HAPPY BIRTHDAY to ME… It’s my birthday MONTH… so let’s eat cake & celebrate!

This month is my birthday month… so it’s only right to celebrate with cakes and lots of them.  All my friends will testify that I am the baker and for everyone’s birthday I always provide a cake.  I love making them, giving them and generally spreading the LOVE.  Which neatly takes me onto the cakes I made last night for the girls.  I decided (on getting home from work) that I would just quickly rustle something up and 45 minutes later (including decoration time) the cakes were made… and they tasted scrummy!

In true ‘gemsfoodgems’ style I decided to make these cakes healthier than just a normal sponge cake/cupcake, so I rifled through the baking cupboard (yes we have one of these in our house) and decided to change my normal recipe for this one… (see below).  The dark brown sugar gives quite a ‘fruity’, ‘rich’ taste and the wholemeal flour increases the fibre content but also makes it a slightly less ‘airy’ sponge.  Its a little more doughy and it tastes luxurious.

I then went to town on the decoration with a block of regal icing, some white chocolate icing tubes and some coloured sprinkles and (without blowing my own trumpet) I created a little bit of a masterpiece…

… quick, simple, pretty, yummy cakes.  What more could a girl want?

MAKES: 12 small buns

PREPARATION TIME:

• 5 minutes to make the cake mixture.
• 30 minutes to decorate the cakes, depending on how elaborate you want the cakes to look.

COOKING TIME: 15 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

For the cakes…

• 100g margarine
• 100g dark brown muscavado sugar
• 2 free range eggs
• 50g plain self raising flour
• 50g self raising wholemeal flour
• 12 cake/bun cases

For the decoration…

• 100g ready-to-roll regal icing
• 10 – 15 drops pink food colouring
• 1 tube of white chocolate icing (or any icing tube you have)
• 1 pot of multi-coloured sprinkles
• 1 love heart stencil/cutter (or you can freehand like I did)

HOW TO MAKE THE CAKES…

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees / gas mark 4 and place the cake cases in a small bun tray – they are about half the size of a muffin case/muffin tray.

First cream together the margarine and the dark brown muscavado sugar in a large bowl.

Next break the 2 eggs into the margarine and sugar and mix together well.

Sieve the white flour and the wholemeal flour into the mix and stir in until there are no lumps of flour left.  You will need to stir right down to the base of the bowl, to ensure that you have got all the flour mixed in.

Place a dessert spoon size of mixture into each cake case and then bake in the oven for 15 minutes.  Insert a knife/skewer into the cake and if it comes out clean then the cakes are cooked.  If not pop them back into the oven for 2 – 3 minutes and test again.  Carefully remove the buns/cakes from the tray and place on a baking tray to cool.

Whilst the cakes cook, you can start preparing the decorations.  Cut approx. 100g of icing off the block of regal icing, cling-film the rest tightly and you can save this for another baking day.  Add 10 – 15 drops of food colouring (start with 10 first) and then start folding the icing over the colouring using your fingers until it is all mixed in.  The colouring/icing will start to marble at first but just carry on.  If the colour is as dark as you want it then fine, if not add some more colouring and continue.

Your hands may be warm and starting to feel a little sticky.  The ONLY thing to stop this is cornflour, so sprinkle some of this over your worktop/table and rub some into your hands.

Place the ball of coloured icing in the centre of your workspace and cover with a little cornflour, turn over and repeat.  Rub cornflour all over your rolling pin and then gently begin to roll the icing.  Roll 3 times and then turn 90 degrees – this will keep the icing loose and prevent it from sticking.  You will also need to keep rubbing cornflour underneath the icing to ensure that it isn’t sticking, so do this each time you turn it.

Personally I don’t like extremely thick layers of icing, especially not on such a small cake (its also pure sugar, so its not exactly healthy!) so roll the icing out until it is about 3mm thick.  If you want to copy my patterns, then use this love heart below (print out the stencil) and cut it out the gently place on the icing and using a sharp knife cut around the template.

Perfect sized love heart for the top of your little bun/cake.  Print this off, cut around it and use it as your template.

