Freckled Kirsty

Hello! Doing the rounds at this festive time is a Malteser Cake in the style of a Christmas pudding, and one of my friends has challenged me to make this, so being one to thrive at the thought of a challenge I gave it a go! I basically have made a chocolate cake in a Christmas pudding bowl, sliced and iced then covered in Maltesers. Pretty simple but looks fairly impressive.  This recipe will make you the Christmas pudding and some spare batter, so you can pop in 12 cupcakes as well! Ingredients: 350g plain flour 350g caster sugar 50g cocoa powder 1 tsp bicarb of soda 150g dark chocolate chips 435ml vegetable oil 1 cup of buttermilk (sour cream can be used as an alternative) 3 large eggs For the icing: 350g icing powder 250g softened butter Cocoa powder to flavour Two large share packs of Maltesers Melted white chocolate A couple of cherries Method: Preheat your oven to 170C. Line a 12 hole muffin tin and grease a Christmas Pudding shaped bowl. I used

Hi everyone, One of the things I love about winter is lighting the fire and curling up in front of the TV on a Saturday or Sunday evening to watch the likes of Strictly Come Dancing,  X-Factor, Downton Abbey and probably my favourite guilty show, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. And what do I love to do whilst watching these? Why, eat yummy treats I have rustled up earlier in the day!  Viennese Swirls are a blast from the past - I remember having these for tea when I was a child, either made by my parents or the Mr Kipling variety, and having never baked them before I thought I would give them a shot. And they impressed very much - short, crumbly, sweet sandwiches of rich butter cream and raspberry jam, perfect but super simple to whip up! Ingredients: For the biscuits: 250g very soft butter 50g icing sugar 50g cornflour 250g plain flour 1/2 tsp vanilla extract For the icing: 100g butter 200g icing sugar Raspberry jam Method: Preheat the over to 190C

Hello friends, This year my role at work has changed, and rather than working from an office I am based from home – this is fantastic and I love it, but one thing I miss is seeing my friends day to day. This week I popped back into the office and it was the perfect excuse to whip up some cakes and dish them out to my buddies. One of my friends has a favourite bake that I have taken in many times, and that is the Hummingbird Bakery’s Boston Cream Cupcakes. They are vanilla cupcakes, with a custard filling and smothered in a chocolate frosting. Absolutely gluttonous but a perfect treat to be enjoyed with a cup of tea – we devoured a fair few of these! This recipe can be found in the Hummingbird Bakery ‘Cake Days’ book, which you can find on Amazon here . Ingredients : This makes 12 cupcakes. For the cupcakes: 80g softened butter 280g caster sugar 240g plain flour 1 tbsp baking powder 240ml milk 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract For the custard:

This week saw the final of the Great British Bake Off and I was very excited – of the three finalists I didn’t know who I wanted to win because they each bought something special to the table – Nadiya and her stunning, beautiful and flavorsome bakes, Ian and his originality and daring flavours inspired by his day to day life and Tamal, who seems like one of the loveliest people around. What I was sure of was that we were in for a visual treat, and probably a fairly tricky technical challenge and Millefeuille did not disappoint. Genuinely, whenever I head to a bakery this is one of the treats which tempt me the most, all of that yummy cream and jam sandwiched on crumbly layer rough puff – either that or an éclair!! So, the day after the final, to forget that Bake Off is over, I have decided to try the challenge. The recipe is one of Paul Hollywood’s and it is on the BBC Website here . Now, I have never made rough puff before, although I have made proper puff pastry, and it has

Hello friends, I haven't posted for a while, and the main reason for this is because I  have been on holiday, hurrah! I spent a week away with one of my girl friends on the Greek Island of Skiathos, and it was absolutely beautiful. We stayed in a little boutique hotel, and almost everyday  for breakfast  I had granola with Greek yogurt and honey. This isn't normally the type of breakfast I eat, but it was so good I resolved to make myself a batch as soon as I got home to continue the morning yumminess! Granola,  it turns out, is super easy to make and can be completely customised to your tastes - as long as you have a grain base and get the ratio of dry to wet right you can really chop and change this recipe as much as you like! Ingredients: 3 cups of grains - I used plain rolled oats, but you could mix this up with some quinoa, or use wheat or barley. 1 cup of chopped nuts - I used chopped hazelnuts and pistachios but again,  anything goes here. 1/2 cup of swe

