Using up the courgette glut

The unusually warm, long summer has paved the way for glut of courgettes. This year I've stuck to growing my yellow courgette plants in containers, but even so, up until recently they were producing more courgettes than I could keep up with. At first I was roasting courgette slices to add to dinners and vegetable skewers when we had barbecues, but after looking on line for some inspiration a few recipes caught my eye.

The first one I tried was courgette, potato and cheddar soup. This recipe was so simple and quick to make. I peeled one large potatoe and chopped it into cubes and added it to a pan with enough water to cover the potatoes. I crumbled in a stock cube and left it to simmer for five minutes before adding about 4 medium courgettes, again chopped into cubes. I let it simmer for a further 5 minutes before added a bunch of finely chopped spring onions and letting it simmer for a final 5 minutes.

Once cooked through, I removed the soup from the heat and added a small handful of grated cheddar cheese and mixed it, before blending it into a smooth soup. 

I added a sprinkle of grated cheese and a couple of spring onions on top to serve. It tasted so good! I thought the combination could be a little bland but the flavours all worked together to make a nutritious and filling soup. I've made this a few times since as an easy way to use up a growing stock of courgettes and I particularly like using yellow courgettes as ithe bright colours give it a nice summer feel. 

The next recipe I was keen to try was for courgette cake. For this I found an American recipe online and converted all of the measurements to make a loaf cake. I was surprised by the flavour of courgette cake, having never tried it before, it was very light and almost floral. The cake was a hit and I've made it a couple of times since.

Finally I wanted to try making courgette fritters, as I'd bought them ready made a couple of years ago from a supermarket and really enjoyed them. They are so simple to make! You just need a bowl of milk and a bowl of plain flour to start. Cut the courgettes into batons, dip them in milk and coat them in the flour before frying them. 

These were a hit too, simple and quick to make and a great accompaniment to summer dishes. The courgette plants have slowed down a lot now so I don't think there will be too many more to pick before the end of the season, but hopefully there'll be enough for another cake or batch of soup!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am always on the lookout for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe, one which makes chewy cookies best eaten warm out of the oven and laden with chocolate chips. I recently tried the recipe below which I found on Pinterest and it did not disappoint. 

Recipe (makes 12 cookies)

1/2 cup of sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar 

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup melted butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

4 oz milk chocolate chips 

1. Preheat oven to 180C / gas mark 4 

2. In a bowl whisk together the sugars, salt and melted butter until smooth

3. Whisk in the egg and vanilla 

4. Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold the mixture with a spatula, being careful to not overmix

5. Fold in the chocolate chips and chill the dough for at least thirty minutes

6. Scoop the dough onto a tray lined with baking paper, spacing the dough 4 inches apart

7. Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges start to brown

8. Allow to cool and serve.

Cinnamon and Apple Pie

We have a bumper crop of deliciously sweet apples this year that are dropping off the tree quicker than we can eat them, so I've been trying out new recipes to make the most of them. 

This recipe has a very autumnal feel with the cinnamon being a nice contrast to the sweet apple and it is so simple to make especially if you cheat a little with the pastry and buy pre-made like I did. I used jus-rol shortcrust pastry which was just the right amount for the pie. 

Here are the ingredients and steps I followed:

Ingredients:

350g shortcrust pastry

50g caster sugar

8-10 apples

1 tsp cinnamon

1. Peel and chop the apples and place in a bowl. 

2. Add the caster sugar and cinnamon powder and mix to ensure an even coverage.

3. Transfer to a pan and cook on a low-medium heat for about ten minutes until the sugar caramelises. Then turn off the heat and allow to cool. 

4. Roll out half of the pastry so it is 5mm thick and line the dish. Roll out the remaining pastry and either cut into strips for a lattice cover or one whole piece with slits for the steam to escape. Spoon the apples in and cover the pie with the lattice or lid. Brush the pastry with milk.

5. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes on gas mark 6 until golden. 