Once you have cut out the love heart shape, gently free and place to one side.  Make 12 of these and then once the cakes are cooled you can get creative and start decorating your cakes.  So, squeeze a pea sized amount of the white chocolate icing, from the tube onto the top of your cake and then place the love heart on top of this.  Then you can use the white chocolate icing and sprinkles to decorate as you please.  These are some of the designs I made…

Use the white chocolate icing to make a little ‘u’ shape in the corner of the love heart, following the outline of the love heart and then sprinkle lots of sprinkles across the top, then pour the rest off, back into the pot.

Follow the outline of the love heart, about 5mm in from the edge with the white chocolate icing. Place sprinkles all over the top (a lot of them) and then pour back into the pot.

You could write some letters using the white chocolate icing. I wrote the word LOVE and then apply the sprinkles and shake off, back into the pot.

You could even stray of the love heart path and make something else, like this bow. Its simple and easy… you need 2 tails, one bow shape and one thin piece to put in the centre. Done. Glue onto the cake with the white chocolate icing and then you can decorate with icing and sprinkles as you like!

The most important stage of all though is in the eating… so give to your family and friends.  Impress them with your skills and ENJOY eating your cakes, with love and birthday greetings from gemsfoodgems.

HOW WILL YOU EAT YOURS?

WARNING: This recipe is NAUGHTY, but BOY they taste good… *MARS BAR CAKES*

This week, I got a real craving for something naughty, but nice.  So, with it being Easter and having a large box of cornflakes at home, yet to be eaten, I thought…

…‘I know, MARS BAR CORNFLAKE CAKES’.

I ran home, purchased my ingredients and got to it.  Within 10 minutes I had made these little beauties, ready for my dessert.  They really didn’t take any time at all and they taste absolutely delicious.  I know my blog promises ‘healthy, nutritious foods’, which this recipe absolutely is not, but I think it is really important (as part of a healthy balanced diet), to know when a treat is acceptable. And, it TOTALLY is.

This is a great recipe to make with children, as it is no bake.  Though, I would suggest that the adult does the majority of the melting – steam can burn just as badly as water – so please do be cautious.

PREPARATION TIME: 10 minutes (this could take anything up to 30 minutes with little hands!)

COOKING TIME: N/A

MAKES: 12 mars bar cornflake cakes

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 mars bars (standard size)
• 50g milk chocolate
• 30g butter
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 4 large handfuls of cornflakes – slightly crushed (you can add more or less if you like depending on how chocolate-y you want them!)
• 12 mini eggs (you can eat the others!)

HOW TO MAKE THE MARS BAR CORNFLAKE CAKES…

This recipe is so simple.  The first thing you need to do is place 3cm of water in a medium sized pan and then heat this up – so that the water begins to boil.  Turn the heat down and allow it to simmer.

In a bowl place the chopped up mars bars, broken up milk chocolate, butter, golden syrup and then place the bowl on top of the pan of hot water.  The heat from the water should heat the bowl and melt all the ingredients together.

You will have to stir the chocolate/butter/mars bar mix, so hold the bowl with an oven glove and do this gently.  The mixture may curdle to start with, but after this it will all come together nicely.

Remove the bowl containing the melted chocolate from the heat and to this add the cornflakes.  As you add them crush them just slightly – this will make it easier to mix together.

Mix the chocolate and cornflakes together – don’t worry if some break.

Spoon the mixture into your cupcake cases (it should make about 12 cakes) and then add a mini-egg to the top of the ‘nest’ you have created.

Leave to cool and then eat!  They will be quite sticky and gooey… which is just what you want!  HAPPY EASTER from gemsfoodgems.

This is how the finished cornflake cake should look… YUM! HAPPY EASTER everyone!

BEETROOTS are Red, Violets are Blue, I’ve got a beetroot muffin for you!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY BLOGGERS…

Whether we have been dreading it or looking forward to it and planning the purchase of random ‘love’ gifts for you partner for weeks; the day is finally here.

I was so close to having a Valentines this year, yet once again so far.  But not to worry (…and please don’t feel sorry for me) I have just been baking to compensate!

I hope you all have a fabulous Valentines day and if you are cooking tonight, please do make these little muffins.  They are great fun, deliciously moist and a stunningly beautiful little muffin.  ENJOY!

