind of celebration with our various neighbours (one of whom came up with the genius name of Christmas Adam) and usually watch Love Actually and it's just all very christmassy and lovely :)

Anyway, obviously Christmas is a key time for baking and although I rather disappointingly didn't get round to making a gingerbread house I have done rather a lot of Christmas baking. 

I made gluten free christmas cupcakes for my school bazaar using this recipe and just piped melted white chocolate into shapes, left them to solidify on greaseproof paper and put them on top:

We do secret santa at my school and I got my friend Molly, who is one of those people that is extraordinarily tricky to buy for - especially with a £5 budget. I therefore decided my best option was to make gingerbread men and wrap them in a nice box, and they went down very well :)

I used this recipe and then used mixed icing sugar and water into a reasonably thick paste, divided it into bowls and using liquid food colouring dyed each amount a different colour. I piped it onto my biscuits using a small plastic bag with the corner snipped off, although you could also use a piping bag with a small nozzle.

I was asked to make pudding for my friends christmas dinner, and as no one actually likes christmas pudding I thought a yule log was a pretty good plan. However I've since been told that what I made is actually a roulade, not a yule log as it doesn't have icing or branches so, here's the recipe for my very easy christmas roulade:

Birthday Season

Apologies for the lack of posting recently, but it's been birthday season. If you aren't familiar with this phenomenon, let me fill you in. Between September and December, almost every single one of my friends (albeit this isn't a huge figure) gets a year older. Therefore this usually means a large amount of baking. This year however, late in August when my mum realised what was approaching we mutually decided that I would only bake for people I actually liked (in previous years I have got slightly carried away I'll admit) and that whatever I baked had to be preplanned and the amount of time it will take has to be seriously considered (I once spent 12 hours baking... my kitchen/my mums nerves have never fully recovered).

With these rules and regulations in mind, I set to baking. I made chocolate cake with surprise smarties in the middle, various forms of sponge cake and a rather large quantity of Slutty Brownies. However, in all my birthday excitement I didn't take any pictures of these creations... I know I'm a terrible blogger. 

So many many apologies. I will post soon but until then you can still read about the amazing time Rosaline is having at university here (she got 59% in her first essay as well - proud!)

- Ellie x

Armed with cake and wine, she left me...

Saying goodbye to Rosaline was the most ridiculously emotional event that has occurred in my life in a while. Ridiculous because she's only gone to Bristol and I'm going to see her in a few weeks time. Emotional because SHE'S ALL GROWN UP AND MOVING ON WITH HER LIFE AND SHE'S GOING TO MAKE NEW COOLER FRIENDS AND THEN WHO WILL I EAT FROYO AND TALK ABOUT DIFFERENT ICING STYLES WITH?!

Ahem. Sorry. 

Yes, so Rosaline left for Bristol a few weeks ago (apologies for the lateness of this blogging, UCAS ruins lives) and the day before she left happened to be her 19th birthday. Which was a convenient excuse to have a classy get together and weep. In honour of her birthday and her leaving, I made her possibly the best cake I have ever made in my life. Which is not an understatement. Due to our shared love for the infamous chocolate peanut butter combo I scoured the internet for a suitably amazing cake. One recipe kept coming up again and again, however I was reluctant to use it because it contained 'white vinegar'. I know, vinegar in cake... weird. Especially 'white vinegar' which, after much googling, I could only take to mean white wine vinegar... even weirder. But after reading rave review after rave review and about two hours of dithering over the vinegar situation - tears followed by my mum telling me to pull myself together did occur many a time - I decided to take the plunge and bake it.

And thank the lord I did. It was a spectacularly moist, chocolatey, peanut buttery mound of deliciousness and went down extremely well. So well that Rosaline, on taking it Bristol, has made loads of lovely friends and is having a brill time (yes I am taking full responsibility - without my cake she would be nowhere). So if you have a rather large amount of time on your hands (there's a lot of chilling/melting involved) and someone especially important to you to make a cake for, you've hit the jackpot with this one. 

It Finally Occurred

We baked together.

Even though we've shared a blog for almost 7 months, and known each other much much longer, this seemingly rather obvious event has never actually occurred.

So, before Rosaline leaves for Bristol (sob) we decided that enough was enough, and finally, after many empty promises and cancelled dates, we did it.

And it was so much fun!

This momentous event occurred in Rosaline's lovely kitchen (interrupted by the arrival of the new toaster which was very exciting) and after much indecision (obviously, it's us) we decided to go with trusty BBC Good Food and make...

 'The Ultimate Chocolate Cake'

Even for the BBC, that's quite a large claim. In fact, considering the variety of chocolate cake we have both consumed in our lives, it's an enormous claim. 

But OMG did it live up to it's name.

We decided we were officially ADDICTED. It was so gooey and moist (ew ew ew) and delicious that once we'd started we just couldn't stop. (True Fact: Chocolate is marginally addictive. So, err, that's our excuse for glutenous behaviour)

We made this for our Say Goodbye To Our-Only-Follower Polly Party which was, as you can imagine very emotional, (she went to Manchester yesterday; we're sad) and so this seemed an appropriate cake to make. As in, one you're unlikely to forget in a hurry.

