Quick Quesadillas

Quesadilla

I made my first quesadillas and they were fab! Elizabeth especially loved them.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 cooked chicken breast
• some chopped up cooked ham
• 1tbsp tomato puree
• 2tbsp soy sauce
• about 50g grated cheddar cheese

Heat the oil in a frying pan and the chicken and ham on a low heat for a minute or two, then mix in the tomato puree and soy sauce. Cook for a further 2 minutes. 

• If I was making the quesadillas for myself, I would also add some red pepper and sweetcorn. I would fry them at this stage until they were starting to soften.

In a separate frying pan, lay a flour tortilla in the base of the pan and top with the chicken mixture. Sprinkle over the cheese and top with the other tortilla.

Cover the pan with a lid and cook over a gentle heat for 12 minutes. Flip the tortilla over - I put a large plate over the pan, tipped it so that the tortilla was on the plate, then I slipped it back into the pan. Cook for a further 1-2 minutes.

Remove the tortilla from the pan, allow it to cook slightly, then slice it into wedges.

I served this up with some Cajun potato wedges - peel several large potatoes and slice them up into wedges. Mix them up with a table spoon of oil and some cajun seasoning. Cook in the oven at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes. Turn them over a few times to stop them from sticking to the baking tray.

Updates

I've had a bit of a break from updating while we've had sickness bugs, chicken pox, half term and general real life things going on.

I got two new recipe books for my birthday: Nigel Slater's Eat and Ella's Kitchen: The Red Cookbook. I've already tried a few recipes that I will do again and take photos because they are good!

A while back I added some pages to the blog, including a recipes page with links to all the recipes I've blogged.

I also have a few more days out with kids updates lined up to write about.

Meanwhile I'm always open to suggestions for things to try and I would love to hear what you think of the blog in general or of specific recipes.

Cookies and Mallow Chocolate Heaven Cake

Cookies and Mallow Chocolate Heaven Cake

The plan had been to make the best carrot cake in the world for my birthday. However after eating most of the original cake myself and having a good amount of the one I made for Jeff's mum, I wanted to try something else for my birthday.

The idea was for a cookies and cream cake. And I kid you not, I had a dream that I used the marshmallow icing and woke up thinking it was a wonderful idea!

I used recipes from the Primrose Bakery recipe book. For my first attempt, I used normal cake tins and made a two tier cake with icing in the middle and on the top. Second time round I thought I'd try out my Wilton Heart Cake Tins which I haven't used since the Candy Cake. I doubled up the cake recipe and made two batches of the icing to do it all. However, I think this cake is a little too soft and moist to hold it's shape with the heart insert. Plus it was gigantic!

Heart Insert

So here's the basic recipe for the two tiered cake I made.

Chocolate Cake

• 115g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
• 85g unsalted butter, at room temp
• 175g soft brown sugar
• 2 large eggs separated
• 185g plain flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp bicarb of soda
• Pinch of salt
• 250ml semi skimmed milk at room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170C (fan) and grease and line 2 cake tins.

Break the chocolate and break into pieces and melt. I use the microwave on 30 second blasts, the stir until it is completely melted. You can use a bowl over simmering water though.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is pale and smooth.

In a separate bowl with clean beaters, beat the egg yolk for several minutes.
Slowly add the egg yolks to the creamed mixture and beat well. Next add the melted chocolate to the mixture and beat well.
Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
Combine the milk and vanilla extract in a jug.
Add a third of the flour to the chocolate mixture, beat well.
Pour in a third of the milk and beat again. Repeat these steps until all the flour and milk have been added.
In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks start to form. Carefully fold the egg whites into the batter using a metal spoon.
Divide the mixture into the 2 cake tins.
Cook for 20-25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean after being inserted in the centre of one of the cakes.
Leave them to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool. Peel the greaseproof paper from the bases of the cakes.

Marshmallow Icing

• 120g granulated sugar
• 80g golden syrup
• 1 1/2 tbsp water
• 2 large egg whites

Cook the sugar, syrup and water in a saucepan over a high heat until the mixture reaches the soft-ball stage (115C). This took a few minutes.

Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, in a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks start to form. With the blades still beating on a low speed, slowly pour in the hot sugar syrup in a steady stream on the egg whites.

Continue to beat on a low speed until all the hot syrup is in the mixing bowl.

