Classic carrot cake

by Jenny // October 16, 2015 // 3 Comments

This carrot cake is adapted from the cake I made for Simba the Lion’s birthday a couple of years ago. As well as using lemon juice to sour the milk in this recipe I also added some orange juice to increase the range of flavours. Originally I was just going to make a showstopper Winnie the Pooh cake and iced buns this weekend but I took a carrot cake to work last weeka nd my children asked if they could make another one for them to eat. They really enjoyed the weighing and measuring and apparently it’s the nicest carrot cake ever!!!

For the cake:

300g light muscavado sugar
2 eggs – beaten
100ml whole milk
Juice of half a lemon
50ml of orange juice
300ml corn oil
300g plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp baking powder
1tsp ground cinnamon
half tsp ground ginger
half tsp salt
half tsp vanilla extract
300g grated carrots
100g shelled walnuts – chopped
Pre-heat the oven to 170 c / 325 f and grease and line 2 x 20 cm tins

Add the lemon juice to the milk to sour it. (Alternatively you could use buttermilk).
Add the orange juice to the milk also.
Place the sugar, eggs, soured milk, oil and vanilla extract in a free-standing mixer and beat to combine.
In a separate bowl combine the flour, bicarb, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and continue to beat until smooth.
Add the grated carrots and chopped walnuts then stir by hand to distribute evenly.
Pour into the two tins and level the mixture
Place in the preheated oven for about 40 min or until a cake tester / knife comes out clean.
Turn out onto racks to cool

For the cream cheese frosting

600g icing sugar
100g butter – softened
250g cream cheese – cold

In a free-standing mixer beat the icing sugar and butter together until combined.
Add the cream cheese and beat at a medium speed for about 5 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy.
be careful not to over beat the frosting or the cream cheese will split and become runny.
Use a palate knife to spread the frosting evenly and add extra chopped walnuts on top for decoration

Winnie the Pooh showstopper cake

by Jenny // October 16, 2015 // 5 Comments

The great British bake off finished for another year this week and I really think the right person won this year. The final showstopper challenge was a multi tiered classic British cake and one of my favourites is lemon cake. I wanted to make the decoration for the cake classically British as well and one of my favourite children’s books provided the inspiration. Winnie the pooh by A. A. Milne with the original illustrations by E. H. Shepard. The stories seemed perfect as they are part of so many people’s childhood, have some beautiful quotes in them and after all, what goes better with honey than lemon (cake)?

I admit that unlike the cakes in the final I only made two tiers as lemon cake and made the bottom tier as chocolate orange cake – simply because there’s only so much lemon cake that one family of four needs. I made tempered chocolate trees for the top tier, which is based on when Pooh and Piglet nearly catch a Woozle, I made a tempered chocolate house for Eeyore which stood at the base of the cake and I also made dark and white tempered chocolate honey pots filled with a white chocolate ganache. The bottom two tiers are inspired by Winne the Pooh and some bees, when Pooh pretends to be a little black raincloud to get to the bees’ honey. In the collage picture you can see the detail on the cake and also the artwork which inspired it.

One of my favourite quotes from the Winnie the Pooh stories is “As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen”, it makes me think of when my children were born and I knew that life was never going to be the same.

Winne the Pooh, Eeyore and the balloon are made from flower paste which dries harder than normal fondant and decorated with the same black water icing I used for the quote,the buzzing bees around Pooh and the footprints in the snow. The tree is made from normal fondant icing – the same kind I used to cover the cakes and the cake drum (board).

To fill and crumb coat all three of the cakes the cakes I made a lemon frosting with the juice from the lemons whose zest I used in the lemon cakes. See below the recipe for a look inside the cakes.

Winnie the Pooh lemon and chocolate orange showstopper

2015-10-15 16:59:09

Serves 30

Two tiers of lemon cake on top of a base tier of chocolate orange cake, filled with lemon frosting and decorated with fondant icing and tempered chocolate. You will need two 6 inch tins, to 8 inch tins and two 9 inch tins.

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For the lemon cakes

500g Caster sugar
500g Unsalted butter (softened)
8 eggs (beaten)
500g Self raising flour
Zest of 5 lemons
Approximately 50ml of whole milk (may vary)

For the chocolate orange cake

500g Caster sugar
500g Unsalted butter (softened)
8 eggs (beaten)
410g Self raising flour
90g Cocoa powder
Zest of 3 large oranges
Approximately 75ml of whole milk (may vary)

For the lemon frosting

1Kg icing sugar
320g Unsalted butter (softened)
100ml whole milk
Lemon juice to taste - I like this quite tangy.

