How To......Make Rocky Road

I'm on a bit of a health kick at the moment and so last weekend I decided to remove all temptation and remove the masses of chocolate and biscuits that have been hanging around my house since Christmas.  Yes you read that right I STILL have chocolate left over from Christmas. 

Anyway I couldn't bring myself to bin it all so decided to whip up a batch of Rocky Road with the intention of sending it to work with the boyfriend to feed his cake hungry office and gain me some girlfriend points.  I did send him to work with some but a couple of pieces may have inadvertently fallen into my mouth also, ooooops.  Well if you're going to be naughty you may as well do it properly. 

Cake Circles

I was at work yesterday opening one of the many e-newsletters I receive daily and came across one relating to cake!!!  This was most exciting not just as cake had somehow infiltrated my day job but also as the subject matter was very curious indeed.  The newsletter contained a story about Bill Drummond's Cake Circle which is taking place around the Static Gallery in Liverpool from 4-6 November.

Cake Circles are a completely new concept to me but I'm liking their style.  Basically what you do is take a map of your local area and draw a circle on the map with your home as the centre point.  Then you bake a cake, anything you like, then travel to a point on the circumference of the circle taking the cake with you, knock on the door of the chosen venue and give the recipient the cake.  Then bake and repeat for as long as you like. Sounds a bit mad but spreading the love with cake can never be a bad thing.

There's more information about Bill Drummond and the Liverpool Cake Circle here.

All I can think is those living in Bill's circumference of the Static Gallery in Liverpool are very lucky indeed.

Secret Oreo Cookie Cupcakes

This week is National Cupcake Week (http://www.nationalcupcakeweek.co.uk/), a celebration of all things cupcake!  So in honour of the week I thought I’d share my recipe for Secret Oreo Cookie Cupcakes.

I absolutely love Oreos and they’re even better when combined with other sweet treats. Lorraine Pascale has a fabulous recipe for Cookies and Cream Fudge Brownies which always go down well in my house (http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cookies_and_cream_fudge_48648) but if cupcakes are more your thing try these:

Cupcake Ingredients
150g butter
150g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
125g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
1-2 tbsp milk as needed
12 Oreo cookies

Buttercream Ingredients
350g butter
700g icing sugar
4 Oreo cookies

Cake Travels - My Tuscan Cake Adventure

Apologies for the lack of blog posts over the last week or so, I've been stuck in Tuscany!  It originally started as a week off in the sun but due to an Italian transport workers strike and a very unhelpful airline my flight home was cancelled and not rescheduled until a few days later.  Woe is me, such a hardship! :)

It did however give me a bit more time for sightseeing (que a day in Pisa holding up the leaning tower) and more importantly cake tasting!!

I felt it was my duty to taste as many sweet treats as I could while in Tuscany and in this duty I did not fail!  Italians really know their sweet treats and everything I tasted was absolutely delicious.  Highlights included biscotti, white chocolate parfait drizzled in dark chocolate, panna cotta and of course lots and lots of gelato! 

Boozy Cupcakes!

Another one of my weekend baking requests was to make some of my famed Chocolate Guinness cupcakes with Baileys buttercream for someones birthday.  I love this recipe mainly because it combines two of the best ingredients going, chocolate and booze!!  Even if you don't like Guinness (I'm not the biggest fan) I guarantee you'll still love these.  The Guinness complements the chocolate really well and gives it more more depth whilst keeping the cupcake moist.

And the Baileys buttercream (just add a couple of teaspoons of Baileys to your usual buttercream recipe) just tops them off nicely and as a bonus makes them look like tiny pints of Guinness.  They'd be great for St Patrick's Day.

The Chocolate Box Cake

The first of my weekend's cake challenges was to create a birthday cake for one of my boyfriend's work mates who wanted a cake for his wife's birthday onn Saturday.  I figured chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate could do no wrong and set about creating the chocolatiest cake I could manage.  This was the end result.

I started with my tried and tested top secret chocolate cake recipe which I then sandwiched and covered with dark chocolate ganache. I lined the outside of the cake with Cadbury's chocolate fingers, wrapped the cake in ribbon and to finish it off decorated the top of the cake with Thornton's Continentals.

It was lucky to leave my house in one piece :)