6. Serve with custard or cream and enjoy!

Home Bargains baking essentials

With a new series of the Great British Bake Off just around the corner, I've been inspired to flick through my baking books and make notes of the next recipes I want to test. Unfortunately it's been ages since I last had both the time and energy to get weighing, mixing and decorating, but I've made up for it by stockpiling pretty cupcake cases and cake toppers, so when I do finally get round to it my cakes will be the best dressed around! 

Home bargains has always had pretty bake-ware and accessories but recently I've noticed they have a large range of Wilton products for unbelievable prices. I haven't previously bought much from the Wilton range as I've found it a bit expensive, but i know it is popular with bakers and I've had my eye on some flower shaped cupcake cases for a while. My luck was in last week when I called in to my local store on my way home from work and I picked up a few things from both the Wilton and home bargains ranges which I thought I'd share. 

The tulip baking cups were a bargain at 49p. There are 24 cases in the pack and they are good quality cases which should keep your cupcakes perfectly formed as they bake, unlike those thin white ones you get in cake mix boxes which fold all over the place as soon as you put the mixture in them, leaving you with some oddly shaped creations. 

The food writers were 59p and look like they will be easy to use and quicker than icing pens for when you're running short on time. As they are festive colours I won't be using these until Christmas time, but I will look them up online and see if they have good reviews. 

The other cupcake cases were from home bargains own range and I think they were 39p. The last thing I need is more cupcake cases (I'm on the verge of becoming a "collector" of them!) but with such cute prints I couldn't resist.

The red bags were 59p I think, or maybe 79p, I can't remember exactly. They are paper bags which are perfect for packaging up your homemade sweet treats to take to work or on picnics or to give as a gift. They also come with stickers to seal them.

The vintage dream cupcake sets were 99p each. I have a few similar sets from Poundland but these are far prettier so I just had to get them. Plus the ones from Poundland are all holiday-themed, which means this purchase was okay as these can be used YEAR ROUND. If that isn't reason alone to buy them I don't know what is...at least that's what I keep telling myself!

Has anyone else found any baking bargains recently?

P.s. Lakeland have their summer sale on at the moment and there are some reductions on gorgeous bake-ware, including a 3d carousal mold. I'm consequently trying to avoid the website....for now!

two-tiered rose cake (attempt 2!)

My second attempt at a two-tiered cake was more successful than the first, but unfortunately i didn't have time to make enough roses to cascade down the cake this time. I guess that's a good enough reason to make a third attempt though!

ii

The paper doily was from Lakeland and came in a pack of 3 pretty designs featuring roses, swans and pearls, and with the largest doily covered in yellow roses it looked like it had been made to sit on my cake stand :)

Two-Tier Rose Cake (Attempt 1...)

Last week I came across a beautiful 3-tiered cake decorated with cascading roses in my newest cake decorating book (£1 from the M&S sale, very much worth looking out for!) and thought it would be lovely to make for guests we're expecting at the end of the month. I wanted to practice it first, as I had grand ideas of a two tiered cake, with different flavour sponges and buttercreams, with a beautiful display of fondant roses. It was just as well I did because I'm a baking novice and as such encountered several hitches along the way, all of which lead to a less-than-perfect looking cake :( But at least I know what to improve for the real thing I guess! Namely;

- Do NOT forget the Marzipan. (I said I was a novice!) I completely missed this out from both the ingredient list and method, and it was only when I came to add the royal icing that it  seemed like icing the cake was a lot harder than it should be. I was right. As a result the icing didn't quite stick to the cake as well as it should have, and you can see where the sponge cakes are sandwiched together. It doesn't look good.

- Remember that baking a small cake means adjusting the cooking time. I forgot to do this and as a result my "strawberry" tier tasted predominately of overcooked cake.

- Make sure the cakes are level before applying the icing. Yet another rookie mistake and this caused a fondant rose to roll off the top of the cake, land in the middle of the previously smooth icing leaving a big dent and then proceeding to fall (and smash) on the floor.

