Meringues are something I’ve been wanted to make for a while, but have been putting off as I don’t own an electric mixer! However, whisking them by hand didn’t take as long as I expected so don’t let that put you off. They take a while in the oven but the result is crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside loveliness. This recipe makes about 12 meringues.

Ingredients

3 egg whites

200g caster sugar

A few drops of vanilla extract

Lemon curd

Chocolate of your choice

Method

• Preheat the oven to about 110˚C
• In a large mixing bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks, then add the vanilla essence.
• Continue whisking until the mixture becomes a bit thicker and glossy.
• Add the sugar a little bit at a time, whisking in between, until the mixture becomes thick.
• At this point, you should be able to hold the bowl upside down and the mixture won’t move – I tested this over Ruby’s head, it was tense, I wouldn’t recommend doing this!
• Once the mixture is thick and glossy, drop blobs onto a lined baking tray. I found it a bit hit and miss as to whether they looked good or not, but making small spiral movements with the spoon helped the mixture to fall off onto the tray more neatly.
• Bake in the oven for about an hour. They may take a little longer depending on their size.
• For the topping, I gently heated a couple of tablespoons of lemon curd in a saucepan until it was runny, and drizzled over the top of the meringues once they’d cooled. It helped to gently break the top of the meringue first, as this way the lemon curd falls inside the meringue too.
• After leaving the lemon curd to set slightly, carefully melt the chocolate and using a spoon drizzle over the meringues.
• Leave to set and enjoy!

Ingredients:

300g orange chocolate (I was tempted to use Terry Chocolate Orange, seeing as it’s my favourite but in my experience 70% dark chocolate is better when baking. But if anyone experiments let me know how it turns out!)

400g unsalted butter (cubed)

5 medium eggs

400g caster sugar

130g self-raising flour

85g plain flour

70g cocoa powder

Zest of 1 orange (optional depending on desired orange flavour)

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C and grease a square tray.

Melt the butter and the sugar together in a saucepan over a low heat and add the chocolate. Separately whisk the eggs before adding to the saucepan (off the heat). In a bowl whisk the dry ingredients, and then gradually pour and mix the contents of the saucepan with them.

Turn the mixture into the tin and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the top is cracked and an inserted knife comes out with only a little of the inside attached.

Blueberry muffins might be the more common option, but in my opinion, raspberry muffins are far superior, and they taste amazing when combined with chocolate chips. In order to ensure giant bakery style muffins, fill up your cases all the way. This recipe makes 12-15 large muffins or 15-20 small.

Ingredients:

350g plain flour

360g caster sugar

350ml milk

1 large egg

70g melted butter

200g raspberries

100g dark chocolate chips

1 cap vanilla extract

2 tsp baking powder

1 Pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Heating at a higher temperature and turning it down halfway through the baking process will result in bigger muffins.

In a large bowl whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix together the egg, milk and vanilla in a separate bowl and then add to the dry ingredients; beat until smooth and well combined. Then add the butter. At this point the mixture will be really runny but it will be fine I promise! Finally stir in the raspberries and chocolate. Spoon the mixture into paper cases and bake in the oven for 25 minutes, and remember to turn the heat down to 170°C after the first 10 minutes.

This recipe is a combination of my two favourite things in the whole wide world; shortbread and chocolate. A match made in heaven. It’s a simple shortbread recipe, taken from the Great British Bake Off (a great show) Book of Baking, and I’ve also added some variations that could make it really interesting.

The cake itself is really simple to make, and the caramel topping is really tasty. You could even core out the middle of the cake and fill it with Ruby’s Caramel Sauce as well. The banana coin on these is just for decoration, but makes a really nice banoffee flavour with the sauce. This recipe makes about 12 cakes and about a jam jar’s worth of sauce.

Ingredients

For the cakes:

• 4oz self-raising flour
• 4oz marg
• 4oz sugar
• 2 eggs
• A good few drops of vanilla essence

For the Caramel Sauce:

• 5oz butter
• 5oz light brown sugar
• one 397g tin of condensed milk

Method

• Preheat the oven to about 190˚c.
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs until smooth.
• Sift in the flour and combine, being careful not to knock the air out of the mixture, and add the vanilla essence whilst stirring.
• Spoon the mixture into bun cases laid out in a muffin tray.
• Bake for around 15 minutes, or until golden.
• Whilst the cakes are cooking you can start on the sauce. Melt the butter and sugar in a non-stick saucepan over a low ish heat until the butter has all melted and the sugar dissolved.
• Add the condensed milk and keep stirring carefully until the sauce just bubbles. This might take a while, but as soon as it bubbles take it off the heat.
• Allow it to cool in the pan a little, stirring occasionally.
• Once it’s cooled a little, carefully pour into a container and put in the fridge to cool properly.
• Once the cakes are cold and the sauce is ready (it’ll be quite thick now) use a spoon to blob some sauce on top of each cake. It’ll spread out by itself.
• Decorate and enjoy!

Cupcakes are one the easiest snacks to make on a whim; you probably have all the ingredients already in your cupboard and there isn’t really a great deal of finesse to the method. Because it’s such a basic recipe, it’s easy to add your own touches. The caramel makes the cakes taste treacly and gooey. If you have any sauce left over, save it to drizzle on top. I made the recipe for these caramel cupcakes a few weeks ago for the hummingbird bakery/emerald street competition and whilst it wasn’t a winning recipe, I still think it deserves some love! So here they are, my  caramel cupcakes with peanut butter frosting.

