Recipe: Pumpkin Spice Loaf

On Thursday I shared with you my first Pumpkin Spice recipe. And today I’m back with another. What can I say, I just love pumpkin spice. But honestly a lot of this recipe is just from the fact that I love a good loaf recipe now that I’ve actually mastered how to cook a good loaf. And this loaf is divine. A delicious brown sugar based loaf packed with pumpkin spice mix and topped with a sweet coffee buttercream that just makes me long for my first PSL of the season. 

Ingredients 

For The Sponge

- 150g Light Brown Sugar

- 150g Stork

- 150g Self Raising Flour 

- 3 Eggs

- 2 Tsps Pumpkin Spice Mix

For The Buttercream 

- 150g Butter, softened

- 270g Icing Sugar

- 2 Tsps Vanilla Extract

- 2 Tsps Coffee Extract 

Method 

1- Pre heat oven to 150C. Line your 2lb loaf tin with greaseproof paper or a loaf tin liner. 

2- Place your stork and light brown sugar into a bowl. Cream together until pale in colour and fluffy in texture. 

3- Add your eggs one at a time, each followed with a tablespoon of flour. Beat well in between each egg, taking care to scrape the sides and the bottom of the bowl. 

4- Fold in the rest of your flour along with your pumpkin spice mix. Take your time folding these in as it’ll help to keep the air you’ve just beaten into the mixture. If you’re wondering how to make pumpkin spice mix then just pop it into google and there will be a ton of recipes. 

5- Spoon your mixture into your loaf tin evenly and bake for 45-60 minutes. I always advise putting your loaf tin on another flat baking tray so that if your mixture decides to overflow when cooking then it goes onto the tray and not straight into your oven. 

6- Once your loaf is cooked (a skewer comes out clean) place to one side and leave to cool. I always advise leaving it to cool in the tin for ten minutes and then transfer it to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. 

7- Now it’s time to make your buttercream. You don’t have to top this loaf with a buttercream but I like how it looks and tastes with the buttercream. Place your softened butter into a clean bowl and beat until soft and pale in colour. 

8- Sieve in half your icing sugar and beat until fully combined. Take care to fold the icing sugar in first before going mad with the mixing otherwise everything from yourself to your units and even the family pet will end up covered in a thin coating of icing sugar. 

9- Sieve in the remaining half of your icing sugar and beat again. 

10- Now it’s time to add your flavourings. I use a mixture of coffee and vanilla so it’s less bitter and gives the flavour of a sweetened coffee. Beat the extracts until they’re fully combined, taking care to scrape the edges of the bowl so nothing is left unincorporated. 

11- Usually I’d add some milk to the buttercream to create a nice piping consistency but the combination of the two extracts has loosened the mixture and created the perfect consistency. So all you need to then do is spoon into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle of your choice and decorate your now cooled loaf. 

12- Then once it’s decorated all that’s left to do is to cut yourself a huge slice and enjoy with a massive cup of tea or coffee. 

Recipe: Classic Victoria Sponge

 

 Victoria Sponges are a classic. The most basic and simple sponge to make and yet so easily adaptable and enjoyed by many. A lot of my sandwich cakes have a base of a Victoria Sponge but with other flavours added in. Yet today I’m sharing with just the classic sponge on it’s own, with a simple vanilla buttercream and blackcurrant jam sandwiching the two sponges together. 

Ingredients 

For The Sponges 

- 200g Stork 

- 200g Caster Sugar 

- 200g Self Raising Flour 

- 4 Eggs 

- 2 Tsps Vanilla Extract 

For The Buttercream 

- 100g Butter, softened 

- 160g Icing Sugar 

- 2 Tsps Vanilla Extract 

- A Splash Of Milk 

- Blackcurrant Jam 

Method

1. Pre heat oven to 180C. Line two 8inch sandwich trays with greaseproof paper.

2. In a bowl place your stork and caster sugar. Cream together until pale and fluffy. 

3. Add one egg and a tablespoon of flour. Beat until well combined, taking care to scrape the sides of the bowl so nothing is left sitting on the side. 

4. Repeat with the next three eggs, each one incorporated fully, taking care to scrape the sides and the bottom of the bowl. 

