Soph Lou's: baking

Easter Caramac Nest Cake Recipe

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Ive really gotten into baking since my 24th Birthday last October as I enjoy coming up with new ideas for cake flavours and decoration. With it being Easter Weekend last week, I didn't need anymore of an excuse to make an Easter Themed Cake! I decided to create a Vanilla Sponge layer cake filled and decorated with Caramac Flavoured butter cream! I have also wanted to try my hand at spun sugar for a while so what better reason than to create a nest for my favourite Galaxy Golden egg chocolates.

INGREDIENTS

225g very soft butter, plus more for the tins

225g golden caster sugar

225g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 large eggs

2 level tsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

FOR THE CARAMAC BUTTERCREAM ICING

175g room temp soft butter

350g icing sugar

3 (90g) melted Caramac chocolate bars

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp milk

Baking the Vanilla Sponge

Measure all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat together until smooth. Being careful not to over mix as this will create a more dense cake. Divide the mixture evenly between two 8 inch cake tins or if you only have one tin ( like me ) divide the mixture in two and bake one at a time.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25–30 minutes until golden brown, shrinking away from the sides of the tin and the sponge springs back when lightly pressed. Leave your cakes to thoroughly cool on a wire rack whilst you prepare the icing. Once cool, carefully use a wire cake cutter or sharpe knife to slice each cake horizontally in half, giving four layers of cake.

Caramac Buttercream Icing

To make the icing, beat the room temperature butter for around 5 minutes with an electric hand mixer or stand mixer so that the butter creams and becoms less yellow. Whilst your creaming the butter, place your Caramac bars in a glass heat safe bowl over a pan of boiling water to melt the chocolate without burning it. Then mix the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl and beat together until smooth. When your Caramac bars are completely melted, add the chocolate to your sugar and butter along with 1 tsp of vanilla extract and 2 tsp of milk to combine your buttercream.

Sit one base on a cake stand or cake board and spread with a quarter of the mixture. Continue layering up with cake and icing so you finish with icing on top. Totally cover your cake evenly with your remaining buttercream and either smooth over the whole cake or leave it a little messy as I did.

You can decorate your cake how you wish with some beautiful Galaxy Golden Eggs for a simple yet delicious finish or create the spun sugar nest for added 'WOW' factor!

Spun sugar nest

250g Granulated Sugar

Add the sugar to a dry pan or saucepan and leave it to melt a little on a medium heat. Keep an eye on your sugar as you don't want it to burn. Using a wooden spoon carefully move the sugar around the pan to mix until the sugar has turned golden brown and is a syrup consistency. You can add food colouring or any flavouring to the syrup at this point to create your own look and flavour. I didn't add anything to my syrup.

Using a sugar/jam thermometer, cook the syrup until it reaches 155°C or if you've not got a thermometer, keep stirring your syrup until it's more of a thicker consistency and more golden. You will know the correct consistency once you have it, a little goey and honey like.

Once your syrup is at the correct temperature and consistency, Immediately remove from the heat and plunge the pan into cold water to halt the cooking.

To spin the sugar, take a whisk with the bottom snipped off with pliers, so that you have a whisk that is simply a handle with spikes. Alternatively you can take two forks placed back to back and hold tightly. Dip the whisk into the syrup and flick the whisk back and forth over a rolling pin that has been cooled in the fridge for half an hour to create long hair like strands. The cooling of the rolling pin ensures that the spun sugar doesn't stick to your rolling pin. I also enlisted the help of my fiancé Craig to hold the rolling pin , alternatively you could spin the sugar between the edges of a bowl or dish.

Keep spinning the sugar until you have the amount you need. Next gather up the strands of spun sugar and create your shape by simply moulding the strands in your hands. The nest was so easy to create as you just fold the strands into a round and form the nest shape.

As you can see my spun sugar has a lot of drips within the strands as this was my first attempt at spun sugar but with a bit of practise I'm sure to minimise/eliminate those droplets.

Add your Galaxy Golden Eggs or your chosen chocolate eggs to your nest and your cake is finished! Unfortunately I totally forgot to photograph the inside of my cake which is super annoying as it looked so yummy with the four layers of cake and buttercream.

I'd love to see if you create this cake or a similar cake using this recipe so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Instagram and tag me in your pictures so I can check out your bakes!

