Lemon & Yoghurt Loaf

This lovely lemon loaf has an underglaze of sweet lemony syrup and a covering of lemon icing. The addition of greek yoghurt makes it lovely and moist. Perfect with a cup of tea.

Ingredients
For the loaf
210g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
200g greek yoghurt
7 ounces sugar
3 large free range eggs
The finely grated zest of 2 lemons
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
4 ounces vegetable oil

For the glaze:
The juice of 1 lemon
5 tablespoons sugar

For the Drizzle Icing:
140g of icing sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4. Line a large loaf tin with baking parchment.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Whisk together the yogurt, and sugar in another bowl. Beat in the eggs, lemon zest and vanilla extract. Carefully whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold in the oil. Pour the mixture into the loaf tin.

Bake for about 50 minutes, or until well risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. While the cake is baking, heat the lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan until the sugar has dissolved. This makes your glaze!

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing. Place on a wire rack and spoon the glaze over top. Allow to cool completely.

Mix the icing sugar and lemon juice together and pour over the top of the loaf. Allow to set. Cut into slices to serve.

Photo Diary - Afternoon Tea at Coworth Park, Ascot 16/06/13

Cake Batter Truffles

If you love to lick the bowl when baking cakes, this is a recipe for you. There's no use of eggs here, so these yummy little no bake truffles are safe to eat! Although, I must warn you, they're prettttty sickly so try not to over-indulge!



Ingredients
For the truffles
♥ 1.5 cups flour
♥ 1 cup cake mix (I used Waitrose's victoria sponge mix)
♥ 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
♥ 1/2 cup white caster sugar
♥ 1 tsp vanilla
♥ 3-4 tbsp milk
♥ Sprinkles
For the coating
♥ 14 ounces candy melts (you can buy these in Hobbycraft and on Amazon - I used the ones containing cocoa!)
♥ Sprinkles



Method
Beat the butter and sugar together until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add cake mix, flour and vanilla and combine. Add 3-4 tablespoons of milk to make a dough consistency. Mix in the sprinkles.

Roll the dough into one inch balls and place onto a tray lined with baking parchment. Pop the balls in the fridge for around 15 minutes to allow them to firm up.

Whilst the balls are chilling, heat the candy melts in a microwave-safe container - heat slowly 30 seconds at a time, stirring each time until it's melted through.

Using a fork or metal skewer, dip the balls into the melted mixture, shaking off any excess by tapping the fork/skewer on the side of the bowl. Place truffle back onto the tray and top with sprinkles. Repeat with the remaining balls and chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

Rose Cupcakes

Ever since trying a rose cupcake at Primrose Bakery on Ben's birthday last month, I have wanted to attempt making them myself. My Mum gave me the book a good few years ago now, and I love using it. I always use their Victoria sponge recipe, and have tried a few of the cupcake recipes - which have always gone down a treat.

These cupcakes would be great for Mother's Day [or Valentine's Day!], which is partly why I made them, but do we really need an excuse to eat cake? Rhetorical question, of course.



For the cupcakes:
110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
225g caster sugar
2 large eggs
150g self-raising flour, sifted
125g plain flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon good-quality rosewater
120ml semi-skimmed [I used skimmed] milk, at room temperature
Makes 12 cupcakes

Rose buttercream icing:
115g unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 tablespoons semi-skimmed milk [again, I used skimmed], at room temperature
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
500g icing sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon good-quality rosewater
Pink food colouring [well, a dash of red to make pink!]

Method:
Preheat the oven to 160 C [fan]/180 C/gas mark 4 and line a cupcake tin with cases.

In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is pale and smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition.

Combine the two flours in a seperate bowl. Mix a little of the rosewater with the milk in a jug and taste test it - adjust the amount you add accordingly. Add one-third of the flours to the creamed butter/sugar mixture and beat well. Pour in one-third of the milk and beat again. Repeat these steps until all flour and milk have been added.

Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases. Fill them about two-thirds full. Pop in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes/until slightly raised and golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave the cakes in their tins for 10 minutes or so, before placing them on a wire rack to cool. Once they are completely cool, you are ready to ice and decorate them!

Icing:
In a large bow beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract and half the icing sugar until smooth. Gradually add the rest of the icing sugar and beat until the buttercream is smooth and creamy. Add the rosewater and beat thoroughly. Give it a taste test to check if it's scented enough. Add a tiny drop of food colouring to make it go pink!

Slather a generous helping of icing onto each cupcake and decorate as desired. I added a sprinkle of edible glitter to my cupcakes, but they would also look great decorated with heart-shaped confetti!



Preferably enjoyed with a big cup of tea :)

Rocky road.

Whenever I feel like baking up some treats, but can't be bothered with too much effort, I always turn to flapjacks or rocky road. Both are very quick and easy throw-in-ingredients-and-mix-together recipes, especially rocky road which I decided to make today! Being a vegetarian, I had to forgo the marshmallows [although I have made it with vegan marshmallows before, which I found online] but used meringue in its place, which was a great suggestion from a friend.



