I've Moved

Hey, so I am not going to be blogging on this website anymore because I have moved to a different site. I will still be blogging and baking just the same.

My new website is: www.bethanybakes.co.uk

This new site will extend my blogging even further, with social media links and an all round better format for me to work with.

Happy Baking xx Beth. 

Honey Cake Bites with Lemon Buttercream and Sculpted Lemons

Hey, so I made these bite sized cakes as a treat for my Dad, and I only just managed to get a picture of them before we ate them. When you drizzle honey over the cake be careful not to drizzle too much because you can make the cake quite soggy, which is the problem I faced.

Ingredients for honey cake:

150g plain flour
150g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp milk
4 tbsp honey + 1 tsp more for drizzling later
2 eggs

Butter cream icing:

150g icing sugar
75g unsalted butter
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp milk

Lemons:

100g cake icing
1 tsp yellow food colouring
10g icing sugar to dust over the surface

 Method:

1. To make the cake, pre-heat the oven to 180C. Line a square 20cm tine with greaseproof paper and set aside.


2. Then cream together the butter and sugar into a large bowl until light and fluffy. Then add in the eggs, vanilla, honey, and milk, and mix until smooth. Fold in the flour and stir until mixture is smooth and silky in consistency, if not add a little more milk.

3. Pour the cake mix into the lined tin, and bake for 20-25 minutes until the cake is golden brown, and when a skewer is put into the middle of the cake, the skewer comes out clean.

4. Now the cake is out of the oven, place on a cooling rack. Skewer several holes into the top of the cake and drizzle 1 tsp of honey into the cake to the honey soaks in while the cake is cooling.

5. While the cake is cooling make the butter cream icing. In a large bowl mix the butter, icing sugar, and milk together until smooth. Add the lemon juice flavouring, you can make it more or less lemony than what I did, if you would prefer to. Put the icing into a smaller bowl in the fridge to chill for the assembly.

6. Take the cooled cake and trim the edges, so the cake is a square. Cut the cake into cubes of about 20.

7. Take two cake squares, and the butter cream. Put a teaspoon of butter cream on the top of one of the squares, then sandwich the other on top to make a tower. Then on the top of the top square take another spoonful of butter cream and smooth it over the top. Do this for all the rest of the cakes until you have around 10 stacked cakes with butter cream on top and in the middle.

8. To make the lemons, sprinkle some icing sugar onto your work surface, take the cake icing and the yellow food colouring, and mix together, kneading the colour in with your fingers until the icing is a lemon yellow colour.

9. Take chunks of the icing, about half the size of a malteser and shape into a ball. Pinch the icing on opposing sides of the circle to make the top and tail of the lemons. Place the 1 or 2 lemons on each cake. Put the cake in the fridge until ready to serve. 

Happy Baking xx Beth

Homemade Blueberry and Strawberry Frozen Yogurt

Hey, happy summer! My mum, my sister, and I, decided to have a crack at making some of our own frozen yogurt. We tried blueberry and strawberry yogurts, but if you want to try something else that's fine if you freeze the fruit beforehand.

Ingredients for Strawberry frozen yogurt:

300g Strawberries (frozen)
375ml Natural yogurt (I got fat free)
2 tbsp caster sugar
3 tbsp honey

Method for Strawberry frozen yogurt:

1. In a food processor; add the strawberries, yogurt, caster sugar, and honey. Blend until smooth and creamy (yogurt type consistency).

2. Put the yogurt into an airtight container, and freeze until the mixture is solid, which could take around 5-6 hours.

Ingredients for Blueberry frozen yogurt:

150g blueberries (frozen)
375ml Natural yogurt (fat free)
3 tbsp honey

Method for Blueberry frozen yogurt:

1. In a food processor blend; the blueberries, yogurt, and honey together until smooth and creamy. (yogurt type consistency).

2. Put the yogurt into an airtight container, and freeze just like the strawberry yogurt, the blueberry frozen yogurt could be a little stiffer when scooping out when it has frozen compared to the strawberry yogurt.                                                                                                                                                 

Happy baking, Beth xx

2015 What I Grow In The Garden

Hey, summer last year I did a post on what we were currently growing in the garden. A lot has changed since then, the arrival of 5 chickens as a main change! Hopefully we get a good harvest of fruit and veggies this year. Unfortunately not from the cherry tree because the pigeons have got to them!

Tomato plant from a seedling to growing fresh tomatoes ready for summer, already got some growing!

Having a crack at some chili peppers this year, should get a decent harvest.