I hope you all had a fantastic Easter Weekend!

baking

St David's Day Welsh Cake Recipe

Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Yesterday was St David's Day and as I'm super proud to be welsh...and I do love a nice treat, I decided to try my hand at making Welsh Cakes as they are traditional in Wales. I hadn't realised how simple the ingredients were that you need to make welsh cakes or how quick and easy they would be to make. They are a tasty homely treat to enjoy with a nice cuppa and I'm so pleased I made them as they turned out perfect! Astronaut Tim Peake even wished the Welsh a Happy St David's Day from the international Space station which is pretty awesome, Check it out below...

Ingredients

500 g self-raising flour , plus extra for dusting

75 g caster sugar , plus extra to serve

1 heaped teaspoon mixed spice ( I used ground Cinnamon)

250 g cold, unsalted butter

a pinch of sea salt

150 g mixed raisins and sultanas

1 large free-range egg

a couple of splashes of milk

You literally don't need any special mixers or cutters or equipment to make these its so easy and you'll find everything you need to make the perfect Welsh Cake in your kitchen already.

First start by sifting the flour into a large mixing bowl, then add the caster sugar and the mixed spices and give it a good stir with a fork. Then cut up the butter into cubes and pop that into the dry mix with a pinch of salt.

This next bit gets a bit messy, you need to get your hands stuck right into the mix and combine all the ingredients together. Using your thumb and forefingers to rub it all together so that is becomes a fine breadcrumb consistency. Add the raisins and make a well in the middle of the mixture so that you can crack your egg into the middle. Keep the mixture light as you don't want to over work it too much.

Next use your hands to pat and squeeze the mixture to form a dough. I then formed a few dough balls and then pressed them down onto my floured surface until they where around 1cm thick. You could roll them out with a rolling pin but I didn't have one so I just used my hands.

You can then use a 5cm cookie or pastry cutter to cut out as many rounds as you can with your dough. I used a Ramekin as I also don't have any cutters just yet and it worked just as well. I made 20 with this mixture and I could have probably made more if id made the rounds a little thinner.

Then using a dry pan on a medium heat, test one Welsh Cake first to check the temperature is just right. If after a few minutes the surface of the underside of the welsh cake is blonde, you need to turn your heat up a little and if its grey/black you need to turn your heat down. I burnt a few a little as my pan was too hot but they still tasted yummy,

Once your temperature is perfect, you can now put a few in the pan at the same time so that you cook a batch. They only take around 5 minutes a side each and once they are golden they are done!

You can now remove them from the pan and place them on a plate or wire rack to cool and sprinkle them with some more caster sugar. Your Welsh cakes should be crisp on the outside and a slightly crumbly soft inside.

They only took me around 45 minutes to make the dough and cook them so its really quick. You can then serve them warm or wait for them to cool down a bit. Craig and I couldn't wait to try them so tested them when they were warm and they were delicious!! If I do say so myself.

Let me know if you have tried Welsh Cakes or if you think you'll be having a go at making them soon, id love to know what you think of them? They are so yummy and I cant wait to finish this post and go enjoy another one...or two.

baking

MY FIRST VICTORIA SPONGE + RECIPE

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Probably my all time favourite cake is a Victoria Sponge, Timeless and Classic yet so simple to bake! As you may know I've gotten really into baking recently so I just knew I had to attempt my favourite sponge as soon as possible. I never knew how easy this cake was to bake so I think you'll be pleasantly surprised and pleased with how quick and simple my recipe is.

You will need -

For The Cake

3 Large Free Range Eggs

Softened Unsalted Butter

Caster Sugar

Self Raising Flower

1tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1-2 TBS Milk

1 20cm Non-stick Cake Tin

Wire Cake Cutter

For The Filling Jam/Butter Cream -

100g Softened Unsalted Butter

200g Icing sugar

2tsp Vanilla Extract

Strawberry Jam

The first thing you want to do is weight your 3 large eggs in their shells and whatever they weigh, you will then need to weight out the same amount of your butter, self raising flower and caster sugar. I only used 2 eggs for my first attempt but they weighed 138g so I had to weight out 138g of butter, self raising flower and caster sugar.

I start by mixing with my electric hand mixer the sugar and butter on their own until they are light and fluffy. I then sift into my bowl the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder so that there is air within all the ingredients. I mix this all together until it is a nice batter consistency.

Once that is all mixed well but not too over mixed as I didn't want it to become to dense I added the 2 eggs, 2 tbs of milk and 1tsp of Vanilla Extract to my bowl and mixed that again just to loosen the batter a little and add some more flavour to the mixture.