Increase the speed to medium high and continue beating the mixture until it becomes thick, glossy and cool.

Spread a layer of this icing in between the two layers of cake and spread or pipe the rest on top.

Cookies!
Because I wanted this to be a cookies and cream cake, I added 6 crushed oreos on top of the first layer of icing. And I took out the centre of about 6 oreos and blitzed the biscuit then sprinkled it on top of the cake.

This is the basic 2 layered version

I would love to hear what you think of this cake. Please leave a comment.

Melsop Farm

Melsop Farm

We live about 3 miles away from Melsop Farm. We were lucky enough to go on a sunny day and spent the whole day there.

There's a farm, as you might expect, with a huge range of animals, many of which roam freely so you can pet them and feed them. The shop sells animal feed, I didn't buy any this time because the last time we went the girls were too scared to go that close to the animals. However this time they were really into it.

The farm also has indoor and outdoor play areas. You can pay to go to the play areas alone, the price for that is £4 per child over 2 plus £1 per adult. That is about the same amount you would pay for other soft play areas nearby. However the indoor play area is a little limited compared to others and I think if my 3 and 5 year old were only able to play indoors they would get bored fairly quickly. If it's nice enough to play outside then it's a bargain.

To visit the farm it costs £6 for children over 3, and £7 for adults. The play areas are included in that price. Again, compared to nearby attractions it's a fair price. It's well worth it if you stay for the whole day like we did!

The cafe is also worth a visit given that they use their own produce! It's not like some of the greasy cafe food you sometimes get in the soft play areas!

Here are some more photos from our recent visit.

Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake

I've never made carrot cake before, which is crazy because I love carrot cake! So I decided I would make one for my birthday, which is still ages away but I thought I should do some recipe testing before hand. I had envisioned working my way through several recipes giving marks out of ten etc. But I think I'm in love with this one! I cannot stop thinking about it. I want more! It is moist and tasty and the icing is light and fluffy.

The Cake

I followed the recipe from Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy although I didn't want a big cake, so I reduced the quantities by two thirds to just make one of the three layers she has pictured. Which was a perfect amount. These are the quantities I used:

• 175ml vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 175g soft dark brown sugar
• 140g carrots peeled and grated
• grated zest of one orange
• 175g self raising flour
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp bicarb of soda
• 1tsp mixed spice
• 1/2tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180°C - I had my fan assisted oven on at 165°. Prepare a 23cm/9in round tin by oiling the insides and lining the bases with baking paper.

Put the oil, sugar, carrots and orange zest in a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon.

Mix the flour, salt, bicarb of soda and mixed spice together then sift into the bowl.

Add the vanilla and lightly mix everything together until the mixture is uniform but still soft and runny. Pour it into the tin and bake for about 40-45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Leave it to cool for 5 minutes then turn it out onto a wire rack and peel off the paper.

The Icing

I basically followed the recipe for cream cheese buttercream in Karen Sullivan's Step by step cake decorating book. Again I changed the quantities for my own purposes.

• 65g unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2tsp vanilla extract
• 200g icing sugar
• 90g cream cheese

Cream the butter and vanilla together with an electric whisk. Add half of the icing sugar, beat well, then add the other half and beat it again.

Add the cream cheese, a little at a time, beating vigorously until fluffy.

The spread it over the cake and enjoy!

If you tried the carrot cake, let me know what you think. Leave a comment below.
Also, I'm always looking for new ideas for baking/cooking, if you have any suggestions, leave a comment!

Fit Families

Elizabeth's school has been taking part in a pilot project being run by the local council called "Fit Families". There were 6 sessions run at the school covering different aspects of keeping healthy e.g exercise, balanced diets and growing your own food.

The children each got a t-shirt, a folder with weekly homework tasks, and they came home with a Broad Bean Plant at the end of the 6 weeks.

Week 1 - Let's Get Active!

The NHS recommends that all children over 5 years need at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day.

In the session at school we did lots of running, jumping, skipping, hopping activities and we were set homework for the half tern to keep a log of activities that we did. There was a Facebook page set up for us to share photos and we could win prizes for sharing photos and stories of our activities.
Our activities included playing Wii Fit, bike rides, walking around Gressenhall, playing at the park, soft play and an awesome obstacle course that I made in the house.

Week 2 - Let's Get Growing!

We believe there are similarities between a healthy child and a healthy plant! Both require good nutrition, fluids and sunlight to develop healthily and reach their full potential.

