Baking Update

Well after my baking session the other day there is nothing left not even stale crumbs.

I made my little pies which where Chicken, leek, Sweetcorn and Peas and tasted divine and such a nice change for our lunchboxes although Ellie refused to even try them (such a fussy child). I have just realised that I didn't take any pictures of any of this stuff

cut in half so that you can see what its like will remember to do that next time.

I also made a Raspberry Ripple cup cake which was meant to be a proper big cake but I didn't have the right tins or enough time to do so. This recipe was out of my BBC Good Food Magazine and they had taken it from Edd Kimber and his new recipe book The Boy Who Bakes. He won the Great British Bake Off 2010 with Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry. I liked baking this cake as it was not the normal way I would bake a cake, you had to whisk the butter and sugar together for 5 minutes nothing unusual there but then add the egg yolks and then add the flour and then add the whisked egg whites. The end result of the cake was moist and so light and fluffy just perfect for the frosting which was another thing I hadn't made before. It started with making a syrup of sugar and water and adding it slowly to beaten egg whites then adding a very large amount of butter to the egg whites once they had returned to room temperature and as it was white chocolate and raspberry ripple you mix the chocolate into one half of the mix and add raspberry jam (seedless) into the other half. Unfortunately my icing skills need some work and this didn't come out looking as good

as Edd Kimbers did.

I am not a hundred percent sure I liked the icing as it tasted abit like marge even though it was made out of butter and white chocolate but I think it was the white chocolate that gave it this taste.

Then I went on to bake these little beauties which are Cheese muffins they were lovely. Although half the cheese is grated and half the cheese is cut into cubes i cut my cheese into big

cubes that left huge great big holes in the muffins so late in the week I made some more this time adding ham to the mix as well (I always add double the amount of cheese that the recipe says as I like things to be very cheesy and find that even if I use a strong cheese

it doesn't taste cheesy enough for me). I also cut the cheese into smaller cubes and eliminated the huge holes in the muffins. The children took these to school in their lunchboxes twice last week and have demanded that I make more of them very very soon.

I also made these which are banana and peanut butter muffins. I was in such a rush to make these that I used banana's that weren't over ripe and the peanut butter was meant to be crunchy but I thought the children would notice that so used smooth peanut butter instead. They were a disaster and tasted of nothing although they were quite filling as they had oats in them but you really do need to use over ripe banana's. I don't think it makes much difference to the mix if you use crunch or smooth pb its just a textural thing. I think I will make banana cupcakes next time and put peanut butter icing on them and see what that is like as I really like the idea of banana and peanut butter although I wouldn't eat it in a sandwich. Will have to let you know how it works out the next time I make it which should be soon as I have some bananas turning brown as we speak.

These little nuggets of chocolateness are called Chocolate Kisses and are a childhood favourite of mine and thankfully my children adore them as well. Now I have to be honest here and say I didn't bake these Ellie (10) baked them whilst we were trying to work on her maths so she doubled the recipe and even piped them onto a baking sheet to go into the oven. They have a very short and crumbly texture and simply melt in your mouth. Ellie made 36 of them so we had 18 biscuits in total by Monday morning there were only 4 left which went into the children's Lunchboxes and in their word were very yummy.

That's all for now Thanks for coming by and having a look leave me a comment and I will get back to you.

Love Jo xx