Owl Cakes

These little cup cakes make a great addition to the Halloween tea time table as a treat for the children (and slightly older ones too well my husband loved them as much as my son and his friends did!).

 

Ingredients

 

For the cakes

5oz/140g butter at room temperature

5oz/140g caster sugar

3 medium beaten eggs

4oz/110g self raising flour

1oz/28g cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

 

For the icing

5oz/140g softened butter at room temperature

5oz/140g icing sugar

1 tube of ready made orage icing

36 malteeser sweets

36 milk chocolate button sweets

16 orange jelly diamonds

 

Method

1 Into a large mixing bowl place the butter, sugar and eggs.

2 Place a sieve over the bowl.

3 Into the sieve place the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder, push these ingredients through the sieve into the mixing bowl.

4 Beat all the ingredients together with a hand mixer for 2 – 3 minutes or until the mixture is paler and exctreemly smooth.

5 Place a tablespoon of the mixture until the cake cases are 2/3 full, repeat until all of the mixture is used up.

6 Bake immediately at 190 degrees centigrade/gas mark 5 for 10 – 14 minutes or until well risen and when pressed lightly the sponge should spring back up.

7 Place the baking sheets on wire cooling racks and leave for a couple of minutes.

8 Place the cupcakes onto the wire cooling rack to cool completely.

9 In a medium sized bowl add the softenend butter

10 Place a seive over the bowl and spoon in the sugar, push the sicing sugar through the sieve with a wooden spoon.

11 Beat these together well until pale and fluffy.

12 Slice the risen top off the top of the cupcakes.

13 Cut the tops into 2 and reserve to one side.

14 Using a pallette knife spread some of the icing onto each of the cupcakes.

15 Place a small blob of orange icing onto a malteser.

16 Place a chocolate button on top of the orange icing.

17 Repeat stages 15 and 16 until all the maleteesers and chocolate buttons are used up.

18 Take 2 of the cut halves of sponge cake tops and place on top of the cake about 1/3 from the top.

19 Place a decorated malteeser underneath the sponge cake half.

20 Finally place a jellied diamond half way between the malteesers.

21 Repeat stages 19 and 20 until all the cakes are decorated.

 

Makes 14 – 16 cakes

 

Notes

Using margarine is ok, but beware, margarine has more water in it than butter, so the taste and the texture will be altered.

Golden caster sugar or soft brown sugar may be used instead.

Plain flour maybe used but increase the amount of baking powder to a heaped teaspoon

Read Full Post »

Cream Cheese Frosting

Cream Chees   This is a wonderfully sweet (but not overly so) frosting ideal for use of carrot cakes.  It is really easy to make too.   Ingredients 110g unsalted butter at room temperature 110g cream cheese at room temperature 280g to 400g icing sugar 1 tablespoon orange juice 2 teaspoons orange zest   Method 1 Beat together butter and cream cheese in a medium sized mixing bowl with a wooden spoon.  2 Sieve the icing sugar. 3 Add the orange juice and zest and beat until smooth. 4 Add the icing sugar a little at a time, stopping when you achieve the consistency you require.   Use on carrot cakes straight away, keeps for 24 to 48 hours covered in a fridge.    Not Suitable for freezing.

Read Full Post »

Buttercream Swiss Roll

This is the basic recipe for a fatless sponge, it is so feather light to eat, but the drawback is that it does not stay fresh for very long, even if stored in the fridge.

 

Ingredients

2 large eggs

2 1/2oz self raising flour

2 1/2oz caster sugar

1 basic quantity of butter cream

 

Method

1 Line a swiss roll tin with greaseproof paper.

2 Grease and flour the paper.

3 Into a large mixing bowl break the eggs and add along with the caster sugar.

4 Using an electric mixer beat until the mixture becomes pale and thick and when the beaters are dipped into the mixture make a number 8, if it stays then carry on with the recipe if not continue to beat until it does.

5 Place a sieve over the mixing bowl.

6 Tip the flour into the sieve.

7 Shake the flour into the mixing bowl.

8 Using a metal tablespoon, fold the flour into the mixture carefully.

9 Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.

10 Bake immediately at 220 degrees centigrade/gas mark 8 for 5 minutes or until pale  golden brown and when touched lightly the sponge springs back into shape.

