Carrot and Orange Cupcakes with Orange Brown Sugar Buttercream

So right now I am in the middle of sorting out my job.  It's been frustrating but at last we seem to be getting there.  It should mean that I'll be properly employed as a supply teacher in time for the start of the winter term.  I've already got some days lined up too, I just need to make sure I'm on the register.  I should have been, and I have done work based on that should have been, but I've stopped temporarily until it is properly sorted.  Don't want any legal repercussions happening if something goes wrong.

But, as I said, I have done some supply work.  The other week I was invited back to cover a class at the school I did my probation year in.  It was nice seeing everyone again and I was excited because there was going to be a bake sale.  Since I wasn't going to be working the day before, I figured I would bake something to take in.  I wanted something that felt a bit autumn-y and involved orange in some way.  I was originally going to do chocolate and orange but ended up changing to carrot and orange.  The vegetables made it feel more appropriate to the season.  Adding brown sugar to the buttercream was a random decision that I thought I would try.  It apparently works well with vegetable cakes.  I had to make the recipe for that up with a little trial and error but it worked.

Well, these never made it to the bake sale.  The staff paid for and ate them all at break time!  I was rather amused and very flattered.  It is nice when your work is appreciated.  They were very complimentary too.  They are rather refreshing thanks to the orange, and the addition of orange in the cake means it melds together well with the buttercream.  I made them again the following week for the Hubby and his family and they were also scoffed rather quickly.  His Mum had two helpings of cake with ice cream she liked them so much!  I've also been asked to make a large version as a birthday cake for Friday.

Recipe - Makes 12 large cupcakes
 

Cakes - adapted from Mary Berry's Baking Bible : 

• Zest of 1 large orange
• 150g/5oz butter
• 150g/5oz light muscovado sugar 
• 175g/6oz grated carrot
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 200g/7oz self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground mixed spice
• 1 tbsp orange juice

Orange and Brown Sugar Buttercream:

• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 60g/2oz brown sugar
• 225g/8oz icing sugar
• Juice of 1 orange
• Orange food colouring (optional)
• Zest of 1 orange (for decorating)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 12 hole muffin tin with large cupcake cases.
2. Put all the ingredients for the cake except the orange juice into a mixing bowl and beat together until well blended and smooth.
3. Add the tablespoon of orange juice and mix.
4. Split the mixture evenly between the cases.
5. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until cakes are risen and springy, and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
6. Remove from the tray and leave to cool whilst you make the buttercream.
7. Beat the butter in a bowl until it is smooth and creamy.
8. Add the icing sugar, brown sugar and half the orange juice and beat together to incorporate.
9. Add the rest of the orange juice gradually, mixing after each addition until you get an icing which is smooth, holds its shape but still pipeable.  If you make it too runny, firm it up with a bit of extra icing sugar.  If adding colouring, add a few drops at this stage and mix in until evenly coloured.
10. Put the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a large, round nozzle.
11. When cakes are cool, pipe a swirl onto each , starting on the outside and working in.
12. Grate the zest of the orange over the buttercream to decorate.

Orange Biscuits

 

 

Oh dear, oh dear.  There is so much disorganisation going on for me right now.  I am afraid I must warn you, dear readers, that my second school placement for my university course has begun and, like last time, the baking is going to take a bit of a hit.  It already has and this blog post has been about two weeks in the making.  It is shocking.  But I was determined to get it up today because there's no way I could not have something go out on the blog's second birthday!  That would be awful.  Of course, I would have preferred a special bake specifically for celebrating the event but that has been delayed.  So I'll be doing a belated birthday post (with much gushing and nostalgia I am sure)...once I figure out what to make.  Yeah, I'm that disorganised right now. 

Luckily though, the next two weeks are the Easter holidays and whilst I should be using them to get a large chunk of my work out of the way I will also have some time for baking.  At the very least there will be the April Dessert Challenge, along with that delayed birthday post.  So I won't be vanishing completely.  Things are just going to be a little slow around here for a couple of months.

Anyway, lets get on to biscuits!  

