Hidden Star Cake

I did some more baking on the weekend – this time I baked a sponge with a hidden star in it.  I have seen cakes with hidden designs on the Great British Bake Off and Pinterest (including some amazingly detailed ones I have pinned here) and thought they looked so good but must be hard to do.  Making this cake with a star was actually quite simple – I’m so pleased with how it turned out!

First I baked a strawberry flavoured sponge, coloured with red food colouring.  When this was cool I used a star cookie cutter to cut the sponge, and arranged the stars in a ring inside a round sponge tin so that every slice of cake would look like the photo above.  I then filled the tin, covering the stars, with a vanilla sponge.  I’ve never double baked a sponge like this before and thought it might make the cake a bit dry, so was pleasantly surprised with the end result which tasted as good as it looked!

Here’s how the uncut cake looked, decorated with buttercream, fondant stars and sprinkles…

Have you ever baked a hidden surprise cake before - what design did you bake?

Cheesy Muffin recipe

I've got a bit behind with my blog again and have a list of things to write about!  Today I thought I would show you these muffins I baked a couple of weeks ago.  It was the first time I tried this recipe and they were delicious (cheese being one of my favourite foods, it wasn't a surprise that I liked them!).

I adapted a recipe from a book – this is what I made…

To make the muffins you will need:

6 tbsp sunflower oil

10oz / 280g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt and pepper

2 eggs

5 fl oz / 150 ml natural yogurt

5 1/2 oz / 150ml grated cheese (I used cheddar and red leicester but you could use anything you like)

fresh chives, chopped

Heat the oven to 200C / 400F / Gas Mark 6

Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and pepper into a large bowl.

In a second bowl, beat the eggs, then beat in the yogurt, oil, chives and cheese until smooth.  Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the liquid ingredients.  Stir until just combined, don’t over mix (it was quite a sticky, lumpy dough).  Spoon into a 12 hole muffin tin (I used silicon cases).

Bake for 20 minutes or until well risen, golden brown and firm.

A tiny meal…

Last year I bought a cake necklace from GiraffesKiss on Etsy for my sister and she loved it so much I thought I would get her another piece of food jewellery for Christmas.  I remember that she had seen a necklace with baked beans and potato smiley faces made from polymer clay on a plate – but could I find where we had seen it? No!  I looked on Etsy and Folksy and saw lots of cute things but not what I wanted.  Having left it rather late I didn’t think I had time to ask someone for a custom order, so thought since I had some Fimo would have a go myself and it turned out pretty well :)

The necklace is really small – the plate is just over an inch across so it was quite tricky, especially making the tiny beans!  The plate is made from Fimo with some wire bent into a loop for adding the chain later.  I can’t quite remember now but I think I added texture to the smiley faces and fish fingers with a needle.  Everything was stuck to the plate with Fimo Liquid then the sauce for the beans was made using Fimo Liquid coloured with some Fimo.  Finally, after it was cooked and cooled, the whole thing had a coat of varnish before I attached the chain (which was also tricky as the links were so small I kept dropping them!).

Parsnip, Carrot and Broccoli Quiche

I thought I would do something different today and share a recipe for a quiche we made last week.  It's a parsnip, carrot and broccoli quiche - we were using up some left over vegetables but you could try other vegetables or meat in the quiche too.

Make 8oz short pastry...
200g/ 8oz plain flour
pinch salt
50g / 2oz lard
50g/ 2oz margarine
about 30ml / 2 tbsp cold water

Mix the flour and salt then rub in the fat.  Using a knife to cut and stir, mix in the water to form a stiff paste.  Turn onto a floured board and roll out.  Line a 9 inch dish with the pastry.

For the filling...
Carrot, parsnip, broccoli
2 eggs
125ml/ 1/4pt milk
salt and pepper
cheese

Thinly slice the parsnip and carrot and cut up the broccoli into small pieces.  Boil the vegetables for a couple of minutes to partly cook them.

Place the vegetables in the pastry case.  Beat the eggs and milk, season and pour over the vegetables.  Cover with grated cheese.

Bake in a oven 190C/ 375F/ Gas mark 5 until set and golden brown - about 40 minutes.

Baking!

We love watching The Great British Bake Off in my house (on BBC2, Tuesdays at 8pm).  After weeks of cakes, biscuits, pastries and pies tonight is the final - I wonder who will win??

The programme has also inspired us to do more baking.  I made these Maids of Honour a few weeks ago...

I've also been practising dropped scones (like American pancakes I think) which I'd never tried making until recently...

And here's my latest bake - a Victoria sponge for my Grandma's birthday :)

Home Grown...

This year I've been growing lots of different things in my garden. Here's some of my fresh produce, just picked today!

As well as the peas, runner beans and cherry tomatoes we are also growing cucumbers, courgettes, beetroot, carrots, parsnip, shallots, leeks, cabbages, lettuce, radishes, peppers and a few potatoes (I think that's everything!). Fruit and vegetables always taste better home grown - although not everything is entirely successful... I think I was a bit late growing the strawberries - I've seen bigger raisins!!