Love (Happy Valentine's Day)

Now, I'm not going to be here on Valentines Day, I'm jetting off early tomorrow morning to Obergurgl in Austria for a touch of skiing! So, as I've been packing (or watching my mum pack, sorry mum), I've been a little pathetic on the baking front.

However, fear not. I have some lovely Valentine's themed chocolate cupcakes, using my well-tested Hummingbird Bakery Chocolate Cupcake Recipe.

BUT THEY'RE LOVE THEMED! I would share them with my millions of suitors just waiting to ask for my hand in marriage, but sadly they don't exist. So I'll watch a Leonardo DiCaprio movie instead.

I don't feel totally unloved, though. I sold these cupcakes for World Challenge fundraising, and one girl who bought one chased me a day later and kindly told me that my cupcakes tasted like 'war had never happened'. I can only take that as a compliment, no?

I hope everyone has an absolutely incredible Valentines Day, whether you're spending it with someone special, or whether you're spending it under the duvet with your dog and a tub of Jaffa cakes.

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Ella recorded her first original song! As her biggest fan, I feel obliged to tell absolutely everyone about it. So here it is. Please tell us what you think, let me know in the comments. It would be great to hear from you

And she's my Valentine. BIG UP PLATONIC LOVE Y'ALL.

http://soundcloud.com/ellawalkermusic/love-recorded-version

Apple and Oatmeal Cookies

When my Food Tech teacher said I had to make a healthy snack product, a thousand monkeys inside my soul groaned simultaneously. I thought that healthy food meant boring food. (And 90% of the time, it really is)

But then I remembered about this recipe that someone on my Instagram account told me about. They had seen a cookie recipe in the 'The Hummingbird Bakery: Cake Days' book that they thought I would really enjoy. Thank you by the way, total life saver!

I know cookies aren't really healthy. But another girl in my class, Georgie, made my rocky road recipe as a healthy snack, so it's all in comparison!

Ingredients

135g butter, softened

80g caster sugar

80g soft light brown sugar

1 large egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

190g plain flour

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 Granny Smith Apples

60g rolled oats

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C / gas mark 3 and line two sheets with parchment. Cream together the butter and both sugars. Add the egg and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Sift together the flour, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda, then add these dry ingredients to the creamed mixture in two batches and mix thoroughly until a dough forms.

2. Peel and finely grate the apples and squeeze all of the liquid out of them, discarding the liquid. Add the oats and 60g of the grated apple to the cookie dough and stir in by hand.

3. Break off pieces of the dough, about 2 tablespoons in size, roll into balls and place on the baking sheet. Make sure they are spaced apart by about 3 inches because the cookies will spread quite a bit while baking. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until cookies are a light golden brown. Leave on the sheets for about 10 minutes to cool, then remove to a wire rack.

I like my cookies chewy. If there's one thing you should know about me, let it be that. I get my cookies out of the oven just as they turn golden. Scrummalicious.

Make these cookies, I won't ask you again, just make these cookies.

Review: Upsy Daisy Bakery

If you hadn't noticed by now, I like everything British. The monarchy, teapots, rainy weather, old fashioned sweet shops etc. Tea shops are no exception.

So, in 2012, I'm making it my aim to visit lot's of different quaint cafes/cupcake shops/tea rooms. Starting with the Upsy Daisy Bakery in Hammersmith, West London.

According to the website, they sell various flavours of cupcakes, but my friend Bebe and I went for the classic chocolate and vanilla, and we shared them. They were gooooooood.

We didn't go for afternoon tea, just simply stopped by for tea and cupcakes. If you're interested, I chose Earl Grey. If you aren't interested, I told you anyway.

It was so lovely seeing old fashioned sweet jars filled with sweets. They also sold mugs, teapots and homemade jams! It was like being in a quiet corner of the English countryside, only we were on a busy road in London!

BUNTING. I mean, who doesn't love bunting.

And there we are, standing outside the bakery. The whole menu looks scrummy, so I will definitely be there for brunch at one point. Scrambled eggs and salmon on toast, I'm coming for you.

I pass this bakery twice a day, every single day on my way to and from school, so I'm surprised that I'd never popped in. However, I will definitely return again and again, stop buying from Starbucks and support the local, because it would be such a shame to see it disappear.

FUNDRAISING: Rocky Road

If you don't think Rocky Roads are the most incredibly thing in the universe, you don't deserve to live on it. Got it?