Ingredients
4 meringue nests, broken up.
Digestive biscuits, broken up [I used about 1/3 of the pack]
Around 300g chocolate - I used galaxy caramel and cadbury dairy milk. Last time I made rocky road I used the caramel chocolate, thinking I'd picked up normal galaxy. It was only later I realised what I'd done, but the rocky road was so nice with the caramel melted in!

MethodBreak up the chocolate into a glass bowl.

Put the bowl in a saucepan of boiling water and melt the chocolate, stirring every now and again.

Try not to eat the melted chocolate - mmmm...

Break up the biscuits and meringue nests, and pour the chocolate over.

Mix well...add more meringue/biscuit if you feel necessary.

Transfer the mixture into a tin lined with greaseproof paper. Flatten down. I added sprinkles to jazz it up a bit! Leave to cool, then pop into the fridge for an hour or so.

Cut into small sqaures and enjoy them all to yourself with your loved ones.


I've already ate a sqaure of this, and it is very sweet, so I'm glad I cut it up small! The meringue makes a nice substitute to marshmallows as it is quite sticky and chewy. Going to take a load of this to my boyfriend's tonight, I'm sure he will appreciate that.

Anyone been baking lately? I love finding new and exciting recipes so link me up!

Cake pops.

I was gifted with a lovely cake pop kit for my birthday - I've been wanting to try these out for so long and, as it was my friend's birthday at the weekend, I decided it was a good opportunity to put the kit to the test!



The kit includes a little booklet full of different cake pop recipes, a cake pop stand, cello bags, cake pop sticks, gift cards and ribbon.

I decided to start out with the simple cake pops - I really wanted to make the cupcake shaped ones, but I'll try those when I'm a bit more confident!

Ingredients
520g box cake mix [yep, bit of cheating - I used Betty Crocker!]
455g frosting [again, I used Betty Crocker]
3lb candy coating

This is for 48 cake pops, so alter according to how many you wish to make! I used less as I only made 12 cake pops.

Method
Bake the cake according to the instructions on the box. Let the cake cool completely.

Crumble the cake into a large mixing bowl.

Add three-quaters of the frosting and mix. At this stage, I used a little bit of frosting at a time as I didn't want the mixture to be too moist.

Now it's time to start rolling! Roll the mixture into 1 1/2 inch balls and place them onto a tray lined with baking paper. Cover the tray with cling film and pop in the fridge for several hours, or the freezer for 15 minutes if you're in a hurry.

Put the candy coating in a deep, microwave safe container and melt in the microwave according to the instructions on the packet. I microwaved on medium power 30 seconds at a time, it only took a couple of minutes or so to fully melt.

Now to dip! Dip about half an inch of the tip of a stick into the candy coating, then insert it straight into a cake ball. Push it no more than halfway through.

Holding the stick with the cake ball attached, dip the entire cake ball into the candy coating until it is completely covered. Remove in one motion, making sure the coating meets at the base of the stick. If some excess coating starts to drip, hold the cake pop over the bowl and rotate.

Stick the cake pop in the stand, and repeat! Let them all dry completely then cover with cello bags, tied with ribbon. They can be stored in an airtight container or in the fridge for several days.



My first batch of cake pops went down very well at my friend's birthday BBQ, and I will be making them again next month for another birthday BBQ I am going to!

Big cupcake.

It's my boyfriend's birthday next month and I always make him a cake. My best friend got me one of those amazing giant cupcake molds for Christmas, so I decided I would use it to make his cake - and had a bit of a practise first, just to test it out!

I must admit I cheated a little, I used Betty Crocker's chocolate cake mix and icing - it was easier for the first go, just to see how much mixture I would need. But Betty Crocker is the best!





The mold also comes with a removable insert which leaves a big concave - I bet it would be lovely filled with raspberries and cream! One for the recipe book.

Lomography Gallery Store

Yesterday the boyfriend and I paid the Lomography Gallery Store a visit. Not Ben's cup of tea if I'm honest, but I really wanted to go, and he's nice so he came with me!

Images taken from the lomography gallery store website

The shop is really cool - it's got a huuuge lomowall - the biggest in the UK, apparently - and you can buy the full range of lomographic products.

One thing I did find annoying is that there wasn't any price tags on anything. When I asked a sales assistant, she told me it was a way to entice people to talk to them. I think it's just a ploy to make people spend more money than they should! I was quite restrained though. I came away with the Lady Grey film and fotoclips. I also got a freebie pack of buttons as I checked in on foursqaure!

After all that excitement, we headed to Nando's for lunch, then a spot of shopping in Covent Garden. I bought one of h&m's £3.99 bodycon skirts in a lovely rusty orange colour and this tee in green from Zara, which I'm in love with! Stopped off at Candy Cakes where Ben treated us to a double chocolate cupcake each, before heading home.

Delish!

The rest of my weekend has been spent watching X Factor [anyone else think Frankie Cocozza is really crap and just looks a mess?], laying in bed and drinking lots of tea, taking photos on my Diana F+ using the instant back and generally slobbing about. That's what Sundays are all about :)