2013 baking round up

Since I'm still hopelessly addicted to collage I thought I'd make a photo montage of all my bakes this year.

19 cakes, 8 batches of biscuits, 4 batches of cupcakes, 2 brownies/blondies, 1 batch of mini cheesecakes, 1 fruit crumble and 1 steamed pudding (and a partridge in a pear tree?)

Sadly it seems 2013 was not a pastry year as there isn't a single tart in my round up. I'm genuinely surprised about that! As usual cake is by far what I bake most. I'm disappointed that I haven't baked as much as usual this year, but I'm happy with what I did get round to baking.

After a quick snoop through stats it seems my most popular blog post by far was my vanilla chai tea latte cake. I must admit that was one of my favourite bakes too. My other personal favourite was the white chocolate and passionfruit cake.

The other two bakes from my mini tea series, chai latte biscuits and earl grey tea loaf, have also been popular on the blog, along with the passionfruit cream biscuits, blackberry bakewell cake and my failed yoghurt, lemon and lime bundt. I'm not sure why my sad looking bundt cake is so popular. Perhaps you all admired my honesty for posting an ugly cake?! haha!

So what have you baked most this year? Have you got any baking new years resolutions? I'll definitely make at least one tart in 2014!

toffee apple pecan pudding

This is what I made for pudding on Christmas day. As we had our main family dinner on Christmas Eve with our traditional trifle I had free reign for pudding ideas on Christmas day. I've had this recipe tucked away for a year or two so I felt it was about time I tried it.

I thought a steamed/boiled pudding was a really good choice as it can be left to simmer away on the hob while you finish attending to/eating your Christmas dinner.

It's a very sweet pudding, toffee obviously being the predominant flavour, so you can make your mind up whether that's a good or bad thing. Personally, I always think it's good. As much as I love cheese, I will never understand people who pick the cheese and biscuit platter as a dessert at restaurants. Really, that's not a dessert!

I really liked the addition of apples to what is essentially a sticky toffee pudding. It added a freshness to an otherwise rich dessert. It was the perfect comforting pudding to tuck into at the end of Christmas day.

So what did you all make for Christmas? Do you tend to make the same thing or try a new pudding each year?

Toffee apple pecan pudding

A Mary Berry recipe. Copied down off the tv whilst watching one of the Great British Bake Off Masterclass episodes last year (I think.)

For the toffee sauce:

300ml pouring cream (I used double cream)

100g light muscovado sugar

75g softened butter

For the pudding:

A 2pt pudding basin, greased with butter

125g light muscovado sugar

125g softened butter

2 beaten eggs

125g self-raising flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 large cooking apple - peeled, cored and chopped into small chunks

75g pecans, chopped

 Put all the toffee sauce ingredients in a saucepan and stir over a low heat for roughly 5 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Pour 1/2 the toffee sauce into the bottom of the greased pudding basin, followed by half of the chopped pecans.

In a separate bowl, beat together the butter and muscovado sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each addition. Add the vanilla extract and self-raising flour and mix until just incorporated. Fold in the chopped apple. Pour the pudding mixture into the pudding basin, on top of the sauce (mine went in as a big lump so don't worry if you can't smooth it out, it didn't seem to affect the finished pudding.) 

Cut out a disc from greaseproof paper and lay it on top of the basin. Lay out a large square of foil and fold a pleat in the centre (to allow steam to escape) and seal the foil around the basin. Fold a rectangular strip of foil to make a cradle for lifting the basin. Place a jam jar lid or a sideplate in the centre of a large saucepan/pot (must be taller than the pudding basin) and place the basin on top. Half fill the pot with boiling water and put the lid on. Leave to simmer for 2 1/2 hours.

When ready to serve, reheat the sauce with the remaining pecans and turn out the pudding on a large dish. The pudding easily serves four people.

Strictly Come Dancing cupcakes

On Saturday night my friends and I had a little party to celebrate the Strictly Come Dancing final and this was my glittery contribution.

Chocolate cupcakes with piped chocolate butter icing and adorned with pink sprinkles, a light dusting of edible glitter and homemade toppers of this year's Strictly finalists. We're going to see the Strictly Come Dancing tour when it comes up to Glasgow in February so we have been extra excited about this series.

 
I have a soft spot for Artem so I may have chosen to eat the cupcake with the Artem and Natalie topper.

Did anyone else throw a Strictly party? Do you think the best celebrity won? I must admit that the inconsistent marking this year infuriated me (turned me into a raging Strictly Come Dancing Hulk) but I still enjoyed this series.

If you fancy a laugh, check out the Strictly Come Dancing themed gingerbread I made with my friend Alice two years ago.

And that's it from me, I'd better go and finish making the Christmas trifle. Hope everybody has a lovely Christmas tomorrow!
 

almond and apricot banana bread

I think this might just be my favourite banana bread. A big statement to throw around, but I really think it is.

