Well, school holidays and I have 100 reports to write, so what am I doing, baking of course. I bought a new piping kit in Worcester and its great!  Though I did end up with frosting up to my elbows, not sure that is supposed to happen.

Aart from the poor lighting in the picture, I thought they weren’t bad for a first attempt.  They taste pretty good as well.

Its my first married Valentines day, I don’t usually go in for this type of thing but couldn’t resist a bit of baking.  My husband loves cakes usually, so I thought I’d try something a little different, Strawberry Jam cupcakes!!!

Veryberry Cupcakes

2 Large Eggs

Self Raising Flour

Soften Butter

Caster Sugar

Good Strawberry Jam

Milk

Weight the eggs in shells and then measure out the same of all other ingredients, apart from jam.  Cream butter and sugar, getting as much air in to the mixture as possible.  Add the eggs one by one mixing after each.  Next add the flour and a little milk, then the remaining flour and milk to make it a good consistency.  This should be mixed at a good speed.  (It should fall off a spoon if tilted, not slide or stick.)

Place cases in a cupcake tray and spoon mixture into each, followed by a blob of jam and a little mixture on top.  Take care not to put to much jam in and not to near the bottom of the case, as it sinks a bit when cooked.

Cook on Gas mark 4 for 20/25 minutes, don’t open the oven before.

I wasn’t sure about frosting, so iced them with pale pink vanilla buttercream.  I ended up with lots of buttercream left over, so does anyone know if you can freeze it?

Pink Vanilla Butter Icing

Pink food colouring

Good quality Vanilla

Icing Sugar

Creamed Butter

Cream butter, vanilla and food colouring, next sift sugar bit by bit.  Mixture on a good speed and ice the cake with a knife sticking to one direction.

The finished items,

Its shame I finished making them when the sun was fading, the lighting in this picture just doesn’t do them justice.  I only hope they taste as good!

Halloween was my favourite!  I sent my husband off to the shops to buy a pumpkin.  I was going to make the soup and he could have fun carving it.  I wasn’t sure about a recipe, so had a little go at making my own and it worked wonderfully.

Verymissberry Pumpkin Soup

1 small Pumkin

I large Sweet Potato

1/2 an Onion

500ml Veggie Stock (Low salt)

200ml Milk

1cm grated Ginger

2 small cloves garlic

A bunch of Corriander

Pinch  of Salt & Pepper

Chop all the veggies and garlic and roast them with a touch of oil in the oven for 30mins on Gas Mark 6. When they look soft, pop them in a pan on the hob and add the 500ml of stock along with ginger, coriander and salt & pepper and leave to simmer for a further 15mins before adding the milk and then turn the heat and continue to simmer for 10 mins.  Taste and season as needed!

Its really nice to save and roast the pumpkin seeds to sprinkle on top. (Keep them out of the hubbys sight, mine ate them all before hand.)

Yum yum yum!

I have the best recipe for rich dark chocolate cakes, I have teamed this off with bitter dark chocolate buttercream and they are yummy!!!

The Best Yummy Chocolate Cake

This is one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve tasted, moist, spongy and tasty, it possible to make with dark or milk chocolate.

You need:

1 tsp Vegetable Oil
3 tbsp Cocoa Powder (Dark if you have it.)
100ml Boiling Water
50g Dark Chocolate
½ tsp bicarbonate of Soda
100g of unsalted butter
175g Soft Muscovado Sugar
125g Milk (or condensed Milk)
1 Large Egg
150g Self Raising Flower
1tsp Baking Powder

Instructions:

• Rub the oil inside you preferred cake tin, and line with baking parchment, (Large cup cake are an option.) and preheat the oven to 180c/350F/gas 4.

• Stir 3 tablespoons of cold water into cocoa until you have a smooth paste, whisk in the boiling water. Straight away stir in the chocolate and the bicarb, and leave to melt and fizz. Add a touch of red food colouring if you’d like a nice red velvet colour.

• In another bowl, beat butter, sugar, milk and the egg until very smooth.

• Sift together flour & baking powder, beat half of this into the egg mixture, fold in the chocolate mixture, beat in the remaining flour until smooth.

• Scrap into the baking tin and cook for 40 – 45 minutes. Put a knife or skewer in to see if its cooked, take out and leave in the tin to cool. Turn out once cold.

Topping:

25g (1 oz) cocoa
About 4 tbsp boiling water
100g (4 oz) margarine
About 300g (12 oz) icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence – optional

Instructions:

• Blend cocoa with a little boiling water in a mixing bowl, then blend in the margarine.
• Sieve the icing sugar and beat it into the margarine a little at a time.

or I use warmed dark chocolate.

I am thinking of taking these lovely little cakes into work with me.  My GCSE Art pupils have finished there exam and I want to say some kind of thanks for there hard work, a little tradition I started a few years back.