Back at the start of March I got to go on a merry jaunt to Edinburgh to see my good friend Jess for movies and lunch and shopping.  I went with good intentions in terms of the shopping.  I was planning to get the lace for my wedding dress and a proper cake tester since I'm tired of the holes my bamboo skewers leave when I use them.  That was all.  Unfortunately, I was weak and came away with much more than I intended.  Amongst my unexpected purchases was a new recipe book all about biscuits and cookies.  I really couldn't resist as books with just biscuits in seem to be really hard to come by and biscuits are easily my favourite thing to make.  Plus it was only £3.99!  Also yellow.  I'm terribly attracted to yellow things.  Anyway!  It is fabulous.  So many recipes, several of which are for classic British favourites like Digestives and Nice and Bourbon and Custard Creams and Hobnobs.  The list goes on.  I am going to have to try out the one for Maryland Chocolate Chip Cookies and see if they turn out better than the last recipe I tried that claimed the same title.  Honestly, I was not sure where I was going to start with this book.  There were so many recipes that I was itching to try!  In the end though, I settled for the 'Golden Orange Melts' because they sounded nice and simple and I do love me some orange.  They are also great because you can keep the dough in the fridge for up to a week and just bake some when you feel like.  Which is what I ended up doing.  I did a test batch the day after I originally made the dough and then did not end up cooking the rest until much later in the week.  I will say though, they did turn out a little crispier on the second go.

These are very yummy.  I was sceptical as to how orangey they would taste since I was using zest and juice this time, rather than orange extract like I usually do.  Turns out, they are VERY orangey and they smell amazing!  I ended up taking one each day for a break time snack and unwrapping it from the foil always sent this great burst of orange into the air.  It was great!  They taste really good and have a nice texture.  Like I said before, how crunchy they are seems to change the longer the dough is left in the fridge.  I shall definitely be making these again though.

Recipe - adapted from Home Baking Cookie and Biscuits 
Makes about 30 (the original recipe says 12 but I managed to get a lot more from one batch of dough)

This recipe requires the dough to be chilled overnight!

• 225g/8oz caster sugar
• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 1 egg
• 1 orange
• 300g/11oz plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder

1. In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until it is pale and creamy.
2. Zest and juice the orange.
3. Beat the egg gently in a separate bowl and then add it and the orange zest to the sugar butter and mix in.
4. Add the flour and baking powder to the mixture along with 2 or 3 teaspoons of the orange juice and mix together to form a reasonably firm dough.
5. Shape the dough into a sausage shape about 30cm/12inches long, wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge overnight (and up to a week).
6. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°/Gas Mark 5 and line 2 or 3 baking trays with baking parchment.
7. Cut slices of dough off the roll, about 1cm/0.5inches thick and space well apart on the trays as they spread a lot whilst baking (I only got 6 on each of my trays: any more resulted in them merging together).
8. Bake for about 10 minutes until the edges are just starting to darken and the rest of the biscuit is a pale golden colour.
9. Allow to rest on the trays for a couple of minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Citrus Cupcakes

So the birthday related posts continue.  I have one more to catch up on after this and then it happens to be my birthday this Sunday so there'll be another post following that featuring my birthday cake.  It's going to be fairly simple but hopefully delicious!

Anyway, I should be focussing on cupcakes!  As anyone who saw my posts last August might recall, the fiancé and his sister have birthdays which are three days apart.  Hence their Mum wanted to have a meal together where we could also do birthday presents.  And as has become traditional, I get to bake something for dessert!  I didn't think I should make big cakes as I was worried they wouldn't get eaten.  Instead, I opted to bake 12 cupcakes.  I made two different kinds based on flavours each birthday boy/girl liked.  This first set is for the fiancé and they are citrus cupcakes.  Originally, when I asked him, he wanted some more of the orange ones I had made a few weeks ago but then I floated the idea of a cake that had lemon, lime and orange all in one and he jumped on it.  So these cakes have a layer of lime and a layer of lemon and then are topped with a swirl of orange buttercream.  Very zesty and rather festive looking too!

Seeing as I can't get a hold of lime extract (does such a thing exist?) I chose to make the cakes using zest and juice.  I was determined to have juice as well as zest because I thought it would make the flavour more pronounced.  Oddly though, I found it a bit tricky locating a recipe that did that.  Thankfully, Lily Vanilli came to my rescue.  Her book had a recipe for lime cupcakes that used both parts of the fruit and I obviously adapted it to make a cake that was half lemon and half lime.

The overall result did look rather splendid.  My only concern was that I over baked them just ever so slightly.  I got distracted just around the time they needed to come out so their tops weren't quite as soft and springy as I would like.  I really need to get a new timer (the fiancé broke mine by accidentally knocking it onto the floor).  However, it did not seem to have a negative effect on the taste and they were all gobbled up.  You can taste all the different flavours and it is a lovely, refreshing cake.