Sometimes the tastiest things are made from leftovers and that's the case here. I had some left over dried apricots and blanched almonds from making the Christmas cake and two incredibly brown bananas sitting on the worktop so I decided to throw them together in a loaf.

The loaf has a good balance of flavours and textures: soft crumb, warm spices, juicy apricots and crunchy almonds. It's definitely a cake I want to bake again.

Almond and apricot banana bread

Recipe adapted from Hummingbird Bakery's banana bread

250g soft light brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 large very ripe bananas, about 225g in weight

280g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

140g butter/margarine (I used Vitalite to keep the cake dairy free)

75g mixture of chopped apricots and chopped blanched almonds (although I may add more next time)

25g ground almonds

a handful of flaked almonds to scatter on top

Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and grease and line a 23 x 13cm loaf tin with greaseproof paper. Beat together the sugar and eggs until well incorporated. Mash up the bananas and beat them into the sugar/egg mixture. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, ground almonds and spices and mix thoroughly. Melt the butter and beat it into the mixture until everything is combined. Stir in the chopped almonds and apricot pieces. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and scatter with a handful of flaked almonds. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for roughly 1 hour until firm to touch and a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes before turning out to finish cooling on a wire rack.

festive making and baking

I've been a bit slower than usual with all my festive baking and decorating this year but I'm well under way now. The tree is up (although still bare at the moment), presents are wrapped, fairy lights are twinkling and cake, tablet and gingerbread have been baked. Festive decorations have also been sewn whilst watching terrible (but brilliant) Christmas films on tv.

My first festive bake was Mary Berry's Victorian Christmas cake (which I first baked two years ago). I had forgotten how long it took to chop/rinse/drain all the fruit and nuts but it's definitely worth the effort. I gave this as a gift to my aunty and she was delighted with it.

My second bake was my annual batch of boobie angels and perverted gingerbread men/santas. 

I don't know why putting jelly tot sweeties on gingerbread angels or drawing pants on santas is funny, but it just is.

Although not a make or bake, I had to include this photo of Bob the cat. He looked very comfy on the bench whilst I decorated the gingerbread. He's certainly not stressing out about the run up to Christmas.

How are all your festive plans coming along? Everybody feeling organised? I would love to feel smug but it's hard to with headache/toothache. I need a filling done and a wisdom tooth pulled out and perhaps somewhat foolishly didn't accept treatment today (I just couldn't handle the idea of it today.) It's scheduled for the beginning of January instead. Great way to start the new year, ugh!

rose cloud

I have a new addition to my utility china family: a Johnsons Brothers rose cloud jug.

There it was, sitting on a shelf, waiting to be picked up by me. I'm so pleased I've finally managed to track down a pink piece. It's a very pretty shade of dusky pink. I think I prefer it to the peachy-ness of the Grindley Petalware. 

Now I have 5 Johnson Brothers Cloud jugs. A full compliment of pastel colours.

And 7 utility pieces in total when I include my Woodsware jasmine and Grindley peach petalware jugs.

I think I might have to rearrange my dresser display... again. Oh what a chore ;)

oat and raisin cookies

I was actually looking for a different recipe when I came across these from the first Hummingbird Bakery book and changed my mind. Everything about them appealed to me.

They were crisp around the edges with a thick, slightly chewy centre which is exactly what I want in a cookie, not to mention packed with juicy raisins and warming spices. 

The recipe didn't exactly specify how big to make the cookies or how to measure them out, so I just rolled smallish balls of the mixture and flattened them slightly on the tray. I think I got 36 or 38 in total so you could easily half the batch if you find that an excessive amount, although excessive is never a word I would associate with cookies/biscuits/cakes/cupcakes. I'm unashamedly greedy when it comes to baked goods.

The only other thing I noticed was that mine took an extra 5 minutes in the oven, but most things do as my oven is on the slow side, so just keep an eye on them. You'll know when they're ready when they start to colour slightly round the edges. Remember they'll firm up properly once they cool.

After a quick online search I noticed that Ros has made these before so if you fancy making them too (and you should!) you can find the recipe on her blog The More Than Occasional Baker.

funky florals

With the poor quality of light recently it has been next to impossible to take decent photographs of my new canisters but I'm fed up with waiting. Who cares if they're a bit grainy and odd coloured, you can still see how funky the canisters are.

I picked these up when I visited my brother's new place last month and I'm happy to report that the charity shops in his area did not disappoint. 

I've been hoping I'd eventually come across more Taunton Vale canisters to match my blue ones so I was delighted to find two sitting on a shelf. Perhaps they knew I was visiting that week?

Naturally the first thing I did when I got home was to line them up with the blue canisters. It's the small things which make me happy.

Has anybody else had any exciting pre-Christmas finds?