 Potting up some herbs, rocket, and lettuce, to be moved out of the green house into the section the chickens have dug up for us!

Speaking of the chickens... Look how big Little has got! Her brother unfortunately had to leave us, because he was a little vicious and we had to give him away, but he's gone to live on a very happy farm with three hens that he can grow old with.

All the chickens are doing well, Dave jumped in front of the camera to get a closer look at what I was holding, she soon got bored after this picture though.

These grapes have been growing for years, this year we have started to get a decent crop out of them probably going to use them to make wine out of. With the elderberries further up the garden, they should make a decent wine (for my parents at least!)

The cherry tree, with no cherries on it because we couldn't keep the birds off! Even though there are hanging CD's; where the light can reflect off them and ward the birds off the branches. We do also have a few mini potted plants such as mint, and basil. We also have a mystery plant that we don't know what it is until it starts to grow flowers/fruit and vegetables. 
We are making an effort to grow some figs this year next to the cherry tree, they'll be done soon, once they're at the right colour and start to droop a little.

So that's what we grow in our garden. What do you grow in your garden?

Happy Baking, Beth xx

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cups

Hi again, I did something like this with the Chocolate Caramel Cups, but this time we are filling and decorating them a little prettier this time. Something Sweet was used as a guidance for this recipe. Happy Baking xx

Ingredients:

175g dark chocolate (70% cocoa is best)
25g peanuts toasted and chopped
75g crunchy peanut butter

Method:

1. Place 2/3 of the dark chocolate into a heatproof bowl over some simmering water. Melt and heat to 48-49 degrees. Then take off the heat and wrap the base of the bowl in a tea towel  to keep in some of the heat, cool the chocolate to a working temperature of about 30 degrees.

2. With a teaspoon spoon a little of the chocolate into the moulds used in the Caramel Cups recipe from Something Sweet. With a small flat paintbrush, paint the chocolate up the sides of the mould evenly coating all around paying particular attention to the top of each. Touch up any sides of the mould that look a little thin. Set for 5-10 minutes in the fridge.

3. Once the base layer has set, reheat the chocolate to about 30 degrees ( a working temperature), brush another layer of chocolate over the top and set in the fridge.

4. In a bowl mix a few of the chopped peanuts with the peanut butter and evenly blend. Take the set chocolate cups and fill the cup with peanut mixture leaving enough space for chocolate to go on the top to finish off.

5. Bring the chocolate back up to temperature and spoon a little on the top of each chocolate cup, smoothing over with a small spatula or the end of a spoon. Decorate with left over peanuts for presentation, set in the fridge until the chocolate has gone hard.

6. Pop the cups out of the moulds, and serve in a small box as a nice gift or just enjoy them.

Happy Baking xx Beth

Nutella and Orange Brownies

I wanted to try something new with the average brownie. So after two attempts and a lot of Nutella- here's the outcome. This is the original recipe I changed up to fit what I was doing. Original :). Happy Baking x

Ingredients:

250g unsalted butter
200g Nutella
80g cocoa powder (or drinking chocolate mix) sifted
Zest and juice of 1 orange
65g plain flour sifted
1 tsp baking powder
360g caster sugar
4 eggs

Method:

1. Pre heat the oven to 180C, grease a 24cm cake tin. In a small sauce pan melt the butter. When the butter has melted leave to cool for about 5 minutes, stir occasionally. Meanwhile in a medium sized bowl add Nutella and orange zest and juice. Once the butter has cooled a bit add to the chocolate orange mix mix well until smooth.

2. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and sugar. Once that has been thoroughly mixed. Add the chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well.

3. Beat in the eggs until a silky smooth consistency is achieved. Pour the mix into the cake tin and bake in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes. The brownie should still be a little gooey on the inside.

4. Cool on a cooling rack then transfer to a chopping board and cut into chunky pieces.

Happy Baking, Beth x

Homemade Garlic Mayo

Under the illusion that making homemade mayonnaise is difficult? This will set the record straight. Just a few simple ingredients and less than 10 minutes of your time, and you will have a smooth creamy mayonnaise.

Ingredients:

1  medium egg
1 small clove of garlic chopped finely
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp mustard
175ml vegetable oil
pinch of salt

Method:

1. In a food processor or blender, blend until smooth the egg, chopped garlic, lemon juice and mustard.

2. Blend on a low speed and slowly pour in the vegetable oil and the mixture will thicken and turn a subtle yellow colour.

This was super easy and so much nicer than shop brought mayonnaise- great on steak sandwiches!

Happy Baking, Beth xx