In the session in school we had a run around to get the heart beating faster and hot foreheads. Then each child got to plant their own marrow fat pea which they had to look after at school, making sure it got plenty of sunlight and water.

Week 3 - Mix it up!
This session was all about having a balanced diet. We learned about carbohydrates, fruit and vegetables, proteins, milk and dairy and sugar and fats. Although a lot of the information went over the children's heads, they did get the message that too much sugar and fats were not good!
Elizabeth chose not to eat her cereal bar in the packed lunch that day because that was mentioned as being too sugary.
The homework this week was to write a food diary for one day and split it up into carbs, proteins etc. I think Elizabeth's diet is pretty good as it is. She eats a tonne of fruit, which helps make up for the lack of vegetables in her diet. And I have seen her taking fruit over sugary treats when offered. It's easy for me to not give her sugary treats. I have cut back on them since taking part in this project. However, I do let the girls have home baked treats. At least then I know how much sugar is in it!

Week 4 - Sugar and Salt

The NHS states that a child between 4-6 years old should have no more than 3g of salt a day and an adult 6g a day. Too much salt can increase your blood pressure and may lead to heart disease or a stroke.

Many foods contain high levels of hidden sugars and eating these on a regular basis with limited exercise can lead to weight gain and an increased risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

In the session we were to guess how many teaspoons of sugar there were in certain products. We also looked at the traffic light nutrition labels on food to see what was healthy and what was not. It was quite surprising just how much sugar it is possible to consume in a day without really thinking about it!
The homework was to swap some foods in our diet so that we had less salt and less sugar. I decided to switch to brown bread and to stick with fruit for sweet snacks. Elizabeth and Rebecca are addicted to strawberries now!

Week 5 - Eat a Rainbow!
We learned about having 5 fruit and vegetables a day and how different fruits and vegetables contain different vitamins and minerals. Elizabeth impressed everyone by knowing lots of fruits and vegetables, when others in the class didn't recognise them.
We had a fruit diary again this week where we listed the food eaten in a rainbow chart. Elizabeth ate a lot of reds - peppers, tomatoes, strawberries and red apples. But she did not really have many greens!

Week 6 - Grow Your Own!
In the last session we recapped about eating 5 fruit and vegetables a day and we planted strawberry plants at the school. As mentioned before each child was also given a broad bean plant to take home and look after.

The sessions have finished now, but as a bonus the Fit Families group have challenged us to take Selfies on walks around the local area during the Easter Holidays. We have done one already.

Walk 1 - St Mary's Church and Loch Neaton

It's been a really interesting project to be involved in. It has made me think about what we are eating at home, so it has been successful in that respect. The girls do have a reasonably balanced diet and they don't have too many sugary and fatty treats, those sorts of foods have gradually been sneaking into our shopping more and more, but there is no need for them when the girls are happy to eat fruit.

We've always been quite active with the girls, they cannot go a whole day at home doing nothing. The Wii has been a great addition to their activities for rainy days, and we might not have thought about using it with the girls had it not been for this project. But on dry days we're always out walking, geocaching, cycling, playing at the park or having a day at Gressenhall!

Scottish Tablet

Scottish Tablet

This is a sugary treat! It's a harder form of fudge that crumbles in the mouth. I've made it a couple of times for my English friends and it is usually well received! It is incredibly tricky to make and mine often comes out like fudge. But it's still great to eat if it is soft.

Ingredients

• 4oz salted butter
• 1kg granulated sugar
• 1 cup of full cream milk
• 1 tin of condensed milk

Melt the butter in a heavy based pan. Add all of the rest of the ingredients and slowly bring to the boil, stirring frequently.

When it comes to the boil, turn the heat down and let it simmer for about 45 minutes until the mixture is a caramel brown colour.

Take it off the heat and beat it with an electric hand mixer until the mixture is really thick and coming away from the sides. This should take about 10 minutes. Have a taste of it, if it tastes grainy then it's right.

Pour it into a 20cm/30cm tin. Score it after 5 minutes. Then once it's hard cut it into squares.

I made these for the Easter Coffee Morning at Rebecca's Pre School. I took Rebecca into school especially for the end of term festivities, she doesn't usually go on a Friday. They had an Easter Egg Hunt, face painting, biscuit decorating, crispy cake making, crafts and loads more things going on.