I mean, what more could one ask for in a snack? There's chocolate, biscuits and marshmellows (and the cheeky addition of Maltesers)! Also, they're really popular and people will pay anything for them, making them a good fundraising choice!

Ingredients

125g soft unsalted butter

300g milk chocolate

3tbsp golden syrup

200g rich tea biscuits

100g mini marshmellows

2 tsp icing sugar, to dust

Method

1. Heat the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a heavy-based saucepan over a gentle heat. Remove from the heat, scoop out about 125ml of the melted mixture and set aside in a bowl.

2. Place the biscuits into a plastic freezer bag and crush them with a rolling pin until some have turned to crumbs but there are still pieces of biscuit remaining.

3. Fold the biscuit pieces and crumbs into the melted chocolate mixture in the saucepan, then add the marshmellows.

4. Tip the mixture into a square baking tin and smooth the top with a wet spatula.

5. Pour over the reserved amount of the melted chocolate mixture and smooth again.

6. Refrigerate for about two hours or overnight.

7. To serve, cut into fingers and dust with icing sugar.

They. Were. Incredible.

That's all I'm going to say. Incredible. This one is getting made again.

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I use the excuse of 'I bake' to taste every single cupcake in my sight. Seriously, if you have cupcakes, I will charge towards you at a high speed.

Cupcake shops are no exception. I want to try every single cupcake from every single shop (can you imagine how fat I would get?). So today my dad brought home cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery.

The flavours he chose were Violet, Carrot, Early Grey, Orange Blossom and Chocolate with White Chocolate frosting. YUM.

You might have remembered when I made Earl Grey cupcakes? Well, they were a Primrose Bakery recipe, believe it or not. So I did a comparison... 

They didn't quite look the same, however...

My cupcakes were delish though, and they will be baked again. And more tea cupcakes to come!

FUNDRAISING: Update!

 If you know me, you'll know that I'm fundraising for my World Challenge trip to Madagascar like crazy. In fact, if you know me, you'll know that I never stop talking/panicking/pulling my hair out about it. It's all I think about, it consumes me. argh.

So I bake. I do what I love, and I bake for the defenceless younger girls in my year who are too rich for their own good. They want their sugar kick, and I supply them. A bit like a drug dealer, but slightly less illegal, and also cheaper.

We invested in cupcake carriers and so every week I take 36 cupcakes into school to thrust in the faces of hungry children. And momentarily, I am the most popular girl in school. Until they run out and I go back to being the socially awkward pineapple I am 99% of the time.

Up to now, I've made chocolate cupcakes, and the recipe can be found here! But I've tried to mix it up a bit, and do different cake decoration every week. They're so pweeeetty.


 Week 1: One Direction cupcakes. They sold super quickly. If you're interested, Harry sold quickest. Zayn was left until last.

Week 2: Spring Pastel cupcakes. It's just frosting lightly dyed with food colouring (we did yellow, green and pink) and topped with wafer daisies, which can be bought really cheaply.

Week 3: I didn't take a picture! Waaaah, they were so beautiful! They were topped with homemade white chocolate Jazzles. 

I did this simply by melting white chocolate, spreading it over greaseproof paper and sprinkled hundreds and thousands on generously. After they had set in the fridge, I cut out circles. 

These sold the fastest, maybe because they were so colourful. And it was more chocolate...

Week 4: Chocolate Jazzles! They were the same as the hundreds and thousands Jazzles, only with chocolate balls.

 So there you go. £900 down, £2745 to go. Uh oh.


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In Westfield yesterday, you could write down you resolution for 2012. This was mine:

And this was the egg that I drew today. It's smiling, right? IT COUNTS.

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Another thing you should do. Buy a Pindippy t-shirt!! I'm beyond obsessed with mine, thank you so much Bebe and Jessie!

The one I'm wearing is 'Discombobulate', which I have been wearing all day while baking. (And if you Zumba, it's going to be amazing for that too. Bring on Zumba time!)

You're actually going to have to rip it off me. It's not coming off.

Rosemary Shortbread

If you are British and you don't like tea and shortbread, I don't think you deserve to live on this island. I'm sorry, but shortbread is one of the reasons for my existence. So bring on the rosemary shortbread, scrummy.

Ingredients

55g caster sugar

1 tsp rosemary leaves

115g softened butter

1 lemon, zest finely grated

170g plain flour

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 150C/gas mark 32 and prepare a non-stick baking sheet.