5- Fold in the remaining flour alongside your vanilla extract. Take care when folding it through as beating the mixture unneccasarily can cause it to lose it's air and will leave you with a flat, tough, chewy cake. 

6- Spoon your prepared mixture between your two prepared tins and bake for 20-22 minutes or until a skewere comes out clean.You can also do the spring back test by gently pressing the top of the cake with your middle finger. If it springs back immediately then it's cooked, if it doesn't then it needs a few more minutes in the oven. Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. 

7- Now it's onto the buttercream. Place your softened butter in a clean bowl and beat until smooth, soft and paler in colour. I advise using a stand mixer or a hand mixer as this can take a while and if you attempt to do this by hand you'll likely end up with cramp. 

8- Sieve in half of your icing sugar and beat until completely combined. 

9- Sieve in the rest of your icing sugar and beat until fully incorporated, taking care to scrape the sides of the bowl so there aren't pockets of icing sugar sat in your mixture. 

10- Beat in your vanilla and a splash of milk. These will help to get your buttercream to an easy spreading or piping consistency but won't make it overly runny. Mine looks a lot softer than normal because I made it during a hotter than normal day/

11- By now your cakes will have cooled. Now how you apply your buttercream is entirely up to you. I spread mine over as it was easier than piping but you can easily pipe a cute desgin with a piping nozzle of your choice. 

12- Once you've applied you buttercream, apply a generous amount of jam and sandwich the two cakes together. If when you make this it's warmer than normal, don't push them down when you sandwich the sponges. It'll cause the icing and the jam to ooze out the sides and you'll end up with a sloppy mess that you won't want to share with anyone. 

13- Then all that's left is to cut yourself a generous slice and enjoy with a cuppa or a coffee.

Recipe: Kinder Bueno Cupcakes

When me and my colleagues were deciding on what to do for our Saturday Boy’s 18th, we tossed around the idea of making him a cake or cupcakes. From there we argued what flavour would be best when I remembered that he loved Kinder Bueno’s (I mean who doesn’t?) and me being the Mary Berry of my store, was given the task of creating him something Kinder Bueno related. Of course I happily accepted it, I love any opportunity to bake and share my creations with people. I opted to make cupcakes as they were easier to transport, perfect and meant he had plenty to share with his family. 

Ingredients 

For The Cupcakes

- 150g Caster Sugar

- 150g Stork

- 150g Self Raising Flour

- 2 Eggs 

- 2 Tsps Chocolate Extract 

- 10g Cocoa Powder 

- 150g Nutella, melted 

For The Buttercream 

- 200g Butter, softened 

- 320g Icing Sugar

- 100g Dark Chocolate, melted

- Kinder Bueno Bars To Decorate 

Method 

1- Pre heat your oven to 180C. Line a twelve hole muffin tin with paper cases. 

2- Into a bowl place your caster sugar and stork. Cream together until pale and fluffy in texture. 

3- Add one egg and a tablespoon of flour. Beat until completely incorporated, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl so nothing is left sat untouched. 

4- Repeat with your remaining egg and another tablespoon of flour. Again beat until fully incorporated.

5- Fold in your remaining flour, cocoa powder and chocolate extract. Take care to be gentle at this step, if you beat this into the mixture you’ll lose all the air you’ve just built up and you’ll end up with a flat, heavy cake. 

6- Fold in your melted Nutella. Again don’t beat this wildly into your mixture or you’ll lose all the air and these when folded correctly are the lightest, fluffiest cakes ever. 

7- Spoon your mixture into you prepared cases and bake for 18-20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Once baked, leave to cool in the tin for five minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. 

8- Now it’s time for the buttercream. Into a clean bowl place your softened butter. Beat until it’s pale in colour and soft in texture. This could take a while so I advise using a stand mixer or a hand mixer for this part. 

9- Sieve in half of your icing sugar and beat until completely incorporated. If using a hand mixer or a stand mixer, start off on a slow speed as you don’t want to end up covering your entire kitchen in a icing sugar cloud. 

10- Sieve in the remaining icing sugar and again beat until you have buttercream. Remember to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as you go so nothing is left unmixed and lumpy in your buttercream. 

11- Fold in your melted dark chocolate, leaving no bit of buttercream unmixed. You could easily use milk chocolate or even just cocoa powder for this part but I wanted the icing to be really rich to blend nicely with the Nutella cupcakes. 