This is all the food she came away with from one session:

Is it just me or is that a little bit too much for one 3 year old?

If you tried the tablet, let me know what you think. Leave a comment below.
Also, I'm always looking for new ideas for baking/cooking, if you have any suggestions, leave a comment!

Easter Bonnet

Grandma got the girls a Go Create Easter Bonnet Decorating Kit for their Easter present. I think the Tesco Go Create range is pretty decent and good value for money. Elizabeth and Rebecca are both at a good age for doing that sort of thing now.

Basically the box had all the supplies and instructions to make the hat they had in their picture. I told the girls they could do their own thing, but they were happy to do as instructed. It probably took about 3 hours in total, there was a lot to it. Elizabeth, rightly suggested that it would have been easier if the foam items were stickers. That would have cut down the time probably by 2 hours! I was really impressed that the girls had the patience to do the whole thing. We did stop for one break and they decided to finish it up just when I had given up and tidied everything away!

The girls were very happy with their finished hats. They wore them out the next day and want to take them to the childminder's and school and nanna and grandad's etc so they can show them off.

Southwold

We had a day out at Southwold yesterday and it actually stayed sunny!

We arrived at lunchtime, so first stop was chips on the Pier. We all had the battered sausage and chips. We aren't really fish eaters, so that's usually the easiest thing to order when getting fish and chips. They were really tasty, the batter was excellent!

Next we went down to the beach. The girls went barefoot and chased the waves for a while. I got soaked taking a photo of them.

We walked along the pier and had a look at the old and weird arcade games, we watched the water clock, we laughed at ourselves in the silly mirrors and we found Nanna and Grandad's plaque.

Then we walked up to the lighthouse, which was closed but that was probably a good thing as you have to be 1.1m to climb it. Elizabeth might have got away with that, but not Rebecca.

We finished up our day with ice creams back at the pier. Elizabeth had bubble gum and chocolate flavoured ice cream and Rebecca had strawberry and chocolate.

A lovely day out with the girls.

Easy Sausage Rolls

Easy Sausage Rolls

When buying sausages for the family, I find that one pack is not really enough for the 4 of us and 2 packets are too many. So I decided to use up my left over sausages productively this week by making sausage rolls.

What you need:

• Some sausages - I had 9 leftover chipolata sausages
• A packet of ready made frozen puff pastry. Defrost and let it get to room temperature
• 1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees

Roll out the pastry to about 40cm by 30cm.

Cut it into 3 long strips 3 x 40cm by 10cm

Take the skin off the sausages and lay them along the length of the pastry strips

Egg wash one side of the pastry strips and roll the pastry around the sausages

Cut them into small sausage roll sizes, so about an inch long

Put them into the fridge to let the pastry harden a little, about 20 minutes

I scored my pastry on the top, but that's more for decoration than anything else I think.

Egg wash all the exposed pastry

Cook in the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown

Elizabeth had these in her packed lunch the next day!

Recipe Recommendation Lemon and Raspberry Cake

Made this thanks to @RichardPBurr . Looking forward to eating it after tea. #MothersDay pic.twitter.com/KV39tL9ye2

— Fiona (@ChosenMum) March 15, 2015

I'm sending you elsewhere for this week's update. I follow Richard Burr on twitter. He was a finalist (and my favourite) in the last series of Great British Bake Off. He posted a link on twitter for a fantastic cake to make for Mother's Day. It's a lemon sponge cake with raspberry buttercream icing.

Here's the link: Mother's Day Recipe.

If I was to make it again I would be tempted to use at least one less lemon and I would only make about two thirds of the quantity of icing, because I had enough left over for half a dozen cupcakes.

I found that the lemon in the sponge overpowered the cake and I could not taste the raspberry in the icing.

But it was a gorgeous cake overall and I went back for seconds (and thirds!)

I was delighted to be included in Richard's tweet later in the day about lots of people making his cake.

Chuffed to bits with how many people made my #MothersDay cake this weekend. Go to http://t.co/5MvgwZAtOe for recipe 🍰 pic.twitter.com/8vhXANZrUu

— Richard Burr (@RichardPBurr) March 15, 2015

Chicken Satay Skewers

Chicken Satay Skewers

When it was Chinese New Year I bought some ready made Chinese snacks to have with the girls for lunch. One of the snacks was chicken satay skewers. Elizabeth loved them, so I thought I'd make some from scratch.

