Baked anything tasty lately?

Dizzyblonde

tickingclock wrote: »

They bring me back. They are delicious. Did you get the recipe from All in the cooking?

No, I got the recipe on Delia Smith's site a few years back but it's not on there now. Luckily I saved it.





8 oz self raising flour
¼ tsp salt
A pinch of mixed spice
3 oz margarine/butter
3 oz caster sugar
3 oz dried mixed fruit
1 large egg lightly beaten
2 tbsp milk
Demerara sugar

Pre-heat oven to 200C/gas mark 6.
Sieve flour, salt and mixed spice together. Rub in margarine/butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs then add the sugar and mixed fruit. Mix the egg and milk together then pour into the dry mixture. Mix well with a fork to a stiff, rough dough. Put 12 spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet covered with baking parchment, rough up with a fork and sprinkle each one with a little Demerara sugar. Bake for around 15 minutes or until golden brown.

RacoonQueen

Just some Halowen baking, was hoping to get a load of different spooky cupcakes done and had loads of ideas, just didn't have the time
These are just caramel cupcakes with oozy caramel centres with red food colouring for 'blood' and fluffy vanilla icing to act as monsters...need to start piping more, totally lost the knack.







I've been tasked with making a 'Starbar' cheesecake to go along with my choc bar themed cheesecakes, but the person tasking with this was meant to buy me starbars so I could make an accurate representation, they have not.





It might look like a chocolate cheesecake...but...






With the starbar idea, I thought I'd give peanut butter and choc cheesecake a try and this popped into my head. Peanut butter cheesecake WITHIN chocolate cheesecake, and so an idea was born.

This could probably be called a 'peanut butter cup' cheesecake if i want to go with the theme! I'm not a big fan of peanut butter or peanutbuttery things so hard for me to judge if it is actually nice or not....tastes kinda bland to me. Used all dark chocolate in the chocolate cheesecake, so there isn't a huge amount of sweetness in this which I do like.

ace_irl

RacconQueen, your cupcakes are absolutely brilliant! They remind me of something from a Studio Ghibli movie.

I am a huge fan of peanut-butter, especially peanut-butter and chocolate related food....if you need an expert tester....I'm available for the job!

If you wouldn't mind, what food colouring do you use? I have been using the Wilton icing food colours (the ones in the little pots) and I had no look with them at the weekend. They red was just giving me a pink colour and after using nearly the entire thing of black, I could still only get a grey colour in my buttercream.

ace_irl

As briefly mentioned above, this weekends cake did not go as planed. I had originally wanted to do black and red Swiss meringue butter cream but after struggling with it I ended up with a dark purple buttercream on the inside and a very dark green on the outside. It worked out but I was a little disappointed.

I did my usual chocolate cake and did vanilla sm buttercream on the inside and chocolate sm on the outside. I made meringue decorations and painted some of them, mainly the little ghosts! It was way over board but it was fun.

I think this weekend I will take a break from cakes and try make eclairs.

If anyone has any advice on using food colouring, I would be so great full for it!

Where exactly did it go wrong with the food colouring, and what type were you using (liquid, gel, paste etc?)

I came to post my Halloween Guinness chocolate cake which also has those cute little meringue ghosts- they were a big hit!

ace_irl

Deleted User wrote: »

Where exactly did it go wrong with the food colouring, and what type were you using (liquid, gel, paste etc?)

I came to post my Halloween Guinness chocolate cake which also has those cute little meringue ghosts- they were a big hit!

I used gel I think, the Wilton icing colours https://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/wilton-icing-colour-kit-8-pack/538054-1000

I just couldn't get the right shades so I'm not sure if I was using them wrong. I used the black, then when I couldn't get it black I added dark chocolate, ended up with some horrid colour and added blue.

I added blue to the red too when I could only get a pink colour.

I love your ghosts. Yours seam bigger then mine and I think that was a better approach, I'll do mine bigger next time!

dee_mc

I made red icing this weekend too (Delia's gingerbread men became zombies and dead men, they were a hit! It's a great recipe but the suggested cooking time was a few minutes too long for my oven, even when I turned it down 15 degrees) and after a bit of experimentation found that Wilton's 'red red' is the best for blood-coloured icing. The other red I have was too pink toned.
It mixes well with yellow to get a true pumpkin orange, too.
I can't find my black gel colour, and I've never even used it! Time to clear out the baking press I think.

