I'll Be Back

I am currently working on updating the blog. So will not be posting for while.

Hoping to come back to make this blog Bigger and Better than it has ever been.

In the meantime check out my Tumblr.

Olola

x

(Vegan) Carrot Cake

I made this in October for my housemate's boyfriend who has decided to be vegan for awhile. Given that the typical cake has eggs and butter we were determined to find a recipe what he would be able to enjoy guilt-free. I had never made carrot cake before and it wouldn't have been my cake of choice but this has honestly got to be my most favorite cake to date. It was moist, sweet and smelt amazing and between the 5 of us was devoured in the space of a couple of hours.

 

 

Ingredients: 200ml of vegetable oil, 170g of brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 200ml of water, 230g of grated carrots, 70g of pecans chopped, 100g of sultanas, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of ginger, 280g of self-raising flour.

 

 

Beat oil, sugar and vanilla essense, add water and mix (remember oil and water don't mix so don't worry if it looks weird). Stir in carrots, pecans and sultanas until completely covered. Sift in cinnamon and ginger and stir. Then sift in flour (a half at a time) and mix until well combined. It doesn't look the most appealing but when it's cooked I think the picture below is proof that it looks amazing.

Bake at 180 degrees celsius (in a pre-heated oven) don't forget to grease the tin with oil. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

 

 

 

Do keep an eye on the cake when baking though because the sultana's on top will burn first - you just don't want it to burn too much.

I made one layer first and then decided that I wanted the cake to be bigger so I baked another layer the next day. In terms of storing the first layer I made, I wrapped it up in cling film and put it in the fridge.

 

 

 

The topping was a suggestion made by another housemate, it was a combination of icing sugar (150-200g) and orange juice (1.5- 2 tablespoons depending on the consistancy desired) - we made a very thin layer and it complemented the cake perfectly.

 

 

 

I had four slices; 2 on the their own, 1 slice with vanilla ice-cream and the other with apricot jam. I would recommend the vanilla ice-cream.

I cannot wait to bake it again.

Olola
x

Coffee (& Hot Chocolate) Kisses

These were made with a coffee and hot chocolate. I made these a while back so I would put up the recipe but I wouldn't be telling the total truth as I don't remember exactly what I did as I never really follow recipes completely.

 

 

However, I think I slightly over did them but they were devoured anyway.

 

Olola

x

Butterfly Cupcakes

 

These were the first proper cupcakes I have made. I have reached the conclusion that I am not a fan of making cupcakes - I prefer big masterpieces; cupcakes require too much detail and are difficult to transport. Plus I need to figure out how to transfer equal amounts of mixture into cake cases without it massively over flowing when it rises. It comes with practice.

These butterfly cakes were made using 200g of butter, 200g of Caster sugar, 4 eggs, 200g of self raising flour and then for the butter cream topping: 160g of butter, 300g of icing sugar, 3 table spoons of milk, blue and red food colouring and mixed-fruit jam - then topped off with a sprinkle of icing sugar.

I made 24 in total but I reckon the mixture could easily have stretched to 30.

 

I think I will make muffins next - you don't have to worry about its prettiness. I've got two I'd like to try next - the classic chocolate chip muffin and the healthier banana and carrot muffin.

Can you spot any of mine?

 

 

Olola

x

Hawaiian Themed Cake

The butter and sugar mixture - 500g of each

It was my housemate's birthday recently and as usual I like to bake a cake. This took me 5 hours to completely make and I stayed up all night doing it as she was asleep up stairs.
The theme for her party was Hawaiii so I thought it would be a good idea to make a cake to match the theme.
I googled ideas and came across this one which was perfect. The only thing was I had no recipe for it just a picture so I had to improvise and think of ingredients that would give the desired effects.



The 6 eggs were added to the mixture on the left and stirred will. Then 500g of flour and vanilla extract was added.
On the right this the result after the cake has been placed in the oven for just over an hour (I think). I had to watch it carefully as my oven is really powerful.