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 180g plain flour
• 60g cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 150g light brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 150ml vegetable oil
• 250g cooked beetroots (not pickled!)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

How to make these love muffins…

First things first – you are not going to be able to make a love muffin unless you have a love heart shaped muffin tray, or at least a muffin tray with love heart shaped paper cases.  So, sorry but you are going to need to invest in those… and quick!

The muffins are so easy to make.  The first thing you need to do is to prepare the muffin tray and preheat the oven to 180 degrees (Gas Mark 4).  Now you can get all your dry ingredients ready, so weigh out the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and then sieve them into a large mixing bowl.  (It is important to sieve here as you do not want lumps of cocoa powder).

Add the sugar to the dry ingredients and then mix well so that the flour, sugar, cocoa powder and baking powder are all combined together.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients using a large spoon and then crack the eggs into here.  (You may want to bread each into a cup first just to check they are fresh/not bad, and then you can pour them into the well).

Measure out the vegetable oil into a measuring jug and then to this add the 250g of cooked beetroot.  This is the fun bit (and if you have children then will love doing this!), its BLENDING TIME!  So, insert the blender into the centre and blend until you have a smooth, light pink mix.

Add the bended oil and beetroot to the well along with the eggs and then using a fork or a metal spoon and start to bring together all the ingredients.  Keep mixing (not beating) until there are no pockets of flour and the mixture is smooth and deep in colour.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases/tray until each compartment is about two thirds full.  Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.  When you take them out of the oven they should have risen beautifully and if you insert a skewer or knife into the centre it should come out clean.  If not then pop them back into the oven for 3 minutes.  Repeat until cooked.  Remove from the baking cases/moulds and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

HAPPY BAKING this VALENTINES DAY!

Hats off to Lorraine for these RASPBERRY MUFFINS.

Now that January is done I think we can all indulge a little again without feeling too guilty.  So, this week I decided to make some of my favorite little muffins, courtesy of Lorraine Pascale.  Now I don’t want to steal her thunder or destroy her recipe, but I decided to make a slightly healthier version of these muffins (following Lorraine’s basic recipe) and they worked.  If you look at the normal recipe and then at my version here you will see the reductions quite clearly, so I won’t write all the differences out, but basically I will be reducing the sugar, reducing the butter, using some wholemeal flour, reducing the volume of each muffin and amending the baking times.  Here we go…

Makes: 16 muffins

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

• 150g wholemeal self-raising flour
• 200g plain self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 175g soft light brown sugar
• 350ml semi-skimmed milk
• 2 eggs
• 100g butter, melted and cooled
• 1 punet of raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Method:

Prepare your muffin tray with muffin cases and then preheat the oven to 180 degrees (gas mark 5).

These muffins are so easy to make, so get your large bowl, weighing scales and teaspoon at the ready and then measure out the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and sieve into the large bowl.  To this add the sugar and mix well.

To the dry ingredients add the wet ingredients i.e. the eggs, the milk and the melted (and then cooled) butter.  Slowly mix all these ingredients together until they form a lovely batter.  You want to make sure you mix this well and that there are no little bubbles of flour – as these will cook into the cake and when you cook them the flour bubbles will remain – yuck.

To this lovely batter add your raspberries.  If you want to wash them first (which I would recommend) then you will need to dry them off quite well in paper towels or they will become very soggy in the cake mixture and they will not taste as rasperry-ish as you want them to.

I also break all my raspberries in half, so that there are more to go around.  So, take out 16 whole raspberries, put these to one side.  Break the others in half and drop into the batter.  Mix well then pour some of the batter into a mixing jug so that you can pour the batter into the muffin cases.  You should fill these until they are approx. 4/5ths full.  I would normally do 2/3rds, but these muffins don’t rise as you would expect – this is why you can’t really spoon the mixture and need to pour it into the cases.

Next, use the raspberries you reserved and place one (you can split this if you like) onto the top of each muffin.  The muffins are now ready to bake, so place the tray in your oven for approx. 20 minutes.  They should be golden and cooked, but if not then put them in for another 5 minutes.  To check they are cooked place a knife or a skewer into the centre of the muffin and when you remove it, it should be clean.  If it has lots off mixture on then they are not cooked and need to go back into the oven.

Happy cake making people.  It is time for me to eat one with a cup of tea… ummm!!