I'm disappointed with the overall look of the cake (and didn't really want to upload the photo to my blog, but It's a learning curve right?) but not to get too disheartened by it, I was pleased with how the roses turned out - it took me an entire evening to make them all and it took a while to get a technique going, but I don't think they look too bad for my first attempt at making roses, and I do like the colour of them too. I also made a strawberry buttercream for the top tier cake and luckily that turned out very nicely and added some flavour back to the cake!

So, here it is...hopefully the second attempt will look a lot better!

(And yes the picture is small in a vain attempt to minimize the obviousness of the awful icing...I know it doesn't succeed however!)

Latest Poundland Haul ♥

I was in London last week and managed to find my way to Poundland for a quick look as I'd seen a few things on their website which had caught my eye. I didn't have long to spare but I still managed to fill a basket! The first thing I picked up are these cute Cath Kidston style floral coasters. I thought these would be lovely on our garden table, and I couldn't resist taking a picture with my newly polished nails as they matched so well!

The next thing I spotted was a cupcake carry case which holds 12 cupcakes. I was really pleased to find this as I've been on the look-out for one since I saw them on the Poundland website a few months ago. I already have the cake carry cases and they are great for keeping cakes fresh and transporting them. Similar cupcake carry cases are sold in Asda for £6, and Lakeland for £15.99, so i think this is great for £1!

I also finally remembered to pick up a couple of packs of food covers. These are so handy in the summer to keep flies off your food, especially for picnics and barbeques outside. These food covers fold flat for storage and pop up when you start to open them, which I think is a better design than the old ones I used to have which would have a little string that you'd pull to clip a plastic clip in place, as they would wear quite quickly and wouldn't stay up. Each pack contains two covers too so even more of a bargain!

And last but not least I found this amazing little gadget, which is a 4 way USB charger, and can be plugged in to the USB port on a laptop or computer, or a usb car adaptor (which I also bought from Poundland but I put it in my car before I remembered to take a photo, so I've found a stock photo). This is so useful as I can charge my mobile, ipod, tablet and camera from this at the same time, so makes it a great space-saver for travelling as I can take just one little charger for all of my electricals, or with the help of my car adaptor I can now charge them all in the car. If I spot another of these I will definitely be snapping it up for a spare!
 

I couldn't find the 9 piece fondant stamp kit I've seen on the website though, so I'm still searching for this, but it looks ideal for decorating cakes, and much cheaper than fondant cutters usually are!

Chocolate Baskets filled with Ice cream / Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop Book Review

I have just finished reading Abby Clement's latest book "Vivien's Heavenly Ice Cream Shop," which is the perfect light holiday read. I won't give too much away but the book follows two sisters as they try to take over their grandmother's ice cream shop in Brighton, and as one heads to Italy to learn how to make gelato, the other is left to start running the shop, and both encounter setbacks along the way! I took it with me on holiday and luckily enough I spent some time in Italy so I could try out real Italian Gelato to see what the fuss was all about in the book, and it really was delicious so I want to try making gelato too!

Whilst looking for a recipe in one of my dessert books I came across one for chocolate ice cream in a chocolate shell, so as I didn't have the ingredients at hand to make the ice cream I decided to try making chocolate baskets and filling them with some from the freezer for my first attempt.

The method is simple, cover a small bowl with clingfilm and pipe melted chocolate around the edge and across it and leave to set. I didn't have any clingfilm only foil, and this proved quite difficult to remove resulting in a couple of broken baskets, so next time i'll be trying it out with clingfilm and hopefully will have better results.

Fathers Day Kiwi Cake!

I've been busy baking this weekend, and following on from the raspberry chocolate cake success I've made a cake for fathers day. My dad loves kiwi fruit so the "kiwi cake with citrus icing" from my new cake book seemed the perfect recipe!

I was a little sceptical at first that the kiwi fruit would be too bland or hinder the texture, but I was pleased to see that it held together nicely when I took it out of the tin (although it did take over an hour in the oven to cook!) and it smells delicious, I can't wait to try it later!