RacoonQueen

ace_irl wrote: »

RacconQueen, your cupcakes are absolutely brilliant! They remind me of something from a Studio Ghibli movie.

I am a huge fan of peanut-butter, especially peanut-butter and chocolate related food....if you need an expert tester....I'm available for the job!

If you wouldn't mind, what food colouring do you use? I have been using the Wilton icing food colours (the ones in the little pots) and I had no look with them at the weekend. They red was just giving me a pink colour and after using nearly the entire thing of black, I could still only get a grey colour in my buttercream.

My wilton pots were all a couple of years 'out of date' as I haven't done much in that way over the last few years. My red was all lumpy so had to dump it Decided to get rid of all my other wiltons at the same time, most looked grand but tbh always found those tubs a bit of a pain to use.

Rather than trek to Homestore and More to buy Wilton again I went with the progel my local supervalu sell and found the tubes much better to handle.




That being said, I always found the wilton colours to be really good and accurate colours came out, despite being a bit finicky to use.
I used Wilton for all these (edit: these cupcakes are all years old...I've never been happy with big birds beak so hate looking at this picture! )



Which Wilton 'red' do you have? I remember reading years ago that their red red was the best for getting a red colour, for my elmo cupcakes I used their bog standard red.

ace_irl

Thanks RacconQueen, I'll pick up some of those Progel ones and give them a go. Your cupcakes are all brilliant, I really love the Monster Inc ones, that happens to be one of my favorite movies!

The one I used was Christmas Red, that could have been where I went wrong. Does how you mix in the colouring make a difference? I've used the pink, teal and blue before when dying vanilla sponge and it's worked fine, I folded it in on those occasions. At the weekend I used a hand mixer.

Your Elmo cupcake was just what I was going for. I'll make up some butter cream and practice a bit more!

RacoonQueen

I used the Wilton 'red' for Elmo as I couldn't get the 'red red' at €3.50 a tube progel is more expensive than the wilton tubs. You can also get wilton squeezy bottles, assume the colour in them is quite good (would want to be at €6 a pop)
https://www.homestoreandmore.ie/cake-icing-decorating/wilton-colour-right-red/068261.html

ace_irl

That's perfect, I'll order a few of those to try. Thank you for your help!

I'm going to have to build a second kitchen for all my baking supplies.

RacoonQueen

For black, it's always going to be hard to get it black black...dunno what flavour of cake you're putting it with but you could always make it chocolate and then add the black into that. I find that the aldi cocoa powder is much darker than other ones. You can also get black cocao powder
https://www.chocolate.ie/valrhona-100-cocoa-powder.html

Likewise with red you could make it pink with pink food colour (or flavour it with strawberry/raspberry) first and then add the red.

woodchuck

My attempt at Frankenstein Monster Brownies!

Shenshen

Ok, I'm feeling rather inadequate now for just making banana caramel muffins for yesterday's bake sale at work

B0jangles

woodchuck wrote: »

My attempt at Frankenstein Monster Brownies!

If I had seen these at a hallowe'en party when I was a kid, I'd probably have fainted with joy and amazement.

(I'd be just as excited these days, I just hide it better )

^^those muffins look lush^^^

ace_irl

ace_irl wrote: »

I used gel I think, the Wilton icing colours https://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/wilton-icing-colour-kit-8-pack/538054-1000

I just couldn't get the right shades so I'm not sure if I was using them wrong. I used the black, then when I couldn't get it black I added dark chocolate, ended up with some horrid colour and added blue.

I added blue to the red too when I could only get a pink colour.

I love your ghosts. Yours seam bigger then mine and I think that was a better approach, I'll do mine bigger next time!

I use the Sugarflair paste colours and always get good strong colours! They usually mix well too as long as you're careful to only add a little at a time until you get the right shade (once tried to make purple by mixing blue and red and ended up with a gross brown colour because I added too much of one colour at once)

I think the ghosts look good big or small, it's good to have a mix of sizes even

Shenshen

Shenshen wrote: »

Ok, I'm feeling rather inadequate now for just making banana caramel muffins for yesterday's bake sale at work

They look great! Do you mind me asking for the caramel recipe?

Whispered

Just to help shenshen feel better about her inadequacies :pac:

Chocolate orange muffins. I don't have a piping bag and tried to use a freezer bag which burst because the icing was made too thick. So I handed the boy a spoon and sprinkles and let him decorate.

