Chocolate Owl Cupcakes

These chocolate owl cupcakes were so much fun to make... I had a hoot! Tee hee! I made them using gluten free flour and they went down a treat at my office. You could even add some chocolate chips to the cake batter to make them even more chocolately!

Chocolate Owl Cupcakes (makes 12)

150g butter, softened

150g caster sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

40g ground almonds

40g cocoa

125g self raising flour/gluten free self raising flour

4 tbsp yoghurt

1 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate icing:

150g butter, softened

250g icing sugar

2 tbsp cocoa powder

2-3 tbsp milk

To decorate:

3 packets cadbury milk chocolate buttons, chop each button in half

2 packets giant chocolate buttons (for eyes)

2 packs white chocolate buttons (for eyes)

milk chocolate chips (for eyes)

3 cadbury fudge bars (for nose and ears), cut into triangular shapes

white chocolate stars

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan).
2. Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy.
3. Mix in the eggs, vanilla and ground almonds. Then add the yoghurt and sift in the flour and cocoa. Stir through until you have a smooth chocolately batter.
4. Divide between 12 cupcake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes.

5. Meanwhile make the icing: combine butter and half the icing sugar until smooth, beat in the remaining icing sugar and cocoa, then finally add the milk to loosen the consistency slightly.
6. Once the cupcakes are cooled, spread the chocolate icing on top. Keep aside a teaspoon of icing for adding some of the chocolate decorations.
7. Layer the halved chocolate buttons on one half of the cupcake, leaving a small space in the centre for a piece of chocolate fudge for the nose. Place two smaller pieces of chocolate fudge on the top side for the ears.

8. Add two giant chocolate buttons for the eyes. Use a toothpick or the end of a spoon to dab a tiny splodge of icing onto the centre of the buttons, then gently press two white chocolate buttons into place. Add the milk chocolate chips on top of the white chocolate buttons with another small dot of chocolate icing. Pop a couple of white chocolate stars onto the side. Ta da!

Mini Pumpkin Pies

Autumn is well and truly here and that can only mean one thing... pumpkin and squash time! What could be better than some yummy pumpkin pies with maple syrup and a hint of gingery mixed spice? Why, mini ones of course! Mr Makes said they're like pumpkin and maple flavour custard tarts. So if you're a fan of the custard tart I think you're going to like these!

Mini Pumpkin Pies (makes 24)

Pastry:

180g plain flour, sifted

45g icing sugar

90g butter, diced

1 egg yolk

1-2 tbsp milk

Filling (note: this makes around 300ml, of which you'll only need half, so freeze the rest for another time!):

250g diced pumpkin

2 tbsp double cream

1 egg and 1 egg white

2 tbsp maple syrup

½ tsp ginger

pinch mixed spice

1. First of all steam the diced pumpkin (I don't have a steamer, so I put the pumpkin in a colander set over a pan of gently simmering water) for around 15 minutes until tender.
2. Pop into a blender or food processor with the double cream and wizz into a puree. Leave to cool a little while you make the pastry.

3. In a bowl mix the flour and icing sugar. Use your fingers to rub in the butter until it has a breadcrumb-like texture. In a separate bowl mix 1 tbsp milk with the egg yolk to combine, then add this to the flour mixture and use a knife to mix it through. If a dough doesn't form, add a further tbsp of milk. Use your hands to bring  the dough together into a ball. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.

4. Now mix the egg, egg white, maple syrup, ginger and mixed spice into the cooled pumpkin puree.
5. Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan).
6. Roll out the chilled pastry to 4mm thickness and cut out 24 rounds (I used a 5.5cm cutter) and line a 24 hole mini muffin tin. Use the remaining pastry to cut out stars (tip: use a tooth pick to ease the pastry out of the corners).

7. Spoon/pour the pumpkin mixture into your pastry cases and set a star on top of each.
8. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 15-20 minutes. Cool in the tin before removing and sprinkling with caster sugar.

Learning to knit

Over the past couple of months I've been learning to knit and now my first project is complete! These hand warmers should keep my hands toasty over the coming months.

I went to a couple of knitting classes at The Sheep Shop, where the lovely Sarah taught me the basics. If you live in the Cambridge area and want to learn how to knit or crochet this is the place to go. In addition to the friendly and relaxed atmosphere, it is yarn heaven! A little while ago fellow Cambridge blogger Claireabellemakes posted about learning to crochet at The Sheep Shop, including an interview with Sarah and lots of lovely photos, check it out.

At the moment I can cast on/off, knit, purl, increase and decrease. I also learned moss stitch, which I used to make cute little bows for my hand warmers. This was a great project to start off with. If you'd like to keep your hands warm this winter, here's how to make your own:

Knitted hand warmers

Supplies: 5mm needles, 50g worsted weigh yarn, small amount of contrasting yarn.

