Plum Cobbler - Recipe

The hot pudding is fabulous served with ice cream

The leaves are starting to fall off the trees, the nights are drawing in and Plum Cobbler is one of those comforting puddings we will soon be craving for.

This cobbler topping is beautifully light and airy, it is quick and easy to make and is a great alternative to a crumble topped pudding.

The recipe from Baking Mad's Autumn Recipes uses damsons but where I live they are ridiculously expensive and I used red plums with great success, but they must be ripe, otherwise they'll have to be pre-cooked for longer than the recipe suggests.

I placed the cobbler onto the plums in craggy blobs to make the pudding look lovely and homely or instead of one large pudding it can also be cooked in individual ramekins.

It's quite a large pudding and once cooled it can be cut into individual portions and frozen.

Disclaimer:  BakingMad.com have sent me a selection of products for this posting.

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes - National Cupcake Week 2014

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes

I doubt anyone could eat more than one of these super indulgent cupcakes, they must be one of the richest cupcakes I have ever made.  Fortunately, I can freeze them and take one out of the freezer to thaw for those days when I need chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate.

It's National Cupcake Week and for once I managed to make some cupcakes and have posted them on the blog midweek - well done me!

My local Italian restaurant posted a Ferrero Rocher Cake on their Facebook page and it prompted me to make these cupcakes.  I know these Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes have been 'out there' for a long time but somehow I have never got round to making them.

The cupcakes I've seen posted on Facebook this year are truly amazing and inspirational works of creativity.

Here's the recipe to make 12

85g self-raising flour
4 tbsp cocoa powder
110g caster sugar
110g softened salted butter
2 large eggs
1tsp baking powder
2tsp milk

You will need:  12 hole muffin tin and cupcake cases

1. Preheat the oven to 150ºC Fan.
2. Sift the flour and cocoa powder into a bowl.  Add the remaining ingredients and whisk for a good couple of minutes.
3. Using an ice cream scoop place balls of the batter into the 12 cupcake cases.
4. Bake for 20 minutes until cooked.  Remove from the oven and cool.

For the Nutella Buttercream
225g sifted icing sugar
100g softened unsalted butter
2 heaped tablespoons Nutella
2 tsp milk

To decorate: 4 cubes of dark chocolate melted

1. Beat everything together for 5 minutes until light and fluffy.  Add more milk if the mixture is too stiff.
2. Put the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a 1M nozzle and pipe onto the cupcakes.  Top with a Ferrero Rocher.
3. Drizzle over melted chocolate using a teaspoon.

Mary Berry's Spiced Dorset Apple Traybake - Recipe

The traybake is spiced with cinnamon

This is a cake-cum-pudding - according to my hubby it needs a large bowl of 'Birds Custard' - there isn't a cure for his love of Bird's Custard, it comes from his school days. In fact he often boasts that he introduced an American businessman to custard and told him that English puddings have to be served with the pudding floating in custard!

Yes, I did give him a chunk of the cake with his beloved custard - I had a piece with a dollop of cream but creme fraiche would cut through the sweetness of the cake and for me it would be the best choice.

Mary Berry is the queen of the traybake and I don't think I had ever heard of a 'traybake' until many, many years ago when I bought her Ultimate Cake Book.  This book is very well thumbed and is getting a bit tatty but it is a turn to book when I'm in need of baking inspiration.

Part of my collection of Mary Berry cookery books

Adapted recipe and method:

You will need: 30cm x 23cm x 4cm greased and lined with baking parchment.

225g butter softened
550g Bramley cooking apples
1 tbsp bottled lemon juice
225g light brown sugar
300g self-raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4 large eggs at room temperature
1 tbsp semi-skimmed milk
icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Peel, core and thinly slice the apples, place them into a dish. Pour the lemon juice over the apples and toss gently together.
3. Put the butter, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, ½ teaspoon of the cinnamon, eggs and milk into a large bowl. Beat with a hand held electric whisk for 2 minutes.
4. Dollop half the cake batter into the tin and spread it out evenly with a spatula. Place half the apple slices on top and sprinkle over the remaining ½ teaspoon of cinnamon. Spoon the remaining cake batter on top in blobs and level the surface. Scatter the rest of the apple slices over the cake mixture and press them lightly into the surface.
5. Bake for 40 minutes until golden. Test the cake is cooked through with a skewer and the apples are soft and cooked. Leave the cake to cool in the tin. Remove the cake using the lining paper.

