Easter Chocolate Cake

I decided to make more of an Easter themed cake this weekend, but not everything went to plan! I decided to base what I was making on this white and dark chocolate cake, except I just did the white chocolate cake and unfortunately the sponge ended up being very soft and easily crumbled so I didn't end up splitting it into two layers. I think it's because I accidentally added too much melted white chocolate though so I've adapted the recipe here to what you should add. The ganache is quite bitter but the sweetness of the cake and the white chocolate on top counteracts it so it's overall quite sweet!

Ingredients

Cake:-

120g butter

65g white chocolate

2 eggs

65ml milk

120g caster sugar

2/3 tsp baking powder

165g self-raising flour

2/3 tsp vanilla extract

Ganache:-

284ml double cream

200g dark chocolate

50g white chocolate

Cadbury Mini Eggs

Recipe

1) Heat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4 and grease and line an 18cm cake tin.

2) Break the white chocolate into pieces and melt in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

3) Mix the rest of the ingredients for the cake together in a large bowl and beat until creamy.

4) Add the white chocolate to the cake mixture and mix thoroughly until creamy.

5) Place in the tin and bake for 30 minutes.

6) Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

7) To make the ganache, heat the cream in a pan until boiling.

8) Pour over the dark chocolate and allow to sit for a few minutes then stir until smooth.
9) Pour the ganache over the cake then smooth with a spatula or flat knife. Place the mini eggs on top.

10) Place in the fridge to set completely.
11) Melt the white chocolate over a pan of water then sprinkle over the ganache.

Iced Cupcakes [Archive]

This recipe makes 12 cupcakes, but I doubled it as the other half wanted to make some as well :)

Ingredients

115g butter

115g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 medium eggs

140g self-raising flour

3 tbsp milk (this wasn't in the original recipe but when I made the mix it seemed a bit dry so I added it extra. It made the cakes really soft and moist!)

For the icing:-

225g icing sugar

3-4 tbsp water

Few drops of food colouring

Recipe

1) Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Line a 12-hole cupcake tin.

2) Cream the butter and sugar together until it is soft and fluffy.

3) Add the eggs a little at a time with a tbsp of flour and whisk.

4) Add the vanilla essence and the milk, if needed, and mix thoroughly.

5) Fill each cupcake case between 1/2 to 3/4 full.

6) Bake for 25-30 minutes. You can tell when they are done if they are golden on the top and when you press down lightly on the top they bounce back up.

To make the icing, gradually add the water to the icing sugar with the food colouring. If you want a dark colour add around 5 or so drops; for the yellow colour I had to add quite a few drops as it was fluorescent before! You need to make sure the icing is quite thick to prevent it from running down the cupcakes.

Then decorate with whatever you fancy! One of my friends bought me some lovely decorating ingredients for my birthday so I used orange drops, small silver balls and then the classic hundreds and thousands!

Here's how mine turned out:-

As you can see, some of them did turn out a little bit runny! But I loved the snowflake one so I thought I'd give you a close up to show how I did it! 

Mini Egg Cupcakes

I thought I'd embrace some more Easter baking this week and chocolate is easily available around Easter! Adding the mini eggs to these cupcakes gives them a really nice sticky texture compared to just using standard chocolate chips. It definitely gives them a bit of an edge over standard cupcakes!

Ingredients

100g softened butter

100g caster sugar

2 large eggs

100g self-raising flour

2 tbsp milk

100g crushed Cadbury Mini Eggs (don't worry if there are some bigger pieces of egg. It's always nice to have different sizes to give the cakes more texture!)

Recipe

1) Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas Mark 5 and line a 12-hole bun tin with 12 cases.

2) Place the butter, sugar, eggs and flour in a bowl and beat together until smooth.

3) Add the milk if the mixture is a bit dry. I always like adding a bit of milk as it makes the cakes really moist.

4) Fold in the crushed Mini Eggs then spoon the mixture into the cases.

5) Bake in the oven for around 20 minutes or until springy to the touch.

6) Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Marble Cake [Archive]

I decided to make a chocolate marble cake tonight. Mainly because I haven't made one in a while but it should also satisfy my chocolate craving for a bit!

I got the recipe from the BBC Good Food website a couple of years ago but I’m not sure if it’s still on there, so I’ll post it on here if you want to try it :)

Ingredients

225g butter
225g caster sugar
225g self-raising flour
4 eggs
3 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Recipe

1) Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4 and grease a 20cm cake tin.
2) Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until soft and fluffy.
3) Gradually add the eggs, milk and vanilla extract with a tablespoon of flour each time.
4) Divide the mix between 2 bowls and add the cocoa powder to one of the bowls.
5) Spoon two or three tablespoons of each mixture into the cake tin, making sure to create some layers.
6) Place a knife in the mixture and swirl around a few times to create a marbled effect.
7) Tap the tin against the worktop to remove any air bubbles then place in the oven for 1 hour. (It said on the recipe 45-55 minutes but I always find checking on the cake by sticking a knife into it the best option! If it comes out clean 
then it’s done)
8) Take from the oven and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

And this is what it looked like before and after! :)

My first Blogspot Blog Post!

Hello and welcome to my new blog!

I decided to move to blogspot from another host as I've seen lots of lovely baking blogs on here and I thought I could enter more of a baking community than I could before! Seeing as I've been posting on my other account for a good 5 months now, I have a lot of recipes on there and instead of bombarding this blog with all of those recipes at once, I'm going to do a kind of archive post once in a while where I'll post some of the older recipes on here!

So a little bit about me now! As you've probably guessed, I'm called Jacqui and I love baking! I decided to make a blog to share my baking triumphs (and disasters) in case anybody wanted to make the same and to keep a record of my favourite recipes.

I'm currently in my fourth year studying a Masters in Chemistry at the University of York, which is a bit different from baking I guess, although reactions are very similar to baking really. You add a few ingredients and make something at the end; you just can't eat the product!

I've only really been baking for a year or so but I want to carry it on as much as I can. I'll try and update this at least once a week and provide lots of pictures! If there are any questions then feel free to ask! :)

Jacqui x