I started with Annabel Karmel's recipe for chicken satay, and tweaked it a little:

Ingredients

• 2 chicken breasts cut into smallish cubes
• cocktail sticks

Marinade

• 2 tbsp peanut butter
• 4 tbsp chicken stock
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 garlic clove crushed

Sauce

• leftover marinade sauce
• 4 tbsp chicken stock
• about 50ml water
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• Black pepper

Method

• Mix together the marinade ingredients. Put the chicken in the marinade and leave in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
• Thread the chicken onto the skewers. Save what's left of the marinade for the sauce.
• Cook in the oven at 180°C for about 18 minutes, turning them once.
• Meanwhile put the leftover marinade sauce in a small saucepan. Add the chicken stock, water, chili powder and pepper. 
• Bring to the boil to make sure any raw chicken that might have remained gets cooked off. 
• Let it simmer for 5 minutes or so, until it has reduced a little.

This was so tasty and just the right size for children. Great party food too!

If you tried the chicken satay skewers, let me know what you think. Leave a comment below.
Also, I'm always looking for new ideas for baking/cooking, if you have any suggestions, leave a comment!

Chocolate Marshmallow Crispy Squares

Chocolate Marshmallow Crispy Squares

This week's sweet treat is a minor adaptation of Nigella's Marshmallow Crispy Squares. I used these before when making the Unikitty Treats. They are great for kids and adults, but incredibly moreish, so beware! These treats would be ideal for cake stalls and fundraising, with Comic Relief coming up...

Ingredients

• 45g butter
• 300g mini marshmallows
• 180g Rice Krispies
• 300g cooking chocolate, maybe even more

Method

• Melt the butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan over a low heat.
• Add the marshmallows and cook gently until they are completely melted and blended, stirring constantly.
• Take the pan off the heat and immediately add the cereal, mixing lightly until well coated.
• Press the mixture into lined 32cm x 23cm tin. I cover it with baking paper and press into the corners as it is very sticky. I also use a rolling pin over the top of the baking paper to make sure it is flat.
• Then carefully peel off the top layer of baking paper and leave it to cool completely in the tin.
• Cut it into small squares.
• Melt the cooking chocolate.
• Cover the squares in chocolate, let the excess drip off. Then lay them on a piece of baking paper, silicon baking mat, or even in individual cupcake cases to make them a little more special.

I did not manage to cover all of my marshmallow crispy squares with the 300g of chocolate. But the treats are lovely without the chocolate, so I was happy to have a mixture. You might want to use more chocolate if you want them all covered.

The girls were able to help make these treats. Their jobs were to stir the mixture until melted. Then when they were set and cut up, the girls did all the chocolate work. It was a great mess!

If you tried the chocolate marshmallow crispy squares, let me know what you think. Leave a comment below.
Also, I'm always looking for new ideas for baking/cooking, if you have any suggestions, leave a comment!

Valentine's Day Cake Pops

Valentine's Day Cake Pops

I wasn't going to bake any more cakes until at least May after making Elizabeth's Birthday Cake. However I made an exception for these Valentine's Day cake pops because they're not really cakes, they're cake pops! Plus I've never tried them before so it was a challenge.

Shopping!
I bought some cake pop moulds from Tesco. They were on sale at £1.50. Pretty good as I've seen them for about £7 elsewhere.

I bought red candy melts from hobbycraft. And I also got lolly pop sticks from hobbycraft and a stand for holding the pops while they set, although I've seen people using polystyrene for this.

I watched a few videos: Nerdy Nummies

And Megs Goodies

And I also got some help from a brilliant Step by Step Cake Decorating book I got for Christmas by Karen Sullivan.

I used the chocolate cake recipe from the book. It said that making cake pops was an excellent way of using up leftover cake. LEFTOVER CAKE? WHO HAS LEFTOVER CAKE JUST LYING AROUND!!!

It also said to use 300g of *leftover* cake. And I had no idea how much cake would be 300g. I took a chance and halved the recipe and it weighed 312g when cooked. Perfect!

Chocolate Cake:

87g unsalted, softened butter

87g soft light brown sugar

1 large egg and the yolk of another

62g self raising flour

25g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp greek yoghurt

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Add the egg(s) and mix again.

Fold in the dry ingredients.

Lastly add the yoghurt.

Bake it in a greased 7 inch cake tin at 180 degrees for 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. 