And Ultimate Chocolate anything is an appropriate send off really.

Polly seemed appropriately blown away by the whole thing. The champagne candles are optional (but really quite a necessity, we would say)

Slutty Brownies (aka heaven in a baked form)

These are, without a doubt, the easiest yet most delicious brownies ever. Yes ever.

I know what you're thinking - 'Oh but what about my grandmas/aunts/neighbours super secret recipe'... no. Nothing compares to these.

They consist of cookie, oreos and brownie. All in one. All made in under an hour. See? Easy yet delicious. Have I persuaded you yet?

Maybe this will:

I discovered this glorious creation whilst browsing (aka stalking)  The Londoners Blog. She's amazingly classy, cool and, from what I can gather, eats for a living. And she's got an amazing figure. So basically I want to be her (in case you hadn't got that yet). Due to their less than healthy state I'd been debating when was an appropriate time to finally bake them, and the fact that I go back to school again in a few days is definitely a good enough excuse. Speaking of going back to school, ROSALINE GOT INTO BRISTOL!! This is amazingly exciting and I'm so proud of her. However this does mean she's leaving me (but not for like a month yay) and I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to cope. Probably by making and eating many of these brownies whilst quietly weeping into a mug of tea (I'm being slightly overdramatic I realise, it's only like an hour away and I'm planning on regularly visiting). 

So yes, these brownies are possibly the greatest thing you will ever eat (although I slightly overcooked mine) and I highly recommend making them whenever possible. And obviously you can make them from scratch, but the box versions are just as delicious and much easier!

Blueberry Mad

It's official, summer has turned me and my family blueberry mad. There are blueberries everywhere in my house, including the larder because we've now run out of room in the fridge. So as you can guess, due to their short life span, it's becoming quite a challenge to eat them all. Therefore I thought, being the noble and selfless person that I am, I'd try to use most of them up in various baking escapades. My first use of them were in the 'Healthy' Blueberry Muffins however that merely dented the enormous quantity of blueberries, therefore I moved on to bigger and better things in the form of... Blueberry Cheesecake.

Personally, I don't really like cheesecake anymore. This shocking turn of events probably occurred due to the fact that my GCSE Food Tech final product was a cheesecake, and therefore I spent about three months testing every single possible variation on the classic vanilla cheesecake, so I'm slightly cheesecaked out. However I was required to contribute something to a barbecue, and as most people love cheesecake and it's quite a summery dessert I thought it would be the perfect opportunity.

I was er just slightly indecisive in choosing exactly what cheesecake I was going to make and therefore ended up making it the morning of the barbecue, so had to go for a baked cheesecake as there wasn't enough time for a chilled one to set. 

'Healthy' Blueberry Muffins

I know what you're thinking, the words healthy and muffin aren't usually put together. And if they are the result is usually tough and bitter and just generally an unpleasant experience. However, due to the whole summer aka wearing shorts and bikinis ALL THE TIME situation that has suddenly occurred I decided to try and find a solution to the fact that cakes aren't exactly low in calories.

It took a lot of googling, recipe book reading and consultations with my mum before I finally found a recipe that sounded like it could actually taste nice. And it was blueberry muffins, which is always a bonus because who doesn't love a good blueberry muffin?! Especially in summer, with a glass of lemonade and a really good book (even if it is 50 Shades of Grey -yes I'm talking to all you creeps that read it in public - just why?!) 

So I set about to making BBC Good Foods Blueberry Muffins with 'virtually no saturated fat', making a few adjustments along the way.

Chocolate Cake and An Apology

ROSALINE CAME HOME. And then I went away. And then I came home. And she is away again. So I still haven't managed to see her which is very upsetting. However in her absence I baked a lot, mainly to try and do something other than wistfully wish I was also travelling. However I didn't blog about it - dreadful I know - so that's what the apology is for.

But I'm back to my blogging ways in full force, having been inspired by Rosaline's multitude of posts. And trust me, this chocolate cake is worth the wait.

My uncle is one of those lucky people in that whatever he cooks will be absolutley delicious. Especially his chocolate flapjacks. So having been given the daunting task of making his birthday cake, I knew I would have to step outside my comfort zone. He loves chocolate, as most people do (except for those crazy ones- I don't associate with those people) and so after many hours of recipe searching I discovered what I felt was a suitably exciting but not too fancy chocolate cake recipe and so I set to work.

The original recipe calls this 'Moist Chocolate Cake' which although is true, moist is not a very  pleasant word so I would probably replace 'Moist' with Intense, or Delicious, or possibly Extraordinary.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Rosaline and I have come to the joint decision that there is nothing better in the world than the chocolate peanut butter combination. Nothing. However the idea of an actual peanut butter cupcake has never really appealed to me so in order to achieve this glorious taste combination in cake form, I made chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing which, if I may say so myself, was extraordinary. 

I'd found these a while ago on Bakers Royale and was waiting for the perfect opportunity to make them, although really an excuse wasn't necessary. Due to the fact that Rosaline and Polly(our number one fan) love this combination so much and are currently doing their exams I thought these would be an excellent way of cheering them up. And so I set to baking them.