Chocolate and Raspberry Cake

I recently bought a new little baking recipe book which is packed full of so many pretty cakes and desserts. Keen to put it to the test, yesterday I tried out the recipe for a "Valentine heart cake" - (it was meant to be made using a heart tin, but as the only heart moulds I have are quite small I stuck with regular cake tins) - a light chocolate sponge filled with a rich ganache icing and  fresh raspberrys.

The fresh raspberrys added a lovely burst of flavour to the sponge, and the ganache icing was rich but not overly so. It's already become one of my favourite cakes and according to friends it's as good as any you'd buy in a cafe or restaurant, so I'll upload the recipe over the weekend!

Recent bakes...banoffee pie, white chocolate tartlets and savoury parcels ♥

I've been busy baking the past few weeks and trying out new recipes from old recipe books. Taking inspiration from my mum's mediterranean cookery book I tried a savoury dish for a change and tried a recipe for 'borek' (aka filo parcels). It's a simple recipe with cheeses and egg combined and then wrapped in filo pastry in triangle shapes. It's easy to make if a little time consuming and the parcels were delicious both hot from the oven and cool the next day. I've since tried a new variation of squash, spinach and feta pastries and have got a few in the freezer as they're ideal for a quick snack or picnic lunch.

I then went back to my trusty dessert recipe book and tried out the recipe for white chocolate tartlets, which I've been meaning to try for ages. It's a simple recipe with a basic pastry shell and white chocolate, vanilla and cream filling but they looked lovely.

Encouraged by how easy the tartlets were to make I then tried making banoffee pie. It was a little trickier to get the pastry into the dish neatly but it wasn't too bad for a first attempt and then it was simply covering the pastry with caramel, sliced bananas, whipped cream and flaked chocolate. I haven't tried it yet as it's still in the fridge for dessert this evening but it looks yummy!

Updates from the week

It's been a windy and cold day here following an otherwise sunny week, so I decided to stay indoors for most of the day. At lunch time I decided to quickly pot up the 19 cherry tomato seedlings which had outgrown their small propagator. I was beginning to regret this an hour and a half later when I still wasn't done and had run out of plastic pots, but got there eventually, and have found that water bottles cut in half make a good plant pot/greenhouse pot in one.

Yesterday I planted some pretty viola plants in old terracotta pots that had just been lying about in the garden. I had been to the garden centre and found some greatly reduced flowers, mostly just because a few out of the tray had withered, so I picked up a tray of violas for 10p, and watered them at home and left them overnight. The following day I moved them all into their own pots and 16 out of the 20 plants from the tray were potted up, and although one more has since withered away the remaining 15 plants have picked up and are looking very healthy.

As we have a guest for dinner this evening I've also made a chocolate cake for dessert, I've already had a taster of the fudge icing and its yummy. I'll add a few strawberries and might dust it with cocoa powder to serve.

And finally, earlier this week I had a second attempt at the cinnamon rolls which I blogged about here, and I think it was slightly more successful as they're looking a lot more like rolls now!

I've also purchased a few things this weekend but I'm off to Primark tomorrow so shall wait and see if I have anything else to add to my haul before I blog about them!

Dessert Delights...Warm Strawberry Jam Cake

I've been putting my lost-and-found recipe book to good use today, making my favourite dessert from it. The recipe in question is the Warm Strawberry Jam Cakes. It's quick and easy to make and you can either add jam to a teacup and then the sponge mixture to make a cupcake baked in a teacup, or use metal ramekins following the same method and then turn them upside down to serve as I did.

Ingredients (makes 6)
8 tbsp softened butter
4 tbsp strawberry conserve
115g caster sugar
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
115g self raising flour
strawberrys and icing sugar for decoration (optional)

Method
1. Grease 6 heavy round teacups with butter. Spoon two teaspoons of the strawberry conserve in the bottom of each.

2. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition, then add the vanilla essence. Sift in the flour and, using a large metal spoon, fold it into the mixture. Spoon the mixture into the teacups.