To decorate

2Kg Ready to roll fondant icing
Various gel food colourings
1 pack flower and modeling paste
200g Dark Belgian cooking chocolate
50g White Belgian cooking chocolate
50ml double cream
Water icing

For the Lemon cakes

Grease and line two 6 inch tins and two 8 inch tins. Preheat the oven to 160c fan or 180c non-fan.
In a freestanding mixer cream together the butter and sugar until pale and mousse like.
Add the beaten eggs a little at a time (add a few spoonfuls of the flour if the mixture starts to split).
Stir in the flour.
Stir in the lemon zest.
Add the whole milk a little at a time until the mixture falls easily from a spoon.
Split the mixture between the four cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Bear in mind that the smaller cakes may bake faster than the larger cakes and may need to be taken out earlier.
Remove the cakes from the tins and leave to cool on wire racks.

For the Chocolate orange cake

Grease and line two 9 inch tins. Preheat the oven to 160c fan or 180c non-fan.
In a freestanding mixer cream together the butter and sugar until pale and mousse like.
Add the beaten eggs a little at a time (add a few spoonfuls of the flour if the mixture starts to split).
Mix together the flour and cocoa powder then stir into the egg mixture.
Stir in the orange zest.
Add the whole milk a little at a time until the mixture falls easily from a spoon - you will need to add more milk than for the lemon cakes as the cocoa powder makes the mixture more dry.
Split the mixture between the four cake tins and bake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
Remove the cakes from the tins and leave to cool on wire racks.

For the lemon frosting

In a freestanding mixer cream together the icin sugar and softened butter.
Add the whole milk and mix on high speed until the mixture is smooth and light.
While continuing to mix add lemon juice to taste - I added about 50ml but I like my frosting quite tangy.

For the decoration

Level the cakes with a cake leveler or bread knife.
Colour your fondant as appropriate, roll out on a non-stick mat then invert onto the cakes, peel off the mat and carefully smooth to remove any creases. Cut off excess fondant using a pizza wheel or knife.
Temper the dark and white chocolate using the seeding method. I used chocolate moulds to make the honey pots and piped freehand onto grease- proof paper to make the sticks for Eeyore's house. To make the trees I sketched one on white paper and laid greaseproof paper on top before piping, moving the template along after creating each tree. Winnie the pooh, Eeyore and the balloon were made by hand from modeling paste, the tree nusing sugar craft tools from normal fondant.
To make the white chocolate ganache filling for the honey pots add the cream (room temperature) to the tempered white chocolate and stir until combined then fill the chocolate honey pots, freeze for 10 minutes then join together with more tempered dark chocolate.

By jenny @ mummymakescakes

Mummy makes cakes http://jaisee.com/mummymakescakes/

Inside the lemon cakes were a consistent texture just as Paul and Mary asked for. The chocolate orange cake came out pretty well too. Also below are a few photos of the making process.

For some reason this week also made a classic carrot cake and some iced buns.

Baked chocolate tart

by Jenny // October 5, 2015 // 4 Comments

This week was chocolate week in the Great British Bake Off. I did briefly consider making a chocolate centre-piece, however spending most of the weekend at my brother in law’s wedding meant that realistically it wasn’t going to happen.

I decided to make a chocolate tart and first looked at a nice easy one with pomegranate on the Tesco Baking Ideas section. It looked nice and quick but being a glutten for punishment I eventually decided on a baked chocolate tart with a heart pattern.

I adapted my normal sweet pastry ti be a chocolate pastry and made a chocolate custard which I then baked. To make the heart pattern simply pipe dots of white chocolate custard in a spiral pattern then starting at the centre of the spiral draw a skewer slowly through all the dots in the spiral to turn them into hearts.

Baked chocolate tart

2015-10-04 16:04:10

Serves 12

A chocolate pastry case containing a baked dark chocolate custard with white chocolate custard used for decoration.

