December 9th 2015 - Christmas cookies

Tonight at St John Ambulance we are going to be decorating some Christmas Cookies.  This pin of tea cakes into Christmas puddings is just 1 of the things we are doing.

To make a Tea cake Christmas pudding like this:

You will need the following:
chocolate teacakes
white icing (or melted white chocolate)
red icing balls (or red icing pens/red sweets)
green icing leaves (green icing pens)

They are very simple to make: 

Take a tea cake and unwrap it carefully.  Place the foil wrap pattern side up on the plate and place your tea cake back on it.  Place a spoonful of thick white icing on the top of the tea cake and let it drip down the sides.  Add 2 of the red icing berries and a couple of the green icing trees as holly leaves in the middle.

Another  thing we are going to be doing is decorating gingerbread men:

 You will need the following:

Gingerbread men (pre-made)

white icing

chocolate buttons

decorations for face - sweets/icing pens etc

Take a gingerbread man and some icing and place on top.  You can use the icing balls (assorted colours) as eyes, mouth and nose or choc drops (baking).  you can use the icing balls or chocolate buttons as buttons.

The third thing on our decorating list is gingerbread reindeers:

You will need the following:

gingrebread men (pre made)

icing pens

red icing balls

green icing leaves

chocolate button for nose

Take a gingerbread man and turn it upside down so that the head is facing downwards.  Using small amounts of icing draw antlers in the "leg area", turn the "arms" into ears and then add a face using icing balls or choc drops (baking) and a chocolate button for a nose.

The last thing on our decorating list is melted snowman biscuits:

 You will need the following:

 digestive biscuits

thick white icing

icing pens

white marshmallows

 

Take 1 digestive biscuit, place a blob of white icing on top of it, stick a white marshmallow at one side.  Add 3 buttons (icing balls (assorted colours) infront of the head.  You can either use the icing balls or icing pens to make the eyes and nose and mouth.  Scarf is optional as are the arms.

Hopefully it should be a good fun night for them all and they make some lovely snacks to take home.  The ideas may also give parents ideas as what to do over the holidays.

July 27th 2015 - Campfire cakes

July 27th 2015 - Campfire cakes

As my middle sons birthday is the day of badger day camp, I decided that I would try and make some campfire cakes similar to this pin but small fairy cake size.  I thought I had everything I needed to do a test run but found out I hadn't (luckily before I started) so me and lil man nipped to town.




We bought 2 packs of hard boiled sweets and sat and took out the red, orange and yellow ones:





 






We then used metal serving spoons to bash the sweets into small pieces/powder.  Here's my  son mid bashing!

Here are some of the bashed sweets both in their own bags and then the 3 colours mixed together.





We then sprinkled the mix onto a baking tray that had grease proof paper in it and stuck it in the oven for just over 5minutes so that the sweets all went back to being a soild mix, but a mix of 3 colours like flames.  This was the results both on and off the paper: 

















Next was to make the cakes - it was cheaper to buy a plain cake mix than a chocolate one, so I added a couple of spoons of drinking chocolate powder so it turns into a chocolate mix.

I then put them into the oven to bake and this was after I took them out to cool down.






 





The next thing was to decorate them, I knew what I wanted to do but wasn't 100% sure on how to do it.  This was what I was working with as well as the pieces of "flame" (coloured boiled sweets).







AND THIS is how they turned out.  I'm actually really pleased with them and they do look good, however, for the actual day camp I am going to use chocolate "matchmakers" as they will be easier to break and not as bulky to try and stand as sticks on a fire.

June 28th 2015 - Butterfly cakes

June 28th 2015 - Butterfly cakes

A couple of days ago lil man saw that we had cake icing in the cupboard and asked if we could make some cakes, sadly it wasn't long before he was going to bed so I said would have to be at the weekend.  Saturday when he asked my knee was hurting too much to stand and do them so I said we would make them Sunday after we had our roast dinner.