 

Recipe - makes 8 cupcakes

Cakes - adapted from A Zombie Ate My Cupcake

• 60g/2oz butter
• 100g/3.5oz caster sugar
• 1 tsp lime zest (about one small lime's worth)
• 25ml/1fl.oz lime juice (about one small lime's worth)
• 1 tsp lemon zest (about one small lemon's worth)
• 25ml/1fl.oz lemon juice (about one small lemon's worth)
• 190g/6.7oz plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 4 tbsp whole milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• Yellow and green food colouring

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line a 12 hole tin with cupcake cases.
2. Set out two mixing bowls and place half the butter in one and the rest in the other.
3. Beat the butter until creamy.
4. Add the lime zest and lime juice to one bowl, along with half the sugar.  Add the lemon zest and juice and the rest of the sugar to the other.  Beat each of the two mixtures until they are light and fluffy.
5. Beat the egg in a measuring jug and then divide evenly between the two bowls.  Beat until just combined.
6. In a separate bowl combine half the flour with 1/4 tsp baking powder and a little bit of salt.
7. In a cup or jug, mix together 2 tbsp milk and 1/4 tsp vanilla.
8. Add the flour mixture and milk mixture alternately to one of the bowls of batter, beginning and ending with the flour.  Beat well after each addition.
9. Repeat steps 6-8 with the remaining flour, baking powder, salt, milk and vanilla extract, adding them to the other bowl of batter.
10. Add a few drops of yellow colouring to the lemon batter and mix in.  Do the same to the lime batter with the green.
11. Divide the green batter evenly amongst the cases and smooth over so the top is flat.
12. Top the green mixture with the yellow mixture and smooth out as well, making sure the batter reaches the edges of the case.
13. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the cakes are risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
14. Cool in the tin for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack to finish.  Cakes need to have cooled completely before they can be frosted.

Orange Buttercream:

• 85g/3oz butter
• 170g/6oz icing sugar
• 1 tsp milk
• 1.5 tsp orange extract
• Orange food colouring

1. Beat the butter until smooth and creamy.
2. Sift in the icing sugar, orange extract and add the milk.  Mix until combined and smooth.
3. Add a couple of drops of food colouring and mix until you get a colour you are happy with.
4. Place buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle and pipe a swirl on top of each cake.

Orange and Vanilla Cupcakes

The fiancé has been having a rough week and a half.  This section of his work rota has him working 10 days in a row, which probably isn't so bad when he's working his regular hours.  But he's taken extra shifts, since it's very busy during the summer, and consequently is doing an extra 35 hours on top of his normal 40.  This has not been helped by his bicycle getting a flat tyre, falling off his scooter when it skidded out from under him in the rain and the general frustration of his actual job.  Plus they've forgotten to schedule breaks in for him on over half the 10 days.  Not good.  So when his Dundee friends mentioned that their mutual friend from England would be up visiting, he was initially disheartened by the fact that all the extra work would mean he wouldn't be able to see him.  That is until I pointed out that since he would finish work at 4pm on Saturday he could hop on a train and spend the evening with them.  I practically insisted he go because he was so miserable at this point that he really needed something fun, even though it meant I was completely alone all of Saturday and I hate being alone.  (I am invited to go but I'm horribly shy and didn't want to.)

And of course, I offered to make cakes because that is what I do and it would provide some entertainment for me whilst he was at work.  Since it is summer (not that the weather thinks so any more) I wanted to make a light cake.  I wasn't making the mistake of doing chocolate again.  Light usually seems to go with fruity and it had been a while since I'd baked with orange extract.  I'd also seen a lot of things about 'orange creamsicles' around recently so decided to add a bit of vanilla to the mix.  Plus it was a great excuse to finally try out my Duo Icing Kit from Lakeland (it worked really well and was easy to use, after I figured out how to piece it together).

The cake recipe is based off one for lemonade cakes, just to help me get a decent balance for the ingredients.  I tweaked a few things obviously and made the decision to add an orange syrup after baking to make them extra moist and orangey.  My main challenge was getting the vanilla buttercream to look white.  The butter I use is yellow and I don't have clear extract so my basic vanilla buttercream always comes out a pale yellow colour.  This is fine in most cases but I really wanted a much paler, whiter colour to contrast with the orange.  Apparently the main way to achieve whiter buttercream is to use white butter or vegetable shortening.  I don't buy either of those though.  Stork is what I have in my fridge.  I then read that beating the living daylights out of the butter makes it paler so figured it was worth a shot.  And I had white food gel to lighten it up even more.  It worked out rather well in the end.  Not perfectly white but certainly much paler and stood out against the orange.  