12- Spoon your buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a piping nozzle of your choice and pipe onto your now cooled cupcakes. Once you’ve piped your icing onto your cupcakes, place either a chunk or two chunks (your choice) on top of your cakes. Once the entire batch is iced and decorated, leave to set before sharing with whoever you decide to share them with. 

Recipe: Simple Nutella Cupcakes

First of all please excuse the less than professional picture, the idea to post these as a separate recipe before decoration only came to me as I took them out of the oven. These simple Nutella cupcakes are the base for a Kinder Bueno cupcake that I’m baking for my colleagues 18th birthday. However seeing how well this quickly put together, hastily judged recipe turned out, I thought I’d share it with you all. Shall we get into it. 

Ingredients 

- 120g Stork

- 120g Caster Sugar 

- 120g Self Raising Flour 

- 120g Nutella, melted 

- 2 Tsps Cocoa Powder 

- 2 Tsps Chocolate Extract 

- 2 Eggs 

Method 

1- Pre heat your oven to 180C. Line a twelve hole with paper cases. 

2- In a bowl place your stork and caster sugar. Cream together until pale and fluffy, easily achieved with a stand mixer or by hand. 

3- Add one egg and a tablespoon of flour. Beat thoroughly until combined, taking time to scrape the sides of the bowl. 

4-Repeat with the second egg and a second tablespoon of flour. Beat again until combined, making sure everything is incorporated and not left sitting on the sides of bottom of the bowl. 

5- Fold in your remaining flour, cocoa powder and chocolate extract. Folding these ingredients helps to keep the air in your mixture, creating a light, melt in the mouth cake that you won’t be able to get enough of. 

6- Fold in your melted Nutella, you’ll notice that the mixture will darken and become looser in consistency but that’s totally fine. You don’t have to melt your Nutella before you add it to the mixture but  melted it does help with its incorporation. 

7- Spoon your mixture into your prepared paper cases and cook for 20-22 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. You can also do the press test and if the top springs back then their ready to come out. Due to the cocoa powder and Nutella in the mixture, these don’t take as long to cook as other cake mixture do. 

8- Leave to cool in the tin for five minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

9- All that’s left then is to enjoy them. And what may be one could easily turn into two or three as these are deliciously moreish. 

Recipe: Hazelnut Brownies

Brownies are something I spent a good portion of my time as a baker failing at. Until a couple of years ago I always ended up with a bread/cake hybrid that tasted delicious but were never my intention to make. Yet now I can make some of the most fudgy, delicious brownies I've ever tasted and I'm constantly on the lookout of what I can add to them to make them even more yummy. Today I'm sharing with you my recipe for Hazelnut Brownies which is possibly my favourite brownie recipe to date. They're fudgy, they're rich and they've got a delicious hint of Nutella alongside the crunch of the chopped hazelnuts.

Ingredients

- 200g Dark Chocolate

- 200g Unsalted Butter

- 275g Caster Sugar

- 90g Plain Flour

- 35g Cocoa Powder

- 100g Dark Chocolate Chips

- 150g Nutella

- 50g Chopped Roasted Hazelnuts

- 3 Eggs

Method 
1- Pre heat your oven to 180C. Line a 9 inch brownie tin with greaseproof paper.
2- In a bain marie melt your dark chocolate and unsalted butter. You can melt the two together in the microwave but it does tend to catch and burn more than when it's done over a bain marie. Once everything has melted together, place to one side and leave to cool.
3- Into a bowl place your sugar and eggs. Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer, whisk until the mixture has doubled in size, has become pale in colour and has a mousse like texture. I really do advise using an electric mixer for this part as I did it by hand and it hurt a lot.
4- Hopefully by the time it's taken to mix your egg and sugar mixture together, your chocolate/butter mixture will have cooled and you can gently fold the two together. Now you have to fold them together otherwise you'll knock out all the air that you've just beat into the egg/sugar mix.

5- Now it's time to fold in your flour, chocolate chips and cocoa powder. Folding it all in together not only helps keep the air in your mix but also stops your chocolate chips from sinking to the bottom.