Cast on 25 stitches. Knit 60 rows, cast off. Repeat for second mitt. Block and sew each
rectangle into a tube, remembering to leave a space for thumbs. 

For the bows - moss stitch: Cast on 12 stitches. Knit 1 purl 1 to the end of each row,
repeat for 8 rows (so that you knit the purl stitches and purl the knit stitches of the previous row),
cast off. Repeat for second bow. Wind some yarn around the
middle of each rectangle, pulling reasonably tight to create the centre of the bow,
fasten off and stitch on to the front of each hand warmer.

I'm already making more for Christmas pressies! I think I'm ready to move onto something a little more challenging now though - any ideas for my next project?

Lovely Lemon Layer Cake

Last weekend was a busy one! I baked a whole load of my lovely lemony cupcakes along with a lovely lemon layer cake for my Mother-in-law's Birthday celebrations.

I whipped up some of Delia's lemon curd for the filling. It tastes much better than shop-bought and I have two jars left over to make yet more lemony delights over the next few weeks! I also made some small roses for decoration.

Everything survived the car journey and the Birthday girl loved her cakes. If you'd like to make a lovely lemon layer cake, here's my recipe:

Lovely Lemon Layer Cake

200g unsalted butter, softened

200g caster sugar

4 eggs

200g self raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

zest of 2 lemons

1 tsp lemon extract

1 tbsp ground almonds

For the filling:

lemon curd

Lemony icing:

100g unsalted butter, softened

350-400g icing sugar

1-2 tsp lemon extract

1-2 tbsp lemon juice

few drops yellow food colouring
sugar flowers

1. Grease and line two round 20cm sandwich tins, and preheat your oven to 190 degrees or 170 for fan ovens.
2. Use an electric mixer to beat together all the cake ingredients until smooth and creamy.
3. Divide the mixture between the two tins evenly and bake in the centre of the oven for 20-30 minutes.
4. To make the lemony icing beat the butter for a minute. Gradually add the icing sugar and continue to beat. Add the lemon extract, juice and a little yellow food colouring. Beat again until smooth and creamy.
5. Once the cakes have cooled slice each of them so you have four layers of cake. Spread lemon curd and/or lemony icing between each layer and slather the outside with icing.
6. Prettify with a few sugar flowers!

Feltie Friday

Babushka! Another lovely from Felties by Nelly Pailloux. Happy Friday!

Mini Schokogugelhupf (Austrian Chocolate Cake)

A gugelhupf is an Austrian ring-shaped tea time cake. I've been wanting to bake a schokogugelhupf (all together now - shock-o-google-hoff!) ever since I saw the Hairy Bikers make one in a car park in Austria, high up on the Glossglockner High Alpine Road, during their mammoth Bakeation. When I popped into Lakeland and came across these silicone mini bund moulds I knew just what to make in them - mini schokogugelhupf of course! I adapted the Hairy Bikers' recipe for schokogugelhupf to make a smaller quantity as I only had 8 moulds.

Mini Schokogugelhupf (makes 8)

75g butter, plus extra for greasing

75g dark chocolate

25g ground almonds, plus extra for moulds

75g icing sugar

2 eggs, separated

65g self raising flour

¼ tsp baking powder

For the icing:

65g dark chocolate

20g butter

½ tbsp golden syrup

1. First of all grease the moulds with butter and coat with ground almonds. Then melt the chocolate and leave to cool for 15-20 minutes.
2. Preheat your oven to 190°C (170°C fan).
3. Cream the butter and icing sugar until light and smooth. Beat in the egg yolks and then the cooled chocolate, ground almonds, flour and baking powder.
4. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Then, using a metal spoon, carefully stir into the chocolate mixture.

5. Spoon into the prepared moulds and bake for 12-15 minutes.

6. For the icing melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup and leave to cool for around 10 minutes until it has thickened slightly. Spoon on the cooled cakes.

Viennese Whirls

Viennese whirls are now offically my favourite biscuits. I think of them as a clever combination of shortbread and butterfly fairy cakes - rich buttery biscuits with a lovely light texture sandwiched together with raspberry jam and buttercream. Best of all, they're dead easy to make!

Viennese Whirls (makes 10)

125g unsalted butter, softened

25g icing sugar

25g cornflour

125g plain flour

couple drops vanilla extract

For the filling:

50g unsalted butter, softened

100g icing sugar

couple drops vanilla extract

5 tsp raspberry jam

1. Pre heat oven to 190° (fan 170°) and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
2. Put the butter, icing sugar, cornflour, plain flour and vanilla extract into a food processor and pulse until you have a smooth mixture.

  

3. Pop it into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe 20 whirls around 4-5cm in size.

4. Bake for 10-14 minutes until they start to turn a light golden colour.

5. To make the filling beat the butter, icing sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread half a teaspoon or so of jam onto half of the biscuits and pipe or spread buttercream onto the other half. Gently press together and finish with a light dusting of icing sugar.