Chocolate Buttercream Icing:

62g unsalted, softened butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

150g icing sugar

1/2 tbsp milk

2 tbsp cocoa powder

Method: 

Cream together the butter and vanilla extract. Add the icing sugar and cocoa powder, mix again. Add the milk and beat until the icing is light and fluffy.

Making Cake Pops - I made 18 cake pops

• When the cake is cool, break it up into crumbs and mix it with 150g of buttercream icing until you have a smooth dough. Now you can hand mould it into balls or use silicon moulds. Using the moulds was time consuming for me because there were only 5 hearts in the mat, so I could only do 5 at a time.
• Once I had filled my 5 moulds I put them in the freezer for 30 minutes. Then I popped them out and smoothed out the edges, then I put them in the fridge while the next batch were being prepared.
• Next up you dip one end of a cake-pop stick into "chocolate" and insert it into the center of each pop. Leave it for about 30 minutes to set.
• I used some Lindt white chocolate for this. When it melted it was really runny and it did not hold the cake pops onto the stick well enough. So when it came to covering the pops quite a few fell off and we ended up with some very messy (but tasty) pops. I suggest using some of the candy melts instead because that stuff is like cement!
• Then dip the pops into the melted candy melts and swirl to cover.
• When I melted the candy melts the mixture was really quite thick, so I added some water and mixed it thoroughly. Then I put the mixture back into the microwave for 10 seconds throughout the decorating process, in order to keep it quite runny. But this step would have generally been easier if the cakes were more firmly stuck to the sticks.
• And add some sprinkles to finish off.

These were really, really yummy. The girls loved them and ate 3 each last night! I bought little bags and ties from hobbycraft and the girls gave them as gifts to their friends. I will definitely experiment more with cake pops now that I've tried them. Nom, nom, nom!

If you tried the cake pops, let me know what you think. Leave a comment below.
Also, I'm always looking for new ideas for baking/cooking, if you have any suggestions, leave a comment!

Can I haz Cheezburger? Aka Ice Cream Sandwiches

Can I haz Cheezburger?

I had a request from Elizabeth to make another Nerdy Nummies treat. This time she picked the Cheeseburger Ice Cream Sandwich.

I made my usual Empire Biscuits for the burger bun. Elizabeth and Rebecca used a round cookie cutter on the dough to make 8 cookies. I couldn't find any sugar sprinkles that weren't pink or blue, so to make the seed effect for the top "bun" I put chocolate sprinkles on the biscuits as soon as the came out of the oven, so that they would melt a bit and stick to the biscuit.

Then I used the same cookie cutter to cut out the chocolate ice cream. This part was messy! Probably best to have a bowl of hot water to dip the knife into before cutting. I did it the same way as Ro in the video linked. I cut a tub of chocolate ice cream, took the carton off it and then cut out a large cylinder of chocolate ice cream with the cookie cutter, then sliced it into 4 burger sized shapes. I then put them back into the freezer.

Next up I made some "ketchup". I made a batch of buttercream icing: 100g icing sugar, 50g butter. Then I got the girls to squish up some raspberries through a sieve and we added the puree raspberries to the buttercream. Elizabeth got herself and Rebecca a spoon each to eat this sauce because it was SO GOOD!

Then we assembled it all to look like a burger. I didn't do any "cheez" so our creation is really just a burger, but it was great all the same.

These were great fun to make with the girls. They were absolutely covered in chocolate after eating them!

Bloglovin

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Frozen Cake and Pizza Party

Frozen Birthday Cake

I got the idea of having a Pizza Party for Elizabeth's birthday from kneadwhine, who took her little boy to Pizza Express for his birthday last year. I remember thinking, "I could do that". And I did!

Elizabeth was happy with the idea, but to be honest I could have convinced her to do anything for her birthday. She was just so excited about it full stop!

She invited 4 friends, so there were 6 children in total. All of them RSVP'd with their favourite pizza topping.

I had to buy in 4 extra rolling pins, 1 extra pizza baking tray and I bought 6 aprons from Poundland.

I made two lots of pizza dough in the breadmaker. And I used Tesco's pizza sauce and ready grated mozzarella.

For their toppings they had a selection of ham, pepperoni and pineapple.

I used 3/4 of the second batch of pizza dough to make dough balls to serve with the pizzas. They also had some salad sides and some hula hoops and cheesy crisps.

