Today I decided to do some baking. I have been a bit poorly over the past week and have really struggled with my tiredness. But today I feel more myself and thought I should do something to cheer myself up and baking was the perfect thing! Not too much energy but still achieving something. Over a week ago I started this years Christmas cake, I weighed out my fruit and poured alcohol over and left to soak for a few days (ended up being a week), today I finally made the cake and it is cooling, to then be fed with alcohol until ready to ice. The recipe I am using this year is Mary Berry’s Christmas cake recipe, which I’m not sure if I have tried before but it looked lighter than how I picture a Christmas cake, but it smells amazing! I baked two 7inch cakes instead of one larger one as I wanted to make a small one for my boyfriend and one for us to eat also. I haven’t decided when design I am going to do on each cake yet either, I will do another post once I have iced and decorated the Christmas cakes. (the picture below is the Cakes about to go in the oven) When I was shopping in Lidl the other day I picked up a cookie cutter kit for about £2.99 which caught my eye for when I make jammie dodgers because it cuts out the cookie and the centre at the same time! It comes with two large plunge cutters which cuts out the biscuit and three small cutters which cut out the centres. It is really easy to use, you just select the smaller cutter you want to use and place it inside of the larger cutter and twist to lock it in to place. You then push the cutter into the dough you are using and at the end press the plunge button to release the middle shape. So as I was eager to try out my new gadget I came up with the idea for a gingerbread cookie filled with caramel buttercream to give my cookie cutter a try! I used Jo Wheatley’s custard cream recipe and used mixed spice and ground ginger instead of custard powder. I changed the filling also and used more icing sugar instead of custard powder and added a few drops of caramel flavouring to make a caramel buttercream filling.
I love the results!!! The biscuits did not flatten and expand too much which meant that the cut out centres stayed intact and the biscuit was a decent thickness and the caramel buttercream filling compliments the gingerbread perfectly.
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I love autumn! It is probably one of my favourite seasons because I love the beautiful colours the leaves, the chill in the air, warm soups, hot chocolate with lots of cream and marshmallows, knitted jumpers, boots, snuggling up in blankets as well as the celebrations of Halloween and bonfire night leading up to Christmas! Halloween baking is another one of my favourites! As you have probably seen I have done a fair bit of Halloween baking over the past few weeks, lots of cupcakes, from scary devil and ghost vanilla cupcakes to salted caramel cupcakes with edible eyeballs and peanut butter Oreo Spider cupcakes. You can find all of the recipes on the links, This year I have been impresssed by the amount of squash and pumpkin varieties that are in the shops, they look so beautiful and my mind has been in overdrive thinking of all the things they am going to bake and cook with them. Today I decided to make a Pumpkin and Bacon soup and Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes out of one of the squash. I found the recipe for these Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes on the Delicious magazine website. The cupcakes are very similar to a carrot cake but they use grated squash instead of carrots, the basic recipe is the same as well as the spices and the addition of walnuts in the batter. The icing is a simple cream cheese icing with a dusting of cinnamon for that extra hint of spice.
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Welcome!Hello, I'm Laura and I am a 25 year old foodie with a passion for baking! When I'm not thinking, blogging about food, reading cooking magazines, searching Instagram for food porn I am usually cooking it!
This Blog started a few years ago now as a place for me to store recipes that I like and that work! I love to take pictures of food and I am on all of the social network site as polkadotcooking. I hope you enjoy my site and give me any feedback if you make anything :) Archives
February 2018
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