Happy Birthday!

200g caster sugar

200g room temperature unsalted butter

4 eggs

200g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp milk

 

150g raspberry jam

 

300g sieved icing sugar

150g room temperature unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp milk

 

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy and pale. Whisk in the eggs then fold in remaining ingredients. Pour into lined sandwich tins and bake for twenty minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool.

Spread the jam onto the top of one of the cakes then sandwich together.

For the butter icing, whisk the soft butter on a high speed for at least five minutes until fluffy. Add in the remaining ingredients and whisk for a further five minutes until almost white. Spread thoroughly over the sandwiched cakes then decorate with the birthday girls/boys favourite sweets and biscuits!

Jammie Dodgers!

250g butter

140g icing sugar

375g flour

Splash of milk

1tsp vanilla extract

Jam of your choice to decorate

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the rest of the ingredients until it comes together as a dough. Chill for about 15 minutes. Roll out and cut into circles. Cut a heart out of the middle of half the biscuits. Bake at 180C/gas 4 for  10 minutes or until just golden.

Leave to cool and sandwich the biscuits together in twos with jam. 

Honey Cinnamon Biscuits

Just made these quick, gooey biscuits. Preheat the oven to 200C/gas 6. Beat 100g caster sugar and 100g butter together. Add 180g self raising flour, 1 and 1/2 tbsp cinnamon and 2 tbsp honey. Combine into a dough then divide into little balls and place on a floured baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes or until slightly browned.

Chocolate Biscuit Cake

125g dark chocolate

3 tbsp milk

150g butter

150g caster sugar

3 eggs

200g plain flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarb

 

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Cream the butter and sugar together until really light and fluffy.

Whisk in the eggs. Melt the chocolate together with the milk until smooth, then combine into the butter mixture. Sieve in the remaining ingredients. Pour into a greased tin.

 

I used to different sized tins to create a tier effect.

 

Leave to cool. I cheated and used Betty Crocker's chocolate fudge icing to decorate, and added chocolate buttons, bourbons and custard creams.

Cafe Turquoise, Canterbury, Kent

Cafe and patisserie down one of the lanes in Canterbury. I had a very rich but delicious chocolate truffle torte. They do lots of speciality teas, macaroons, truffles as well as pastries.

Worth a visit.

Gingerbread Biscuits

 

I baked gingerbread men and stars to give as Christmas gifts.

350g plain flour

1tsp bicarbonate of soda

2tsp ground ginger

1tsp cinnamon

125g butter

175g dark brown sugar

1 egg

4tbsp golden syrup

 

Sieve all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Then add the remaining ingredients and mix until combined and forms a dough. Chill for 30 minutes and preheat oven to 180C/gas 4.

Roll the dough fairly thick and cut out shapes.

Place on a lined baking tray and bake for approximately 15 minutes or until dark brown.

 

I left mine to cool then decorated them with a simple icing sugar and water icing.

 

Chocolate and Pistachio Biscotti

I used Stacie Stewart's recipe for biscotti to make for my friends as part of their Christmas presents.

The picture below is after its first baking.

 

 

Then the dough gets cut into strips and baked again at a lower temperature.

Great recipe, my strips were quite thick so were more like a brownie texture.

 

Bourbons!

250g brown flour

125g unsalted butter

125g light muscovado sugar

2tbsp golden syrup

50g cocoa powder

1tsp bicarb of soda

3tbsp milk

  

1 egg white

60g light muscovado sugar

125g butter

25g cocoa powder

 

Blend all the biscuit ingredients in a processor. Roll out and mark bourbon shapes. Chill for 30 minutes. Bake at 180C/gas 4 for 25 minutes. Leave to cool.

For the frosting/Swiss meringue, whisk the egg white and sugar over heat until the sugars melted. Then whisk off the heat until thickened and add remaining ingredients. Fill the biscuits.