The original recipe, method and video how to make the cake is on the Daily Mail website.

Sparkling Redcurrant Cupcakes - Recipe

I revealed on Facebook that I had for no apparent reason gone into blogger meltdown.  It didn't matter what I cooked it just seemed to fail. Cherries falling to the bottom of my cake, rocky roads that didn't quite rock and on and on it went.  I even made hubby a bacon sandwich that you definitely wouldn't pay for!  Although he did remind me he had already paid and that it tasted good all the same:)

My cupcakes may look a little like Christmas with the frosted redcurrants but I love redcurrants coated in sugar, the combination of sweet and tart is amazing, second only to dipping a stick of rhubarb into a bag of sugar.

I've got three redcurrant bushes in my fruit garden and they reward me with lots and lots of bright red bead like jewels that glisten in the sun.  The fruits can be eaten raw, cooked or can be frozen.  They fruit from July through to the middle of August and give us that all important vitamin C.  Unfortunately ants seem to enjoy my fruits too but there isn't much I can do about that!

Redcurrants cost a ridiculous amount of money in the shops and they are sold in minute quantities, I've no idea why because they grow so easily in this country.

At Christmas time we see recipes and images of redcurrants, where do we buy them from at Christmas and where do they come from?

These lovely cupcakes can be made using raspberries or a combination of redcurrants and raspberries. Yes, the fruits are inclined to sink to the bottom of the cupcake cases..........I've got that sinking feeling again!

Makes: 9
110g caster sugar
110g softened butter
110g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g redcurrants

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/Fan 160ºC.
2. Place 9 cupcake cases in a muffin tin.
3. Add all the ingredients, except the redcurrants, to a bowl and mix together for 4 minutes until soft and fluffy.
4. Fold in half the redcurrants.  Place scoops of the mixture into the cupcake cases. Sprinkle the remaining redcurrants on top of the cake batter.
5. Bake for 30 minutes until cooked through. Place onto a cooling rack.
6. To make the icing: Add 100g icing sugar to a medium size bowl and stir in enough lemon juice to make a pouring consistency.  Colour the icing with a few drops of pink colouring.  Pour into a plastic bag, cut a tiny corner off the bag and decorate the tops of the cooled cupcakes. Take a few sprigs of redcurrants and brush with lightly whisked egg white, spoon over caster sugar to frost.  Place onto a tray lined with wax paper to dry.

Mini Lemon Cheesecakes - Recipe

The inspiration for these mini desserts - yellow diamonds!

The way to a man's heart..........in my case my hubby loves jelly! He went to a posher school than me, they had an amazing school cook who made wonderful nursery puddings. He would happily eat nursery puddings and jelly and ice cream every week if I let him.

This lemon cheesecake is my hubby's favourite, it's a little retro using jelly instead of gelatine as a setting agent, but in this recipe it works really well, although to make the cheesecake layer less sweet simply cut down on the amount of sugar. I mostly make this dessert in a 20cm loose base sandwich tin for a low faff dessert but mini desserts always look really pretty.