We made the mix up and added purple colouring to it as thats what lil man wanted.  We put them in the oven and I told him  IF we could get them to rise enough we would make butterfly cakes.  He didn't know what I meant so I had to explain.  Well some of the cakes formed a peak (like mountains as he said) but not all of them.  I said we would give it a try anyway.

So I set about cutting out the top and cutting it in half to make the wings.  Lil man then helped to fill the holes with buttercream and stuck the wings in.  We then added a glitter sparkle icing to them all.  They looked really good, and tasted good as well.

April 3rd 2015 - Making Army/camo cupcakes

April 3rd 2015 - Making Army/camo cupcakes

As part of his homework over the holidays my eldest son had to make some cupcakes and take photos of him doing it, well having 3 boys they "all have to do the same" or I end up with a big argument, so we all made cupcakes.

We made Army/camo cupcakes, we have made them before and they work really well.  Sadly I didnt have fresh ingredients but packet mixes.  My youngest son made the green mix, middle son made the chocolate mix and eldest made the white mix.

As you can see all 3 colours are made in seperate bowls.   From here you add a spoonful of each colour to the cake cases and then give them abit of a swirl with a cocktail stick - you dont have to mix them - if you don't you end up with 3 blocks of colour instead of them mixed more like camo effect.

 

They then go in the oven for 15-20mins or until cooked.  When they come out they look like this:

We have just got to ice them with 3 colour icing as well.  Will add a pic once they done.


 The inside of the cakes are sort of marbled and 3 tone - each cake is different, this is the 1 I had:

 The icing on them is green, white and brown but not as I had hoped - I wanted the colours mixed but didn't know how to do it so I did them each in own pipeing bag in a row.

February 19th 2015 - Spong cakes

February 19th 2015 - Sponge cakes

My little man loves cooking and baking, to the extent for the past 2 and bit years he has said he wants to be a chef and has already made a business plan - he's the chef, hubby is serving drinks, his brothers are waiters and cleaners and I can sit around in apretty dress and drink wine. lol!

Anyway, he asked if we could make some cakes, which I agreed, he then said like J (his brother) made at school with no packet mix.  Errrrrrr I can't make cakes without a packet mix, they don't rise etc.  But I agreed.  Hubby bought the ingredients on tuesday when he did the shopping and today is the 1st day we have had a chance to make them.

The receipe my eldest used at school was 100g SR flour, 100g caster sugar, 100g margerine and 2 eggs, and it made 12, I also found teh same receipe on pinterest.   We doubled it all up so we could make 24 cakes and ended up with 30, however I forgot teh last 6 were in the oven and they are slightly burnt on top.

But i'm impressed they did work and they did rise (slightly).  (see pics below).  We still have to ice them, of which 12 are having thomas tank rice paper on (can't remember how we ended up with spare rice papers from a pack).

January 19th 2015 - nutella pastries

January 19th 2015 - nutella pastries

Today I decided to try and make these nutella pastries. They look really nice and they don't look very hard to make.

First off I cheated as I used shop-bought pastry (me and cakes/pastry etc don't go very well together, despite my wanting them to).  I COVERED the worktop in flour, only for the pre-made pastry to be on a nice grease proof sheet!  never mind!

I then cut them into squares (of sorts more like 4 sided shapes than squares), maybe i should use a piece of cardboard as a guide next time - next time she says, don't even no if they have worked this time yet!!!  Onto each "shape" I placed a dollop of nuttela chocolate spread.

From here I folded them into "triangle type shapes", would have been easier if they had been proper squares, but its pastry and mouldable, so I mad them as triangles.  A few had a bit too much chocolate and it squeezed out abit but you can never have too much chocolate right???  They then went into the oven to cook.

Well they haven't quite worked as my pastry was puff pastry not shortcrust so they have expanded and gone all fluffy! LOL!.  So I will have to try again using shortcrust pastry, i'm hoping that once they cooled down will still taste nice.