Minnie Mouse Birthday Cake

So, picture the scene, its February and my sister-in-law Leanne asks if I can make her a birthday cake for her in March. I say yes and asks what she would like, she replies with "Surprise me!" and then I spend the next few weeks brainstorming ideas and looking on various sites for inspiration.

Leanne is a fellow Disney fan so the final idea came to me pretty quickly. Something red with polka dots. The problem is... ive NEVER covered a cake in fondant/icing and I really dont know where to start.

So I open up youtube, and watch what seems like a bazillion videos on how to cover a cake, from crumb coating to finishing, and although it looks pretty simple, I know it will be anything but easy!!

Cakes for Mothers Day

This mothers day I decided to bake a cake each for our mums using my 6" lose bottom tin. Its so cute and tiny that it was quite tempting to go all in and make as much batter as possible... which is what I did. Lets set the scene. I have 1 night to bake 2 cakes and decorate them to a level that I wont want to cry about later. Its a Friday night, which means its Walking Dead night. Which means... I have until 10pm or thereabouts. Ill need to eat tea and prep the kitchen ready for my madness. This will be tight. Theres always sky+ for a delayed start. Lets GO.

White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

My husband Fred loves white chocolate. He is forever trying to sneak bars of lindt into our shopping and loves a good white chocolate biscuit or cookie. Instead of buying some expensive cookies that included white chocolate I told him id make him some. My sister and her boyfriend Ant were coming round for tea that night, so I made a good size batch and completely winged it in terms of the recipe. Im pretty sure they liked them though as they all went in a day, and I didn't get a single one.

Easy Pastry for Pie

Making pastry for the tops of your savoury pie doesn't have to be all bells and whistles.

You know how I like to keep things easy, lazy almost and still keep things tasty.

Now I warn you, this recipe isnt healthy, you wont win any awards for the ingredients and its certainly not going to impress a foodie to look at, but it keep them smiling once they eat it. Think pastry Nanna used to make, think glutton and all things nice made with the ingredients that you probably frown upon when picking up your expensive baking ingredients.

Well, this uses the cheapest of the cheap. smart price is your friend. ;-)

My gingerbread house & royal icing recipe

It's that time of year again and I always like to make a gingerbread house to sit on my sideboard and slowly go inedible. It's a weird tradition I've done for the last few years.

Now let me put you straight, I'm not baking the gingerbread, I'm not at that stage quite yet (maybe next year... Ah who am I kidding) but I do buy my gingerbread house, sorry excuse me, I do buy my Pepparkaka Hus from ikea for the incredible sum of £2.45 I mean, come on, I couldn't buy the ingredients for that much and it tastes really good. Ikea do really great gingerbread and so for the time being, I'm happy buying the kit and spending the time decorating it instead.

More Cupcakes by Karen

Part 2 of my special look at how you can adapt my Basic Vanilla Cupcake recipe is here, and Karen is back with more wonderful and inventive cupcakes. In the first post, Karen shared some amazing cupcake recipes that im now dying to try and re-create myself. However, lots of the ingredients are limited or not available in the UK, so in following posts ill be looking at ways we can get the same results here in the UK... now THAT'S fun! :-)

Cupcakes by Karen

In 2010 we visited Walt Disney World, and being big un-posh foodies (nothing on the scale of Mrs Petticoat's adventures - seriously, that girl eats some awesome food) we visited Epcot's Food and Wine Festival and hopped over to say hello at DisneyFoodBlog.com Foodie Fest at Ariel's in Disney's Yacht & Beach Club Resort.

It was a meet up of Disney food admirers, we met lots of lovely people, but two in particular made us feel like we should be there, in the sea of American accents. Im pretty sure we were the only English people there that year.

Karen and Mike (and their 8 month baby bump) chatted away and weve been in contact ever since. They live within touching distance of Walt Disney World, and we live here in Manchester - thank you facebook and twitter!! We saw them again in 2011 with their then 1 yr old addition Anna, and now, they have another beautiful munchkin baby Lily. Hopefully we will see them again on our 2013 trip but in the meantime... Karen has been making cupcakes... lots of cupcakes.

Easy Honeycomb

Honeycomb is everywhere lately and its a great idea for a Christmas gift so I decided to make some and let you know just how easy it is to make. Honeycomb can also be covered in chocolate to make it last a little longer than the day it did in my kitchen. Ive also included a gift idea at the bottom of the post, which ill be trying to do for all my posts.

Firstly lets get started with the simple list of ingredients and equipment that im guessing all of you will have stashed away in your kitchen cupboards!

Happy Halloween 2012 - 3 recipes!!

Happy Halloween foodies. So glad you stopped by to glance your beady eyes on my ghoulish offerings. And you're wearing a costume, how kind... you make a lovely monster!!

This halloween I made a series of devilish treats for my guests and work mates.  They were dying to eat them...

First up we have some dirt cupcakes, which are topped with some rather sinister looking objects.

Soft Pretzels

Im a huge fan of large salted soft pretzels, the kind you get at a Disney park. Disney also have plain, jalapeno, cream cheese and cheese topped pretzels at their pretzel stands. But I always go for the salted. Maybe im a secret slug and salt is my weakness. I dont have salt on my food day to day, but I always tend to gravitate towards salted foods. Caramel, chocolate, popcorn, pretzels.

Ok, so you get the idea.... I like salt. I love soft pretzels. On with the recipe...

