Freckled Kirsty

There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment for brownies with all kinds of sweets and biscuits added to the top to give an extra dimension to these absolute classic bakes. Doing the rounds on Instagram which caught my eye were Bourbon brownies, in particular Frances Quinn's version (Former GBBO winner). Her food imagination and photography is always beautiful and well worth checking out. I have used my own brownie recipe which combines cocoa and melted dark chocolate topped with neat rows of Bourbons, making a brownie which perfectly compliments a good cup of tea. Time to get dunking! Ingredients: 220g butter 180g caster sugar 150g light muscovado sugar 50g cocoa powder 50g dark chocolate (70%) 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 eggs 120g plain flour 1 packet of Bourbons - I used 13 ontop of my batter, but you can add more or less depending on how you want your brownies to look. Method: Preheat your oven to 180C/ 160C fan assisted and line a brownie tin. In

Pastry week on the Great British Bake Off saw Paull Hollywood set custard tarts as the technical challenge and I thought I would give them a go, seeing as I have never attempted them before! I own Paul's cookbook which has the recipe in, and it can also be found on the GBBO website. These two recipes vary slightly - in the book Paul doesn't make the rough puff pastry but uses shop bought (which I would normally do.) This being a Bake Off challenge though I decided to use the recipe they followed in the tent. The result - delicious buttery pastry filled with golden creamy custard. I ate 3 in one sitting! The tarts are quite fiddly and leaving the pastry to cool between rolling is essential to get the decent lamination and signature swirl on the bottom, so you will need to set aside a good couple of hours in total. As a side note, I found that I had a lot of left over custard - either I didn't make my tarts big enough or the recipe is rather generous with the por

Breastfeeding is a topic which many people feel very passionately about, and when you are a new mother countless people offer advice, opinions and their own stories. This isn't always helpful though, and as a first time mum it can be slightly overwhelming, especially when advice is quite frequently contradictory or just doesn't fit your own situation. When you look at the statistics for breastfeeding in the UK you can see we as a country fall far behind the rest of the world (stats taken from Unicef 2010 survey): E xclusive breastfeeding at six weeks was 24% in England, a cross the UK, at three months, the number of mothers breastfeeding exclusively was 17% and at four months, it was 12%. However, exclusive breastfeeding at six months remains at around 1%. Rates of ‘any breastfeeding’ at six weeks was 55%, while at six months they were 34%. My daughter is just about to hit the six month mark, and I fall into the 'any breastfeeding' category. Pre-baby I was conv

With the start of September, Autumn is just round the corner meaning a return to cosy jumpers, richer foods and in baking terms warmer flavours. Apples, spices and autumn go hand in hand so today I have whipped up some spiced apple cupcakes. This is basically a two pot recipe and very quick to make, handy when you are having to fit baking around baby naps! Ingredients 135g dark muscovado sugar 65g caster sugar 115g melted butter 2 large eggs 80ml whole milk 1 tsp vanilla extract 200g plain flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda 2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp ground nutmeg 1 large apple peeled and chopped, I used a cooking apple which gives a slightly tart taste to offset the sweetness of the cakes 1 portion of caramel, either from the tin or home made. Method Preheat your oven to 180/ 170 degrees fan assisted. Line a 12 hole cupcake tin with cases and put aside. Mix together the butter and sugars until well combined. Whisk the eggs in, one at a time

Another get together with friends has prompted some more baking (whilst the baby is sleeping) and the salted caramel cover recipe from a BBC Good Food issue from a while back caught my eye. I have been storing this recipe waiting for a good excuse to bake it, and I can say (after scoffing a few), these brownies do not disappoint and will be made again. Brownies are very easy to make, the one stumbling point I often find is the temperature of the oven and the time they are baked for - as ovens vary vastly this is quite hard to write into a recipe, but I have a fan assisted fairly new over which bakes quite hot. They key for baking the brownies is checking after the stated time, and they should still be a little liquid in the middle if you want moist squishy squares. Leaving them to cool completely in the tin is also an essential, as if they are cut too early they may still be too liquid. Time to make batter - around 15 minutes Baking time - 35 minutes depending on your oven I