You will need:  silicone cupcake tray

Makes: 8

170g Hobnob biscuits crushed
100g butter
Half a 1 pint lemon jelly
225g full fat cream cheese (not low fat)
55g caster sugar
grated zest of a lemon
Topping:
juice of a lemon
1-½ to 2 tsp arrowroot
30g caster sugar
butter
yellow food colouring (optional)
For the decoration:
Half a 1 pint lemon jelly

1. Place the biscuits into a bowl and crush using the end of a rolling pin(no fancy kitchen equipment needed here). Melt the butter.  Add the melted butter to the crushed biscuits.
2. Put the silicone tray onto a sturdy metal tray.  Divide the biscuit crumb mixture between the cavities. Press down with a spoon. Place in the fridge for a couple of hours to chill.
3. Boil the kettle, add half the jelly tablet to a jug and make up to ¼ pint with hot water.  Stir to dissolve the jelly.  Cool and then place the jug in the fridge to chill until it is the consistency of unbeaten egg white.
4. Beat the cream cheese with the caster sugar and lemon rind.  Gradually whisk in the chilled jelly.  It will go lumpy but keep on beating with a hand whisk and it will become smooth.  Remove the cupcake tray from the fridge and fill the cavities nearly to the top with the cream cheese/jelly mixture making sure there is a space for the topping. There will be some cream cheese mixture left over when you make individual cheesecakes.  If making the 20cm cheesecake all the mixture will be used up.  Place the silicone tray back in the fridge to chill until the filling is set.
5. To make the topping: Make the lemon juice up to ¼ pint with water.  Place the arrowroot into a basin and mix with some of the liquid to make a smooth paste, add the rest of the liquid and the sugar. Pour into a small saucepan, bring to the boil whilst stirring to prevent lumps.  Boil to produce a clear mixture.  Remove from the heat, add the butter and a little yellow food colouring.  Let the mixture cool.
6. Take the cheesecakes from the fridge.  Spoon the sauce over the top.
7. Place the cheesecakes into the freezer to partially freeze, this will make it easier to remove them from the moulds.
8. In the meantime, make up the other half of the lemon jelly to ¼ pint as before.  Pour into heart shaped silicone moulds.  Chill down and then place in the freezer.  Remove from the freezer and take the hearts out of the mould.
9. Take the cheesecakes out of the freezer and remove from the moulds, place on individual plates to return to room temperature.  Place a heart on each plate.
10. Decoration: Half a lemon jelly dissolved in ¼ pint of hot water. Place on a tray and chill in the fridge until set, remove from the fridge and chop to make 'diamonds'.

Strawberry Cake - Recipe

                                              Fantasy Cake - a recipe by Lisa Faulkner

I've been away from home this week and have indulged in some fabulous food, especially my treat of the week, which was an evening meal at Le Caprice. As regular readers know I love coffee, and I've had more than a few expertly made cups this week but the best was definitely at Le Caprice.

I made this cake a couple of weeks ago and have to say my strawberries have been amazing this year, I can't believe how many strawberries you can get off two rows. I've made a few strawberry cakes this year from them and these are now my favourite summer cakes, they're fabulous, especially if you serve them with cream.

I came across this recipe whilst browsing through some cookery books in the library, a quick search on the web and everyone agreed this cake is one of the best strawberry cakes ever.

The recipe can be found on the Waitrose website and they have a video on You Tube showing the cake being made -  I'd recommend using the method shown on the video and not the one on the website. My only comment regarding the recipe is the amount of strawberries used which is 400g, I used less and it was absolutely fine.

The cake keeps really well covered in cling wrap and stored in the fridge.

Make it before all the fresh strawberries disappear!


                                                       VIMTO SQUEEZY - REVIEW

I was delighted to be sent Vimto Original, Cherry and Strawberry to try, the weather has been hot and the timing was perfect.

The Vimto Squeezy is lighter than a cordial in taste, I'm not always very keen on cordials, some taste like boiled sweets - perhaps it's just me who thinks this, but these are excellent and definitely don't taste like boiled sweets!

These mini bottles are easily transportable to flavour bottles of water whilst you are out and about. Handily they will also fit into my handbag and take up no space at all.

The squeezy bottles come in a small 50ml bottle and are sugar free.  To flavour a 500ml bottle of water simply squirt in one teaspoon of Vimto.  There are approximately 25 servings in a bottle and at a RRP of just £2.49 they are very good value.  Available from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Co-op Stores.

Disclaimer:  I was sent the products for review, all thoughts are my own.