Lemon Drizzle Muffins

So for Christmas I received a baking calender for 2015 featuring a different recipe for each month and the recipe featured in January was Lemon Drizzle Muffins. I am a huge fan of anything with lemon in it especially cake so I was looking forward to giving this recipe a try. These are quite different to anything I’ve made before, being muffins rather than cupcakes they are more heavier and they had a slight different taste with the use of brown sugar. Nevertheless I can see myself reaching for this recipe again.

Ingredients

350g self-raising flour

1/2 level tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

75g brown sugar

Grated rind of 1 lemon

75g melted butter

2 eggs

300ml semi skimmed milk

75g icing sugar

2tsp lemon juice

Method

First of all pre-heat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6.

In a bowl add the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon rind. Mix

Then add the butter, eggs and milk and stir until combined.

Then divide the cake mixture between 12 paper muffin cases and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and risen.

Then to make the lemon icing, combine the icing sugar and lemon juice and drizzle over the muffins.

To finish you can also add some decoration on top like lemon sprinkles.

 

Raspberry Cream Cake

So I was feeling quite peckish over the weekend and having nothing to do I thought I would take on a simple quick recipe. My first thoughts were to make a simple Victoria sponge however I made a few little changes adding a top cream layer and white chocolate/raspberry decoration. This is another easy recipe which involves adding all the ingredients into one bowl. Enjoy 🙂

Ingredients 

175g soft butter

157g caster sugar

3 medium eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

175g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

Into a large bowl, I whisked up all the ingredients above.

Then I divided the mixture between two 8 inch tins and baked in the oven at Gas mark 4/180C/350F for 25-30 mins. Then I left the cakes to cool and prepared the filling. Spread a layer of raspberry jam on one side of one cake and whipped cream ( I whipped around 150ml of double cream up) and spread it on the other cake then sandwich together.

Then I added some cream to the top layer of the cake, grated over some white chocolate and finished with a few raspberries to decorate. Ta Da!

Chocolate Loaf

So my dad is a huge chocolate lover and he practically begged me to bake him this. As a kind daughter I agreed and did so. The recipe was in a magazine he was reading and he pretty much stuffed it in my face. This is actually my first time using a loaf tin for a cake, not incredibly different just a different shaped tin but I like to mix things up a bit.

Ingredients

200g salted butter, soft

200g caster sugar

4 eggs

160g self-raising flour

40g cocoa powder

100g dark chocolate

So into a large bowl you whisk up the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add your eggs, one at a time, beating well each time. Finally, add the cocoa and flour and fold it into the mixture gently. It should look like this (picture above).

Then place in a pre-heated oven at 160C/140C fan/ Gas mark 2 for 40-60 minutes until its cooked right through the middle. Also line your loaf tin with either paper loaf liner or just baking paper like I did.

Then break up the 100g of dark chocolate and melt in the microwave for 15 second bursts until its all melted.

Then drizzle the chocolate over the cake and let it harden.

Voila!

Lemon Drizzle Cake

I am a huge lover of anything sweet and bitter (I’m weird I know!) especially lemons, I could sit and happily eat on a lemon. So while I began to plan my next bake I realised I had never baked a lemon cake before despite loving them so I did quite that. I found a recipe online which is quite straightforward and uses ordinary ingredients that I already had.

Ingredients
175 g (6oz) self-raising flour
1 level tsp baking powder
175 g (6oz) margarine/butter
175 g (6oz) caster sugar
3 Medium eggs
2 tbsp semi-skimmed milk
finely grated rind of 2 lemons

As I said before this is very straightforward so all you do is add all the above ingredients into the one bowl like this (above).
And then whisk it all up!

Then put the mixture into an 8inch cake tin(like mine) or a loaf tin, your choice. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C, 160°C fan, gas mark 4 for 1 hour or until cooked.

Then leave to cool. Then you can prepare the lemon syrup for on top. Place 115g (4oz) of caster sugar and the juice of 2 lemons strained into a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved.

Then once the syrup is prepared, drizzle it over the cake while its warm so that it soaks into the cake and then finely grate some lemon to decorate and fini!

Carrot Cake

One of my favorite cakes is carrot cake and I (before this post) hadn’t actually ever made it so I thought I would give it a try. I thought it would be a good idea considering I had left over cream cheese icing from my Red Velvet cupcakes that I had to use up which goes perfectly with carrot cake! Again this is a pretty simple recipe as you simply gather all the ingredients in one bowl and then whisk it up and voila!

Ingredients

250ml sunflower oil

4 large eggs

225g demerara or muscovado sugar

200g carrots (peeled and grated)

300g self-raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground mixed spice

1tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

Walnuts (to decorate)

As I say this recipe is incredibly easy, whisk up the above ingredients together then evenly divide amongst two 20cm/8inch greased round sandwich tins and place in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius/ Gas mark 4/ 350 Fahrenheit.

 The cake should be in the oven for about 35 minutes or until golden brown. Then I allowed my cake to cool down. (I should note here that I only used one cake tin simply because I couldn’t find my other one however I suggest using two tins as it will cook better)

I then sandwiched the cakes together with cream cheese icing in the middle and also spread it in a swirly fashion on top. You can find the recipe for the icing I used here in my cupcake post – I would half this recipe as I used left overs from the last time.

Then to finish I decorated my cake with some walnuts on top. Fini!

 

 

 

Red (or Pink) Velvet Cupcakes

As usual I had no plans over the weekend *sad face* so I ended up doing a little baking to pass time. I have never tried to make Red Velvet Cupcakes before and as they say there is no better time than the present so I decided to give them a try. Now as you can tell from the title and the picture above my cupcakes did turn out more pink than red .. oops, but hey every mistake is a future lesson so next time I need to add more food coloring to my cake mix.

Ingredients (Makes 12 – muffin sized)

150g unsalted butter

150g caster sugar

150g self-raising flour

3 medium eggs

2.5ml vanilla extract

Red food coloring (enough until mixture is red ..not pink!)

This recipe is my favorite for cupcakes as its incredibly easy as all you need to do is add all the ingredients into the one bowl and whisk it up.

All my ingredients in the bowl (not very appetizing yet)

All whisked up! – Why I thought this was red .. I don’t even know!

Then I evenly distributed the mixture between 12 cake cases ready for the oven. These goes in the oven at Gas mark 4/180 Celsius/350 Fahrenheit for 20 mins.

Finally baked goods!

Then after allowing my cakes to cool down I made a lemon cream cheese frosting for on top. The recipe I used made well over the amount I needed so I would suggest to half this.

Frosting Ingredients

125g cream cheese

60g soft butter

150g icing sugar

2 tbsp lemon juice

350g icing sugar

Preparation

1. Beat the cream cheese and butter until combined. Then beat in 150g of icing sugar and the lemon juice.

2.Gradually beat in the remaining icing sugar until icing is of the right consistency. Using piping bag pipe on to cakes.

The end result!