My mother said they were 'the best chocolate cake she's ever eaten' which is possibly the highest accolade I could achieve. I'd never made chocolate cake with sour cream before but obviously it went down well. 

Jubilee Cakes Part Two

Okay, so although most people celebrated the Jubilee yesterday, it's actually the official Jubilee on Tuesday with the parade and such. Therefore this post could still come in useful... if not you can just look at the cakes.

As Rosaline said, we love the Queen and the Jubilee and just everything about this ridiculously long weekend. And what better way to honour the Queens Diamond Jubilee than with cake. My street had a street party, and although I avoided the cupcake competition (it was full of five year olds which was slightly embarrassing) I did make a cake and lots of little cupcakes as our contribution to the food side of things.

I thought I was being very original with my cake design, but it turns out almost everyone had the same idea. However one can never have too much cake, and it was all eaten by the end of the evening which in my view indicates success.

Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

Wait! Don't stop reading just because you read the words 'gluten free.' (unless you're coeliac in which case read on!) I know it's tempting, but I promise these are nothing like the gluten free cakes you buy in shops. They're rich, moist (ew) and really quite delicious - almost more brownies than cupcakes.

I'll admit, the challenge of making a gluten free cake scared me at first. I did a ridiculous amount of googling/recipe book trawling before stumbling across what I thought was the perfect recipe. The pictures looked delicious and the reviews were great. However I then read the ingredients.... 'xanthan gum' 'tapioca flour'... these unfamiliar words did make me question what on earth I was letting myself in for but I decided to just go for it.

This attitude changed considerably after discovering that you could only buy said unfamiliar ingredients in health food shops and I'd left it a little late to be health food shop trawling. So after about an hour of near hysteria in Holland and Barrett I did some emergency googling and found a much easier, flourless chocolate cupcake recipe.

They were really easy to make, deliciously fudgy and very well received by gluten-free people and gluten eaters alike.

One Direction Topped Cupcakes (yes, really)

First of all, HUGE apologies for neither of us posting for over a month, I know our faithful follower (hi Polly) was very disappointed but I think our looming exams are a good enough excuse.

However, I realised that staring out of the window and rearranging my desk doesn't actually count as revision so I decided to do something productive and bake not once but twice (don't worry the second bake will be blogged about soon). Our friend Scarlett has been away living the high, exam free, life of a chalet girl for almost five months and she came home a few weeks ago which was extraordinarily exciting! So to mark the occasion, we threw her a surprise party in my basement which, if I may say so myself, was very well executed and (hopefully, she may be lying...) was a complete surprise. 

And what's a surprise party without cupcakes, especially One Direction ones. 

Before you ask, my mum - being the fangirl that she is - bought me the cake toppers for Christmas and I'd been saving them for the perfect occasion.

Possibly the best carrot cake ever

So about 2 years ago, I had to make a healthy cake for food tech (yes I did food tech gcse and yes it's a real gcse don't be rude) and I just googled carrot cake and found this recipe -I justify my eating extraordinary amounts of it by telling myself it's healthy, it's not THAT healthy but sshh - I changed it slightly to fix my brief and then made it in my lesson. Unfortunately I doubled the mixture and then put it all in one deep cake tin, meaning it didn't cook for like an hour and a half which isn't good when your lessons are fifty five mins...
But anyway when it eventually cooked and iced it turned out to be absolutley delicious and somehow became slightly famous and I ended up baking it all the time and even got paid once which was quite exciting.And then I got more and more work and had less money (walnuts are expensive when your mother refuses to pay for ingredients for your 'bloody baking') so I stopped making it as much but it was my friends birthday and she is a big fan so I thought I'd make her cupcake versions, I used the same recipe but just cooked it for a shorter amount of time and if I may say so they turned out rather well :)

Not very adventurous but still delicious chocolate chip biscuits

Typically I suppose these would be called cookies, but I try very hard to say biscuits most of the time because I'm English and that's what they're called. The Social Services Team at my school sent out a pleading email for biscuits for their fundraising event and, as I reaaaaally want to be on the team next year and I love baking, I thought I'd make some for them. 

I had all sorts of plans but homework and life got in the way so I decided on these simple but delicious biscuits that I seem to make far more often than necessary. I also made them on Pancake Day, and then gave chocolate up for lent so it meant I couldn't actually eat any other than the one slightly misshapen one that I decided to eat as soon as it came out of the oven and promptly burnt my tongue, not a good plan. 

They're really easy and quick to make, and you can just chuck any sort of chocolate in there. I used Cadburys Large Buttons for these.

Chocolate Diet Coke Cake

I have a friend who's obsessed (aka addicted) to Diet Coke. I can't remember the last time I saw her without a bottle and so I thought it would be perfect to make her a Diet Coke themed (it's not actually Diet Coke flavoured, I looked into that and it all seemed a bit bleurghh) birthday cake. Although locating a cake tin that wasn't round in my overflowing baking cupboard was slightly harder than expected, I thought the cake turned out rather well :)

Union Jack Vanilla Sponge

It was my friend Zoe's birthday, and she has a crazy obsession with union jacks so I thought I'd make her a heart shaped union jack cake: