Carrot Cake

Wonderful Carrot Cake recipe and very easy to do...HERE

Buttercream Rose Cake

Made this today, bit of experimenting....turned out great

Melting Moments

Quick and easy to make and

• 250g butter, cubed
• 55g (1/3 cup) icing sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 260g (1 3/4 cups) plain flour
• 50g (1/3 cup) cornflour

• Filling

• 60g butter, at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 orange, rind finely grated
• 110g (2/3 cup) icing sugar, sifted

• 1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

  2. Beat butter, icing sugar and vanilla essence in a medium bowl with electric beaters until pale and creamy. Sift together the flour and cornflour, add to the butter mixture and mix with the beaters on the lowest possible speed until just combined and a soft dough forms. Lightly flour hands then roll the mixture into small balls. Place on the prepared baking tray about 5cm apart. Use a fork that has been dipped in flour to flatten each ball to about 3cm in diameter and 1 cm thick. Or pipe out into rounds, as i did.

  3. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until cooked through. Cool on baking tray. Repeat with the remaining mixture.

  4. To make the filling, beat the butter, vanilla essence and orange rind in a small bowl with electric beaters until pale and creamy. Add the icing sugar and beat until combined. Refrigerate until required.

  5. To assemble biscuits, spread the base of a biscuit with filling and then join with another biscuit. Repeat with remaining biscuits and filling. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Meatloaf

Ingredients
900g minced beef
2 onions, peeled
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 celery stalk
4 slices of stale white bread
3 eggs
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons mustard
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon Cajun Seasoning
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes (optional)
3 tablespoons chopped coriander
2 teaspoons dried mixed herbs
12 streaky bacon rashers


Method
1. Place the minced beef in a large bowl and set aside. If you don’t have a hand blender or food processor, you will need to chop all the vegetables finely by hand, but the easiest way to make a good meatloaf is to chop them into rough chunks, then put them in a bowl and blend them together with a hand blender.
2. Crumble in the bread and add the eggs, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, salt, pepper, Cajun seasoning, chilli flakes, if using, coriander and mixed herbs. The mix should be quite sloppy and wet.
Make sure your hands are clean, because I believe the best way to make meatloaf is to get your hands into the mix. Pour the chopped vegetable and bread mixture into the mince and combine well.
3. Line a 900g loaf tin with bacon rashers, then press the meatloaf mixture into it. Or 2 500gr tins and freeze one.
4. Place in an oven preheated to 180oC/Gas Mark 4 and bake for 40 minutes for the small loaves or 1 hour for the larger ones.

English Crumpets

Ingredients:

• 12 fl oz/350ml semi-skimmed milk, warmed but not boiling
• 1 lb/450g all purpose or plain flour
• 1/8 oz/5g dried yeast
• 2 tsp sugar
• 12 fl oz/350ml finger-warm water (approx)
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1tsp baking powder
• Vegetable oil for cooking

Preparation:

• Whisk together the milk, flour, yeast and sugar. Once combined add half the water and beat into the batter, continue to add more water until the batter is thick and smooth. Stop adding water once it reaches the consistency of thick cream. Cover with cling film and leave in a warm draft free place until foaming - about 1, up to 2 hours.
• Whisk the salt and baking powder into the batter then heat a heavy based frying pan on the stove to hot but not smoking.
• Dampen kitchen paper with a little oil and grease the base of the pan and a crumpet (or pastry) rings measuring 3"x 1 ½" (8 X 3.75cm) approx. If you don't have any pastry or crumpet rings the use a small, washed food can to the same measurements.
• Place one ring in the heated pan, add enough batter to fill just below the top of the ring. Cook for five minutes when there should be many tiny holes on the surface and the crumpet is setting. Flip the crumpet over and cook for another two – three minutes.
• Repeat with the remaining batter until used up. Rest the crumpets on a wire rack until cool and reheat in a toaster or under the grill before serving. Serve with lots of butter and/or jam.
• NOTE: If the batter seeps from under the ring it is too thin, whisk in more flour. If the crumpet is heavy and without holes, the batter is too thick, add more water.

Easy Peasy Garlic Bread Pizza

Buy a ready made plain base or make one, but why bother...lol

Garlic Bread Topping
1 to 2 cloves garlic, minced
2 to 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 teaspoons sliced fresh flat-leaf parsley
freshly ground black pepper and sea salt
Bake for 10 mins in med to hot oven

Harry Potter

Love this, Mike made the hat and i did the rest and Scarlett loved it...its been eaten now :(

Honeycombe No Bake Squares

By Eric Lanlard

Makes 16 squares

Ingredients

• 100g unsalted butter
• 200g milk chocolate
• 3 tbsp golden syrup
• 225g digestive biscuits, roughly crushed
• 225g chocolate honeycomb balls, roughly chopped with sharp knife

For the decoration

• 50g milk chocolate, melted
• 100g chocolate honeycomb balls, roughly chopped with sharp knife
• 50g digestive biscuits, roughly chopped
• 50g white chocolate, melted

Method

1. Line a square 20cm square tin with greaseproof paper. Melt together the butter, chocolate and syrup then add the crushed biscuits and the chocolate honeycomb balls. Mix together quickly then pour into the lined square tin and chill until set.

2. To decorate, spread a layer of melted chocolate over the top of the surface of the chilled fridge cake to act as a glue. Scatter over the honeycomb balls (Maltesers) and biscuits then using a teaspoon or paper cone made from greaseproof paper, drizzle alternate lines of white and milk chocolate. Allow to set then cut into squares and serve.

Crash hot potatoes

This is a lovely recipe and ive done these before and they are lovely, i also sprinkle cheese on top

• 12-15 baby potatoes
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Sea salt and fresh cracked pepper

Preheat the oven to 200C degrees . Boil the potatoes for 10-15 minutes or until fork tender. Place on a cooking sheet coated with cooking spray or drizzled with olive oil. Place the potatoes on the baking sheet and with a potato masher, gently smash each potato. Drizzle with olive oil, sea salt and pepper (add a bit of your favorite dry herbs if you like).

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until crisp and golden brown. Eat plain or top with a little sour cream and green onions or grated cheese and crispy bacon.

Lemon Merigue Pie

This really is my fav dessert, and its a close as Mum used to make...its really quick and easy worth a go HERE