They were certainly a light cake and very citrusy.  The fiancé also said they were moreish due to their lightness.  It was easy just to eat another and then another.  The vanilla is subtle but still obviously there and provides a nice accompaniment to the orange.  All in all a very yummy cake.

Recipe - makes 12

Cakes - inspired by The Hummingbird Bakery: Cake Days:

• 60g/2oz butter
• 210g/7.5oz caster sugar
• 180g/6.5oz plain flour
• 3/4 tbsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 200ml/7fl.oz milk
• 2 tsp orange extract
• 2 medium eggs

Orange Syrup:

• 3 tbsp orange juice
• 3 tbsp caster sugar 

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line a 12 hole muffin tray with muffin cases. 
2. Mix the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs and there are no large lumps of butter.
3. Put the milk in a jug and mix in the orange extract.  
4. Add the eggs to the milk and beat until combined. 
5. Add the milk mixture to the dry ingredients, along with the red and yellow food colouring, if using (use more yellow than red) and beat until combined and smooth, and you have a colour you are happy with.
6. Divide the mixture evenly amongst the cases, filling about two thirds full, and then bake for 20-25 minutes, until risen and springy or a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
7. Whilst the cakes bake, make the orange syrup by combining the caster sugar with the orange juice in a small bowl.  Mix together.
8. When cakes are removed from the oven, leave in their tray and poke 5 holes in each cake with a skewer.
9. Pour about 1 tsp orange syrup over each cake then allow to rest in the tray for 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Vanilla Buttercream:

• 85g/3oz butter
• 170g/6oz icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• White food gel (optional)

Orange Buttercream:

• 85g/3oz butter
• 170/6oz icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp orange extract
• Red and yellow food colouring 

1. Make the vanilla buttercream first.  Put the butter in a bowl and beat for several minutes until very creamy and pale.
2. Add the icing sugar and vanilla extract (and white colouring if using) and beat until combined and smooth.
3. Make the orange buttercream the same way.  First beat the butter until creamy.
4. Add the icing sugar and orange extract, plus the food colouring.  Use more yellow than you do red to get a nice, orange colour.
5. Put the two buttercreams into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle, with the orange down one side and the vanilla down the other (to make life easier, I use the Lakeland Duo Colour Icing Kit).
6. Pipe a swirl on top of each cake, starting from the outside and moving towards the centre.
7. Top each swirl with a chewy orange sweet or other decoration of your choosing if you wish.

Jaffa Cupcakes

I am thinking I need to make myself a schedule as to when I put together my blog updates.  I've had a few occasions recently where I have let entries I intend to post build up.  Admittedly only two or three at a time, and usually when I do a lot of baking in a short space of time, but that's still not really an excuse.  Being busy with work might count, since I've gotten full time hours at the school until the summer, but my evenings are rather empty.  They have been spent stressing about all manner of things though and that tends to put a damper on me doing anything.  So yes, schedule.  Maybe if I set myself arbitrary deadlines it will help me keep on top of things.  We'll see.  Of course, it would only follow a bake, which currently are few and far between.

Anyway, jaffa cupcakes.  This was a bake for the Dundee group and one that was requested.  I'd seen plenty of jaffa cupcakes, most of which had some sort of marmalade filling and a chocolate buttercream.  However, I remembered seeing one that put orange jelly (as in gelatin, not jam for you Americans) on top and then melted chocolate.  That's the one I wanted to do, though I did check with the fiancé first.  I guess it is actually a jaffa cake itself.  An added request to this cake was to have a jaffa cake in the base of each one.  So it's a jaffa cake topped with another larger jaffa cake (since the term 'jaffa cake' is not trademarked by McVitie's).