Pizza Birthday Tea

They all made their own pizzas and while they were cooking they played party games with Grandma in the living room.

Tesco had some ready made party game packs. I bought 3, a Pin the tail on the Donkey, Sleeping Lions, and Musical Mats - which was a musical chairs substitute. They also played pass the parcel. I was really impressed with the games from Tesco, and everything can be reused.

After they had their birthday tea, Elizabeth took all her friends upstairs to her room to show off her bunk beds. I came upstairs and found all 6 of them on the top bunk!

When they came back down there was time for one more game before the parents arrived. It all went brilliantly! Everyone was well behaved and happy. There was lots of giggling and smiling faces!

And to top it all off, Elizabeth had this cake (which I made):

Frozen Cake
I've been developing this idea since Rebecca's Scooby Doo cake, when Elizabeth said she wanted a Frozen Cake for her birthday. I wanted to make a palace, but it was just too difficult. I think I would have either had to have cake covered in sugar glass, which wouldn't have looked great, or I would have had to use non-edible crafts.

So I ended up with this design as a compromise by having the sugar glass at the back as ice shards and by making it in three tiers to give the height of the palace. And in the end it was MUCH easier than the Scooby Doo cake because I didn't have to make templates or cut out intricate designs and lettering by hand.

I first purchased snowflake cutters from amazon. Then I printed off several sugar glass recipes from the internet. I tried it with food colouring and without. And for the finished product, I wish I had put the colouring in because the glass caramalised a bit too much and so looks too yellow. I also tried a bit of chocolate tempering. I got it right a few times, but as the cake wasn't being served as soon as it was made it was a bit pointless. The chocolate kept it's shape, but it didn't snap when broken.

Ice Shards

If I was doing it again I think I would skip the glass shards. They didn't really add to the overall look of the cake. I wanted them there to make it look more like the palace, but the cake was lovely without it.

I already had sandwich tins that were 20 cm. I managed to find two smaller ones, because I didn't want the cake to be massive. The top layer actually used a pie tin.

I used buttercream to sandwich the layers together and to spread on the cake before covering in the ready to roll fondant icing.

I briefly experimented with royal icing, but ran out of time to perfect it, so the piping on the cake was done with Dr Oetker's Designer Icing Pouch. They are great! They come with 4 piping nozzles. And one pouch did all the white piping on that cake.

And I added the snowflake shapes using white fondant icing and sticking them on by brushing water on them with a pastry brush.

The Frozen figures were bought off amazon. I didn't make them. However I will try modelling with fondant icing soon!

Bullyland Figures

Even if it wasn't the Frozen Palace, it was obviously a Frozen Cake. And Elizabeth was really happy with it and her friends were dying to try it.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth

What did you think of the Frozen cake? I'd love to hear your comments or suggestions.

Lekue Kit Cupcake Review

Lekue Kit Cupcake

Most of my Christmas presents this year were baking themed.

I was really intrigued by the Lekue Kit Cupcake set that I got from Jeff's mum and dad. It looks amazing. And I love gadgets, especially cooking ones. I decided to test it out on a baking day with the girls.

We made some Chocolate Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery Cupcake book, by Martha Swift. And I set the girls to work with fondant icing and my new heart shaped plungers, to make some "sprinkles" for the cakes.

I made a batch of buttercream icing and got to work:

It worked really well to start with when I had a full tub of butter icing in the Decomax. It was easier to put the icing into the Decomax than it usually is with a piping bag. And it was easy to switch between the nozzles, However, once I had iced about 4 cupcakes it became a struggle to do the rest. I had to really squeeze the decomax, which wasn't easy. I ended up with the icing coming out of the lid.

In the end I gave up and scraped the rest of the icing out and spread it onto the cupcakes. I had made exactly enough icing for all of the cupcakes. I think for this to have worked effectively I might have needed more icing in the Decomax. But then half of it would have gone to waste.

In researching the product I have seen reviews where people have said it works like a dream with things like whipped cream and batter for macarons, but that buttercream icing can be tricky. The books comes with a few icing recipes. I might give them a try and see if it works any better. For buttercream icing though, I think that a piping bag is definitely easier.

However, it did not spoil our tea party one bit! The cakes were delicious. We also had some sausage rolls, grapes, slushies and some pretend food too.

I will update when I try it with something else. It's such a lovely gadget, it would be a shame not to use it.