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For the pastry

110g Plain flour
15g Cocoa powder
15g Castor sugar
75g Unsalted butter
1 egg yolk
For the filling
3 Eggs (beaten)
300ml Double cream
1 teaspoon Vanilla essence
300g dark chocolate (melted)
50g white chocolate (melted)

For the pastry

Pre-heat the oven to 180C fan
In a large bowl mix together the flour, cocoa and sugar
Rub in the butter
Stir in the egg yolk and kneed briefly to make sure the egg is distributed evenly
Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill for at least 20 minutes
Grease a 9 inch fluted tart tin using your fingers to get right into the ridges
Roll out the pastry on a non-stick mat or grease proof paper
Turn the pastry into the tin and push into the edges
Cut off the excess pastry from the top and line with grease proof paper and baking beans
Bake for 15 minutes at 180c fan then remove from the oven, remove the grease proof paper and baking beans and make the filling

For the filling

Set your oven to 150 fan
Heat the cream in a pan until it starts to look fuzzy but doesn't boil
Mix the vanilla essence with the beaten eggs and pour into the cream whisking continually
Remove the custard from the heat and continue to mix until it thickens and begins to cool.
Pour about 50ml of the custard into a bowl and keep to one side
Add the melted dark chocolate to the remaining custard and mix until smooth
Pour into the blind baked tart case
Add the melted white chocolate to the 50mlof custard placed to one side and mix until smooth
Place the white chocolate custard in a piping bag and pipe dots in a spiral from the centre to the outside of the tart.
Starting again at the centre draw a skewer / cocktail stick slowly around the spiral to turn the dots into hearts
Bake for 20 minutes then turn off your oven, open the door and leave the tart in the oven for a further 10 minutes.
Remove the tart from the oven and leave to cool completely before removing the tart from the tin

Mummy makes cakes http://jaisee.com/mummymakescakes/

This week Tesco very kindly sent me some vouchers to help me make my baked chocolate tart, I got a great selection of baking goodies which went into making my chocolate tart. chocolate tart 2 chocolate tart 3 tesco

Nectarine and raspberry frangipane tart

by Jenny // September 14, 2015 // 1 Comment

This week’s GBBO was pastry so I had a go at something new – a frangipane tart, I added nectarines and a layer ofraspbery jam at the bottom.
I used the sweet pastry which I made previously for my summer berry meringue pies and blind baked the case before baking the filling. Stork had kindly sent me some vouchers to try their margarine and it worked really well for the tart filling, easier to mix in than butter and tasting just as nice.

Spanish Windtorte

by Jenny // August 31, 2015 // 2 Comments

windtorte So I decided to have a go at the technical challenge from this week’s GBBO, all very last minute and rushed (slightly cheating because it’s all normal meringue but here it is in all it’s sugary glory. It’s made with traditional meringe, 50g sugar to 1 egg whitewith an extra 50g of sugar so in this case 6 egg whites to 350g sugar, I made the base and top first, then the 3 rings for the sides. The remaining meringue I used round the edge, my oven was too hot initially hence the darker coloured top, I cooled itdown to finish the sides so they are a better colour. Inside is a strawberry and cream filing. windtorte2

Plaited Cranberry Bread Wreath

by Jenny // August 20, 2015 // 4 Comments

wreath This week the contestants on the Great British Bake Off tackled bread. I haven’t seen the episode yet but from the trailers it looks challenging to say the least. Show-stoppers were bread sculptures which are very impressive but I’m not sure how practical it would be to make one at home. So this week my take on a show stopping bread was to remake the Cranberry wreath bread which I made at Christmas. It tastes amazing with home made cranberry sauce and baked Camembert. I took a picture of the base to show the plaiting on both sides however sadly it’s a bit blurry. You can find the recipe here.

Black forest cake

by Jenny // August 8, 2015 // 7 Comments

The Great British Bake Off stated again this week and as (almost) always the first week was cake week. There were Madeira cakes, Walnut cakes and Black Forest Gateaux. When thinking which I would make I wanted to try something a bit different to my normal safe recipes so I decided to use a recipe from Mary Berry’s Ultimate Cake Book (which she signed for me at Cake International) and try her Black Forrest Cake which is a fatless sponge made by whisking the eggs and sugar together before folding in the flour and cocoa powder very carefully. I adapted the recipe slightly as I didn’t want to put Kirsch in a cake that my kids would eat so I made a cherry Jam of sorts with Glace cherries, cherry cordial, water and jam sugar, boiling the mixture at 105c for 4 minutes before leaving it to cool and set.

I increased the cake mixture by half to give 3 layers of sponge and filled with cherry jam and cream. For the top and sides I made dark chocolate ganache and coated the sides in dark chocolate chips. Cream, cherries and a candle completed the look and I had my very own black forest gateau. For any gaming fans out there you may have spotted that it is in fact the Portal Cake. (Portal is a game where a deranged computer promises you cake as an incentive to complete increasingly difficult logic puzzles).