When I was happy with the consistency and it looked as pictured above, I then put all of my cake batter into a 20cm loose base non stick cake tin. Most people tend to use 2 cake tins but as I only have a small halogen oven I didn't want to take ages baking so I baked the whole cake as one instead of two parts.

I baked my cake in my oven at 180 degrees for 30 minutes, then covered it with baking foil and baked it again for a further 15 minutes as the middle of my cake was still not baked but I didn't want my halogen oven to burn the cake.

Whilst my cake was baking, I made the butter cream filling. For this I used 100g of Unsalted butter softened and beat it on its own with the electric mixer until it had lost most of its colour and was fluffy.

I then mixed in the 200g of icing sugar. This is were the butter cream doesn't look correct at all and I panicked a little as it hadn't come together and looked more like a crumb base than butter cream.

I then added 2TBSP of milk and mixed it again. This is where the magic happens and the soft perfect butter cream emerges. As I only used 100g of butter for this butter cream it did taste a little over sugary so I then added 2tsp of Vanilla extract and it tasted amazing!

I then forgot to photograph the next steps but once my cake had fully cooled down out of the oven, I just carefully used my wire cake cutter and sliced my cake in half. I started applying a nice even layer of the butter cream to the bottom layer of my cake and then I applied the jam to the underside of the top layer and sandwiched them together.

Finishing the cake with a light dusting of icing sugar, it was ready to be enjoyed and that we did! It was light and spongy yet not dry or crumbly. Craig said it was the best cake he has had in ages and we do buy a lot of cake so that was an incredible bit of feedback. I know he may have been a tad biased but I do ask for him to be honest with his opinion so that I can improve on the not to perfect parts but he said it was pretty perfect which I'm overjoyed with.

The cake could have been a lot thicker and taller in height if I had used two cake tins and 3 eggs not 2 but this was my first attempt, a trial run if you like for when I have the full ingredients and equipment. I cannot wait to make this again soon and incorporate real strawberries to the filling and on top for decoration.

What do you think? Whats your favourite type of cake, let me know in the comments!

baking

VANILLA OREO SURPRISE CUPCAKES

Saturday, December 05, 2015

Its been ages since I wrote a blog post as its been manic here with work and getting prepared for our first Craft / Christmas fair this Sunday! I haven't had time to sit and write a blog post but I did manage to take an hour out to bake some cupcakes. I had fantastic feedback from you all on my last baking post which where my first ever cupcakes so I decided to blog all about these beauties also as they tasted soooo much better than my first batch. I used Carina Stewart's Recipe and YouTube video for my vanilla cupcakes and butter cream, but switched it up a little by adding a surprise Oreo Layer and Oreo Butter cream. If you haven't subscribed to Carina's Channel, I highly recommend you do as she posts the most amazing recipe's on there!

Carina's RECIPE

125g / 1/2 Cup Butter

170g / 3/4 Cup Caster Sugar

5ml / 1 Teaspoon of Vanilla

2 Eggs

190g / 1 1/2 Cups Standard Flour

5ml / 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

2ml / 1/2 Teaspoon Salt

125ml / 1/2 Cup Milk

First thing I did was mix all my dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl with my electric hand mixer and then added in my 2 eggs and vanilla extract.

I didn't want to over mix my cake batter as I think this is what I did on my first cupcakes a few weeks ago and it makes them very thick and stodgy. I kept this batter light fluffy and airy.

I then placed an Oreo at the bottom of my cake cases and then added around 2 heaped table spoons each of my cake mix on top of the Oreo's so that they where covered. Once the cupcakes are baked this will create the hidden surprise Oreo at the bottom.

Carina's Buttercream Recipe

250g / 1 Cup Butter ( I only uses 125g Butter)

375g 3 Cups Icing Sugar

30ml / 2 Tablespoons Milk

The last time(my first time) I made butter cream icing it was lovely but tasted a overly buttery so not what butter cream was supposed to taste like so this time I halved my butter grams from 250g to 125g and it tasted much more like actual butter cream. Last time I also didnt beat my butter before adding the icing sugar which takes a lot of the yellow colour out of the butter so I made sure I didn't miss this step this time.

I then added my 3 cups of Icing super to my butter and mixed until creamy and light in colour. I also mixed in 2 tbs of milk just to make the consistency a little less thick so that it would be perfect for icing. It tasted amazing as I couldn't resist having a taste and I was much more impressed with this butter cream than my on last cupcakes.