Some questions for a muffin novice - flavour is great but they didn't rise as I would have liked and are a little bit too dense. I used this recipe and added in the grated zest of an orange and some squeezed juice to help make the chocolate paste. Are cupcakes and muffins different? Or was it the addition of the juice and zest?


Any tips on making nice frosting? It tasted lovely. It's 70g unsalted butter, 280g icing sugar and juice of a mandarin. It was too thick to pipe properly and the sprinkles don't stick to it. Decrease the sugar ratio? More liquid?

We made 12 last night. Have 4 put away for little fella to bring to his granny and this one left. We're not really a sweet tooth family so they went down well!

Whispered

Whispered wrote: »

Just to help shenshen feel better about her inadequacies :pac:

Chocolate orange muffins. I don't have a piping bag and tried to use a freezer bag which burst because the icing was made too thick. So I handed the boy a spoon and sprinkles and let him decorate.

Some questions for a muffin novice - flavour is great but they didn't rise as I would have liked and are a little bit too dense. I used this recipe and added in the grated zest of an orange and some squeezed juice to help make the chocolate paste. Are cupcakes and muffins different? Or was it the addition of the juice and zest?


Any tips on making nice frosting? It tasted lovely. It's 70g unsalted butter, 280g icing sugar and juice of a mandarin. It was too thick to pipe properly and the sprinkles don't stick to it. Decrease the sugar ratio? More liquid?

We made 12 last night. Have 4 put away for little fella to bring to his granny and this one left. We're not really a sweet tooth family so they went down well!

Not sure about why the sponge didn't rise so much, are those cupcake cases or muffin cases?

Re: the icing, that sounds like a lot of icing sugar to butter, normally the ratio is about 2:1, so I'd say reduce the sugar next time and see how you get on. You can loosen it with some milk either if gets too thick but I'd be careful about adding too much extra juice to do that as it could cause the icing to split.

Dizzyblonde

I'm in awe of the lovely decorated bakes, they look amazing. I'm a very plain baker.

Whispered - the only frosting I've used is the Odlums one for their red velvet cakes, it's a cream cheese one which I prefer to butter icing:https://www.odlums.ie/recipes/red-velvet-cupckes-with-cream-cheese-topping/

Whispered

Deleted User wrote: »

Not sure about why the sponge didn't rise so much, are those cupcake cases or muffin cases?

Cupcake cases according to the packet (from Aldi) but they're much bigger than the other cupcake case I have here and fit the muffin tray perfectly.

Shenshen

Dónal wrote: »

They look great! Do you mind me asking for the caramel recipe?

Sure, it's actually unbelievably simple.
I emptied 1 tin of condensed milk in a pot, and heated it while stirring until it became caramel. I then added ca 70g of butter, to stop it from becoming too hard when set.
That's it, really.

It still was a little chewey, so next time I might use cream instead of butter.

Whispered

Whispered wrote: »

Cupcake cases according to the packet (from Aldi) but they're much bigger than the other cupcake case I have here and fit the muffin tray perfectly.

Possibly they were a bit under filled so they didn't rise over the top? Could be a multitude of reasons tbh!

woodchuck

B0jangles wrote: »

If I had seen these at a hallowe'en party when I was a kid, I'd probably have fainted with joy and amazement.

(I'd be just as excited these days, I just hide it better )

Haha thanks... they were actually for the big kids in work

They're also very forgiving to decorate... nobody expects Frankensteins monster to be perfect I actually dropped my bowl of icing on top of them at one point O.o

B0jangles

woodchuck wrote: »

Haha thanks... they were actually for the big kids in work

They're also very forgiving to decorate... nobody expects Frankensteins monster to be perfect I actually dropped my bowl of icing on top of them at one point O.o

Your colleagues are very lucky! And lol at the indestructible monster brownies - very Frankenstein's monster-y

woodchuck

B0jangles wrote: »

Your colleagues are very lucky! And lol at the indestructible monster brownies - very Frankenstein's monster-y

Well... there was one casualty... one delicious casualty

Christmas pud done!

sdp

snap! christmas puds

sdp

tried one of those russian piping tips on some fairy cakes
[IMG][/img]

Lisha

I recently treated myself to a new kenwood mixer ... I used it for the first time today and I made red velvet buns using the odlums recipe. They were yummy. I didn’t do the cream frosting, as I forgot to buy cream cheese . My 8yrar old daughter was adamant about they needed something so I mixed icing sugar with some dr otker fine dark cocoa powder that I used in buns and it was lovely I’m in lurve with my kenwood:)