The construction is fairly simple.  First there is a McVitie's Jaffa Cake placed in the base of each cupcake case.  It occurred to me after I had bought the jaffa cakes that I should have gotten the mini ones.  They would have fit in the cases perfectly.  Ah well.  I made do with my regular sized ones and used a cookie cutter to make them the right size for the cases.  Next is a pretty basic vanilla fairy cake.  This is topped with a two discs of orange jelly mixed with marmalade.  I made them by chilling the jelly mix in a baking tray and then cutting out the discs with two cookie cutters.  I did two sizes of discs to stack in the hopes of getting the kind of bump you see in the middle of jaffa cakes.  The fiancé thinks that may have been too much jelly though so it's up to you if you want to do that too.  Finally, each cake is covered in melted dark chocolate and left to set.  Admittedly, I really should have let my jelly come to room temperature and let my chocolate cool slightly before I poured it on.  Once it was set it started to develop condensation, which isn't an issue taste wise but is not the most attractive thing to see.

 

As you may know by now, I do like to try and get a nice, overall aesthetic by using cases that match the cakes.  For Jaffa Cakes, I really wanted orange cases.  However, I do not have any in my cupboard, despite my ridiculously large collection of cupcake cases.  I considered blue, but didn't think it would look right.  Then I had an idea!  I remembered seeing somewhere (probably Pinterest) that I could use food colouring to dye white cases.  So that's what I did.  I made up a bit of orange colouring then dipped the rims of white cases in it and left them to dry.  The final result was quite nice.  Certainly much better looking than having just white cases.  I'll be doing it again I think, when I require other colours that I don't own.

Final verdict?  Well, on his initial tasting the fiancé thought there was too much jelly, and a bit too much marmalade mixed into that jelly.  Not that it was bad but he said a jaffa cake has a fairly compressed layer so a slightly thicker, squishier layer was a bit weird.  However, on the way to Dundee the chocolate and jelly melted somewhat in the heat and then reset.  This apparently condensed the jelly down into a layer more akin to that of the McVitie's Jaffa Cakes.  Otherwise, general opinion was that they were yummy and did indeed taste like jaffa cakes.  I still think I would change things a little next time, like using less marmalade and making sure the temperature of the jelly and the chocolate are not too different when I put the chocolate on the cake.

Recipe - makes 14 

Cakes - adapted from Delicious Cupcakes Made Easy14 mini Jaffa Cakes

• 14 mini jaffa cakes (or regular ones cut to size with a circular cutter)
• 125g/4oz butter
• 125g/4oz golden caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150g/5oz self-raising flour
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 14 compartments of muffin tins with buffin or muffin cases.
2. Put a jaffa cake in the bottom of each case, chocolate side up.
3. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat together until smooth and creamy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating in after each addition.
5. Fold in the milk, flour and vanilla extract until smooth.
6. Split the mixture evenly between the cases, filling about two thirds full.  Make a dip in the centre of mixture in each case with a spoon so that the final cakes should be flat.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes until risen and the tops are slightly springy.
8. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Jelly Topping - inspired by Ella Valentine via Baking Heaven Volume 2

• 1 x 135g/4.75oz packet of orange jelly cubes (gelatin)
• 2 tbsp marmalade
• 300ml/10.5fl.oz boiling water

1. Line a 33x23cm/13x9inch tray with aluminium foil.
2. Mix the jelly cubes with the marmalade and boiling water until dissolved.
3. Pour into the lined tray and make sure it spreads evenly.
4. Put in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours.

Assembly:

• 150g/5oz dark chocolate 

1. Remove the jelly from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature.
2. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl placed over a pan of gently simmering water, taking care not to let the water touch the bowl.  Make sure you stir it occasionally.  When melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool somewhat.
3. Use a circular cookie cutter that has a slightly smaller diameter than the top of the cake and cut out circles of jelly.  Use a spatula to transfer them over to each cake, laying them on top.
4. If you want two layers of jelly, use a smaller circular cutter to cut out more jelly circles and place them on top of the first ones.
5. When the chocolate has cooled but is still runny, use a spoon to pour it over the top of the jelly on each cake.  You want to cover all the jelly so you may need to coax it gently into the corners.
6. Leave to set.  

Chocolate Topped Orange Shortbread Hearts

Since the honey wheat bread had annoyed me with its refusal to turn out right the first two times, I was determined to bake something else alongside the third attempt that really ought to turn out fine.  So I decided on biscuits because I really like homemade biscuits and feel I've gotten much better at them over the last year.

I've been wanting to do an orange flavoured biscuits coated in chocolate for a while now.  The idea just sounds heavenly.  The recipe I chose was actually one I'd stumbled across a while ago but had forgotten about.  I just happened to chance upon it again whilst browsing for a good biscuit that was a bit crunchy.