Peanut Butter Cupcake Topped with Salted Caramel

Recently I had a moment in Asda. Imagine the scene. Im walking down the isle where the jars of coulee and jam are... in the corner of my eye I spot a jar with a nice looking label. Its the type that really stands out... SALTED CARAMEL. I look left. I look right. Its reasonably priced and I just HAVE to have it. So I grab it before the husband sees and hide it under some other food. Im smiling from ear to ear for the rest of the walk around the supermarket and Fred (my dear husband) is wondering why until he finds the jar while filling the belt at the checkout. He looks at me, looks back at the jar, and then silently puts it down on the belt. I HAVE WON! I have bought a luxury item without him questioning if we really need it. It feels like christmas.

3 Layer Chocolate Cake

Earlier this year I made a 1st birthday cake for my godsons sister Ruby. It was a Giant Cupcake with white chocolate fingers and strawberry buttercream.

Now its my godson, Ben's birthday and he is turning 9. Which is scary to think about since I remember bringing him home from the hospital and seeing him at only hours old. He's growing up fast and into a lovely young man.

He loves chocolate and wanted a cake like his sister had. Since he is at that stage where he needs a manly cake for him and his friends I suggested something a little different. So I made him a 3 layer chocolate cake, with a middle layer as red vanilla cake. He's a big Man Utd fan too.

Cupcakes for college

A few weeks ago one of my Disney friends Caron asked me to make her some cupcakes as thank you gifts for the teachers in her sons college. I was overjoyed to fulfil the order and had such fun thinking of flavour combinations for the occasions.

We decided to keep it simple and opted for Vanilla, Strawberry, Lemon and Oreo.

The recipe was adapted from my trusty vanilla mix, which you can find here.

For the Strawberry I made a strawberry buttercream using natural strawberry jam to flavour and colour the mixture. Strawberry puree was added to the hot cake and then it was topped with the buttercream when cooled. I used an open round nozzle.

The Lemon cakes were made in the same way, using the base mix but using lemon juice and curd to flavour the cake, and topped with a yellow lemon buttercream and lemon icing drizzle.

The Oreo had crushed oreos in the cake and frosting, as well as an oreo crust.

Simple Shortbread

I had no eggs in the house, and so I decided to have another go at shortbread. The last time I made shortbread I was probably in school and it probably as hard as a rock - I hate that when people make biscuits.

Ingredients

• 150g plain flour
• 100g butter
• 50g caster sugar
• (and I added a little splash of vanilla)

I preheated the oven as per the instructions to 160 - I never bake at 160 so I was a little concerned. It says the biscuits take 12-15 minutes.

I mixed the ingredients and then rolled out and cut into strips, making holes in the shortbread like a good shortbread always has and then popped them in the fridge while my oven got nice and hot. I baked for 15 minutes but they were no where near cooked, they were super soft and theres no way Id eat them that raw. So another 5 in the oven, and then another 5... im never baking at 160 again. Next time ill be baking at 180 for 12 mins. I have a brand new oven (only a month old), its the daddy, so its definitely not that.

I turned them out onto my wire rack and threw some icing sugar on them. I really need to get one of those little sieve things.

Featured in : Delightful Order: Inspiring Thursday Party

Giant Cookie - Using my basic chocolate cake recipe

So I think my obsession for over-sized baked goods has come across well to my friends, as for our wedding anniversary (3 years) our friends Kim (host of Disney podcast Minnie Minxes) and Aron got 'us' a giant cookie mould which looks like a giant oreo basically and I had to immediately try it out (well the next day) with an adapted recipe.

Giant Donut Recipe

I had my first visit to B'n'M last week and saw they sold giant donut moulds!! Now Id be silly to pass it up and when I saw it was only £1 I nearly fell on the floor!!!!

So I decided to try it out on my work colleagues. I followed my basic cupcake recipe because that never fails, and made enough to use 6 eggs (so thats 6 x the mix) and then followed the instructions to butter and flour my mould.

Vimto Cupcakes

I almost squealed with joy when I spotted some Vimto ice cream sauce being sold at our local Asda, and I just had to get it and try it in cupcakes. So, a little different this time, but heres the video I made...



Featured in : Delightful Order: Inspiring Thursday Party

Cherry Cola Infused Cookies

I dont know whats more awesome... the fact that these cookies are delicious or that they are super easy to make?

My basic Biscuit/Cookie recipe is well... basic, and easy to add to, which is what I did here.

Ingredients

• 175g Plain Flour
• 110g Butter
• 50g Caster Sugar
• 1tsp Flavouring of your choice

I know what you're thinking - how on earth can that make yummy biscuits? Well, I dont know but it does... and they come out soft and light.

Giant cupcake recipe

Last week my friend's little girl Ruby celebrated her first birthday and I offered to make her a cake and some cupcakes to match.

I decided to make a giant cupcake filled and coated with vanilla buttercream and finished with strawberry jam buttercream and white chocolate fingers.

Basic Vanilla Buttercream

This is a really simple and basic vanilla buttercream recipe that you can add flavours to for making that buttercream that is really wow!

Ingredients

• 200g Icing Sugar
• 100g Butter
• 1tsp of Vanilla Flavouring (I use extract NEVER essence)
• 1tbs of Milk if needed

Simply add the ingredients into a bowl and mix together - its that easy, you can also add food colouring to the mix or jam if you prefer a colour and taste addition to the buttercream.

Tip - If it starts to split or your butter is too warm simply add more Icing Sugar until the consistency is correct. You are looking for a spreadable mix which will hold its shape.