2. Place the sugar and rosemary leaves in a food processor. Whizz until the rosemary is very finely chopped then add the butter and lemon zest and process until pale and creamy. Transfer to a large bowl and beat in the flour until it forms a stiff dough.

3. Place this on a sheet of greaseproof paper and lay another sheet on top. Then gently press down with a rolling pin and roll out to 3-5mm thickness. Lift off the top sheet and stamp out the biscuits with your chosen cutter. Using a palette knife, lift them off the bottom sheet of paper and carefully transfer to the non-stick baking sheet.

4. Prick the biscuits with a fork and bake in the centre of the oven for 12 minutes or until tinged a very pale brown. Remove to a cooling rack and leave to firm. Dust with caster sugar, if desired.

I took this picture just as the biscuits came out of the oven. Because there is nothing better than a freshly baked shortbread biscuit, is there? And if there is, I would like to know about it. It also explains why they don't look nice, they weren't presented nicely and weren't dusted with sugar. But neither am I. So what you see is what you get.

These were super simply to make, took less than 30 minutes to cook and prepare. I tried them with a cup of tea, oh my god, I can't think of a better combination.

I've got some really exciting bakes/fundraising things coming up so keep an eye out!

Coffee and Walnut Battenberg Cake

I finally did it. I made a Mary Berry recipe. And a Mary Berry Battenberg cake at that. She would be so proud to know that I was this obsessed with her... Or creeped out.

I've been dying to make a Battenberg ever since I got a Battenberg cake tin for Christmas, which is a useful tray if you're a keen Battenberger, (yes, i just made that up).

Ingredients

100g unsalted butter, softened

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

100g self-raising flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

50g ground almonds

few drops vanilla extract

3 teaspoons milk

1 1/2 teaspoons coffee granules

25g walnuts, chopped

For the coffee butter icing:

100g icing sugar

40g unsalted butter, softened

1/2 teaspoon coffee granules

1 1/2 teaspoons milk

To finish:

225g white marzipan

icing sugar, for dusting

walnuts, to decorate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3. Put the soft butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and ground almonds into a large mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon for 2 to 3 minutes or until smooth, slightly lighter in colour and glossy looking.

2. Spoon sightly more than half the mixture into a separate bowl and add the vanilla and 1 1/2 teaspoons of the milk. Mix well, then set aside. Stir the coffee with the remaining milk until it has dissolved, then add this to the first bowl of mixture together with the chopped walnuts. Spoon the vanilla mixture into a half of the tin and the coffee-walnut mixture into the other half.

3. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the sponges are well risen and springy to the touch and have shrunk slightly from the sides of the tin. Take out of the oven and cool in the tin for a few minutes, then run a round-bladed knife around the inside of the tin, then turn them out onto a wire rack. Leave to cool completely.

4. Trim the crisp edges off the cooled sponges using a serrated knife. To make the butter icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl with the butter. Stir the coffee and milk together until the coffee has dissolved, then pour into the bowl. Beat everything together with a wooden spoon until soft and smooth.

5. Lay a vanilla sponge strip and a coffee-walnut strip side by side and use a little of the icing to stick them together. Spread a bit more icing on the top. Stick the remaining two strips on with icing, placing them so they will create a chequerboard effect. Spread a bit more icing over the top of the assembled chequerboard.

6. Roll out the marzipan on a clean worktop to make an oblong that is the length of the cake and sufficiently wide (pieces of string may help you). Lay the iced side of the cake on the marzipan oblong. Spread the rest over the remaining three sides of the cake.

7. Roll the cake over in the marzipan, pressing to cover it neatly. Turn the cake over so the join is underneath. Trim a slice from each end of the cake to neaten and show off the chequerboard effect. Smooth the marzipan over with your hands so their warmth will give it a smooth finish.

8. Decorate as desired. I crimped the edges by pinching the marzipan, then score the top of the cake with long diagonal lines, sifted some icing sugar over the cake and secured walnut halves with butter icing.

My sister liked it, so I think that has to count for something right? My mum just sat there licking the butter icing bowl while I slaved away in the kitchen cleaning up all my mess, that's role reversal for you.

This cake was absolutely delish, definitely one for afternoon tea (now I just need to find friends who are willing to be dragged to my various tea parties that I want to hold).