I will admit, I intended to cover the entire biscuit in chocolate.  Unfortunately, I did a silly thing and left the chocolate unattended whilst I was melting it and it got a bit too hot, and so started seizing up.  I managed to rescue it with some whisking, which got it smooth again, but it was too thick for dipping properly and I just could not get it to thin out.  So I had to settle for just covering the tops.  The fiancé thinks this is a better idea though because otherwise you'd get chocolate over your hands when trying to eat it.  I did make sure to watch the white chocolate though, so it was runny enough to drizzle.  I've still not got the hang of drizzling.  It always looks messy.  I've opted for quickly shaking the spoon back and forth over the biscuit I'm decorating.  Maybe I should have used the old standby of putting it in a piping bag?  Oh well, they were just for me and the fiancé to enjoy anyway.  No need to be overly neat in that case.

I made one slight change to the recipe, which was I used orange extract rather than zest.  I don't keep oranges in my house and buying one for the sake of the zest seems wasteful, especially as I have extract just sitting in my cupboard.  I also like the flavour my extract gives things.  So lovely and orangey.  I don't think it hurt that it meant I added a tiny bit of liquid to the dough, helping it form together better.  I also found the commenters on the original recipe were right about the baking time being longer than suggested, so will be making that amendment in my write-up.

What can I say about the taste, other than they are so GOOD!  Honestly, they are just delicious.  You get a lovely burst of orange when you bite into the crunchy biscuit, and then it's quickly followed by the lovely creamy chocolate and it blends nicely together.  I loved them, as did the fiancé and they're pretty much gone now.  They barely lasted two days, and that's because we were being fairly restrained.  I will definitely be making these again at some point.

Recipe - adapted from Rachel Allen via 4Food

Makes about 24 biscuits

• 100g/3.5oz butter, softened and diced, plus extra for greasing
• 150g/5.3oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 50g/1.7oz caster sugar
• 1 tsp orange extract (or zest of 1 orange)
• 85g/3oz milk chocolate
• 40g/1.4oz white chocolate
• Orange blossom tint powder (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease two baking trays with butter.
2. Sift the flour into a large bowl.
3. Dice up the butter and add to the flour, rubbing it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs and there are no large lumps of butter.
4. Add the sugar and the orange extract and mix together until you get a stiff dough (you may need to use your hands).  Do not add any additional liquid.
5. Lightly dust a worktop and rolling pin with flour and roll out the dough until about 5mm/0.25inch thick.
6. Use a 6.5cm/2.5inch heart shaped cutter to cut out biscuits from the dough, transferring them to the greased trays with a palette knife or spatula.  Be sure to space them evenly apart.  I got 12 on each tray.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the edges are golden.
8. Remove and leave on the trays for one minute, before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
9. Whilst the biscuits cool, melt the milk chocolate by breaking it into pieces and placing in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.
10. Dip the top side of the biscuits in the chocolate, shaking to removed the excess.  If you want, you can use a knife to smooth it out.  Place back on the wire rack to set. 
11. Melt the white chocolate in the same way as the milk chocolate.  If using, stir in the orange blossom tint.
12. Place a sheet of baking parchment beneath the wire rack to catch any drips, and then drizzle the white chocolate over the top of the biscuits.  Leave to set.

Christmas Wreath Cake

Now this was a cake I've had in mind for months.  This year is the turn of the fiancé's Mum to host the Christmas dinner for her side of the family.  I got to make dessert and I knew I wanted to bake a cake made to look like a wreath.  I even got a special ring mould and everything!

So it's a vanilla sponge ring covered in chocolate orange buttercream made to look like bark, which is then decorated with dark chocolate branches, milk chocolate holly leaves and white chocolate truffle berries, tinted with gold lustre powder and dusted with icing sugar.  

I would have liked to make my chocolate leaves by painting chocolate onto actual (or wax) leaves but I couldn't find any holly.  So I had to resort to piping the chocolate shapes instead, which meant they were a bit thicker and less refined than I would have liked but they still looked pretty good.