6- Then fold in your Nutella and chopped hazelnuts, scraping the edges and the bottom of the bowl so nothing is sat unmixed at the bottom. Now I just put the Nutella in at room temperature and let my spatula fold it evenly through the mixture but you could also soften or melt it slightly so that it folds in easier.

7- Pour into your prepared tin, using your spatula or wooden spoon to spread it out evenly in the tin and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Sometimes it may take just a few minutes more for them to bake but that's okay, everyone's ovens and mixtures will cook differently.
8- Once they're cooked, leave to cool and set in the tin before cutting and enjoying. These last for a good three days if kept in an air tight container and are some of the most delicious brownies I've ever tasted (if I say so myself), even more delicious than the Mini Egg Brownies I posted earlier this month.

Recipe: Lemon And White Chocolate Shortbread

Oh shortbread how I've gone from hating making you to wanting to make only you. Today I'm back with yet another shortbread recipe. After making my delicious Triple Choc Chunk Shortbread earlier this month, I wanted to see what else I could add to my standard shortbread recipe. It's always difficult trying to find flavour combinations that work but this combination is divine. Lemon and white chocolate is the combo I chose in the end, the sweetness of the white chocolate blending beautifully with the tartness of the lemon. And the addition of both lemon zest and lemon juice created a beautiful dough that can together easier than any other shortbread dough has ever done.

Ingredients

- 115g Butter

- 175g Plain Flour

- 55g Caster Sugar

- Zest Of One Lemon

- Juice Of Half A Lemon

- Pinch Of Salt

Method 
1- Pre heat oven to 180C. Line a tin of your choosing with greaseproof paper, I chose a round tin again as I found it gave me a better end result as I'm not rolling and rerolling my dough at all.
2- Into a bowl place your plain flour, caster sugar and salt.
3- Add your butter and rub together with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. This is a bit of an arduous job but is practically the only way to make a delicious short, melt in the mouth shortbread.
4- Now it’s time to add your lemon zest and lemon juice. You don't have to add the juice but I find it gives it that little bit of a kick that you don't get from the zest alone.
5- Keep rubbing and kneading the mix together until it starts to form a dough. Usually you need a little bit of water to help bring this together but the lemon juice works as a binding agent and helps to bring the dough together quickly and easily.
6- Now you can easily roll this out and cut into whatever shapes you like but I decided to just press my dough into the tin as it saved me time and I find it bakes a bit better if it’s handled less. If you’re not cutting your dough into shapes just press your dough into your tin of choice and bake for 10-15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.
7- Once cooked leave to cool in the tin. The middle may still be a little soft when you take it out but cooling it completely in the tin allows for that to firm and cool evenly.
8- Then all that’s left to do is cut into triangles or squares or whatever shape you baked them into and enjoy.

Recipe: Raspberry Shortbread Hearts

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and whilst it's not my favourite holiday in the calendar, I can't deny that baking Valentine's themed is quite appealing. So this week, I will be sharing with you three Valentine's themed bakes that I thought would be a nice idea for those of you who plan on baking for your loved one.

Ingredients 
- 115g Butter
- 55g Caster Sugar
- A Pinch Of Salt
- 10g Freeze Dried Raspberries
- 175g Plain Flour

Method
1- Pre heat oven to 180C. Line two baking trays with baking paper.
2- In a bowl place your flour, sugar and salt.
3- Add your butter and rub together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. This doesn't take as long as you expect but if you want to make it quicker, you can easily put this all together in a food processor and blitz it together.
4- Add your freeze dried raspberries and continue to rub together until it forms a dough. This won't take long but if you do find your dough breaking or not coming together at all, add a little water or milk as a binding agent. However don't add too much or your dough will be wet and again won't come together easily. 
5- Once you have your dough, place it on a lightly floured surface and roll it out until it's a 1/2 inch thick. Take care to flour your rolling pin as well as it might stick to the dough and you'll end up tearing a hole out of it as your rolling it out.
6- When you're happy with the thickness of your dough, take your heart shaped cutters and cut out as many shapes as you can, rerolling your dough when necessary to get the most out of it.
7- Place your shapes onto your prepared baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes or until they're golden brown. When you take them out, you want the edges to be firm but the inside to still be a little soft, they'll soon firm up as they cool and you'll end up with delicious melt in the mouth shortbread.