Cake Ingredients:                                                             Frosting Ingredients:

2 eggs                                                                                     4 tbsp peanut butter

50g butter                                                                            100g icing sugar

50g caramel sauce (see recipe here)                       A splash of milk (if you need it)

100g caster sugar

100g self raising flour

1 pinch of salt

½ tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190°C. Cream the butter and sugar and then, one at a time, add the eggs.  Mix in the caramel sauce and vanilla essence, then sift in the flour and add the salt. Stir until thoroughly combined and then spoon into cupcake cases until about half full. This recipe makes 8-10 cakes. Bake for 10-12 minutes and then leave to cool on a tray.

Whilst they cool, prepare the frosting. The best method is to scoop one tablespoon of peanut butter and then add a little icing sugar a little at a time, until the consistency and taste suit you. This means lots of tasting! Add the milk if the mixture gets too lumpy and needs to be thinned. If you are using crunchy peanut butter, you will probably want to add a little. Pipe or spread with a spoon on top of your cupcakes and you’re good to go!

Normally when I make muffins, I run into two problems. Firstly they are waaaay too dry, and secondly, they don’t rise very high. So I did some internet searching to find some tips on how to create moist, bakery-style, puffed up muffin tops. The trick is in the heat of the oven. If you preheat the oven to 220°C and leave it at that temperature for the first 5 minutes of baking, the blast of heat makes the muffins rise. Then for the remainder of the baking time turning the temperature down to 190°C ensures well cooked muffins.

I made these for my mum as an early Mother’s Day treat, and I’m pleased to say they went down very well!

Ingredients:

125g plain flour

40g cocoa powder

1tsp baking powder

100g unsalted butter

100g dark brown soft sugar

2 beaten eggs

100g chocolate digestive biscuits

Method:

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a bowl together.

In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar, and when combined, add the eggs a little at a time. Then fold the wet and the dry mix together. In a plastic freezer bag, break up the digestives with a rolling pin. The chunks need to be small, but not so small that you’re left with crumbs.

Pour roughly two thirds into the mixture and then fill your muffin cases to the top (you should be able to make 8 large muffins). Sprinkle the rest of the chocolate digestives on top and the place in the oven. After 5 minutes turn the heat down to 190°C and bake for 12 minutes.

Chocolate digestives work really well because the chocolate bits act like chocolate drops and make the muffins gooey and chocolatey, but the digestives add crunch and texture.

Shortbread is really simple to make and really tasty. It’s better if you leave the dough to chill in the fridge for a while, but I was impatient and baked it straight away and it turned out fine!

Ingredients

8 oz butter

4 oz caster sugar plus a little extra for sprinkling

4 oz cornflour

8 oz plain flour

Method

• Pre heat the oven to 150˚C.
  
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Sieve in the cornflour and plain flour and combine with a wooden spoon before kneading for a little while with your hands.
• If you have time, leave it to chill in the fridge for about half an hour, if not, roll the dough into a baking tin (about a 23″ tin) and prick all over with a fork.
• Cook for about 30 mins until it turns light brown.
• As soon as you take it out the oven, sprinkle a little sugar over it and leave it to cool.
• Enjoy!

Helen’s Peanut Butter Cakes

I recently bought a new icing syringe so making peanut butter cakes was the perfect excuse to test it out! The cakes are quite scone-like and are nice on their own, but the sweetness of the butter cream makes them a real treat. I added caramel chocolate drops too as they complement the peanut butter nicely.

Ingredients

75g peanut butter

25g butter (melt it a little in the microwave to make it easier to combine)

100g light brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

125g plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

4 tablespoons milk

For the butter cream – I usually just guess with this and add more icing sugar or butter to taste.

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180˚C.
• Cream the peanut butter, butter and sugar until as smooth as possible and gradually add the eggs until it’s all mixed in.
• Next, sift in the flour, baking powder and add the milk and carefully combine.
• Spoon the mixture into bun cases, and cook for about 15 mins in the middle of the oven, or until they’re golden brown.
• Once they’ve properly cooled, decorate however you like!
• If you’re using butter cream and finding it a bit too firm, it’s a lot easier to work with if you add a drop of milk.

Helen’s Peanut Butter Cakes

Helen’s Peanut Butter Cakes

Who doesn’t love cookie dough? Well this recipe is a double whammy! It’s inspired by the Domestic Rebel’s Recipe, which you can find here. I’ve added a few of my own variants with toppings and converted measurements.

For the cookie base:
9 tablespoons of soft butter
33g light brown soft sugar
100g granulated sugar
1 medium egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g of any kind of chocolate chips you fancy

For the topping:

9 tablespoons of soft butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g brown sugar
About 100g icing sugar
60 g of chocolate chips

peanut butter

1)Preheat the oven to 170 C and grease a small sized rectangular/square tin

2)Cream the butter and sugars. Then add the egg and vanilla extract till it is all combined well. Then add the flour, salt and baking powder. you should have a nice cookie dough going on.

3)Then add loads of chocolate chips!! Or perhaps there might be something else you fancy instead like nuts or fruit…

4)Pop the mixture into the tin – spread out as evenly as possible. Then put in the oven for 25 minutes, when it should be just the right golden brown.

5)When they are out the oven, leave to cool in the tin. Then when they are ready, put on the topping.

6)I spread peanut butter on half and then cookie dough on the other half (To make the cookie dough cream the butter, sugar and vanilla extract, then slowly add the icing sugar and finish with the chocolate chips). A variant would be to put the peanut butter on as a first layer and then smooth the cookie dough topping on top of this.

Enjoy!!