The truffle berries gave me the most trouble because they just did not want to set and I was already running over the time I had said we would head down to the house.  Ideally they would have been perfectly round but due to the lack of time and the fact they ended up fused to the wire rack they were setting on, I had the slice them off so the bases are flat.  They still tasted yummy though.  The buttercream also gave me some difficulty too since I ran out of orange extract making cupcakes for work and couldn't find any in the local supermarket.  So I had to use the juice of an orange instead, which made the buttercream runnier and thus I had to add more icing sugar to get the right consistency.  A bit of trial and error, which was slightly annoying but I got there in the end.  I'll be putting extract in the recipe write-up though.

It went down very well with everyone who ate it.  They said it was light and fluffy and the buttercream was delicious, which isn't surprising since it is one of my most popular flavours.

Recipe:

Cake:

• 225g/8oz butter
• 225g/8oz caster sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs
• 225g/8oz self-raising flour

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease a 24cm ring mould with butter.
2. In a bowl, beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla extract until it is smooth and creamy.
3. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition.
4. Sift in the flour and fold in until fully incorporated.
5. Spoon the mixture into the ring mould, trying to distribute it evenly.  Run your spoon round the top to smooth it out.
6. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the sponge is springy to the touch and a skewer inserted through it comes out clean.
7. Leave in the mould to cool for about 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish.

Chocolate Orange Buttercream:

• 140g/5oz butter
• 280g/10oz icing sugar
• 100g/3.5oz milk chocolate
• 2 tsp orange extract  

1. Put the milk chocolate in a glass bowl and set over a pan of simmering water to melt.  Don't let the bowl touch the water.
2. Beat the butter, icing sugar and orange extract together in a bowl until smooth a creamy.
3. Add the melted chocolate to the buttercream and mix in until well incorporated.  You're aiming for a soft but spreadable consistency so if it's a bit runny, add more icing sugar.
4. Place the cake on a cake board or plate.
5. With a rubber spatula or a palette knife, spread a thin layer of buttercream over the cake to form a crumb coat.
6. Now coat the cake in a thicker layer, making sure there are no gaps.  Wipe up any buttercream that falls on the board/plate with a cloth so you have a clean finish.
7. Use a fork to draw lines in the buttercream to resemble tree bark.

 Decoration:

• 85g/3oz white chocolate
• 15ml/0.5fl.oz whipping cream
• 25g/1oz dark chocolate
• 75g/2.5oz milk chocolate
• Red blossom tint
• Gold lustre dust
• Icing sugar for dusting
• Gold edible pearls

1. Put the cream and 50g/2oz of the white chocolate in a glass bowl over a a pan of simmering water.
2. When the chocolate has melted, whisk the ganache together until it is smooth.  Set to one side to cool.  It needs to get a pipeable consistency so if it's still really runny after cooling, put in the fridge to firm up.  This may take an hour or so.
3. Next, cover a tray with a a sheet of greaseproof paper.
4. Melt the milk chocolate then put into a piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle and pipe holly leaves onto the prepared tray.  Start by drawing an outline and then fill it in.  Make as many as you want.  It's always good to have spares in case of breakages or for future decorations.  Leave to set.
5. Melt the dark chocolate then put in a piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle.
6. Draw branches with the chocolate over the top of the cake (so lines with more lines branching off them).  Leave to set.
7. Prepare another tray with greaseproof paper.
8. Once the ganache has firmed up, spoon into a piping bag fitted with a large round nozzle.
9. Pipe small blobs of ganache onto the tray.  Doesn't matter if you don't get perfect spheres, you can fix that later.
10. Place the ganache back in the fridge to set.  If you want it to set faster you can put it in the freezer.
11. Meanwhile, melt the remaining 35g/1oz white chocolate and stir in the red blossom tint.
12. Once the leaves have set, take the gold lustre dust and brush over the surface of the leaves with a pastry brush.
13. Place the leaves on the cake, pressing gently into the buttercream so they stay in place.
14. If the ganache is set, remove from the fridge.  
15. One at a time, quickly roll a blob of ganache between your hands to make a ball and then drop into the melted white chocolate.
16. Quickly coat the ball and then remove and place back on the tray.
17. When all the balls are coated, leave them to set.
18. Once set, remove from the tray.  If they get stuck, use a knife to slice them away from it.
19. Place the berries on the cake, matching them up with the base of the leaves.  Dust the berries with the gold lustre dust.
20. Place the gold pearls around the buttercream.
21. Finish the cake by dusting it with icing sugar.

