Macaroon Madness Continued

I am going to admit, hands down, i have no idea how to correctly spell Macaroon/Macaron?! My spell check just tried to make it macaroni. No almonds in that pasta based dish.

Anyway if you want to confuse yourself and question the spelling even more then try making the damn things. After successfully creating these pesky little treats you can call them maccas for all i bloody care. Im just so happy it worked!

Here are the pics from our successful baking session- as you can see you don't have to follow the colors exactly as the recipes suggest- its a great opportunity to experiment- for the below we used violet grape, tangerine and mulberry food colouring paste, which is stronger and less runny than cheap liquid ones so much safer for mixing into delicate mixtures such as this!

You can also experiment with fillings as much as you like also, for example the chocolate rum ganache for the pink ones didn't set right in the fridge so we used a chocolate cream cheese filling instead! Or you could always use whipped cream or a plain buttercream/frosting and add flavours such as peppermint or lavender and dye your macaroons accordingly!
You can also see from the pics the importance of how thick the mixture is (the purple is thicker therefore made much smaller, puffier macaroons) and the spacing you should allow for them to cook!

We made ginger, blueberry cheescake and chocolate rum flavours-

Pesky Purple Piping Bags

Many, many of you will be sitting here laughing at this when i say that at 23 years old, with many many years of baking and cake eating experience under my belt, i have only just learnt how to use a piping bag.
You, laughing person over there, are either:
a) an incredibly experienced baker who has taken baking up as either a full time career or hobby therefore could pipe a cake with your eyes shut because you have the time, patience and practice!
or
b) have never, ever attempted it in your life and think the people on the telly on great british bake off make it look soooo bloody easy surely YOU can do it too! Its just squeezing icing out a bag in a circle right?
RIGHT?!

So my mothers day baking treats this year came in the form of vanilla cupcakes from the magnolia bakery book- another chance to practice this pretty much flawless recipe, adding dry ingredients in 3rds i think has such clear advantages when making cupcake batter, much better than, and it pains me to say this, nigellas 'blitz it all in the processor' approach which i find can end up very runny. This mixture was so thick i almost panicked, but it was easy to put in the cases and baked in about 15 minutes!
I used mini cases and therefore opted for a small nozzle to pipe the icing which when comparing with the mini cupcakes in Lolas bakery a few days later i realised it wasn't essential, a normal/medium sized one works just as well and leaves less lines on the icing, however i twisted and held the bag properly this time, took my time and the icing was a good consistency (cream cheese icing- it holds so well) I also used raspberry flavoring and my absolute first choice for food coloring a lovely violet/lilac one i use on everything!
Not bad for my second attempt. My first attempt we forgot to put the nozzle into the bag before adding the icing. So ya know, baby steps and all that.

Holly x

Welsh Cakes From Yorkshire (and gin)

Last weekend me and Rach had plans to bake some cupcakes and drink some cocktails at my house for a chilled friday night in (chocolate cupcakes with choc orange icing and gin, cucumber and elderflower cocktails, if you were wondering).

I used the Hummingbird book recipe for chocolate cupcakes and for the buttercream- i swear i had used this before- but they were very dry and just. blah. I always find this with chocolate cupcakes, is it from the extra dryness from the cocoa powder? Its def a weak point of mine! The "buttercream" icing was even worse! milk in icing?! are you crazy!! The only good bit was the orange flavoring which of course was from a supermarket and nothing to do with the hummingbird book. What a shame!
I should have stuck with good old nigella or the flawless magnolia bakery cupcake recipe. Shame on me! I will not even put you off your dinner with pictures because they looked very rude. Have you ever tried to use piping bags and chocolate icing for the first time after a few gin cocktails and a long day?

It was as very immature (hilarious).

It was also St.Davids day and rachel suggested we make welsh cakes, these were easy peasy and very tasty and very gin cocktail and gossip proof! We also cooked them in lard. This is very appealing after a  few drinks. I wanted to add bacon. I also insisted we use my teapot cookie cutter. This was an excellent decision.

We used James Martin's recipe from his book My Kitchen. Im not 100% i even like welsh cakes. Im not even 100% sure they were cooked all the way through. Im 100% it was way past bedtime at this point. But he is northern and strangely handsome. If he says make the welsh cakes. We make the welsh cakes.

225g plain flour

85g caster sugar

1/2tsp mixed spice

1/2tsp baking powder

50g butter cut into small pieces

50g lard small pieces and some for frying

50g currents

1 egg beaten

By hand mix the butter and dry ingredients til combined and crumbly. 

Add the currents. Mix in the egg and by hand mix until you have a dough. Add a bit of milk if needed.

Roll out on floured surface and cut with cutters. Making sure they're not too thin!

Heat a griddle and use some of the lard to grease. 

Cook the cakes a few minutes each side until golden brown.

Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with jam and butter or enjoy on their own! (or with bacon and maple syrup... or ketchup... mmm)

Holly x