11 Cool for 1 minute in the baking tin on a wire rack.

12 Sprinkle a little caster sugar onto a damp tea towel.  

13 Invert the cooked sponge onto the sugar.

14 Remove the baking tin.

15 Carefully remove the greaseproof paper.

16 If the sides of the cake are not equal or are burned, trim them off.

17 Taking a clean sheet of greaseproof paper place on top of the sponge.

18 Taking hold of the tea towel with the shortest side nearest you, carefully lift the tea towel  so that the cake rolls over itself trapping the greaseproof paper.

19 Allow to cool completely on the wire cooling rack.

20 Unravel the sponge carefully, the sponge will crack a little.

21 Spread the pre-made buttercream onto the swiss roll, leaving a gap of  1/2 inch around the cake.

22 Carefully re-roll the sponge again.

 

Notes

 

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for upto 48 hours.

 

Can be frozen at -18degrees centigrade for upto 1 month.

Read Full Post »

Glace Icing

This is the easiest recipe to get right.  Made properly it is a bright white and beautifully sweet icing.   Ingredients 4oz/110g icing sugar 2 teaspoons lemon juice 4 teaspoons warm water   Method 1 Place a sieve over a medium sized bowl. 2 Tip the icing sugar into the sieve. 3 Shake the icing sugar into the bowl. 4 Add all of the lemon juice and half of the water. 5 Start stirring, adding a little more water as necessary to form the consistency to coat the back of a wooden spoon.   Notes This icing has to be used immediately it is made as it goes hard very quickl.   Flavourings can be used, add with the lemon juice. I do not reccomend that any cake that has been iced with glace icing be frozen as it cracks on defrosting, even carefully in the fridge..

Read Full Post »

Glace Icing

This is the baisc recipe for glace icing, it simply has to be the easiest ever recipe to get right.  Made properly it is a bright white and beautifully sweet.

 

Ingredients

4oz/110g icing sugar

6 teaspoons warm water

 

Method

1 Place a sieve over a medium sized bowl.

2 Tip the icing sugar into the sieve.

3 Shake the icing sugar into the bowl.

4 Add half of the water.

5 Start stirring, adding a little more water as necessary to form the consistency to coat the back of a wooden spoon.

 

Notes

This icing has to be used immediately it is made as it goes hard very quickly.

Glace Icing cracks upon freezing and defrosting.

 

Flavourings can be used.

Read Full Post »

Snowballs at Grandparents

July/August 1967

 

I was nearly 9 and mum took me to her birthplace of the Orkney Islands for the very first time, which included flying for about 4 hours too.

 

I was used to city life in Birmingham and got a huge shock when I saw the tiny airport and how small Orkney was, but the food there is incredible, there are so many artisan producers and fantastic bakers on the islands.

 

On the first Sunday my grandparents invited us to tea (with quite a few of the family too).

 

I got such a shock when I saw what was my mothers old home, it was nothing short of a tin shack – and this was 1967!  My grandfather, great grandfather and great uncle had built it in the late 1920’s when my grandmother had been taken ill and had had to move to the clean country air.  It had a living room/kitchen and 2 bedrooms.  Did people still really live like this?  I was horrified to learn that all the water was drawn from the well and the toilet was the byre (cow shed).

 

Tea was eaten at a long table, it was such a fantastic atmosphere, I had no family in Birmingham so to be suddenly surrounded by all these strange faces was weird and yet wonderful.

 

First we had sandwiches and rolls, nothing special but I dreaded the ‘afters’, everyone who knows me knows that I do not do sweet things easily (unless it is chocolate).  Granny came round with the cakes I groaned, I can still hear and see saying “ah but these are special cakes, your cousin Harvey” (of Groundwaters Bakery, Broad Street, Kirkwall) “baked them”.

 

She was refferring to the snowball, not the marshmallow concotion surrounded by chocolate and dessicated coconut but a round cake (with the texture of a rock bun) sandwiched in the middle by white glace icing, they are then dipped in white glace icing and rolled in coconut.

 

I grudgingly took one, sponge is my least favourite cake and tend to spit it out as I hate the taste and the texture and absolutely loathe coconut ever since I had had a piece stick between my teeth.  Anyway I took a bite and I was smitten, they were fantastic. 

 

Ever since then they have been my favourite cake and anyone coming from Orkney always has to bring some with them.

Read Full Post »