Banoffee pie in my eyes is one of the best desserts to take along to a social gathering, so a casual drinks invite for the weekend prompted this tasty offering.It is very easy to make, (you can even cheat and use Dulce du Leche rather than making your own caramel) so you put in minimal effort for a stunning and delicious dish. Ingredients For the base: 200g of your choice of biscuit - I personally use Rich Tea's, but if you fancy a hint of spice a few ginger nuts thrown in are good, or you can add some extra chocolate in here through chocolate digestives - as long as the biscuit can soak up the butter that is all that we need. 100g melted butter to start, but add more if the biscuit base isn't binding. For the banoffee filling: 2 bananans, ripe but not mushy Either 1 can of dulce du leche, or,  150g soft brown sugar 150g butter 1 x 397g can of condensed milk For the topping: 150ml double cream Milk chocolate to grate over the cream Method Firs

This weekend sees us packing up and treking to Reading for a university reunion, and as we now have many little people a picnic seemed a good idea (crossing our fingers that the sun comes out to play). As a group we have decided that everyone should bring one savoury and one sweet, so my offering is some lovely chorizo sausage rolls. They Spanish sausage gives a lovely extra dept to this absolute picnic classic, and they are so easy to make and will be gobbled up very quickly I am sure. Ingredients: 1 pack of ready to roll puff pastry 400g sausage meat - I buy good quality pork sausages and take them meat out of the casing 100g chorizo, diced into small chunks 1 egg yolk Salt and pepper for seasoning If you are feeling a little fancy seasame or poppy seeds for sprinkling ontop Method Preheat the oven to 180 degrees adn line a baking tray with parchment. Combine the sausage meat, chorizo and seasoning in a bowl and refridgerate if making in advance. Unroll the puff

I recently celebrated my 30th birthday - a big moment in a girls life, saying goodbye to a decade which has seen university, making life long friends, partying hard, love heartbreak and more love, travel, house buying, puppy adopting and the birth of my beautiful Tilly. However, life with a 7 week old meant that I didn't make any plans as we live day to day depending on the little one's mood. The few things I wanted were a cake, pizza and prosecco, and a card saying happy birthday mummy. I got two of these on the day..... The night (or early hours of the morning) did not start well, they were filled with a lot of sick and poop from the baby and not much sleep for me. And these themes continued through the day - Tilly had a poorly tummy which led to 5 outfit changes and a very upset baby. Also, it poured with rain all day which led to an upset mummy. I felt sad because I couldn't make her feel any better and that we couldn't go out and enjoy our day together. Thankful

So following on from my 'Year off of blogging' post, we now have a baby. Matilda Ann arrived on the 29th March via c-section as she was stubbornly breech throughout the pregnancy, weighing in at 7lb9. Having a daughter has definitely been the most incredible but challenging time of my life. They say you don't know tired until you have a baby and this is so true - apart from the waking every couple of hours for feeding, which is exhausting in itself, you have the staggering amounts of washing to fit in, as well as looking after yourself and family. We are now at 6 weeks and I feel like last night was the first good night we have had - fingers crossed this continues and I start to feel more human and less zombie. In terms of blogging I am undecided on how to continue. There is so much to be said relating to the joys and challenges of parenthood, but this is primarily a baking blog so therein lays my dilema. I don't have much spare time to fit baking in, as I am on mum

For the first time in a fair while, earlier in the week I felt like picking up my wooden spoons and doing some baking, under the vague pretence of making a valentines pudding. Both me and my other half love Toblerone so I decided that this would be the base for my pudding and recently having discovered an amazing looking baker called Jane on Instagram (@janespatisserie) I gave one of her recipes a go. Normally my other half isn't the biggest sweet fan, especially post steak and chips dinner, but these got a huge thumbs up so this recipe is a definite winner and one to save for the future! Ingredients: 200g unsalted butter 100g chopped dark chocolate 150g chopped Toblerone 3 eggs 275g caster sugar 90g plain flour 35g cocoa powder 400g chopped Toblerone Method: Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C fan assisted and line a brownie tin with baking paper. Over a pan of simmering water, melt together the 150g Toblerone and the butter. This can be done in the microwave bu

Hello lovely readers, So I have been somewhat slack on the blogging front for over a year now, looking back my last post was the epic Malteaser Christmas cake from 2015. Lets just say that life got a little busy in 2016, and I am sure 2017 is going to be equally as manic, but in the past week or so the urge to write has come on strong. So what did I get up to in my year off? Well, mostly I spent 2016 'adulting' and doing a few of the big exciting life things - firstly we got a puppy! Beautiful Molly, a standard long haired Daschund is now 13 months old, reasonably well trained (unless she is in one of her more stubborn moods) and my little angel. That happened in March 2016, which was also the month we put an offer in on our first home. Fast forward 7 weeks and all the paper work had been signed, money exchanged and keys in our hands. Big life moment. I now have a beautiful new home with a great kitchen for baking and lots of lovely neighbours who I can tempt with cake. Bak