 The cake was left to cool for about half an hour before I completely coated it with butter cream (as seen on the left). This was done to ensure that the decorative pieces stuck to it. I then created  'beach fence' using wafer sticks.

 Luckily the wafers stayed on. I think the one mistake I made was decorating th cake straight away because the wafers eventually dried out by the time the cake was ready to be eaten - but I sort of had no choice as the cake was meant to be a surprise.

 I then crunched up digestive buscuits to make 'sand'. I was quite surprised at how well it came out - though I was quite worried about how it would taste as sometimes I can find digestives to be bit too dry. It worked though.                  

 I then bought a lai and removed some of the flower from it and stuck them into the cake to make a 'flower bed'. I had pictured this in my head over and over again but the fact that it turned out better than I had imagined (right) made me so happy.

I am always sceptical about how the things I make taste; I don't mind eating it but when other people eat it, I start to worry. Luckily I got positive reviews and the cake was pretty much gone by the end of the night. Success!!

 Olola

x

Emergency Biscuits

While I was experimenting with cocoa power, porridge oats and water, I accidentally added too much cocoa power and the end product was nasty. I was then left with a watery, chocolaty oaty mixture which I wanted to use up because I didn't want to waste it. So I made biscuits! They turned out lovely.

They were made in the same way as the biscuits below but with the mixture also added.

I think these will become my signature biscuits now...I should come up with a name for my baking brand. Consider that my next challenge.

Olola

x

Flat Choco-Banana Cake

Unfortunately my brother broke my scales at home so I was left guessing the right quantities of ingredients to use. I had some banana left over so decided to used them as well as my cocoa power to make a choco-banana cake.

The reason why it's so flat could be down to several things such as the fact I decided to split the mixture into two tins, the flour proportions was just not enough or that the self-raising flour had been left open for over 3 months (trhough no fault of my own - I was at uni after all) and had thus lost it's ability to rise properly.

Either way, I quite liked the finished product - though I received very mixed reactions on the banana filling.

Olola.

x

Procrastination = Chocolate Cake

So I have this 5000 word essay to write that is absolutely killing me.

Last weekend I was craving something sweet to eat; The average person would just pop to the shop but of course I am not your average person - I decided to bake instead with what I had left in my cupboard.

The result - My first ever proper chocolate cake!

Here's what I did:

Cake: 150g Sugar, 150g Butter, 2 Eggs, 125g Self-Raising Flour, 25g Cocoa Powder, a few drops of Vanilla Extract and some Mixed Fruit Jam.

The cake was placed in my oven at 150 degrees for about 30 minutes and then left to cool completely on a cooling rack.

Buttercream: 98g Icing Sugar, 42g Butter, 1 teaspoon of Cocoa Powder, 1/2 teaspoon of Golden Syrup and a few drops of Vanilla Extract.

The cake was pretty good!

Olola

x

Red Velvet

My master piece.

 This is my first red velvet cake and it took me 5 hours to bake for my housemate's 20th and it was perfect.

It maintained it's moisture (perhaps because it was kept in the fridge over night too) and was heavenly.

I cannot wait to bake miniture cupcake versions.

Love!

Olola

x

Flapjacks

I've been working on perfecting my flapjacks. This will now become my weekly snack.

This batch I made was just perfect with 100g of butter, 100g of sugar, 2 teaspoons of golden syrup and 200g of porridge oats. It was placed in the oven for about 20 minutes at 150 degrees and then in the freezer for about 20 minutes to cool and set completely.

I will make another batch like this to confirm that the recipe work and then I'll begin to add other ingredients to it to make it more interesting.

Though nothing beats a good old plain flapjack.

Olola.

x

Lemon Cake

This actually burnt at the top because my oven's too powerful but I rescued it by slicing off the top and coating it with lemon flavoured butter cream. This took about 4 and a half hours to make in total and I'm very pleased with it as I made it for my housemate's 21st and it disappered in 10 minutes! Success!

Olola

x