Hello friends, This week on the Great British Bake Off it was pastry week, and the signature challenge was Frangipane. Cue a multitude of different fruits glazes and delicious looking treats! I couldn't remember the last time I had a frangipane, so I skipped into town and went to my local bakery to sample one. Deciding it was indeed delicious I resolved that this would be my challenge for the week. When you are making a frangipane there are a few big decisions - Should you blind bake the pastry before filling? What fruit should you put on top (if any)? Should you coat the pastry base with a jam? I don't like soggy bottoms, so opted to blind bake for 20 minutes (although a lot of recipes skipped this step), I wanted a jam on the base for extra fruitiness and my topping of choice was cherries because the combination of cherry and almond is pure yumminess. An extra decision you can make is whether to make your own shortcrust pastry, or buy a ready made pack from the supermar

Hello friends, I haven't blogged or baked for a while, as I have been pretty busy travelling and working, so today I decided to bake myself a little Friday treat - Malibu Chocolate Brownies. I am obsessed with coconut, and Malibu in any drink is a good thing - I saw this idea on Bakingmad.com, and it is a cracker! If you don't want these to be adult brownies you can just leave out the Malibu and the recipe will make a very fudgey moist brownie. Ingredients: 230g dark chocolate 2 eggs 170g dark muscovado sugar 30g self raising flour 6 tbsp Malibu Method: Preheat your oven to 180C/ 170C fan assisted. Line either a square brownie tin, or if you want slightly deeper brownies a loaf tin with parchment. Melt the chocolate over a simmering pan of water, taking care not to let it burn. Beat together the eggs and sugar until fluffy, then pour in the chocolate and mix well. Add in the alcohol if using, and finally sift over the flour - fold this in

Hello friends, This week on the bake off it was bread week, and as such my other half told me I could definitely bake along for this one! The technical challenge was Paul Hollywood's baguettes which appear in his 'How to bake' book. I was given this for Christmas and have tried the baguettes before, and they aren't easy - they have to be proved twice, and if this isn't done properly you get quite flat dense bakes. Also very important in this bake is having steam in your oven, as this makes the crunchy crust which a good baguette needs. The book 'How to Bake' is definitely a good investment as Paul explains the different bread making techniques, has both sweet and savoury recipes and also strays into the cakes, tarts and puddings recipes as well which makes it quite a diverse baking book. Ingredients: 500g bread flour 10g salt 10g instant yeast 370ml water Oil for kneading Method: Oil a 2-3 litre plastic container. Paul sugges

Hello friends, A few weeks ago I got my hands on the new baking book 'Everything Sweet' by Alex Hoffler and Stacey  O'Gorman, who are otherwise known as the Meringue Girls. This is their second book and as soon as I heard they were writing it I was excited. The first book they released was everything meringue which converted me from cupcakes to anything which could be topped with the white fluffy pillows of goodness, but this second book strays away from meringue into sweet treats. And it does not disappoint. It covers cakes, puddings gifts and some twists on old classics and overall is a very fun book to read. Each recipe has a paragraph at the top explaining the treat you are about to attempt and the fun and honesty of the girls shines through these. On top of great recipe and fun sparks of personality, the photography of the book is stunning - each picture is drool worthy and I would be a very happy baker if any of my bakes looked as good as they do in the book.

Hello friends, It is biscuit week on the Great British Bake Off, therefore my bake of the day is biscotti. The name biscotti means twice baked, and they are ideal to have with a cup of tea or coffee, whether you are a dunker or not. I have chosen a classic pistachio and chocolate combination, but the nuts can be substituted for different flavours and you could throw in some dried fruit for a bit of a twist. Ingredients: 2 eggs 100g caster sugar  250g plain flour  1/2  teaspoon bicarb of soda 20g chopped pistachio 50g dark chopped chocolate Zest of 1 orange Method: Preheat your oven to 180C/ 160C fan assisted. Line a baking tray with non stick parchment. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until fluffy and bubbly. Sift over the flour and bicarb and add in the nuts chocolate and orange zest. Fold together until well combined. Roll out into a log shape, approximately 3 centimetres thick. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cut the log into 1

Hello friends, An absolute favourite sweet treat of mine is a Crunchie bar - for me a bit of honeycomb beats plain chocolate so today I have whipped up some home made honey comb and a chocolate sauce to dip the pieces in. Heaven in a bowl!! This is super simple to make, and you can change up the flavour of the honeycomb by adding nuts, citrus or dried fruit, or like me you can stick to the plain and pure honeycomb, dipped in chocolate. Ingredients: 100g caster sugar 2 1/2 tablespoons golden syrup 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda Method: Line a baking tin with baking paper, and grease well. In a high sided pan, mix the sugar and golden syrup and heat on a low flame. Make sure it doesn't bubble at this point. When the sugar has all dissolved turn up the heat and boil until the mixture is a copper colour. Take off of the heat and quickly beat in the bicarbonate of soda to create the reaction which makes the honeycomb structure. Immediately pour into your prepared tin