I then crushed up around 5-6 Oreo's into my Butter cream mix with a fork and then mixed it a little with my electric hand mixer. I didn't want to over crush or mix the Oreo's as I wanted some quite chunky Oreo pieces in my icing.

The cupcakes baked really well at 180 degrees for 18 minutes, They were a little over brown on the tops as my halogen oven is a little dodge when it comes to baking and I haven't quite figured out yet if I should bake them at a lower temp for longer to avoid burning them.

And then...My Tala professional Icing bag split on me which was so frustrating as I had so many plans for my Icing on these Oreo Cupcakes. I had to then just spoon on my icing and make them look semi ok with a knife but I think they looked OK! Not brilliant but next time I will Ice them properly as I now have a new and improved replacement Tala Icing bag.

I placed half an Oreo in the top of each of my cupcakes which I thought just finished them off nicely and tied in all the Oreo'ness in these cupcakes. I couldn't wait to present them to Craig who was eagerly waiting for them in the living room :)

They tasted amazing and I was so pleased when I cut them in half to find the hidden Oreo at the bottom of the cupcakes perfectly baked into each cupcake.

I absolutely loved making these Cupcakes and even though my icing bag spit and made things very awkward, they really didn't take me very long to make at all. I think this is a super quick delicious recipe for everyone to enjoy making and eating.

Let me know in the comments below what you think of my 2nd attempt at baking cupcakes and also what your favourite cupcake flavours are as Id love to experiment some more with flavours...

baking

FERRERO ROCHER VANILLA CUPCAKES

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Okay so a completely different style of post from me today but I've recently started baking and thought I'd do a blog post all about my first cupcakes. I wasn't sure whether to put this post live or not as they don't look great but i figured in a few months time when I'm hopefully better at cupcake making i can look back and be proud of how far Ive come from these and probs LOL at them!

Ingredients to make 12 large cupcakes-

190g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

115g butter softened

200g caster sugar

2 tsp Vanilla extract

2 large eggs , lightly beaten

125ml milk

Pink food colouring

These cupcakes are super easy to make and it really is a case of mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl to create the cake mix and deciding the mixture into paper cake cases. I made 12 with this recipe and they where pretty big cupcakes!

Once my eggs,flour,baking powder,salt,butter,Vanilla extract and caster sugar where all mixed together using my hand mixer, I then added the food colouring to make the cake mix pink. I think I would skip this step next time as it didn't really go that pink so it was a little pointless unless I perhaps use a paste food colouring as the liquid ones aren't as pigmented.

I then spooned out a little cake mix in each cake case and then placed a Ferrero Richer in the centre of the cupcake mix. Id seen this on Pinterest and just knew i had to try it in my first cupcakes.

I then continued to spoon into the cases the rest of the cake mix and Baked them in my halogen oven for 15 minutes at 180°C. I think next time i will bake them at a lower heat for longer as the halogen oven very nearly burnt the top of the cupcakes but the inside was light and fluffy!

Ingredients to make Butter cream frosting-

115g butter ,softened

250g icing sugar

1 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

Blue food colouring

The butter cream icing again was really easy to make, just combine all the ingredients again in a bowl with my hand mixer and once it's well combined and smooth its ready to out into the piping bag. I found that 250g of icing sugar wasn't enough to balance out the buttery taste so I added around 120g extra icing sugar to my mix to achieve the perfect butter cream icing.

I used my Tala piping bag with my large star nozzle and attempted a standard cupcake swirl in a few and a rose effect on the others which didn't turn out perfect but its all good practise and I didn't expect to be pro icer first time.

The inside of the cupcakes was so tasty with the Ferrero Rocker melting in the middle and the fluffy cupcake middle. The icing was rich and buttery but as I said I will probably cut down the 115g butter to 90g butter to 250g icing sugar next time as it was far too buttery tasting before I added more icing sugar.

These cupcakes tasted loads better than they look but I don't mind too much as they where my first ones and I'm hoping to get 100% better with some more practise.

They only took me around an hour and 20 mins but this time could have been halved if I could fit more cupcakes into my halogen oven. I enjoyed making them and have learnt so much from watching YouTube videos on icing and cake making so I can't wait to share my baking progress with you all!

I hope you all enjoyed my first cupcake baking post, let me know in the comments what your favourite cupcake flavours are or your favourite baking recipes?