Gingerbread Snowflakes and Orangebread Baubles

Soooo, I'm a bit behind on some updates.  It's been a hectic couple of weeks in the lead up to Christmas, working in a shop and all (though only until the end of the week).  So whilst I have managed to fit baking in to my busy schedule, I haven't had time to do the write-up.  Now I have my first proper day off in ages, I can do just that.  So here is the first.

This is my first Christmas in my flat and the first time I get to have my very own Christmas tree that is just mine that I can decorate with decorations I chose, something I have been looking forward to for a long time.  And I decided I wanted to make gingerbread decorations for my tree, especially since the fiancé likes gingerbread.  I don't like it though, but also wanted something to eat on the tree.  Hence the 'orangebread', which substitutes the spices for orange extract instead.  I also used golden syrup alongside the treacle, so make them slightly lighter, though this was more because I ran out of treacle than anything else.

As for decoration, I did a simple lemon icing for the gingerbread and piped pretty patterns.  Then for the orangebread I cut out fondant and decorated it.

What can I say, they are super yummy.  I only wish they had stayed on the tree.  Unfortunately, I hadn't made the holes for the string big enough, so they closed up when they were cooking.  Hence, I was using very thin thread and a needle to make the hooks.  That didn't end up working so well, which was a shame.  So they ended up back in the biscuit tin, and are pretty much all gone now. Yum yum yum.

Recipe - adapted from A Zombie Ate My Cupcake (altered to make orangebread)

For gingerbread:

• 225g/8oz plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 60g/2oz unsalted butter
• 50g/1.75oz granulated sugar
• 1 small egg
• 80ml/2.8fl.oz black treacle
• 3/4 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 100g/3.5oz icing sugar
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• Lemon juice
• Water

1. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt.
2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg and the treacle and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Add the lemon extract and mix in. 
5. Gradually add the flour a bit at a time, mixing until fully incorporated before adding more.  You may need to use your hands for the last of it as you end up with quite a thick dough.
6. Shape into a ball and wrap in clingfilm.  Put in the fridge to rest for about 3 hours.
7. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
8. Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit for about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin.
9. Roll the dough out to be about 5mm/0.25inches thick and then cut out your decoration shapes.  
10. Lay on a tray and then use a skewer to make a hole for the ribbon/string in the top of each.
11. Bake for about 10-20 minutes before removing from the oven and leaving to cool on a wire rack. 
12. Put the icing sugar in a bowl and add the lemon extract.
13. Add alternating spoonfuls of lemon juice and water to the icing sugar, mixing after each addition, until you get a fairly firm mixture that is of pipe-able consistency.  If you add too much liquid, just add a bit more icing sugar to firm it up. 
14. Put icing into a piping bag fitted with a small, round tipped nozzle and pipe patterns onto the cooled biscuits. 
15. When icing has set, thread string through the hole and knot together. 

 For orangebread: 

• 225g/8oz plain flour 
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 60g/2oz unsalted butter
• 50g/1.75oz granulated sugar
• 1 small egg
• 2 tsp orange extract
• 20ml/0.7fl.oz black treacle
• 60ml/2fl.oz golden syrup 
• 1 x 450g pack of pre-rolled fondant icing
• 30g/1oz icing sugar
• Water 
• Red and Green writing icing

1. Sift together the flour and salt.
2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg, the treacle and the golden syrup and mix until thoroughly combined.
4. Add the orange extract and mix in. 
5. Gradually add the flour a bit at a time, mixing until fully incorporated before adding more.  You may need to use your hands for the last of it as you end up with quite a thick dough.
6. Shape the dough into a ball and wrap the ball in clingfilm.  Put in the fridge to rest for about 3 hours.
7. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and line 2-3 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
8. Remove the dough from the fridge and let it sit for about 5 minutes.  Meanwhile lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin.
9. Roll the dough out to be about 5mm/0.25inches thick and then cut out your decoration shapes with a cutter.  
10. Lay on a tray and then use a skewer to make a hole for the ribbon/string in the top of each.
11. Bake for about 10-20 minutes before removing from the oven and leaving to cool on a wire rack. 
12. In a small bowl, add a tsp of water to the icing sugar at a time, until you get a slightly runny paste.
13. Open out the pre-rolled icing and use the same cookie cutter as you did for the biscuits to cut out shapes.
14. Put some of the runny icing on the back of the cut out shapes to act as a glue to affix it to the biscuits.
15. Use the writing icing to draw patterns on top of the cut out icing.
16. Thread a string through the holes and knot.