We are big fans of portal in this house and in the past I have also made Companion cube biscuits and The Cake Is a Lie birthday cake.

Summer fun with the Co-operative food and More drinks

by Jenny // August 1, 2015 // 1 Comment

Don’t ask me how it happened but this year I somehow ended up as chair of the PTA at my children’s school. The first big event that we’ve run was a Summer Fun Day (a Summer Fete by any other name). There were bouncy castles, a BBQ, activities and bar. We chose the Saturday before the end of the summer term and hoped for good weather. The week before had been the hottest of the year and the Friday was beautifully sunny so it was looking good, however on the Saturday it was cloudy grey and eventually rainy. We managed 2 of the 3 hours we had planned for the event before we accepted defeat in the rain. We were very lucky to be supported by The co-operative food and More drinks.

The co-operative provided us with bread rolls for our BBQ and also with a fabulous hamper of prizes for our raffle, including 2 delicious cakes (Passion fruit and coconut and Strawberry), 2 bottles of wine, fresh strawberries and a bottle of Prosecco (which I love).

The other company who kindly supported us was More Drinks – a company who make delicious flavoured waters for kids and grownups. My absolute favourite is the blackcurrant and blueberry one which also has vitamin A for healthy skin and vision. I love the idea of water that also helps get those important vitamins into my kids. The children’s bottles have sports caps to stop spillages from distracted small people, however there’s no reason kids couldn’t also try the other flavours.

In spite of the rain the event was really successful and raised lots of money which will be used to improve the grounds of the school for children to enjoy.

The Minions are coming!

by Jenny // June 19, 2015 // No Comments

We love minions in this house. they’re cute, immoral and great for a cuddle. If they were really wandering around looking for a new evil master to serve I’d probably try and get them to come and live with me. Do you think they’d be good at doing the washing up?

On June 26th the new Minions movie hits cinemas with Stuart, Bob and Kevin going in search of a new evil master and it’s going to be EPIC!!

Whether you’re going out to find your new liege lord of heading to your local cinema you’re going to need something healthy and packed with goodness to give you the energy for your quest. In this house that means pizza. Made from scratch pizza. Easy peasy made from scratch pizza actually.

To coincide with the launch of the Minions movie Green Giant Sweetcorn have challenged bloggers to come up with a minion inspired recipe so her is my Minion Pizza.

Minion Pizza

2015-06-19 13:36:50

Yields 2

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Ingredients

250g Strong white bread flour
4g Fast action yeast
5g salt
1 and a half tablespoons Olive oil
150ml Water (room temperature)
2 - 3 table spoons passata (per pizza)
250g Grated mozzarella
1 can Green Giant Sweetcorn
1 slice honey roast ham
Handful of frozen peas

Instructions

Place the flour, salt, yeast in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer and stir together.
Add the olive oil and water and knead with a dough hook for 5 minutes using the stand mixer.
Cover the bowl with cling film and leave to prove for about and hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 220c
Split the dough in two and roll out into two pizzas.
Spread the passata over the pizza
Sprinkle the cheese over the passata
Use the ham and peas to make the minion eyes and mouth
Use the sweetcorn for the yellow colour
Bake the pizzas in the preheated oven for 10 minutes or until the base is crisp and the cheese melted.

By Jenny

Mummy makes cakes http://jaisee.com/mummymakescakes/

This post is part of the Tots 100 Green Giant Minion Challenge

Magic Squares Playdates

by Jenny // May 17, 2015 // No Comments

eating1 We were recently asked to organise a playdate involving the new range of Petits Filous yoghurts called Magic Squares, a combination of either raspberry or strawberry and vanilla. My kids have been learning about 2D shapes so we had a tea party with different shaped food. Triangle sandwiches, circular carrots (just cut them into slices instead of sticks) and squares in the yoghurt. My two monkeys loved identifying all the shapes and changing them. “look mummy it’s a semi-circle” while eating half a carrot slice. The yoghurts were a big hit and I’ve been asked to get them “All the time”.

I even had a sneaky try of the Magic Squares myself and they were a nice mix of flavours, I haven’t had much of a lookin though as they are being requested regularly as desert – only beaten as current favourite by chocolate cake.

This post is an entry for Britmums #MagicSquaresPlaydates Linky Challenge Sponsored by Petits Filous

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