3. Stand the cups in a roasting tin, then pour in enough hot water to come one-third of the way up the sides of the cups. Bake in the oven, 180C for 40 mintues or until well risen and golden brown.

4. Place a few whole strawberries on each cake and dust with ising sugar. Serve warm.

Bake of the day...Cinnamon Rolls

A few weeks ago I finally found my favourite baking book full of fail-safe comfort food recipes which had been misplaced quite some time ago. It's my go-to book when I want a guaranteed yummy treat, because even if I can't make my bakes look as good as the illustrations they still taste delicious! So I decided to make cinnamon rolls as I've made quite a few cupcakes recently. They're a combination between cinnamon whirl danish pastries and bread rolls, and make a great afternoon treat or dessert.

I need to practice rolling them up a bit more consistently, but at least it gives me an excuse to make another batch!

Easter Cupcakes ♥

I can't believe how cold it still is! Earlier today I bought some more nice fabric which I'm hoping to make in to a tablet cover soon, but it was too cold to stay in town for long so i've been keeping busy indoors for the rest of the day and made some bird's nest cupcakes for easter. I bought this cute easter cupcake kit from poundland a couple of weeks ago

and used some of the cupcake cases today. I've already received a couple of Easter gifts so i'm envisaging a chocolate overload this weekend!

Croissants and Homemade Easter Eggs

With snow on the ground outside gardening has been out of the question this weekend, so I decided to spend some time baking instead. In the fridge I had a can of Jus Rol Croissants which I've not tried before and was somewhat sceptical about, but I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

You simply unwrap the can, and unroll the sheet of pre-marked pastry and cut into triangles. Then simply roll up and twist into a croissant shape and pop in the oven.

The croissants were quite small but light and tasty, and being smaller than the ones you buy in the supermarket is the perfect excuse to indulge in a second!

 After dinner I was at a loose end so I decided to try out the new easter egg moulds I purchased a few days ago from Hobbycraft. They were on sale for £1 and contained 2 sets of small and 2 large easter egg moulds. 

I didn't want to spend too much money on chocolate as it was just a fun little project to fill my evening, so I bought 3 bags of Asda buttons on offer at 3 for £1 (2 milk chocolate and 1 white chocolate) and had plenty to fill the small trays. I also used some heart chocolate shapes I had in my cupboard in the mould and then poured in a little melted chocolate to decorate some of the eggs. 

And here's the finished result! They're a little messy but next time I won't fill the moulds as much. Even so they tasted delicious :)

Tea Time Treats

I had a spare half an hour this evening so decided to make something yummy for dessert. Fancying something sweet I went for chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate spread (seeing as its sunday evening and I still have a few items to list on ebay I didn't have the patience to make a proper frosting too!) I've already tried one and they're yummy, but i'm still waiting for everyone else to sample them with a cup of tea later!

The Great British Bake Off

I'm looking forward to tonight's episode of the Great British Bake Off, it's currently one of my favourite shows on tv and i think it's been a great series so far. One of my favourite bakes so far was where the contestants had to make a cake with a picture or pattern on the inside, some of them were amazing! This is one of the Battenburg cakes made showing a Union Jack inside:

 So I shall be settling down to watch it tonight with a cup of tea and one of my own cupcakes that I made today, not quite as impressive as the delights featured on the Great British Bake Off, but yummy all the same :)

Monday Brunch Waffles

This morning I decided to try out my new waffle maker which I picked up in Lidl earlier this year for only £14.99, and I wasn't disappointed! The recipe included in the box asked for 5 eggs and 500g of flour so I only used 1/5 of the ingredients and it still made 6 large waffles.
We topped them with chocolate spread and strawberries from the garden, delicious!

Recipe (adjusted to make 6):
50g Margarine or Butter
40g Sugar
1/4 tsp Vanilla Essence
1 Egg
100g Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
75ml Milk

Stir the margarine/butter until foamy. Add the sugar, vanilla essence and egg and stir. Blend in the flour and baking powder. Stirring constantly, gradually mix in the milk. Beat the mixture for 2-3 minutes with a hand mixer.