Hello friends, So this week marks the start of the Great British Bake Off, one of my favourite TV shows! As the show goes on I am going to try my hand at one of the three weekly bakes, and this week it is the classic Madeira cake. On the show one of the contestants decided on a Gin and Tonic inspired cake, so I decided to give it a shot. The cake on the show used gin in the icing, but having tried this before I know the flavour gets a little lost, so I have used chopped juniper berries in my sponge, giving a subtle gin hint. Ingredients: 175g butter 175g caster sugar 3 eggs 250g self raising flour A splash of milk Zest of 1 lemon 3 teaspoons of chopped juniper berries For the glaze: 120g icing sugar Juice of 1 lemon Juice of 1 orange Method: Preheat the oven to 180C and line and grease a 900g loaf tin. In a bowl, cream together the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix then the chopped berries until well combin

Hello friends, Today's bake is a lovely chocolate cupcake with a hidden Rolo in the middle, topped with a yummy chocolate buttercream and yep, and extra Rolo on top! As the cupcakes bake, the chocolate shell of the Rolo melts leaving a liquid caramel surprise when you bite into the cake - it is  important that the Rolos are very cold before you start, otherwise the caramel is at risk of spreading into the rest of the cake, so stick them in the freezer for half an hour before starting. Ingredients (makes 12 large cupcakes): 230g butter softened 190g caster sugar 90g light brown sugar 200g self raising flour 4 eggs 2 tsp vanilla extract 12 Rolos For the butter icing: 300g icing sugar 150g butter icing 45g cocoa powder 12 Rolos Method: Preheat your oven to 180C/ 160C fan assisted. Line a 12 hole cupcake tins with cases. In a bowl, beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. One at a time, add the eggs and continue beating until well i

Hello friends, I think I am going through a bit of a cookie phase at the moment, I love having sweet treats that I can grab when peckish, and not feel too guilty about eating them. Today I have experimented with a new Oatmeal and Raisin cookie - there are a few cookies I reach for automatically when a choice is in front of me, and this combination is up there with chocolate chip and Smarties cookies as one of my favourite. I am a texture person, and this has a really chewy soft texture which I adore. For my cookies I used some muscovado sugar, rather than all white sugar and a duck egg rather than hen egg as this leads to a moister, richer cookie. Ingredients: 115g softened butter 100g light muscovado sugar  25g caster sugar 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla extract 90g plain flour  1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 120g breakfast oats 120g raisins Method: Preheat the oven to 180C/   170 fan assisted and line two baking trays with parchment. In a bowl, beat together the butter an

Hello friends, So it is that time of the month where Mr Postman brings along a little package, which makes me rather excited! My monthly Birchbox is something I really look forward to - I follow  +Birchbox  on Twitter so for days they have been teasing and dropping hints as to what may come this month - and in actual fact this month we have a Birchbag with summery goodness inside.   Ripping off the packaging I find that I have the bright pink edition of the Birchbag, hurrah! There were four possible choices, all of which look lovely but the pink I have is very vibrant, inspired by Ibiza and designed by Birchbox's own Jess Diner. The first product I pull out of the bag is a lovely lilac colour Soigne nail varnish, and I promptly painted my nails  - this is a very subtle colour and needed two coats to make it pop. It is very pretty and a sophisticated shade so I like it a lot.   Next up is a Benefit product (very excited by this as I love Benefit), and it is the Dre

Hello friends, So..... Nutella. Anyone else obsessed with this? I love the chocolate-hazelnut yumminess and will spread it over pancakes, toast, muffins, crumpets, anything really that seems like a good combo. So it struck me the other day, that I haven't made the most appealing bake - Nutella cookies! This recipe only has three ingredients, it is so simple and makes gooey cookies that won't stick around for long!  Ingredients : 130g plain flour 260g Nutella 1 egg Extra Nutella for the gooey center Method: Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C fan assisted. Mix together the three cookie ingredients and beat well until the dough is consistent. It will be quite a greasy dough and will stick together well. Take a spoonful of mixture and roll into a ball, flatten slightly and make a little well in the middle. Put a teaspoon of Nutella into the well and then take another spoonful of dough, roll and flatten then cover the Nutella. Press the two halves together to make